Chapter 800 — Runaway Magnetic Surge

The voice came from underground, roaming and drifting beneath the earth, elusive and unfixed, sneering coldly: "You felled my Primordial Tree, cut my heart with a sword, seized my flesh to nourish a false spirit. Pity that once felled, the Primordial Tree becomes a rootless tree, and you, born of rootless wood, can never become the new Earth Mother. What is false is false, and never can become true!

" Hearing this, Shen Mu at once slapped the Dragon Qilin on the head and barked in a low voice: "Fat Dragon, turn and run--" The Dragon Qilin reacted swiftly, wheeling about at the word and bolting, while the Water Qilin, still kneeling on the ground and holding the rope, was dragged tumbling end over end, yet still would not let go.

Yu Tianzun cried in haste: "Ah Shui, run with us.

" The Water Qilin came to himself, hastily loosed the rope, shook his body to reveal his true form, and chased after the Dragon Qilin.

Feng Qiuyun said hurriedly: "That voice underground is the Earth Mother, why run?

Stop, I still have to deal with that little wretch Qi Xiayu!

" She had just spoken when the earth shook with a thunderous roar, and the voice from the depths burst into great laughter, shrill with grief and resentment: "You have no idea why I am called Earth Mother! The power of the Earth Mother comes not from the trunk and crown above the ground, but from the roots!

" The Dragon Qilin, in full flight, suddenly saw the earth beneath his feet split open, countless enormously thick roots writhing and darting through the underworld like huge black-brown dragons.

The whole of Jade Capital City abruptly collapsed and sank into the earth, and many demigods, gods, and devils who had been kneeling prostrate were caught off guard, tumbling into great fissures, only to be seized and devoured by the writhing roots and vanish underground. Fire clouds bloomed beneath the Dragon Qilin's feet as he bore the company on his back and strained upward with all his might.

"The world thinks only that the Primordial Tree is vast, never knowing the tree is but the part above ground, and what is truly vast are the roots, the primordial roots a hundred times vaster than the tree!

" The voice from below grew ever more furious, Jade Capital City was utterly buried, and more than that, the entire Heavenly Palace buckled in the turmoil and fell into the earth.

From below, fire and smoke suddenly gushed straight to the clouds, and huge pillars of magma thicker than mountain ranges spun madly.

Feng Qiuyun stared blankly at the sight, watching countless demigods, gods, and devils fly and weave between those massive pillars of fire, each displaying divine arts in a bid to escape.

The Dragon Qilin and the Water Qilin reached the limit of speed, yet all at once the primordial magnetism fell into chaos, and their bodies in an instant grew incomparably heavy and hard to keep aloft!

In the sky, whether gods and devils or Qi Practitioners, of whatever race, all came crackling down!

The falling was uncanny, for they did not drop straight to the ground but fell toward places where the magnetism was aberrant, some falling upward into the sky, some falling downward, some falling sideways.

Suddenly a god and devil dropped past them and landed in midair, and with a sharp crack the god smashed upon a mighty magnetic art, blood bursting forth and flesh parting from bone, bone and muscle ground to powder, the heavy sinking below and the light floating above, a death too hideous to behold!

That god had plainly fallen in empty air, yet it was as if he had slammed into the hardest wall of bronze and iron! All around them, countless gods, devils, and practitioners tumbled this way and that, none reaching the ground, but all smashing upon the five-phases magnetic arts and bursting with sharp cracks around them, turning into blossoms woven of blood, desolate and strangely beautiful.

Shen Mu said in a deep voice: "Sister Qiuyun, now you know why we run?

" Feng Qiuyun stood dazed, for the voice below was the Earth Mother left with only a remnant soul and a heart, yet wielding the most vital body of the Earth Mother, the roots of the Primordial Tree. The roots were anchored in the Primordial World, inconceivably vast, none knew how far or deep they ran, and their magic power was mighty beyond imagining.

Upon the ground, beneath that Primordial Tree, the other Earth Mother Yuanjun possessed a flesh body and drove the tree, and the towering tree that pierced beyond the sky blazed with light, rosy radiance washing outward, streamers of light spinning and dancing as they struck down into the earth.

As the arts of the two Earth Mothers erupted, the former Jade Capital City had long vanished, and there remained only a storm formed of geomagnetic power, a storm that twisted space!

Shen Mu had seen his chance early and so was still secure, but even he could not withstand such monstrous magnetism, and he decisively urged a teleport art, sweeping up the company and carrying them away.

In the next instant they appeared a thousand miles off. Suddenly the magnetism beneath their feet erupted, savage magnetic divine light crisscrossing through the air like dazzling rosy beams, and wherever the light passed, mighty gods, devils, and practitioners fell upon it beyond control, their bodies shattered to pieces!

Seen from afar, it was as if those mighty beings hurled themselves willingly upon the magnetic light!

It was sheer slaughter!

Yet this was merely the Earth Mother Yuanjun above ground contending with the Earth Mother Yuanjun below, and the others caught in the crossfire.

Neither of the two Earth Mothers struck at these gods and devils, their strength was too dreadful, each commanding the power of magnetism, and when they clashed the magnetism ran wild and the innocent suffered. Magnetic divine power is the most fundamental force in the world, the most primal and the most terrible, and the Earth Mother, as the incarnation of that power, was so strong she could no longer be measured by such realms as Lingxiao or the Imperial Throne.

Ancient gods have no realms, only the strength of the Dao they command, and cannot be weighed by realms.

Shen Mu urged his teleport art again and again to flee outward, and in a few blinks escaped ten thousand miles.

His cultivation was much depleted, and he had to stop driving the teleport art and let the Dragon Qilin run outward at full strength.

Here the magnetism was still wildly violent, but the threat to them was greatly lessened, and the Dragon Qilin's cultivation and strength stood even above Shen Mu's, enough to cope with the raging magnetism.

He looked back to see that at the place where the two Earth Mothers clashed, the two dread beings could no longer be seen, only dancing Primordial Tree divine light and countless roots boring out from the earth. Besides that, one mighty one after another darted among the roots and branches of the two ancient gods, fleeing outward, and from time to time someone was struck and burst in midair into an outward-billowing cloud of blood mist.

All who could escape from there were the strong, their power far from common.

Suddenly Feng Qiuyun's eyes brightened as she saw a nine-headed phoenix beat its wings to slice through thick branches and roots, plucking its strings so that the music of the zither severed streaks of magnetic light, and broke free of that battlefield.

"Wretched Qi Xiayu!

" Feng Qiuyun raged, springing from the Dragon Qilin's head and turning into a fire phoenix that beat away.

"Sister Qiuyun, no!

" Shen Mu shouted aloud: "Come back quickly and guard me, I am about to cultivate into the Life and Death realm! " Feng Qiuyun was extremely swift and vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving two streaks of colored light in the sky, one the trail of Qi Xiayu's flight and the other the trail left by Feng Qiuyun.