Chapter 832 — Slaying a God

Join hands with Zhe Huali to kill a god?

Shen Mu pondered. He and Xu Shenghua understood each other deeply, and both were exceptionally clever; each could foresee the other's next move and keep pace with the other's thinking. So even without prior rehearsal they could work together seamlessly and join forces to cut down a powerful foe.

With Zhe Huali, Shen Mu had no worries about the power of his blade techniques or his blade Dao. His only worry was whether Zhe Huali could keep pace with his thinking as Xu Shenghua did.

If he could not, their coordination could never be perfect.

Against an ordinary god that would hardly matter. But Lin Xiao was a being of an exceedingly high realm — he had severed his own cultivation, cutting his realm down to that of a Venerable God.

His realm had fallen, but his vision and insight surpassed those of other Venerable Gods by an immeasurable margin; that was how he had escaped from Li Zheng's sword.

What was more, the cultivation he had severed had transformed into the little sun within the lantern, and the energy stored in it was terrifying — it had blasted a great hole in Li Zheng's sword diagram!

That little sun's energy had not diminished to this day. One could well imagine how mighty Lin Xiao had been in his prime!

If their coordination failed, he would certainly kill them!

Suddenly Shen Mu once more activated his teleportation ability. A beam of lantern light swept in from behind and vaporized the place where they had just been hiding.

The lantern flew over. The little man inside peered about in every direction, found no trace of the two of them, and chuckled. "Where can you hide? I have mapped every inch of this ghost ship. You have no road out and nowhere to hide!"

The little man flew out of the lantern and alighted on the ridge of the great hall. He flapped his wings; the lantern burst open and the sun inside rolled out, coming to rest beneath his claws.

His body swelled in the wind, and the sun beneath his feet swelled with it. Soon he had grown to a hundred zhang — a rooster's head on a human body, dragon scales growing along his neck, wings of five colors on his back. He beat them with a whoosh and crowed, head thrown back.

A rooster crows and the world turns white!

The little sun beneath his feet became a great sun a hundred zhang across, blazing brighter and brighter with each crow, its radiance spanning ten thousand zhang, rays of golden light shooting out in all directions like flying swords!

Chi, chi, chi — hall after hall of the ghost ship was pierced by the great sun's golden light, riddled with holes, and the ground was punched full of them like a broken sieve!

Lin Xiao flew on beating his wings, the great sun rolling along beneath him. The golden light swept from above downward; palace after palace was razed, then set alight by the thick beams of light, burning fiercely.

Lin Xiao swept along, laughing. "Heavenly Lord Mu! No use hiding. Come out!"

Elsewhere, light flickered, and the forms of Shen Mu and Zhe Huali appeared in the great hall where the coffins of the Emperor and Empress were kept.

"Lin Xiao will find this place soon enough."

Shen Mu set Zhe Huali down and moved swiftly about the hall, searching. "Zhe Huali, how good is your sense of space?"

Zhe Huali was briefly startled, not understanding. Then he answered honestly, "My blade techniques are rigid and square, but even so, they require an extremely strong sense of space to execute. You and I have crossed blades before; you should know that every point where my blade light lands in the air must be calculated with rigor. Only so can the technique be delivered without the slightest error."

Shen Mu nodded. He suddenly halted and stamped hard on the ground.

Zhe Huali watched him. Vital essence flew from beneath his feet and became rune marks, one after another; as he moved, rune after rune was branded into the ground.

The runes were exceedingly complex, touching on too many principles; Zhe Huali could not make much of them.

Shen Mu moved on, forward and back, left and right, circling an area six zhang across again and again. Suddenly there came a crack, and a passage opened in the floor, leading straight down into the ship's hold.

Zhe Huali was stunned. Shen Mu had already stepped into the passage and was beckoning to him. He hurried after him and asked in a low voice, "Cult Master Shen, how did you know there was a door here?"

"This tower ship was most likely designed and built by my eldest senior brother. Its layout is much the same as the tower ships of my Heavenly Sacred Cult. In the Heavenly Sacred Cult's ships, the passage down to the hold should be right here, so I tried my luck."

Shen Mu smiled. "I built tower ships for the Jingping Kingdom, so I know the layout of a hull very well."

Zhe Huali was silent a moment, then said abruptly, "Cult Master Shen, is there anything you have not done?"

They came into the interior of the hull and were struck dumb by the spectacle before them.

Dragon keels ran north to south, spanning the whole interior. Though nothing but bone remained, the dragons still gave off a brilliant golden light that lit the ship's interior as bright as day.

Besides the dragon bones there were the ribs of a kun — great kun ribs some ten zhang thick, set in rows into the keels. Upon the kun bones appeared runes of strange beasts: bird patterns, fish patterns, water patterns, cloud patterns, mountain patterns, and more. These runes lit one after another, dazzling amid the golden light of the keels.

And on the vault above — where the deck should be — phoenix feathers were inlaid everywhere, seven-colored, like auspicious clouds of seven hues in the sky.

"A fine ship!" the two of them cried together.

Shen Mu stopped, took out the sword core, and looked around, his eyes flickering. "Begetting a child — that is the one thing I have not done. The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping gave me a book on begetting children. The men and women in it were so shameful."

He tilted his head, thinking of the men and women in that book, and his ears grew a little red.

Zhe Huali and the demon blade both stared, their faces caught between laughter and tears.

Shen Mu flicked his fingertip, and a silver thread flew from the sword core, measuring the ghost ship's interior, the length and girth of the dragon keels and kun ribs, and soon he had gathered all the data he needed.

Light came from beyond the passage. Lin Xiao, riding his hundred-zhang sun, flew above the great hall and let the sun's sword light wreak havoc upon it.

Before long the hall would collapse and the passage would be revealed.

Shen Mu gripped the sword core, closed his eyes, and gathered his spirit. After a moment he opened them and clenched his hand hard; the sword core became a treasured sword!

He rose into the air, sword in hand, and raced through the hull, his body like a startled swan, his sword like a roaming dragon. He unleashed technique after technique, like a scholar of letters and a gallant of letters wielding his sword as a brush, splashing ink across the dragon keels and kun ribs, and with the four walls of the hull for paper, he poured out words and gave his feelings free rein!

Soon he flew up to the vault, his body parallel to it, and wielded his sword like flying, scattering rune brands into the seams between the phoenix feathers and colored clouds.

Whoosh —

Shen Mu fell from midair, halting three zhang above the floor. His wrist flicked, and he wrote upon the ground with his sword.

Chi, chi, chi — the sound went on without cease. The ghost ship's interior was vast, a hundred li across. Shen Mu flew close to the ground, sword light like rain, and soon had written a string of runes from south to north.

His form halted abruptly, suspended in midair.