Chapter 862 — Reunion with an Old Acquaintance in the Coffin

Shen Mu looked at the coffin. It hung upright in the air, never touching the ground, and the glow that filled the air around it drifted and wavered about the coffin and the stone well, profoundly still. Everything here seemed frozen; no other sound could be heard. The lacquer-black coffin hung there, facing the mouth of the well. The glow poured from the well itself, faint and thin.

Puzzled, Shen Mu said, "Xing An, the coffin has not been opened. So where did you pick up the token?"

The coffin was bound in chains and had never been opened, and apart from the black coffin and the well there was nothing else in this valley. This perplexed him.

Xing An set down his case, and it opened with a click.

"The token was placed on top of the coffin."

Xing An worked some art or other, and one after another the demigod bodies inside the case leapt out on their own. The case grew restless, clicking and hopping about, as though trying to swallow these divine beings back inside. After a moment, a hundred-odd divine beings stood around Shen Mu. They had no breath, no aura; Xing An had already refined them to death.

Xing An raised his hands in a sword-finger gesture and moved like a ghost, tapping each demigod between the brows. Then he stood still.

"Open!"

The space between his brows split open with a crack, revealing a dark, sunken eye. The eye rolled once all the way around, and strands of black thread shot from it, drifting through the air like smoke, boring into the brows of the demigods.

"Youdu arts," Shen Mu said in surprise.

Xing An's vertical brow-eye was somewhat like his own third eye; both were used to command the power of Youdu. But Xing An's eye was still rudimentary, far less exquisite than Shen Mu's third eye. And yet there was one thing about Xing An's Youdu abilities that made the eyes light up.

"Hierarch, he is imitating you," the Dragon Qilin whispered.

Shen Mu showed nothing on his face. "Don't talk nonsense."

Even so, he grew wary. Xing An's vertical brow-eye was indeed imitating his, which meant Xing An placed tremendous value on Shen Mu's fleshly body. Given Xing An's temperament, whatever he took a fancy to he would surely obtain! What alarmed him more was that the demigods leaping from Xing An's case were all extraordinarily powerful, beings in the True God realm, no less. To have captured and refined them to death showed how terrifying Xing An's strength truly was.

When Xing An finished his ritual, one demigod suddenly opened an enormous bloody maw and swallowed the demigod before it in a single gulp! Shen Mu's heart lurched, and then another demigod devoured that one, and then one behind it swallowed that one, and in the blink of an eye, of the hundred-odd demigods only one remained! It was like the big fish eating the small, which in turn were eaten by even bigger fish.

The sole remaining demigod leapt up and sprinted down from the mountaintop, straight for the ancient well beneath the hanging coffin. As it ran, flesh and blood kept falling from its body. It barely made it halfway down the slope before the might in the glow reduced it to a running skeleton of white bone. Just then the bones burst apart, and another demigod charged out from the shattered skeleton, rushing on, and soon it too was turned to bone in the glow. The bones burst again, a third demigod charged out, then a fourth, a fifth... These demigods emerged one after another from the bones, racing toward the ancient well like runners in a relay. Xing An's face showed agitated urgency as he counted under his breath. When he reached one hundred and seven, the last demigod reached the well's edge and was instantly reduced to white bone in the thick glow. That bone demigod leapt, and dropped into the well.

A soft thud echoed from within the well.

Xing An let out a breath. He picked up his case and said, "The next sword bridge is about to appear. Stay close behind me! Now, jump!"

Light suddenly rose from the well, taking the form of a sword-light. It had no substance; this sword-light floated in the air, tip pointed down, hanging there. Suddenly the sword-light moved, and at once countless swords appeared in every direction, spreading out flat. The spread sword-light trembled, and countless more swords spread out, and in an instant countless swords covered the whole of the Fallen God Valley!

The moment Xing An said "jump," Shen Mu leapt. The Dragon Qilin was a step behind, not yet catching on, and Shen Mu grabbed it and hauled it up.

Shh —

Sword-light after sword-light spread out beneath the soles of their feet. Xing An landed lightly, treading on the sword-light, and said in a low voice, "This sword-light covering the valley will soon vanish and sink into the well. We must go quickly!"

Shen Mu hurried with the Dragon Qilin at flying speed to the hanging coffin. Xing An leapt up onto the coffin and said, "This is the only place that is stable."

Suddenly the sword-light across the whole valley snapped back, withdrawing into that sword-light hanging over the well. That sword-light slowly sank into the well and disappeared. The glow rose again, cloaking the valley — but around the hanging coffin there was no glow. This glow was exceedingly strange. Step into it, and one's fleshly body would endlessly dissolve, dying a death too ghastly to behold.

At this moment Yan Qiling, Mu Qiubai, the Heavenly Dragon King, and the others arrived at the cliff and looked out at Shen Mu and the rest from afar, each frowning. Mu Qiubai raised a gateway and opened the door, while the Heavenly Dragon King roared again and again, dragon whiskers flying back one after another. A sound of unspeakable oppression and dullness came from the air — this old Dragon King's brute strength was boundless, and he had actually dragged over the entire celestial world where the Fire Dragon Crows dwelled!

"They pile up lives to buy a road, and perhaps they can pile up a path and trigger the sword in the well. But who knows how many must die to get here."

Xing An's eyes flickered as he looked at Shen Mu. "If Hierarch Shen had come here instead, without me to guide you, how would you break the seals here?"

Shen Mu pondered a moment, then said, "I would try to find the mysteries of the divine ability hidden in the glow here, and then break them. If I could recognize the divine ability within the glow, the glow could not harm me."

Xing An smiled slightly. "You still won't admit you're not my equal. The token was picked up on this hanging coffin. Look down."

Shen Mu looked down and blinked. The top of the coffin was quite spacious, about four paces square; even standing there, they did not feel crowded. The coffin's top was carved with many magnificent patterns, and besides these, there was a line of small characters. Beside the small characters was a groove, just right for fitting a Heavenly Venerable token.

Shen Mu read it and said, "When Shen and Mu meet, it opens."

He raised his head and looked at Xing An with a half-smile. "So you gave me the token not only to trade for your life, but also to lure me here to open this hanging coffin for you. Xing An, you're clever — two birds with one stone. The geographical map you drew for me, I could make no sense of it. I suppose you tampered with the map too, deliberately making it illegible so that I would have no choice but to have you lead me here."

Xing An's smile spread. He clapped his hands and laughed. "Even if you've caught on, it's too late. You're here now — what can you do? When I first came here, I obtained that token and saw your name on the coffin. Even with the Shen token I could not open this coffin, so I thought only you could use this token to open the hanging coffin, and therefore I sought you out."