Chapter 867 — A Lone Sword Soars the Heavens

The Heavenly Dragon King's head was monstrous beyond reckoning, hovering between the two of them. That dragon king's head had long since undergone corpse transformation, gone glistening green; even his long dragon whiskers had turned green, drenched and dripping with corpse fluid.

Shen Mu and "Heavenly Venerable Yu" unleashed their divine abilities across the Heavenly Dragon King's head. Shen Mu raised a hand and seized one of the flying swords that orbited him, thrust it out, and the countless flying swords circling him moved with that single thrust; the tide of swords hugged the dragon king's head, every blade smeared with corpse poison.

When his swords reached the far side of the dragon king's head, the green sword tide became a sword formation that drowned "Heavenly Venerable Yu.

" At that same instant, "Heavenly Venerable Yu" deployed the divine abilities of the Heavenly Dao direct: the Heavenly Dao numbers forty-nine, and forty-nine daos of heaven he drove forth, becoming forty-nine different forms of divine ability.

Countless gods and demons dwelt within the body of the Xuandu Heavenly Lord; observing and measuring them day and night, the Heavenly Court had come to know the divine abilities of the Heavenly Dao inside and out. The Heavenly Lord's very body had been built up by the Heavenly Court, and from it those divine abilities were deduced as well.

Shen Mu had derived only the Dao of Heavenly Fire from the Heavenly Fire Prism Crystal, while the Heavenly Court had long since deduced every other dao of heaven in full; the one thing it lacked was this—the Heavenly Court's daos of heaven were constructed through macro-scale divination arts, and wanted construction at the micro scale. The divine abilities "Heavenly Venerable Yu" wielded split into different forms: the Heavenly Cord like a net, Heavenly Fire like a crystal tower, the Heavenly Beggar like a boat, the Heavenly Order like a stele, the Heavenly Vault like a canopy, Heavenly Yang like the sun, Heavenly Yin like the moon, the Heavenly Cavern like an abyss.

All these divine abilities of the Heavenly Dao suddenly gathered and became a single seal, and the fine, dense runes composing that ability passed with a swish straight through the Heavenly Dragon King's head, meeting no obstruction whatever, and blasted straight at Shen Mu! The two men's abilities did not meet; each drove at the other's true body in the first instant, bent on finishing his opponent at once. For between them still lay the corpse-transformed head of the Heavenly Dragon King; muddled and turned corpse fiend though he now was, his strength remained.

Should the corpse fiend set upon them, neither could withstand it; so only by killing his opponent in the first instant could a man be sure of withdrawing whole.

The Seal of the Heavenly Dao was as though the Heavenly Lord himself had come down—vast and mighty, heavenly majesty covering the world, matchless beyond compare!

And on this side of the dragon king's head, Shen Mu faced that great divine ability of the Heavenly Dao head-on and abruptly tore the willow leaf from between his brows; his third eye opened, its gaze deep as an abyss.

"Where my body stands is the Nether Capital!

" A violent dark demonic qi of the Nether Capital poured out, and in an instant he seemed to sink into its darkness; flames blazed above Shen Mu's head, two demon horns formed of the Nine Nether Yellow Springs.

He was like Tubo walking out of the Nether Capital, stirring the great Dao of that place; the rules of the Nether Capital's Dao became numberless chains that coiled about his body.

Trailing those chains, Shen Mu reached out a great hand and met the Seal of the Heavenly Dao!

On the other side, the sword formation's power erupted; countless flying swords leapt at bizarre frequencies, every move the second form of the Tribulation Sword, Raising Tribulation—yet as all the swords vanished and reappeared, the tribulations they formed made up quite different arrays!

His sword dao had two chapters, Opening Tribulation and Raising Tribulation, each holding its own understanding of the sword.

Yet the original Opening Tribulation Sword and Raising Tribulation Sword were both very simple; the principles they held were profound, but the moves were pared to the utmost. Now, any single flying sword's Raising Tribulation was likewise spare and simple, yet when different Raising Tribulation moves were combined they made an exceedingly complex sword formation!

And the formation each leap produced was utterly unlike the last!

This was the fruit of the days he had spent studying the Jingping Reforms under the blind old man.

The Jingping Reforms had achieved a great deal in the way of formations, and those achievements were built upon the formation arts of the Kaihuang era.

The blind old man was the great synthesizer of Jingping's formation arts; he had led the reform of Jingping's way of formations, and together with many noble, high-minded men he had turned that way to the livelihood of the people, to better their lives.

Shen Mu, however, had turned the way of formations upon his own moves and divine abilities, adding formation changes into the Raising Tribulation Sword.

Trapped in the ever-shifting Raising Tribulation sword formation, "Heavenly Venerable Yu" suddenly changed his bearing: behind him a divine bridge spanned the void, and his primordial spirit stood at its far end, before the Southern Gate of Heaven.

Behind him, layer upon layer of heavenly palaces emerged, forming a vast Heavenly Court, golden radiance flooding the clouds.

The Heavenly Court had thirty-six heavens and seventy-two halls, and the highest of those seventy-two treasure halls was the Lingxiao Treasure Hall.

There light blazed in layer upon layer, countless marvels seethed, and there took shape the image of an ancient god, the Heavenly Emperor, enthroned and propping up heaven and earth.

"Supreme over all daos, all daos return to one!

" "Heavenly Venerable Yu" raised a seal to meet Shen Mu's Raising Tribulation sword formation; the formation's power erupted, but against this one divine ability its force seemed to sink into a swamp, countless flying swords froze in place, and the formation at once fell into disarray.

The divine ability of "Heavenly Venerable Yu" burst forth, and the sword formation of countless flying swords shattered to pieces.

Having broken the formation, "Heavenly Venerable Yu" sprang into the air, only to see the Heavenly Dragon King's green whiskers curling at him, passing so close by his side it was a hair's breadth from disaster.

On the other side, Shen Mu crushed his great divine ability of the Heavenly Dao by main force, then turned sideways; his body abruptly went utterly flat, standing there like a black line, one with the dark. The dragon king's thick whiskers hissed through, not touching him in the least.

The dragon king's great head rolled its eyeballs about and stopped before that black line, yet could not see where Shen Mu was.

This move Shen Mu had learned from Ban Gongcuo; in the arts of fleeing for one's life and of disguise, Ban Gongcuo stood alone in the world, without peer.

"Of course—you are still the Nether Capital's Divine Son.

" Across the Heavenly Dragon King's head, "Heavenly Venerable Yu" came running at speed, laughing: "To pit the great Dao of the Nether Capital against the Heavenly Dao is no great difficulty for you.

" The dragon king's whiskers abandoned Shen Mu and stabbed at "Heavenly Venerable Yu" running about upon his own head.

"Heavenly Venerable Yu" moved like a ghost, dodging the whisker strikes one by one; the whiskers, soft as they were hard, actually pierced through scale after scale, exposing the rotting flesh beneath.