Chapter 869 — Two Supremes in Standoff

From outside the hanging coffin came the sound of water breaking, and then the sound of chains coiling round; at once the hanging coffin halted.

Within the coffin, Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly, and he knew at once that this hanging coffin had left the ancient well and been bound fast by chains.

The hanging coffin was about to open.

Yan'er promptly put away the red lantern and looked all around. Suddenly a mouth-shaped opening appeared overhead, light shining down from above, and the surroundings became faintly visible.

"I see you!" The Heavenly Dragon King's great head waved its green dragon whiskers, pursuing and slaying Xing An with gleeful abandon.

Shen Mu likewise looked about, searching for any trace of the dragon qilin, his heart somewhat uneasy: "Dragon Fatso hasn't really been eaten by the Heavenly Dragon King, has he?"

Just then, Yan'er found the dragon qilin: "There he is!" With that, she transformed into a blue sparrow and flew off.

Shen Mu looked in the direction she flew, and sure enough saw the dragon qilin sprawled in a corner, asleep.

Yan'er seized the dragon qilin and went rushing with a whistle toward the entrance of the hanging coffin; Shen Mu too quickened his flight outward.

Outside the hanging coffin, Shen Mu set foot on solid ground, and suddenly saw that the rosy radiance in the Godfall Valley was swiftly contracting; the seals that had formerly been here were all now losing their effect!

"This is bad — the blind old man Yi Shisheng intends to destroy this place!"

Shen Mu acted on the instant, flying off with Yan'er, one before the other. The dragon qilin had long since awakened and hurriedly revealed its true form, carrying Shen Mu as it rushed outward with redoubled pace.

The rosy radiance that had once filled every corner of the Godfall Valley contracted within mere moments into a tiny dot. Xing An, Yan Qiling, and the Heavenly Dragon King's great head burst out from the hanging coffin and fled in panic toward the valley's exterior as well — only the Heavenly Dragon King's great head was not fleeing, but rather chasing after them, blood-bowl maw agape.

Weng—

A dazzling radiance erupted; the ancient well and the hanging coffin were destroyed in an instant, and the chains binding the hanging coffin snapped link by link. Xiu, xiu, xiu — each severed length of chain was sent flying backward by the terrifying tide of annihilation, passing by Shen Mu and the others.

Shen Mu stood upon the dragon qilin's back and looked behind him: the mountains that had encircled the ancient well and hanging coffin had been leveled to flat ground, the abyss filled in, and within this dreadful wave of annihilation the sword-technique imprint left by Kaihuang had also been triggered, dazzling sword-glints crisscrossing in all directions, terrifying beyond measure.

The dragon qilin roared and bellowed, pushing its speed to the utmost, and soon reached the floating bridge, leaped over it, and made straight for the outside of these ruins.

It had just thought to slow when Shen Mu shouted: "Keep running!"

The dragon qilin poured on more strength and raced on. Shen Mu turned his head to look back, and saw that the sword Kaihuang had hung above the floating bridge was struck by the annihilating light, and its sword-glint abruptly erupted.

The rosy radiance outside the valley had already contracted to a single dot; after this sword-glint burst forth, the dot erupted once more.

As the saying goes, raise a dragon for a thousand days and use it for a single hour. This was the first time Shen Mu had discovered the dragon qilin could actually run so fast, and he was greatly comforted: "Not for nothing that the bulk of my daily expenses go to him..."

He did not spend much money day to day; wherever he went in Jingping, food, clothing, and daily needs essentially cost him nothing. Ninety-nine parts in a hundred of his wealth went to feeding the dragon qilin.

"You can stop now!"

Shen Mu called the dragon qilin to a halt and looked back, seeing that the annihilating light over the Godfall Valley was still surging, though its power was contracting.

"Xing An probably won't die — he has no end of tricks. Yan Qiling and the Heavenly Dragon King are another matter."

His injuries had already healed seven or eight parts in ten. Xing An's seizure of the Heavenly Court's manufactured body of Heavenly Venerable Yu was not a good thing for him, but neither was it entirely bad.

The body of Heavenly Venerable Yu that the Heavenly Court had manufactured contained ancient-god runes, constructing a seemingly perfect divine-treasury system and Heavenly Palace–Heavenly Court system, capable of wielding the power of all ancient gods.

This was something the living beings of the lower realm did not possess.

Yet it lacked the most crucial Heavenly River divine treasury, and the powers of the two great titans, the Heavenly Duke and the Earth Earl, were likewise incomplete.

Moreover, the body of Heavenly Venerable Yu had been manufactured on the basis of the Dao Ancestor's macro-level arts of calculation; lacking the micro-level arts, it could never be called perfect.

More crucially still, Shen Mu had already transcribed those runes from the Heavenly Court's Hall of Archives. Once Dao Lord Lin Xuan led the Jingping Dao Sect in perfecting the Taivai Calculation Classic, he could supplement these runes with a micro-level arts-of-calculation framework — and that would be the truly perfect state.

Xing An had merely obtained the body of Heavenly Venerable Yu and could comprehend a portion of it; to cultivate the most perfect body and primordial spirit, he was still very far off.

Suddenly, the Heavenly Dragon King's enormous head rolled out of the Godfall Valley and tried to soar into the air, but no matter how it tried, it could not rise — evidently gravely wounded.

This corpse-transformed head abruptly extended its dragon whiskers to prop against the ground; the long whiskers, like so many stout legs, propped the great head up and walked it outward.

"I see you..."

This great head towered in the air like a moving hill, wearing a foolish grin as it swept its gaze all around.

As it walked, the earth shook and mountains swayed — clearly it was searching for something to eat.

Shen Mu frowned. If the Heavenly Dragon King, corpse-transformed, escaped this place, it would likely bring disaster to the region, eating people wherever it went; it had to be eradicated.

Yet the Heavenly Dragon King had not died even in the annihilation — its strength was truly dreadful.

"The Heavenly Dragon King, like Feng Qiuyun, is an existence of the Lingxiao realm. How can he be killed?"

Shen Mu took out the geographic map Xing An had given him, found the Godfall Valley he himself had marked, and searched nearby.

After the Yuan Realm's seal was broken, Xing An had been to many places, and only thus had he been able to draw a geographic map.

Shen Mu's eyes brightened; he found the nearest ancient ruin and thought: "Lure him into the ancient ruin and let it trap him — perhaps that would be a good choice."

He had just thought this when suddenly light flickered in the distance, and a swallow with a black back and white belly flew out from the radiance, landing and transforming into Yan Qiling, her figure somewhat unsteady.

Yan Qiling promptly noticed him and became extremely alert.

Shen Mu put on a friendly smile, but his sword core soundlessly flew out from the taotie pouch and noiselessly burrowed into the ground.

Yan Qiling hurriedly took out a bare, leafless branch, only three cun in length, and planted it in the earth. The branch at once took root, countless rootlets growing madly, enshrouding the ground below.

The part above ground sprouted and put forth branches, and in an instant grew into a towering giant tree hundreds of zhang tall.

"A branch of the Yuan Wood?"