Chapter 874 — Fierce Flame Shakes All Under Heaven

Shen Mu walked toward Jiangling Academy in high spirits. As for the doings of the Woodcutter and the Dharma Master Zixi, he understood well enough the deeper intent behind them.

Ever since the seal on the Yuan Realm was broken, every manner of power had come crawling out, and Jingping amid them all was a single drop in the vast sea, looked down upon, taken for a soft persimmon.

And when every power takes you for a soft persimmon and comes running to squeeze, you truly do get squeezed soft.

If Jingping was to survive in a Yuan Realm riddled with peril, the strength of Kaihuang's old retainers alone would not suffice; first they must hang out a signboard that rang loud and clear.

The title of a sage who appears once in five hundred years would win no credit at all from the great heavens of the Yuan Realm, whereas the signboard of the Jingping Overlord Body, unbeaten across every realm, rang far louder — so it was only natural to push Shen Mu out to serve as that signboard.

More crucial still was the Pact of the Little Earth Lord.

The Little Earth Lord was the Divine Son of Youdu, the other 'self' within Shen Mu — his elder brother, Shen Fengqing.

When the Woodcutter concluded the Pact of the Little Earth Lord with the gods of the Northern Heavens, he was swearing an oath to Shen Fengqing and to Shen Mu alike: should a champion of the Northern Heavens defeat Shen Mu, then even if the State of Jingping did not surrender, Shen Mu would not do the Woodcutter any harm.

Keeping his elder brother Shen Fengqing in check was something Shen Mu was confident he could manage. Shen Fengqing would surely grumble, but Shen Mu had faith he could talk him round.

And if the gods of the Northern Heavens lost and had no intention of honoring the Pact of the Little Earth Lord, the consequence was plain enough: they would be devoured by a jubilant Shen Fengqing.

The problem of his brother's diet, which had long vexed Shen Mu, was solved in a single stroke.

More crucial still, the State of Jingping was a wager — the only stake the Woodcutter and Zixi had to set against the Northern Heavens. And the Northern Heavens numbered in the hundreds. It was snaring a white wolf with bare hands!

It was a venture that could not lose. The Woodcutter and Zixi, those two Dharma Masters with a bellyful of wicked schemes, were of course the sort to dream up such a plan.

Jiangling Academy.

This Academy had been designed and built by the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping. It did not stand within the city of Jiangling; the city lived by trade and commerce, and had little room to spare for an academy's growth, so the Imperial Preceptor had raised Jiangling Academy upon the delta of the Jin River.

On that delta the Imperial Preceptor summoned the strongmen of Jingping to haul several great mountains into place, and the Academy was built against the mountains' flanks.

He also brought in masters of formation arts such as the Blind Elder, who fashioned several floating palaces, linked by cableways, encircling the peaks like the petals of a flower.

Beyond these, the Academy's disciples, testing their formations, had seared all manner of arrays into the mountain stone, so that what circled the Academy was not only palaces but great boulders one and all.

Some scholars, too lazy to walk, hopped from boulder to boulder in midair — a sight peculiar to Jiangling Academy.

Shen Mu came here with Yutian Zun, and from afar he saw that Jiangling Academy was in a great uproar. On the river, young folk were contesting their arts, fighting with uncommon ferocity; wave upon wave burst apart on the water, divine abilities erupted, and the din was like the roaring of monstrous beasts stirring up wind and waves in the river.

Suddenly the great waves on the river turned into enormous icebergs. The icebergs flew and spun, and a ceaseless clangor of ringing blasts rang out as sword after sword of ice grew from the ice and flew forth, slashing in every direction at once!

More icebergs rose from the water, a magnificent sight, and the ice swords flew among the icebergs — swordplay so exquisite it left one gasping in admiration.

Shen Mu halted and marveled without end.

Though Jiangling Academy had no shallow attainments in formation arts, what it was most famed for was its swordsmanship. This Glacier Sword Technique, which folded the eighteen basic sword forms into itself, was already a rare and peerless art.

"The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping has turned out no small number of outstanding figures. The one wielding that sword art is most likely one of the Academy's Doctors of Sword Studies."

He looked toward the center of the sword formation and saw a woman of about twenty years performing the sword art. He did not recognize her; she must be one of Jingping's rising talents.

Just then a furious roar came from within the iceberg sword formation, and a demigod giant more than ten zhang tall charged through the sword formation at the Doctor of Sword Studies.

The creature's flesh was hideous to behold; it had four arms and bore a shield and a hammer. It smashed the icebergs to ruin and shattered the ice swords; shield and hammer clashed, dharma power erupted, and ring upon ring of formation patterns swept out in all directions, shattering every flying sword that came at it.

The four-armed demigod rushed at the woman, sprang into the air, and brought his great hammer smashing down with fearsome valor.

In the subtlety of divine abilities he was no match for this Doctor of Sword Studies of Jiangling Academy; yet as a demigod his flesh was mighty, and his dharma power surpassed that of the human race.

Moreover, demigods carried the bloodline of the ancient gods and possessed certain special gifts of the ancient gods. Compared with humans they held a great innate advantage, and in close combat they could rely on their powerful bodies to break an opponent's divine abilities.

At one blow of the four-armed demigod's hammer the river water burst asunder, and the woman was flung high into the air. Though beaten back, she was not the least flustered; she waved a hand and scattered — and countless streams of river water floated up, turning into mirror after mirror of water standing upright in the air.

From the mirrors, bolt after bolt of sword light shot at the demigod. He roared, shattered the water mirrors in the air, and thrust his great shield forward with all his strength; at once a thick wall of water reared up from the surface of the Jin River, a hundred zhang high, bearing down on the woman.

Cheers rose all around.

"That divine ability of Qiu Xiaoyi's will keep the wench flat on her back, sure enough!"

"Jiangling Academy has already lost a dozen bouts and more. Where is the Jingping Overlord Body? Won't he come out and make a fool of himself?"

"Call out your once-in-five-hundred-years Imperial Preceptor of Jingping to come and die!"

Shen Mu followed the voices with his eyes and saw a great many demigods standing at the mountain gate of Jiangling Academy, all manner of strange phenomena floating in the air, a noisy and clamorous throng.

Some of the demigods had already cultivated to the divine realm, their divine radiance piercing the heavens. Though Jiangling Academy had deities holding it down, their aura was considerably weaker than these.

The deities faced one another in a standoff, and the gods of Jiangling Academy were pressed into the weaker position — a heavy blow to morale.

No few of Jiangling Academy's scholars were downcast as well; penned in at their own gate by the demigods of the Northern Heavens, losing more than they won, their morale had withered.

In the subtlety of their divine abilities they were of course exquisite, but the innate gap was vast, so that human scholars of the same cultivation realm found it very hard to win.