Chapter 880 — The Everlasting Undying Body

"Heaven Venerable" had not used his full strength, and neither had he.

His aim was precisely to force "Heaven Venerable" to bring out his full strength, and to see whether the man behind this "Heaven Venerable" was one of the Nine Heaven Venerables of those years. Even if the man were not one of the Nine Heaven Venerables, he could still judge from his divine abilities what attainments he had won.

When Shen Mu had defeated the previous "Heaven Venerable," that "Heaven Venerable" had not displayed his true arts even unto death, unwilling to expose his identity; but this Heaven Venerable meant to unleash his supreme learning, and that filled him with anticipation.

In the Heavenly Court, few were qualified to receive the body of a Heaven Venerable and to wield it in descent to the lower realm; only the leaders and the chiefs of the Heavenly Alliance held that qualification. He wanted to see just how powerful the existence that controlled the Heavenly Court truly was!

Within his body, the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art was already running at full power, linking all fourteen of his divine treasuries into one!

The Heavenly River surged vast and mighty, piercing through Life and Death, Heaven and Man, the Seven Stars, the Five Luminaries, and the Spirit Fetus, then flowing on through Xuandu into the Demon Dao divine treasury; fourteen divine treasuries become one!

His primordial spirit unified the divine and the demonic; the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art fused all powers into one; his primordial spirit stood towering above the Heavenly River, ready at any moment to erupt with all his strength and all his potential!

This would be the mightiest blow of his life!

The darkness around the Great Black Palace swept in once more, drowning him and "Heaven Venerable. " Suddenly a tremendous sound came from behind the Great Black Palace, and that enormous celestial body split open with a long canyon running east to west across the planet.

The canyon parted to either side, the mountain ranges fell back, the seas ebbed; it grew ever larger and wider, revealing an eyeball beyond all imagining.

This enormous demon eye gazed into the darkness, waiting for the movements of "Heaven Venerable" and Shen Mu within it, deeply anticipating this battle.

This eye was the eye of Great Black Heaven's true body.

The Great Black Heaven who appeared before the crowd was not his true body; he was, after all, the first demon god, and his true body was too vast.

Were he to show himself in his true form, even gods and demons would find it hard to take in his entirety.

So he showed himself in a false body, while his true body lay hidden in the darkness.

When Shen Mu had come to the Great Black Palace and settled here, he had once walked into the darkness and groped about within it, touching some dreadful colossus in the dark, and then returned to the palace smiling. At that time he had sensed that the true Great Black Heaven was hidden in the darkness, knew he could not leave, and so simply turned back cheerfully.

In the darkness, a violent upheaval came without warning, as though space had shuddered countless tens of thousands of times on end, and even the crowd before the Great Black Palace could not keep their footing!

This was no clash of Shen Mu's divine ability with "Heaven Venerable"'s, but the energy bursting forth as "Heaven Venerable"'s divine ability awakened. It was hard to imagine that a body at the Divine Bridge realm could contain such vast and boundless power within it!

In the darkness Shen Mu stood at the center of the upheaval; "Heaven Venerable"'s divine ability was like a great heavenly tribulation erupting, bearing endless wrath, punishing all the treason in this world!

Shen Mu erupted as well, no other thought left in his mind, no other notion at all.

His qi and blood were like a raging tide, as if the spirit of an age were burning in his blood, blazing fiercely, a roaring fire fed with oil!

He raced forward, a fleeting gleam, a passing shadow; so fast was he that the sea-like mass of his qi and blood could scarcely keep pace with him.

That sea of qi and blood was drawn along in his wake and reared upright, like a blood-soaked banner; the endless waves of the upended sea surged and roared, thundering on and on! The sword elixir in his hand became unmatched sword intent, stabbing at that wrathful god in the darkness!

Before the Great Black Palace, Mo Santong, Xue Taidou, and the rest looked toward Shen Mu and "Heaven Venerable" in the darkness, yet could see nothing.

The darkness blocked their sight.

And in the darkness the gazes of one towering god and demon after another swept this way and that, striving to see this battle clearly; their eyes were like torches, like pillars of light cutting the darkness apart, yet they could catch only fragmentary images, only fleeting figures flashing past and divine-ability phenomena bursting again and again.

Shen Mu and "Heaven Venerable" were too fast, and darkness lay all around; there was little their eyes could pierce. Suddenly, all fell still.

"Is it over?

" one Lord of the Heavens murmured.

Then, several hundred li away, waves of divine ability erupted once more.

Everyone hurried to look; but the instant their eyes fell there, Shen Mu and "Heaven Venerable" had vanished without a trace, leaving only a mountain peak snapped through, its summit still falling, crashing into the valley with a dull boom. Then, a hundred li beyond, another tremendous roar of erupting divine ability came; more than three hundred Lords of the Heavens hastened to look that way, and beam after beam of light lit the place. They saw Shen Mu's body hanging upon a cliff, his three heads and six arms battered beyond recognition; "Heaven Venerable" bowed to him, the cliff exploded, and Shen Mu was blasted to the far side of the cliff, flying off no one knew where, while "Heaven Venerable"'s figure vanished hard behind.

At last they sensed another surge of divine ability.

When the eyes of the three hundred-odd Lords of the Heavens shone upon it, the sword light in Shen Mu's hand stretched dozens of li long, no sword at all but like a pillar a zhang or more thick, grinding across "Heaven Venerable" from halfway up a mountain.

That mountain was snapped through at the waist, yet its summit never fell, for Shen Mu's sword was too swift; though the peak was shorn off by a length, it settled flat upon the mountain body.

The Lords of the Heavens were all among the foremost of gods and demons; with their gaze upon that place, they made out the sword pillar in Shen Mu's hand plainly. It was no sword pillar, but countless leaping flying swords, each performing a different sword move, darting eerily within the pillar. Seen from afar, it looked as though Shen Mu had seized up a pillar dozens of li long.

"Heaven Venerable" appeared to be ground down by the sword pillar, but in truth he was warding off the sword lights surging and thrusting from within it; struck by dozens of swords, alarm written in his eyes, he was opening his mouth to speak, only the distance was too great and no one could hear what he said.

"What is he saying? " Doubt filled the Lords of the Heavens, and darkness swept in again; Shen Mu and "Heaven Venerable" vanished.

When the surge of divine ability appeared once more, "Heaven Venerable"'s palm, three fingers severed, pressed upon Shen Mu's face, smashing him down onto a great lake in the darkness; the lake burst, nearly all its waters flung into the air, as if a meteor had struck the surface.

Several hundred gazes fixed upon that place. At the lake bottom, "Heaven Venerable"'s fists came like a furious storm, hammering Shen Mu downward without pause, and the ground around the lake cracked unceasingly, fissure after horrifying fissure, dozens of zhang deep and still deepening.