Chapter 898 — Galloping Eighty Thousand Li

I will guide the way. " Not long after, they came to the silted plain she had spoken of: ten thousand li in breadth, with no mountains or rivers, only primeval forest, rank with grass and trees.

Yan'er flew to the center of the plain.

Shen Mu had her halt and leaped down himself, then told them to fall back: "The farther the better.

" They hurriedly retreated, leaving Shen Mu alone. Shen Mu took out the mirror and set it on the ground.

Then, all at once, he drew the Carefree Sword, raised it high, and drove it down point-first with all his strength.

Clang! The Carefree Sword pierced the mirror's surface; a crack appeared, then more and more cracks.

Shen Mu retreated at speed. The mirror shattered, and with it as the center space itself convulsed violently; a Yuan Tree burst up from the ground, growing ever larger and taller, forcing the space around it apart into fragments.

Very quickly the Yuan Tree reached a height of ten thousand zhang, and still it grew upward at a terrifying rate; its immense trunk thickened without cease, heaving the earth up into swelling ridges and splitting it with cracks, while thunder crashed and lightning fire spilled through the air, a sight of utter terror. Shen Mu, Carefree Sword in hand, drifted backward, calmly evading each riven crack in space before it reached him.

Behind him a Gate that Sustains Heaven suddenly appeared, and from his mouth came mysterious, obscure words, summoning the scattered soul fragments of the Yuan Tree's true body. Black sand surged between heaven and earth, swarming toward the Yuan Tree and pouring into it. He was calling souls.

Through this Yuan Tree, he was summoning the soul of Mother Earth.

For a time the Yuan Realm seemed to boil; the earth shook and the mountains swayed, the ranges trembled violently and the ground heaved madly, as though countless divine dragons were darting swiftly beneath the earth, rushing straight for the Yuan Tree. Soon great dark mountain ranges emerged upon the ten-thousand-li plain; they were the roots of Mother Earth.

Her roots were like towering mountains, racing madly over the surface and beneath the ground at astonishing speed; seen from afar, the mountains flew across the land like dragons, harrowing, yet incomparably magnificent. Mother Earth still had one soul that had not scattered.

Shen Mu's soul-summoning stirred her at once, and she could naturally sense the place of the Yuan Tree and of Shen Mu, and came flying to them. And in the center of the Yuan Realm, that Celestial Venerable Yu of ten thousand rays, with layer upon layer of radiant wheels and flames behind his head, was stirred as well, and came speeding toward them.

Racing along with him came countless tower ships and great warships of the Heavenly Court, banners streaming from their decks; countless heavenly soldiers and generals beat war drums, the drumbeats shaking heaven and earth, their battle cries surging forth in all directions like a great flood sweeping across the four wilds. "Mother Earth, if you wish to revive to your peak state, a price must be paid!

" Shen Mu's figure drifted around the ever-growing trunk of the Yuan Tree; the vast trunk was still swelling, still growing, its crown already level with the sky, ranked alongside the heavens. Darting among the fragments of space, Shen Mu took the form of three heads and six arms and quickened his spellcasting, crying in a loud voice, "I can bring you back to life, but before that, you must hold off the Celestial Venerable Yu!

" Deep in the earth the roots joined to the trunk, and the Yuan Tree grew vaster and more towering still; its crown covered a span of a hundred million li, and the ten-thousand-li plain could scarcely contain its enormous trunk.

From beneath the ground came the voice of Mother Earth, boundless in its joy, making the earth rumble with it like the roar of countless monstrous beasts crying out as one: "Celestial Venerable Mu, at last you have come to make good on your promise!

" "What Celestial Venerable Yu? The true Celestial Venerable Yu is at your side. This Celestial Venerable Yu is nothing but a weapon forged by the Heavenly Court, and it dares contend with me?

My children, it is your turn to take the stage! " Boom, boom, boom!

Around the Yuan Tree, huge emperor coffins burst from the soil one after another, and rank upon rank of stone beasts appeared before them.

The stone beasts swiftly shed their stone and turned to flesh and blood; qilin, lions, camels, horses, white elephants, xiezhi, and all manner of demigods revived, their auras flaring to the sky, their blood and vitality like seas.

These demigods had been great ministers of the Northern Supreme Heaven Court in their day, each of them of incomparably formidable strength; they reached out their hands, seized the emperor coffins, and madly broke the seals upon them. Eight emperor coffins were opened in succession, and from within came an imperial might that swept across heaven and earth; a thick corpse-qi scoured the whole world. The Northern Supreme Heaven Court had possessed fourteen Heavenly Emperors in all, every one of them offspring of Mother Earth.

These were fourteen great emperors of the Emperor Throne realm.

Five demigod emperors had been struck until their souls scattered and their bones were no more in the struggles against the Southern Supreme Heaven Court, and the corpse of one more demigod emperor had been carried by Feng Qiuyun into the Ghost Ship, its whereabouts unknown to this day.

The age of the Supreme Emperors was the wildest, most savage of ages, and also an age when stars shone in splendor and the mighty came forth in generation after generation. In that age, the Northern and Southern Supreme Emperors each had their own Heaven Court, each with great emperors who shook the world.

Countless gods and men, in the two opposing Heaven Courts of South and North, fought and slaughtered for their own races, refining the mighty of the other side into weapons and taking the flesh and blood of the other side as offerings. Among them, the Northern Supreme Heaven Court was the most brutal of all. The Divine Son Chiming had led his clansmen into hiding in the Hanging World and had not dared have any contact with the Supreme Heaven Court throughout the age of the Supreme Emperors, precisely because he had witnessed the savagery of that age.

At this moment the remaining eight corpses of the Supreme Emperors awakened and became corpse-demons; a sea of blood towered to the heavens, and the eight Heavenly Emperor corpse-demons surged up into the sky, standing tall above it, and coming to meet them was the Heavenly Court's mightiest divine weapon, the Celestial Venerable Yu. Toot, toot— Banners streamed across the sky as countless gods of the Heavenly Court blew ringing horns, horns made from the horns of giant beasts, hung down from the prows of tower ships and warships and blown by giant strongmen who stirred their true essence to sound them. Countless gods stood at the prows beating drums, drums refined from the hide of kui dragons; the drumbeats boomed, shaking both sky and earth.

The Celestial Venerable Yu drew nearer and nearer, and the countless tower ships floating around him seemed like tiny insects; yet in truth these tower ships and great warships were the highest masterpieces of the Heavenly Court's celestial craftsmanship, each tower ship several tens of li in length, the gods and demons upon them of vast physique.

Only compared to him were they utterly insignificant. Even the eight corpse-demons transformed from the demigod emperors of the Supreme Emperors were smaller than him by a factor beyond reckoning.

"Mother Earth, your sons are no match for the Celestial Venerable Yu at all. Let me lend you another arm!