Chapter 909 — The Ancient Sheath Hides the Blade; Storm and Rain Wash Away the Dust

Yan'er and Long Qilin were both startled. Yan'er thought Shen Mu meant to take his own life and was about to fend him off, but Long Qilin hastily called her back: "The Cult Master has only just found a way to live.

Why would he kill himself?

Stop this nonsense!

" Chastened by his scolding, Yan'er did not dare talk back. Shen Mu met the tribulation with a single sword stroke, cutting into his own heavenly palace: hewing down Lingxiao, sweeping Yujing, leveling Tianque, shattering Yaotai, razing Yaohai, crushing the Southern Heavenly Gate.

In the collapsing, ruined heavenly palace, all the sword light gathered into one, a flood of sword radiance pouring down from the shattered Southern Heavenly Gate along the River of Heaven, grinding the river to pieces the whole way, rushing straight at Jianmu!

The sword light churned Jianmu to powder; the River of Heaven that spiraled down around it was torn to shreds as well, reduced to pure river-force that could no longer take form. And above that shattered river-force, the pure energy left by the annihilated heavenly palace was like a boundless ocean, crushing the starry sky, devouring sun and moon, bearing down upon the Six Harmonies Continent!

Shen Mu's spirit embryo suddenly seized the sword light, and before that world-devouring tide of destruction arrived, the sword light stabbed into Youdu, broke through the demonic path's Five Luminaries, Six Harmonies, Seven Stars, Heaven-Man and Xuandu, and pierced the Star River Spirit Treasure clean through! Outside, Yan'er and Long Qilin could only watch Shen Mu's cultivation realm plunge madly.

A moment before he had been at the Life-and-Death realm; the next instant he was at the Heaven-Man realm! They blinked, and Shen Mu had fallen to the Seven Stars realm, the Six Harmonies realm, the Five Luminaries realm!

Their hearts lurched with fright.

In the end Shen Mu's realm fell to the very bottom, and he became a tiny martial artist of the Spirit Embryo realm!

At the Spirit Embryo realm one hardly counted as a divine arts practitioner at all; one could only use a few battle techniques and moves, and could not perform divine arts.

Shen Mu had actually plunged straight down to the Spirit Embryo realm, his cultivation all but completely crippled!

Yan'er said in a trembling voice, "Fat Dragon, what is the Young Master doing?

" Long Qilin was utterly at a loss, not knowing how to answer.

From Shen Mu's eyes, ears, mouth and nose, an unimaginably vast essence suddenly burst out like steam. Of all the spirit treasures in his fleshly body, only the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure remained; every other spirit treasure had been utterly destroyed, and the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure could not possibly contain such immense essence.

His body could not bear it, and so it could only be expelled.

Yet even to expel it was a stroke of luck; what he feared most was that it would not be expelled in time, and would burst him apart alive!

They saw Shen Mu's body suddenly swell, inflating as though pumped full of air, growing fatter and rounder by the moment, soon fatter and plumper than Yan'er herself. Nor was that all: the pores of his skin were stretched wide open, and from countless pores thick essence hissed out with a sizzling sound.

Yet Shen Mu swiftly worked the Nether Demon Metamorphosis Art, trying to seal every pore of his body, to seal his eyes, ears, mouth and nose, to lock in his essence and vital spirit, so that the energy within him would not drain away.

He was stretched larger and fatter still, becoming a monstrous bulk before Long Qilin and Yan'er, towering like a mountain. "Fat Dragon, what is the Young Master doing?

" Yan'er's voice quivered.

The blue sparrow was like a woodpecker, her beak hammering at Long Qilin's forehead.

His skull rang with a clack-clack-clack; soon she had pecked through the dragon scales and his head was bleeding. Long Qilin felt no pain at all; his mouth hung open as he stared blankly at Shen Mu, who was still swelling taller and fatter.

Shen Mu's bulk now exceeded Long Qilin's full form.

Even though Shen Mu was the foremost master of the art of Creation in the world today, a body stretched to such a state could never hold out! "Stop pecking!

" Long Qilin suddenly felt the pain and said in a fluster, "Sister Yan'er, you're pecking my skull!

" Yan'er, watching Shen Mu grow bigger and fatter in alarm, raised a wing and stuffed it into her beak.

She was a dragon sparrow after all, and her beak was full of sharp little dragon teeth. Her teeth clashed with a clack-clack-clack, and in no time she had neatly sheared the feathers from the edge of that wing.

She raised the other wing; again the clacking, and that wing too lost a ring of feathers.

Yan'er wrapped both wings around Long Qilin's ear.

Alarmed, he hastily pressed his big ears flat against his body, but Yan'er's strength was simply too great; she forced the ear up and brought it to her beak. Long Qilin bore the pain and did not cry out.

Inside Shen Mu's body, within the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure.

At this moment, the pure energy stored in the ruined heavenly palace and in all the destroyed spirit treasures, divine essence and demonic essence alike, was crammed into the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure, becoming a surging torrent, a great vortex that drowned his spirit embryo.

His original cultivation realm had been only the River of Heaven realm, equivalent to a great divine arts practitioner of the Spirit Bridge realm, yet his essence cultivation could rival a Venerable God and pressed close upon the True Gods. Though in recent days, lacking a soul and primal spirit, Shen Mu's cultivation had leaked away unceasingly and his realm had fallen, he was still no small matter.

With the spirit treasures and the heavenly palace destroyed, all that energy, so immense, pressed at once into the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure. The treasure was stretched ever outward; its walls burst again and again, formed anew again and again, and were burst again.

His spirit embryo, too, was battered by the raging energy, its surface crumbling away without cease, yet upheld by the undying consciousness of the Three Primal Spirits, it kept recovering.

That sword light was still in the spirit embryo's hand, never extinguished, helping him withstand the onslaught of the essence that had run wild. Had it been anyone else, the spirit embryo would long since have shattered and perished.

Only he could endure such a dreadful impact, and even so, he could not endure much longer.

The old underworld courier had said he must not use his essence, or it would damage his consciousness.

And now, this was far more than merely using his essence. Now his essence had plainly run out of control!

In such a state, his undying consciousness began to collapse as well, to disintegrate!

Shen Mu's spirit embryo gripped the sword; the sword light grew brighter and brighter, planted amid the destroying torrent of essence, all the more dazzling, a pillar holding up the heavens at the heart of a great vortex that swept through the cosmos of the Prime Embryo Spirit Treasure!

"One point of spirit embryo, unchanging!

" Shen Mu's spirit embryo drove the art with the last of the essence in the spirit treasure; the sword light flared up and swept the whole of heaven and earth! "Two, dividing yin and yang, heaven opens!

" The sword was the Tribulation-Meeting Sword; the art was the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art.

Through the Scripture of Immeasurable Tribulation he had entered the dao in dreams, becoming countless selves, deducing countless possibilities, seeking one thread of life from countless deadly tribulations, and at last he had found it.

This path was the method he had comprehended from Heavenly Venerable Ling's Unchanging divine art, fusing the principle of that art into the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, so as to keep his spirit embryo from perishing.