Chapter 942 — The Old Senior Descends

Long Qilin raised his head and looked up. Shen Mu and Yun Chuxiu were leaping across the shattered palaces as though flying, their bodies crossing and clashing, swift beyond belief.

"Yun Chuxiu may well be Her Majesty the Empress, or her younger sister, Lady Yuanmu."

Long Qilin said, "The wooden rod the Sect Master brought out just now is called the Core of the Origin Wood. It bears more than fifty million growth rings, and it is formidable beyond measure, a supreme treasure forged by the Earth Mother Sovereign. The Sect Master cannot draw out the full might of so ancient a divine treasure, and yet just now the Core of the Origin Wood erupted with power of its own. So the Sect Master suspects that Yun Chuxiu tampered with it."

"The Empress? Lady Yuanmu?"

Hearing this, Yun Jianli was appalled, and a belated dread crept over him. He had actually sworn brotherhood with such a being, and had even brought such a terrifying existence along to keep watch on her, to see what she was plotting.

Now that he thought it over, a chill ran down his spine!

Yet he could not help but wonder, and asked curiously, "Brother Long Pi, how do you know that Yun Chuxiu is the Empress, or Lady Yuanmu?"

Qi Jiuyi blurted out, "A woman that beautiful, how could she possibly be the Empress or Lady Yuanmu?"

He too was intensely curious. All these days Long Qilin had never once left their side, doing nothing but eating and sleeping, muddled and drowsy, and never had they seen him exchange so much as a word with Shen Mu.

So how was it that Long Qilin could see through Yun Chuxiu's true face, while they knew nothing at all?

The Langxuan Divine Palace had been battered by the Core of the Origin Wood until it was little more than ruins. Countless palaces and halls had torn free of their original formations and crashed wildly about, colliding this way and that in utter chaos.

Shen Mu stood upon a divine hall that drifted in disorder, while Yun Chuxiu was very far from him, standing atop a divine palace as well. The two structures flew in wholly different directions, one soaring toward the heavens, the other plunging in its fall.

Between them lay numberless gigantic pillars and toppled palaces, battering blindly back and forth, and many divine mountains went howling past as well. The scene was one of utter confusion.

Only moments before, Yun Chuxiu had suddenly unleashed the mana of a Heavenly Venerable, rousing the power of the Core of the Origin Wood and laying waste to more than half of Heavenly Venerable Lang's Langxuan Divine Palace. This was what had enraged Shen Mu so greatly.

He had come this time meaning only to stir up a little friction; he had no wish to tear off all pretense with the Langxuan Divine Sovereign, Heavenly Venerable Lang. So long as he was not in the wrong, Heavenly Venerable Lang could do nothing to him.

But what Yun Chuxiu had done was the equal of seizing Heavenly Venerable Lang by the neck and slapping him a dozen times over, back and forth!

Even though he himself was Heavenly Venerable Mu, one of the five founding elders of the Heavenly Alliance, Heavenly Venerable Lang would absolutely refuse to sit still. He would turn from striking at him in secret to striking at him in the open.

This chamber pot was too big and too foul; he could not carry it on his shoulders.

Bold as Shen Mu was, seeming to dare death itself and charge into the Heavenly Court, plunging into the dragon's lair and the tiger's den without fear of anything, in truth he advanced step by step, calculating every move. Each time it appeared unspeakably perilous, a road to survival lay hidden within.

He could tear open the Heavenly Court and still leave himself room enough to maneuver, enough to keep his life.

Yet this single act of Yun Chuxiu's had thrust him all at once into opposition with Heavenly Venerable Lang, and into the wrong, at that!

Shen Mu raised a hand and sent a palm strike flying, striking across palace after palace hurtling in confusion at Yun Chuxiu. As his palm went out, countless points of starlight swarmed behind him, and in an instant the stars danced across the sky, gathering behind him into a blazing river of stars!

The starlight converged, and the primordial magnetic power between the stars burst forth at once. The river of stars became a torrent, surging forward upon Shen Mu's palm strike!

In the air, those buildings flying in chaos were instantly drawn along by this divine ability of his. The primordial magnetic power seized these colossal weights, and the boundless geomagnetic force locked onto Yun Chuxiu's body, dragging those vast weights down upon the girl!

The geomagnetic force was so mighty, so terrifying, that the space around Yun Chuxiu warped, and through the twisted space the girl fell, together with those enormous palaces, the shattered pillars and broken walls, the cracked bricks and ruined tiles, all of it crashing down upon Yun Chuxiu!

The sight was dreadful beyond words. Shen Mu had deployed his primordial magnetic divine ability and seized the advantages of heaven's timing and earth's terrain. Beyond the power of his own art, the buildings of the Langxuan Divine Palace were wrought of divine metal, heavy beyond measure, and they swelled the might of his divine ability.

All that weight together, even a true god could not bear it!

Qi Jiuyi and the others looked up at the scene, and saw broken walls and ruined pillars hurtling at Yun Chuxiu like meteors. Space itself was crushed and twisted by the geomagnetic force, which sped those shattered walls and pillars all the faster, so that their power was no less than that of divine weapons!

Long Qilin said, "Sister Yan'er, do you still remember the twin lotuses of Guixu? There was a crystal coffin there, and in the coffin lay a woman. The Sect Master said she was the Empress's younger sister, Lady Yuanmu."

Yan'er nodded again and again; of course she remembered.

She had even caught a great big bug in the flower-world of Guixu, and had spent a long, long while eating it before she finished.

Though Shen Mu told her that the beauty serpent was no bug at all, but an ancient god gestated in Guixu, a spirit of the Great Dao transformed from the pistil of the twin lotuses, Yan'er still counted it a bug. She had eaten that beauty-serpent ancient god and had not fully digested it to this day, so that she remained plump and round.

Long Qilin said, "At the time of the Jade Pool affair, two Heavenly Venerables joined forces against Heavenly Venerable You, and the situation was desperate. So the Sect Master brought out that crystal coffin and set it before Yun Chuxiu, intending to revive Lady Yuanmu. Then a Heavenly Venerable arrived and restored the balance, making the two sides evenly matched, and the Sect Master did not revive Lady Yuanmu. So who was it that came to help?"

Qi Jiuyi and Yun Jianli stared at the dragon qilin, dumbfounded.

Long Qilin said, "Naturally it was Yun Chuxiu who helped. And so Yun Chuxiu can only be Lady Yuanmu, or Her Majesty the Empress."

No sooner had he spoken than that girl Yun Chuxiu spread both hands and drew a line through the empty air, and a bottomless abyss appeared. Shen Mu's seemingly invincible move dissolved in an instant!

Yun Chuxiu stood above the abyss, the Great Abyss of Guixu formed by her divine ability, as though it could swallow all things between heaven and earth. Even the rolling river of stars thrown out by Shen Mu's art, the twisted primordial magnetic power, the countless broken walls and ruined palace halls, all of it plunged into the Great Abyss of Guixu!

Seeing this, Qi Jiuyi, Yun Jianli and the rest were deeply shaken. This divine ability was precisely the one the Empress and her sister were said to have mastered!

It seemed that Yun Chuxiu might indeed be one of those two sisters!

Qi Jiuyi blurted out, "Second Brother, have you not been asleep this whole time? How do you know so much?"