Chapter 948 — The Sea Right Before My Eyes

At the same time, I kept inserting demigods into the Heaven Alliance to counterbalance him. I meant not only to eliminate my Imperial Father, but also to seize the Heaven Alliance! " He smiled.

"I succeeded. He failed. " The words were simply put, but behind them lay one heart-stopping episode after another. Shen Mu smiled. "Even if you succeeded, the Heaven Alliance did not fall entirely into your grasp. You suffered your second failure in this life—again because you encountered me. " The Shen Mu opposite did not deny it. He nodded. "I had never seen your true face. I forged Heavenly Venerable You into my strongest weapon—a divine armament of the Heavenly Court realm—and sent him down to the lower realm to eradicate Mother Earth Yuanjun.

I never expected that the great sorcerer who revived Mother Earth would be you. You borrowed Mother Earth to draw your sword, unleashing the very move that once left me bedridden for a hundred years.

The shadow in my heart rose again, and so I was wounded by Mother Earth and taken advantage of by others, and I lost the Yuan Realm. But that was no more than a surprise attack. " He seemed as light as wind and clouds, his tone indifferent.

"In my eyes now, you no longer carry the weight you once did.

Over the long ages my cultivation has advanced by leaps and bounds; my comprehension of the Dao has deepened more and more.

Looking back on that battle at the Jade Pool, I can only smile with scorn—at my own youth and callowness in those days. " He gazed at the waves of the Jade Sea, unhurried. "I now bear you no hatred at all.

The hatred I display is only to blind others. You hold no place whatsoever in my Dao-heart; you are merely a tool to be used. And moreover. . . " A smile bloomed on his face, growing broader and broader. "And moreover, you are going to die today. I have prepared a perfect death for you.

" "Do you see the palace maids in the Jade Pool? On the night of the Jade Pool incident, the divine officials and the army of gods and demons who came to announce the Heavenly Emperor's decree—they were sent by me. The palace maids in the Jade Pool were all replaced at my instruction, including the divine turtles in the Jade Sea that bear the divine mountains on their backs, and the flower spirits in the lotuses—they are all my people. " He turned around, the smile on his face deepening. "The people at your side—I sent them all away.

I have planted agents in the Yun Manor, the Red Emperor Manor, and the Southern Emperor Manor; drawing the people around you away was easy enough. If I kill you here, no one will know. The Heavenly Duke and Tubo will not know either, that the true Heavenly Venerable Mu is already dead. " Shen Mu sighed.

"Heavenly Venerable Hao, I never imagined your scheming ran this deep. It seems I cannot escape this calamity.

But—are you certain that this Heavenly Venerable Mu you have manufactured is necessarily a match for me? " He smiled. "You expended great effort and care in manufacturing this Heavenly Venerable Mu. To ensure he was identical to me, to avoid arousing the suspicion of the other Heavenly Venerables and ancient gods, you had to keep him at the Spirit Bridge realm. Such a body cannot contain your primal spirit—your primal spirit is too powerful.

You can only control this body with a thread of consciousness. But Spirit Bridge realm adepts—I have killed far, far too many. Even divine armaments like Heavenly Venerable You, I destroyed two of them. " The other Shen Mu's smile was bright and sunlit, and all the more chilling for it. In that short time he had already achieved a degree of likeness to Shen Mu that made it hard to tell them apart.

"You underestimate what I have achieved over this million years. Over this million years I have pondered countless times, and in the depths of my consciousness I have crossed swords with you countless times. You and I have in fact fought hundreds of millions of times.

" He laughed with great relish. "In the past, you won more often than you lost. But as I grew, your chances of winning dwindled. By the Shanghuang era, you had already been defeated by me. After that, every time I crossed swords with you in the depths of my consciousness, it was to test which method could slay you most simply. By the Kaihuang era, I needed only a single move to kill you. " He showed immense confidence, smiling.

"I have compiled the techniques by which I kill you. They are called the Hundred Ways to Slay Mu—one hundred divine abilities in all. To this day, in the depths of my consciousness, you are already dead before you can even strike!

" Shen Mu's pupils contracted sharply. His momentum surged. His sword core flew out, and he boldly drew his sword!

His very first move was the second form of the Tribulation Sword—the Sword of Raising Tribulation! At the Jade Pool Gathering all those years ago, it was by this move that, beneath the projection of Lady Yuanmu, he had gravely wounded Heavenly Venerable Hao with a single stroke, beating him until he could not even manage his own life—needing others to attend to his eating, drinking, and every bodily function! Now, the power of this move, Raising Tribulation, was even greater, its variations even more numerous. Raising Tribulation was a sword path and also a foundational sword technique; it was also called Sword Nineteen Forms, and it could fuse with any other sword technique. Its variations were truly immeasurable and infinite! But unexpectedly, before the power of Shen Mu's sword could erupt, the other Shen Mu's attack arrived first though launched last.

A finger thrust out, light bursting from its tip. The light broke through the Sword of Raising Tribulation and touched Shen Mu between the brows. Nothing at all appeared amiss at Shen Mu's brow, yet the back of his skull burst open. A look of disbelief spread over his face.

His corpse swayed and toppled to the ground; his legs kicked out, his body convulsed twice, and then there was no breath in him.

The other Shen Mu slowly withdrew his finger and said calmly, "That is how simple it is to kill you—the strength of a single finger.

How lonely.

. . " He faced the Jade Sea, his expression calm.

Out on the sea, Shen Mu was walking toward him. The other Shen Mu stood in the pavilion with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for Shen Mu to arrive. He watched Shen Mu approach, come to his side, and also face the great sea. "Heavenly Venerable Mu does not seem the least bit surprised.

" He shot Shen Mu a glance and smiled. "If I saw another me standing right before me. .

. " He frowned slightly, feeling that something seemed somehow not quite right. And yet in the true world, Shen Mu was sitting behind him, pouring himself a cup of tea.

He raised the cup to his lips and thought, "That move is not bad. It would be very hard for me to withstand—I could only trade my life for his.

Heavenly Venerable Hao has indeed made great progress.

"