Chapter 957 — The Corpse-Walkers of the Great Void

Shen Mu watched the scene in a daze. The world that had been so beautiful had become a place of slaughter, a butcher's ground demanding lives!

Those Creators lifted their heads to the heavens, yet no sound could come from their mouths. Consciousness grown nearly solid rushed in, boring through their brows, destroying their brains, shattering their souls and spirits, and leaving them corpses!

This was the last thing the corpse-walkers saw!

Shu Jun withdrew his consciousness, and the vision before Shen Mu's eyes vanished. On the altar of the Primordial Stone, Shu Jun's huge, hollow head gaped and panted; but he had no tongue and no teeth, nor any fleshly body, which made it a most uncanny sight. Air was drawn in through his mouth and vented out from beneath his head.

Shen Mu too was panting, and only then realized that his brow was all cold sweat.

"Shu Jun, did you see that majestic figure?"

Shen Mu steadied himself and asked: "One who can enter the Great Void must surely be a Creator of your kind? Why would he annihilate the Great Void?"

Shu Jun shook his head, his consciousness very unsteady. "I did not see who he was either..."

Shen Mu blinked. He had only borrowed Shu Jun's consciousness to look, and what he saw was incomplete; but it was quite possible that Shu Jun had seen who the man was and was unwilling to say.

"Shu Jun, you and I are grasshoppers on the same string now, in the same boat, sharing the same enemy. If you saw something, you may as well speak it plainly." So he coaxed him.

Shu Jun gave a cold snort. "In the same boat? That leaky boat of yours is full of people who want you dead. Think instead how you will get through the trouble before your eyes."

Shen Mu smiled slightly. He knew well enough that most of those aboard the tower ship below wanted him dead.

To join Heavenly Venerable Fire and Heavenly Venerable Void was only a pretext of the Heavenly Court's venerables. In truth they meant to exile this Heavenly Venerable Mu to the Great Void and find a chance to be rid of him.

Of course, if they could not be rid of him, they would leave him in the Great Void forever. After all, there was no one of consequence aboard this ship.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, come back aboard, quickly!"

Lian Huahun said softly: "Those corpse-walkers are most uncanny, and a venerable's flesh should not sit beneath a falling wall. Venerable, you would be safer back on the ship."

Shen Mu stood upon the shoulder of a corpse-walker, his clothes fluttering, and laughed: "Little Sister Lian, I am here enjoying the view. Do not disturb me."

Aboard the ship, Xiu Youfang, of Heavenly Venerable Hao's sect, said with a coy laugh: "Venerable, what is there to see out there? The view is better here."

Shen Mu paid them no heed. A wisp of primal qi flew out and sped toward the River of Stars beneath the corpse-walkers.

Those aboard the ship had eyes starting from their sockets, and cried out one after another: "Hold, thief Mu!"

"Shen Mu, you little wretch, you dare!"

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, do not—"

That River of Stars was the uncanny phenomenon formed by Emperor Yunluo Wei Suifeng's divine ability. If Shen Mu should trigger it, the whole shipload, even a strong man like Luo Wushuang, would be buried beneath the power of that divine ability!

Shen Mu's qi flew into the River of Stars, and he stirred it with all his might. Yet to his astonishment, Wei Suifeng's divine ability did not erupt.

He scratched his head, and more qi surged out. Still Wei Suifeng's divine ability flowed quietly through the void, like a long river.

Shu Jun gloated: "Little devil, your reckoning was wrong. These Creators are dead, but their consciousness remains, and consciousness alone is enough to press that divine ability into perfect obedience."

Shen Mu drew back his qi and said, vexed: "Why did you not say so sooner?"

Shu Jun snorted coldly, and said proudly: "Had you restored my flesh and body sooner, I would have crushed these insects with ease! Still, I can preserve your life, if you supply me with three years of consciousness, blood and qi..."

When the gods and devils on the tower ship saw that Wei Suifeng's divine ability had not been triggered by Shen Mu, malice brimmed in their gall. Pan Chunjin was first to spring into the air and fly toward the River of Stars, crying: "My friends, no more waiting! Here he cannot flee back to the Heavenly Court. It is time to be rid of him and go back to report!"

"Well said!"

The people aboard all leapt up, crying aloud: "The deeper we go into the Great Void, the less our chance of returning to the Heavenly Court alive. Do away with the old robber Mu now, while we can still go back!"

Shen Mu laughed aloud, sprang into the air, vaulted from one corpse-walker and landed upon the shoulder of another, then bounded away.

Behind him the crowd came howling to kill, each one blooming with aura. Shen Mu looked back and saw that almost none of them were divine-ability users; most were deities, and behind them heavenly palaces rose into view, some of them bringing forth several palaces at once.

Aboard the tower ship, another twenty or thirty had not taken flight, and looked at one another instead.

Yun Chuxiu glanced at Luo Wushuang and asked curiously: "Divine Blade Luo and Shen of the Overlord Body are sworn enemies. Why have you not chased him down?"

Luo Wushuang said evenly: "If I strike, I never do it by another's hand; I would fight him fairly, and let him fall beneath my blade. And why have you not gone after him?"

Yun Chuxiu's gaze fell on Lian Huahun, not far off, and she said with a giggle: "I am not in this to kill him. Why would I chase him down? Is that not so, Little Sister Lian?"

Lian Huahun's face was without expression. Coldly she said: "Hussy, you should be calling me elder sister!"