Chapter 960 — You Are Indeed a Somebody

His face suddenly turned sallow, his breath failing. Though An Qingyu had not managed to kill him, the art of Heavenly Venerable Hao had indeed been created to strike at his weakness; An Qingyu's dying blow had not destroyed his flesh, but it had scoured his primal-embryo divine treasury clean, and even his primal spirit had taken no light wound.

The only reason he had not shown his decline before An Qingyu was to preserve his dignity before a man about to die.

Luo Wushuang looked around and saw flying swords come one after another, clashing ding-ding before Shen Mu; swiftly they gathered into a sword core, refining the divine gold until the sword ran like water — no small feat of forging.

"Luo the Divine Blade, you are called the Heavenly Court's foremost divine blade. You once showed me your blade art."

Shen Mu put away the sword core and took out spirit medicines to treat his wounds, saying calmly: "When Zhe Huali and I were still foes, I meant to have him show you my sword art; a pity he had his pride and his proud bones, and wished to defeat me himself, so he did not show it to you. Now you have seen my sword art — what do you make of it?"

"The sword art is exquisite, nigh upon the subtlety of the dao."

Luo Wushuang praised him from the heart: "Your sword art is already unmatched in the world. Yet I am confident that with my blade art I can defeat your sword art. In former days I might have been defeated once more beneath your sword, but I have broken the god within my heart, and I fear nothing now."

Shen Mu swallowed a spirit pill and laughed: "Your tone is almost exactly that of Zhe Huali. But Zhe Huali broke the god within his heart earlier than you did, and even Zhe Huali was no match for me."

Luo Wushuang gave a cold hum. Shen Mu refined a few more pills and handed them to him, saying: "The silver needles in your body can be expelled now; as for the Primal Wood Core at your brow, do not take it out yet. These spirit pills are to heal the damage to your heavenly palace — first refine the medicinal power already within you, and take these pills along the road. That battle with An Qingyu just now will surely have drawn the notice of the other Heavenly Court masters. We must be on our way."

He pointed east: "Just now, from the air, I saw some majestic buildings over there — most likely raised by the Creators of the Great Void. Let us go and take a look."

Luo Wushuang pocketed the pills and could not resist asking: "Are you truly at the Spirit Embryo realm?"

"I am."

Shen Mu said with a smile: "Are you certain you wish to duel me at the same realm?"

Luo Wushuang's face shifted between light and gloom; changing the subject, he asked: "You said just now that the buildings here were raised by the Creators of the Great Void. Have you been here before?"

"No."

The vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened, and he visualized for a moment; in the void a divine dragon more than ten zhang long gradually took shape.

Luo Wushuang started in fright, thinking it a heart-demon, and hastily gripped his blade-hilt.

Shen Mu shook his head: "There are no heart-demons here. Heart-demons are in truth creatures fashioned by the shattered consciousness of the Creators of the Great Void, made out of our own heart-demons. This divine dragon is merely my own creation; there is no peril in it."

Luo Wushuang, startled and doubtful, said: "How do you know the master of this place is a Creator of the Great Void? Can it be that you too are a Creator of the Great Void?"

Shen Mu looked the divine dragon over, leapt onto its back, and laughed: "No. Fly —"

The divine dragon beneath him strove to bare its claws and brandish its fangs, yet could not fly; in its anxiousness it cried maha-maha without cease.

Shen Mu scratched his head: "Am I too heavy?"

He sprang down from the dragon's back and tried again: "Fly!"

The divine dragon leapt into the air, then, flailing hand and foot, tumbled down out of the sky and plunged headlong into the waterfall below.

Shen Mu stared. In his mind came Shu Jun's laughter: "With your present strength, you would make creations? You are far from it. Your present attainment in consciousness is only that of a low-grade Creator — that is, a tiny bit stronger than a newborn babe of our race."

Shen Mu's face darkened, and he went down the mountain together with Luo Wushuang.

The Primal Wood Core was still lodged in Luo Wushuang's brow, and he moved with difficulty; but fortunately he was, after all, a great master of the Lingxiao realm, and his foundation was still there — urging the primal qi within his divine treasury, his pace was no slower than Shen Mu's.

"Those young Heavenly Court masters who fell from the sky will surely notice that palace complex as well, and they will surely head there too. You are walking into the net." Luo Wushuang, marking the direction he took, warned him.

Shen Mu shook his head: "By the time we arrive, my wounds will be seven or eight parts healed."

Luo Wushuang warned: "There are many who want you dead, and no few who lived through it aboard the ship. Those who could survive perils like the Road of the Great Void are all men of tremendous strength — most of them true gods! Their strength is no worse than An Qingyu's, and some are stronger."

Shen Mu laughed: "Luo the Divine Blade has always hated me to the marrow and wished me dead, so why do you now fret over my safety instead?"

Luo Wushuang gave a cold hum and said indifferently: "I only do not wish you to die by another's hand. You have not yet been defeated beneath my blade. Shen the Overlord Body, do not be too pleased with yourself — the Heavenly Court brims with the strong, and young talents come forth in endless succession. Who knows but that one of them may have mastered the arts of the Great Heavenly Court!"

Shen Mu's heart went cold, and he could not help thinking of Lian Huanhun.

Aboard the ship, Lian Huanhun had told him that she cultivated and fused eighteen Emperor Throne arts, and Yun Chuxiu had said that Lian Huanhun had comprehended the arts of the Great Heavenly Court.

And indeed Lian Huanhun's strength was truly great: though at the time he had been healing Luo Wushuang, a single blow from Lian Huanhun had shattered his four arms — a formidable accomplishment indeed!

A woman who was only at the Spirit Bridge realm, who had never undergone the Jingping Reform, who had never opened a celestial-river divine treasury, could with the arts of the Great Heavenly Court sever Shen Mu's four arms in a single blow — Lian Huanhun's Great Heavenly Court arts were truly no small matter.

"If it is a true god who cultivates the Great Heavenly Court arts, then I certainly cannot beat him. If I too could comprehend my own Great Heavenly Court arts..."

Shen Mu shook his head. The Emperor Throne arts were for the most part gathered in the hands of the Heavenly Court's Ten Heavenly Venerables — would the Ten Heavenly Venerables ever teach him the Emperor Throne arts they had taken such pains to collect?

And more to the point, his primal-embryo divine treasury had no heavenly palace, while the greatest strength of the Great Heavenly Court arts lay in their terrifying number of heavenly palaces, their immense magic power, and their mastery of more dao arts.

"What am I to do without a heavenly palace?" he could not help fretting.

Not long after the two had gone, the pool beneath the waterfall suddenly exploded; the divine dragon Shen Mu had visualized crawled out of the pool, shaking its head and wagging its tail, sniffing this way and that, and caught Shen Mu's scent.

"Maha!"

The divine dragon was delighted, leaping again and again; after going some distance it would lie down and sniff, following Shen Mu's scent in pursuit the whole way.