Chapter 964 — Bigger! Even Bigger!

Luo Wushuang had already resigned himself to his fate, thinking, 'If I can only get out of here...'

But the monsters swiftly came back to life, and the ruined buildings of the Creators shimmered with flowing light and restored themselves at extraordinary speed. The road ahead was choked off once more, and still more monsters came surging in, swift as the wind. There was simply no chance to break out.

Shen Mu ground his teeth, so furious that he laughed. "This is the first time I have met a city I cannot tear down..."

Luo Wushuang's expression turned strange.

Suddenly music came: that great ship of flesh and blood, striding on who knew how many legs, came hurtling this way, smashing through everything in its path. Aboard it, a great multitude of half-bodied people blew, bowed, plucked and sang—trumpets and suonas, qins and ses, flutes and xiaos, reeds and shengs, pipas—every kind of joyful music, exceedingly merry.

The great ship danced as it went, its vast bow-maw opening and closing, swallowing who knew how many monsters along the way. The bow devoured those Taixu monsters, crunching and chewing them with great relish—quite crisp.

Other monsters that failed to dodge in time were sent flying by the strange ship, or trampled into mire.

Amidships and aft there seemed to be a pipe formed of a great intestine, slanting up toward the sky; whatever its belly could not digest turned into billowing smoke, which the pipe shot out with a long toot-toot.

The strange ship charged at Shen Mu and Luo Wushuang. Despair filled their hearts—this ship must be an agglomeration of countless souls, which was why it was so monstrous.

With the strength they had now, they could not possibly withstand it. They would simply be eaten by the ship and expelled as smoke from its intestine.

Shen Mu clenched his teeth. Suddenly he caught sight of the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand not far away, and in an instant he made up his mind.

Luo Wushuang was just then transforming his essence into a divine saber to cut down the monsters pressing close, when he glimpsed Shen Mu's look. Startled, he cried out hastily, "Shen the Overlord Body, what are you doing?"

Shen Mu's essence flew out and became a keen sword that flew straight at the wound of the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand.

Luo Wushuang was seized with terror. He shouted aloud, "Everyone in the city, get away from here—"

Shen Mu reached out and drew the Prime Wood core from between his brows, then thrust it into the ground, and it grew very thick.

Shen Mu pulled at Luo Wushuang, signaling him to lie flat. "Lie down and do not move. Use all your essence to shield your body—mind you are not crushed."

The two lay upon the Prime Wood core. The strange ship had already rushed up to them, and at that same moment the flying sword formed of Shen Mu's essence stabbed into the wound of the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand.

"Big—big—BIG!"

Shen Mu roared, "Grow—grow—GROW!"

Luo Wushuang wrapped his body in all his essence; essence filled every part of him. Peeking sidelong, he saw the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand suddenly turn into incomparably brilliant light, dazzling his eyes in one blinding flash before plunging him into absolute darkness.

Almost in the same instant, the Prime Wood core surged up madly, carrying them aloft into the clouds; in a moment the core had grown hundreds of li high.

The tremendous inertia pinned them hard to the top of the Prime Wood core. Luo Wushuang felt all the divine blood in his body gather into the skin beneath him; his eyes were pressed nearly into his skull, his heart flattened, pressed hard against the ribs at his back.

His muscles were like paper, smoothed flat against the Prime Wood core, and beside him he heard the sound of breaking bones and the soft crack of bursting skin.

"Shen the Overlord Body... it is over..."

Despair filled his heart. Even his body, that of a Lingxiao powerhouse, could not bear it—how much less Shen Mu's?

The sound of shattering bone beside him had been Shen Mu's bones crushed to pieces in a single instant; the sound of bursting skin had been Shen Mu's blood rushing into the skin that clung to the Prime Wood core beneath him. His flesh could not withstand such pressure and impact: in one instant he must have burst apart, his blood smearing the whole of the Prime Wood core.

Nor that alone—his whole body would be shattered to nothing, brains and all.

"Shen the Overlord Body, you cut off one of my arms, and I hated you for forty thousand years—yet you have saved my life three times."

Luo Wushuang's mind was a muddle. "What a pity I cannot repay you. I once wished to try myself against you, to have you look upon my saber art..."

The Prime Wood core was still surging, standing straight within the Creators' city, thousands of li tall, reaching straight for the blood-colored moon in the sky.

Soon the core stood ten thousand li high, still growing upward, taller and taller, longer and longer, pushing out through the atmosphere of the Taixu land.

The Prime Wood core whistled upward, came alongside the blood moon in the sky, and howled past it.

That blood-colored moon was a great ball of flesh, surely an enormous head, staring in amazement with grotesque eyes as this pillar swept by.

It must have been the head of an incomparably powerful Taixu Creator, slain by some unknown hand, his head struck off and left drifting in the skies above the Taixu land, where it became the moon of this uncanny world, coming out each night to play its cheerful, pleasing flute tunes.

Now it forgot to play. It was drowned in the infinite fire rising from below.

Beneath, the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand erupted. In a single instant the energy stored within that brand swept across the whole of the Creators' city, destroying everything!

At the same time, that drop of the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's divine blood, and the sword qi within it, were triggered. A vast, blinding fireball enclosed the Creators' city entire, and expanded outward as it spun, in a moment covering more than a thousand li, then ten thousand li. Where it passed, space shattered, mountains were reduced to ash, great rivers evaporated, the seas became nothingness.

At last the surging power below subsided; the Prime Wood core stopped growing; and Luo Wushuang's eyes gradually cleared, the blood flowing back. Though his body was badly wounded, he was alive, at least.

He sat up. He had been carried by the Prime Wood core beyond the heavens; in the void there was nothing at all but this incomparably thick pillar.

Luo Wushuang felt desolate. He looked toward the Prime Wood core, which was like a stretch of land, and suddenly he was slightly startled.

He saw many drops of blood seeping out from the wood, floating in space. The blood gathered of itself, and quickly formed a heart.

The heart grew many blood vessels, extending in every direction; more and finer vessels grew out, building up the form of a human body.

He saw a brain growing, the five viscera and six bowels taking shape, bones and tendons beginning to appear.

Before long the body grew skin and hair, and became a naked man—it was Shen Mu.

Shen Mu raised his hand. The clothes spread flat upon the Prime Wood core flew up; he shook the bone fragments off them and only then put them on.

"Earth Mother Yuanjun is truly good to me."

Shen Mu's face showed contentment. Luo Wushuang said nothing.

"To bestow on me a treasure even as precious as this—such deep feeling, such great kindness. And yet I was still scheming to wheedle more treasures out of her. Truly I have no shame." Shen Mu sighed.

Luo Wushuang kept silent, thinking, 'Even come back from the dead, this fellow is as detestable as ever, not a whit changed. I wronged him.'

A clatter of hooves came through the void—Luo Wushuang's inner demon had appeared once more.