Chapter 969 — An Old Acquaintance in the Eye

"The Tai Emperor?

" A flicker stirred in Shen Mu's heart, and he looked ahead. There, in a vast and hazy stretch of spacetime, he saw Creator after Creator of colossal physique, all clad in snow-white robes.

That place was a gigantic lotus-shaped land, exceedingly vast, separated from Shen Mu and the others by an unfathomable abyss—within the abyss was pure void, its depths invisible. Many Creators stood in the void without alighting; beneath some, enormous lotuses had appeared, their blossoms casting light that shone upon the white robes, making them seem utterly holy.

Some bore glittering golden wings upon their backs, and through the visualization of their divine consciousness they appeared as beings with bird heads and human bodies, their feet sharp bird talons. Some trod twin dragons, flames streaming over their entire bodies.

Some were entwined by long rivers, the waters coiling around their bodies—rivers like serpents, yet far more changeable.

From some brows, long chains bored out to spiral and coil through the sky.

From others, a river of stars gushed forth, actual stars flowing from their foreheads.

And yet all of this was frozen still; every Creator stood rigid, preserving the posture they had held in life.

These Creators were locked in attacking stances, the Primordial Godstones embedded in their brows as they visualized their most powerful means of attack, and their target was a Creator of incomparable immensity and horror—none other than the Tai Emperor of whom Shu Jun had spoken!

If these Creators were vast as stars, then the Tai Emperor was like the most blazing sun, with ten thousand stars revolving and dancing around him.

The Tai Emperor, too, was frozen in stillness at this moment. He stood within the lotus-shaped land, his legs already transformed into thick, coarse root-tendrils that plunged deep into the lotus land; the tendrils on his two legs were like his great sinews, bursting out through the flesh and blood of his legs to bind him to the earth. The folds of his robes were like the mountain ranges running across that lotus continent, and the blood flowing from the wounds in his legs had turned into long rivers—crimson rivers.

Clearly, the Tai Emperor Juyushi had not merged into the lotus land of his own accord; rather, these Creators had used their divine abilities to trap him, fusing him with the lotus continent so that he could not escape, unless he could take flight carrying this vast, boundless lotus continent with him. This was a trap—a trap aimed at the Tai Emperor Juyushi!

"It was the divine abilities of these Creators and the Tai Emperor that created the strangeness of this place!

" Shen Mu's heart gave a leap. It must be that the Creators of Taixu had lured the Tai Emperor Juyushi here, seized him in a trap, and then both sides had fought each other to mutual destruction!

What astonished him, however, was this: in Shu Jun's telling, the Tai Emperor Juyushi was incomparably powerful—the foremost expert of the primeval age. Yet although the Creators here were extremely numerous and their physiques extremely mighty, could their strength alone truly have dealt with the Tai Emperor Juyushi?

He then noticed the Tai Emperor's brow, where there was no Primordial Stone to symbolize the Tai Emperor's power and authority! The Tai Emperor's brow was empty—no third eye, only a diamond-shaped wound!

Shen Mu thought of the Primordial Stone within the third eye of his own brow, and his heart stirred.

This Primordial Stone was a fragment of the stone that had once lain in the Tai Emperor's brow.

Evidently, during the battle in the Bloodrust Zone, the Tai Emperor's Primordial Stone had been shattered by someone.

At the time, Shu Jun had also been on the battlefield in the Bloodrust Zone and had seized the chance to hide his divine consciousness within one of the fragments of the Primordial Stone. That fragment was later found by Wei Suifeng, who never discovered Shu Jun hiding within it, and so left the stone to Shen Mu.

"The Tai Emperor lost his Primordial Stone and was no longer as formidable as before, which is why he was trapped and could not escape. But that still does not hold together, because even without the Primordial Stone, his power was still extremely formidable. Shu Jun said he possessed the most powerful physical body in all history—with that body alone, these Creators could not have stood against him.

" Shen Mu thought to himself: "In other words, someone must have helped these Creators deal with the Tai Emperor Juyushi!

Who was that helper, then?

And what was his purpose? " He racked his brains but could make no sense of it, and thought: "Shu Jun must know the hidden truth of that battle in the primeval age and the Bloodrust Zone, and must know why the Primordial Stone shattered. It is a pity that Shu Jun seems unwilling to speak of that matter.

" Shu Jun was utterly dazed. The Tai Emperor had been buried here along with these Creators; from the look of things, the Creators of Taixu had besieged the Tai Emperor and worn him to death in this place. It was precisely because the divine abilities of the Creators were so beyond all reason that Shen Mu and the others had encountered so many bizarre occurrences upon arriving here.

What puzzled them, however, was why the Tai Emperor Juyushi had come to blows with the Creators here in the first place. "This is the place. " The little point of light that Yue Tingge had become snickered. "It was I who lured Fire Heavenly Venerable and Void Heavenly Venerable here and sent them to their deaths.

. .

" "How could Fire Heavenly Venerable and Void Heavenly Venerable have died here? " Shen Mu laughed despite himself and looked all around—when suddenly his heart shook violently.

He had actually truly seen Fire Heavenly Venerable! Fire Heavenly Venerable stood in that eerie battlefield ahead, not far from the Tai Emperor Juyushi's brow; there was no mistaking him.

Fire Heavenly Venerable was an old acquaintance of his, habitually dressed in robes covered with flame patterns; most telling of all, behind his head was a wheel of fire, utterly conspicuous!

At this moment, Fire Heavenly Venerable, like those Creators and the Tai Emperor Juyushi, seemed fixed in that strange spacetime, unable to move, as if already dead.

After all, he was a Heavenly Venerable, vastly powerful, and had not been assimilated into a point of light; his body still retained the posture of one striding forward.

"Can even a Heavenly Venerable at the Heavenly Court realm be killed by this place? " Shen Mu's heart was in a fluster, but he steadied himself and searched all around for Void Heavenly Venerable, yet did not find him.

He was momentarily taken aback.

Had Yue Tingge not just clearly said that he had tricked both Heavenly Venerables into coming here to die?

Why, then, was only Fire Heavenly Venerable to be seen, and not Void Heavenly Venerable?

It was then that he noticed a bizarre thing—Fire Heavenly Venerable was actually moving! It was only that, relative to Shen Mu and the others, Fire Heavenly Venerable moved at a speed so slow as to be maddening!

Yue Tingge and the others had already been transformed into little points of light by the strangeness of this place, yet Shen Mu had kept his third eye unconverted. This Sacred Eye possessed extraordinarily keen perception; even the most infinitesimal changes, he could detect!

He noticed the flame patterns surrounding Fire Heavenly Venerable.

Within these flame patterns, exceedingly tiny flame runes were undergoing substitutions too subtle to perceive, only the rate of substitution was extremely slow.

This meant that Fire Heavenly Venerable was altering the runes that guarded his body!