Chapter 976 — The Domain of the Divine Embryo Treasury

Alarm shot through Luo Wushuang's heart.

Shen Mu's sword came with matchless sharpness, piercing his first heaven, and at first he had felt nothing remarkable in it. He had taken the saber as his Dao in his youth, and the first move of his entry into the Dao was called 'Blue Sea Beneath Parting Clouds'.

When the saber art unfolded, it was like a blue sea shrouded in cloud and mist, and when the clouds parted the saber art changed, and overwhelming oceanic power fell from the sky.

But this was his first move upon entering the Dao, when his accumulation was shallow and his mastery far from exquisite, so its breaking seemed only natural. Yet in the next instant Shen Mu's sword broke his second heaven of the saber Dao, 'Snow Urgent at the Jade Pass'.

When this divine art of entering the Dao unfolded, saber light turned to snow flying across the sky, jade locks and icy cold, black ice forming a jade pass.

Once the gate of the Jade Pass opened, it was a stern killing move, wind and snow dashing in the face, the Jade Pass pressing close, crushing down with the might of an icy city and jade walls.

Countless mighty foes had died beneath this divine art of his.

But this move too was broken by Shen Mu with a single sword.

Shen Mu's sword pierced his icy city and jade pass, swept away wind and snow with one stroke, and brought the Jade Pass crashing down and the ice city to ruin. His third heaven of the saber Dao was called 'Iron Cavalry Charging Forth'.

When the saber art unfolded, heavenly soldiers and generals seemed to descend from the sky, iron horses and golden spears, yet this move was also useless, sword light leveling all heavenly soldiers and generals.

Luo Wushuang's fourth heaven of the saber Dao was called 'Light Shaking the Tiered Towers'.

With one saber cut, saber light became thirty-three tiered towers, and killing moves burst forth from within the towers.

Yet the tiered towers were pierced by sword light and collapsed on the spot. Then came the fifth heaven, the sixth heaven, the seventh heaven.

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His saber art was called the Saber Dao Firmament, at present comprising fourteen saber arts by which he had entered the Dao, and these fourteen saber arts built fourteen heavens.

This time he meant to settle the battle in one blow, and so the fourteen heavens overlapped, like fourteen celestial realms crashing down from the sky. Shen Mu's sword came striking, piercing heaven after heaven in succession, and he could not help his heart trembling.

Fortunately, after Shen Mu's sword had pierced nine layers of his firmament in succession, both its momentum and power suffered great decline, which eased his mind somewhat.

If Shen Mu had pierced all fourteen layers of his firmament in one rush, there would have been no need to fight on, he might as well discard his saber, kowtow and admit defeat. Unexpectedly, after the momentum of Shen Mu's sword was exhausted, the sword art suddenly changed, from the Kaijie Sword to the Tijie Sword, one sword turning to myriad leaping sword lights, each light trembling lightly and turning to a drifting flower.

In an instant ten thousand flowers drifted down, flowers falling and flying till flowers filled the sky, stuffing his ninth heaven of the saber Dao full.

His ninth heaven of the saber Dao was called 'The Nine Gates of Changhe, the Heavenly Gate Opens', a move of vast and mighty power, yet sword light filled the heavenly gate, cramming the nine gates of Changhe, leveling the nine passes and toppling the heavenly gate. Of Shen Mu's Tijie Sword, Luo Wushuang had long heard, it was the sword art by which Shen Mu had made his name.

In the early years of Longhan, with this sword art Shen Mu, under the suppression of Lady Yuanmu's projection, had grievously wounded Hao Tianzun, beating Hao Tianzun till he lay prone on a sickbed for a thousand years unable to care for himself. From that time on this sword art had become a legendary sword art, and in later generations countless brilliant talents had sought to imitate it and reproduce it, yet none could wield it.

With Shen Mu's disappearance the Tijie Sword had become a lost supreme art, an invincible sword of legend, until the coming of the Jingping era, when Shen Mu himself created this sword art anew.

The greatest power of the Tijie Sword lay in this, that it was a foundational sword art, also called Sword Nineteen.

Without the preceding eighteen foundational sword moves, none could learn Sword Nineteen, and once learned, one could enter the Dao directly by the sword!

This meant the Tijie Sword could combine with other sword arts to form countless different sword arts!

This was also the most powerful and wondrous part of the Tijie Sword.

In the Yuan Realm, Shen Mu had also relied on this move to slay many mighty enemies, and to this day none had broken it, even when Hao Tianzun faced him in person, Hao Tianzun had only broken the deficiencies in his cultivation, and had not found a flaw in this sword art. As he watched this Tijie Sword about to break his thirteenth heaven of the saber Dao, the power within Shen Mu's divine art finally ran dry, and Luo Wushuang breathed a sigh of relief, as the thirteenth and fourteenth heavens came down over Shen Mu's head with vast and mighty power!

And at that moment, he saw the black-and-white Taiji diagram beneath Shen Mu's feet expand, sweeping a hundred li in an instant, turning a hundred li of golden desert into black and white. Within the black-and-white desert, the sun sank and the bright moon rose, its moonlight clear and white.

"What vigorous cultivation!

" Luo Wushuang felt a chill in his heart, saber and sword collided, Shen Mu stood firm beneath the Primordial Tree, as if rooted in the desert, his body unmoving as a mountain.

The crushing power of Luo Wushuang's twofold saber heavens only made the black-and-white Taiji diagram around him tremble unceasingly, yet could not shake Shen Mu's body.

"Is such cultivation the effect of flesh and primordial spirit joined as one, the divine treasury turned to a domain?

" Luo Wushuang flipped to his left side, saber light rising anew, yet Shen Mu seemed never to have moved, but he still faced Shen Mu's full face.

The two fought fast against fast, Luo Wushuang swung his saber and sped, saber light pouring like a waterfall, but to his astonishment, no matter which direction he turned, what he saw was always Shen Mu's front face.

What horrified him was that from beginning to end Shen Mu had never once turned around!

A supremely absurd feeling rose in Luo Wushuang's heart, as if Shen Mu bore countless faces, no matter from which angle he attacked, what faced him was always Shen Mu's front, without a single flaw to seek, and what met him head-on was Shen Mu's strongest attack! When a man fights, the movements of his body, muscles, sinews, bones, blood and qi, their shifting tracks will each create fleeting flaws.

Even the flow of vital qi over the skin's surface will form flaws.

These flaws are not flaws in cultivation, but flaws produced by a divine arts practitioner himself in moving, and besides killing the enemy, the arts of moves and divine arts have another effect, which is to make up for these flaws. Yet facing Shen Mu in this state, Luo Wushuang could find no flaw in his body at all!

"This is a shameless divine art!

" Luo Wushuang gritted his teeth, what caused this must be Shen Mu's Primordial Embryo Divine Treasury, he still remembered in the Supreme Divine Consciousness Domain, when the Tai Emperor's consciousness invaded, Shen Mu had once said that within his Primordial Embryo Divine Treasury, he was the Celestial Emperor, he was the master.

Now, Luo Wushuang tasted what the Tai Emperor had felt then. Shen Mu had turned a hundred li of desert around him into his own Primordial Embryo Divine Treasury, forming a strange domain, and with saber arts and divine arts alone, he could hardly contend with him.