Chapter 979 — Sanctimonious

" A muffled sound came from the abyss, and Yun Chuxiu tumbled out of it, laughing. "A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit, sister — it is I who trained you up to be so clever! " Lovely as a flower though her smile was, her strikes were savage beyond measure.

Heavenly palaces of every kind floated behind her in a magnificent array, and with her first move she summoned up all her magic power. Lian Huahun brought all her power to bear as well, and the two young women came and went like spirits around the altar, clashing and crashing, in a display to make the heart quail.

Boom — one of the Creators' great halls was vaporized outright by their divine powers, and in the next instant the hall stood there again. Mighty as their powers were, and well within reach of destroying this place, Lian Huahun and Yun Chuxiu found that everything here was conjured out of divine consciousness, and no matter how they shattered it, it would be restored.

Shen Mu watched the two women fight, and after a moment could not help shaking his head.

Violent as the struggle between Lian Huahun and Yun Chuxiu was, the strength they displayed was only on the order of Heavenly Venerable Yu's weapons; they had not used their true secret arts, nor even stirred their true cultivation methods — plainly for fear of exposing them.

"It seems the Empress and her sister will not fight to the death, and so there is no use in playing along with them either.

" At the thought, Shen Mu waved a hand, and the crystal coffin boomed upright. The lid opened and Lady Yuanmu's corpse appeared.

He closed his eyes and entered the dream; at once a dream world wrapped itself around the crystal coffin, and thousands upon thousands of tiny Shen Mus came trotting briskly out of his mind, leaping onto Lady Yuanmu's flesh — everywhere at once, some even burrowing into her sleeves, wandering to and fro, studying the lines and patterns upon her body.

Yun Chuxiu's heart lurched, her technique faltered for an instant, and Lian Huahun seized the flaw at once, beating her until she spat blood and went tumbling and rolling through several of the Creators' great halls. Lian Huahun was about to press on for the kill when Yun Chuxiu said hurriedly, "The secret of the Guixu Grand Dao is hidden in our bodies. If he studies it out, we will have no secrets left at all!

I cannot deal with him; only you, sister, can slay him and take my body back from him.

" Lian Huahun sneered.

"And when I have killed him, will you not seize the chance to kill me and take your body back? " "Sister, you and I were born of the same root. If the Grand Dao in my body is leaked, you will not escape either!

" Tears welled in Yun Chuxiu's eyes, and she said, pitiable as a wounded bird, "You and I, sisters both, will have no ground left to be buried in! Had we faced each other squarely, how could I ever have been a match for you?

The only reason I could kill you at all was that I struck from the dark. Now that you are on your guard, how could I possibly succeed? " Tears fell despite herself as she went on: "You have my body in your keeping, sister, and my life pressed under your thumb.

I will be your ox and your horse, your slave and your serving maid, and never dare to harbor a second thought again!

" Lian Huahun flicked her a glance, then rose on the wing and attacked Shen Mu, opening with one of the divine powers of the Eighteen Shepherd-Slaying Arts.

Shen Mu, eyes shut in dream, nonetheless rose to his feet — his third eye still closed, never opened — and with a lift of his hand thrust a sword at her. Lian Huahun seized the flaw in his swordplay on the instant and drove straight in, striking at Shen Mu's vital point. Yet when her death-dealing blow came to his side it was as though it met an invisible wall; the power of that technique could not touch his body.

Startled, Lian Huahun changed her move and loosed another of the Shepherd-Slaying methods. The result was the same as before: it too was blocked before it could reach him.

She changed techniques several times and could not close in at all, and panic rose in her heart.

"Little wench!

" she cried hastily.

"He is held by me — will you not come and help? " Yun Chuxiu rushed into the attack, and the sisters joined hands, fluttering about Shen Mu like painted butterflies, their divine powers vast and manifold — yet never once could they break through to him.

In the distance, Luo Wushuang saw it all, and dread could not be kept from rising.

"Shen's Tyrant Body has attained the Venerable God realm, and he is this strong?

Even the Empress and her sister cannot break through such power! " Shen Mu now stood at the Venerable God realm; the Empress and her sister were but one realm below him, yet the gap between them was as wide as a whole heaven.

"This man cannot be fought head-on — flee! " Yun Chuxiu and Lian Huahun flashed backward, and behind each of them an abyss split open, ready for escape.

At that moment the eye at the center of Shen Mu's brow opened, and two beams of light shot out, one after the other. Yun Chuxiu and Lian Huahun slipped into their abysses; and in the instant before those abysses closed, the two beams vanished one after the other into them.

The sky suddenly bled, and the two women disappeared.

The eye in Shen Mu's brow blazed with light, and suddenly his two hands seized at the bloodstains in the sky.

Lian Huahun and Yun Chuxiu were caught by the neck, hauled out of the void, and slammed viciously to the ground!