Chapter 996 — Dharma Power Attains the Dao, the Eighth Layer (Third Update!)

Countless torrents of information surged into Shen Mu's mind — the knowledge of the Creator race, stupendous, towering, intricate beyond measure. From the race's very beginning down to this very day, an inexhaustible flood of knowledge filled his memory in a single instant!

He sensed the joy the Creators had felt when they first touched the primordial stone; he sensed the delight they had felt when, with that divine consciousness, they visualized a single thing; he sensed the elation they had felt when they pioneered their first crude, shallow divine-consciousness powers. He sensed, too, the great joy of creation.

He watched Creator after Creator bring the myriad things of heaven and earth into being — creating nature, reshaping nature, hewing up towering mountains and steep ridges, carving out great rivers and running waterways, strolling through the seas, walking among the clouds — and he could feel the state of their hearts as they did all these things. They had their own unique perceptions of nature and of the universe, a feeling of closeness to heaven and earth and all things. He could feel, as well, the hearts of Creators locked in slaughter on the battlefield: war drums crashing, thunder rolling, hot blood seething and burning.

The Creators on the field of battle gave free rein to their urge for destruction, enough to set one's blood pounding, enough to make one long to rush out that very moment and trade three hundred rounds with an enemy.

He felt, too, the fine and delicate subtlety of the Creators' hearts, gentle as spring wind and moistening rain. They could visualize and create the sun, the moon, and the stars, and they could likewise visualize the most beautiful of flowers; even the slenderest veins and structures of a blossom were engraved by them with meticulous, exquisite craft. He felt the Creators' joy, and he felt their grief as well.

War between kin, the death of a clansman, the fading of a single life, even the withering of a flower — all of it could grieve them, all of it could bring these rough, hulking giants to tears. Visualization and creation were the daily life of these giants; war, destruction, and slaughter were equally their daily life.

He could feel, too, all their manifold realizations — realizations concerning divine consciousness, realizations concerning creation.

Message after message poured into his mind and turned into vast and tangled knowledge. Shen Mu felt as though in the space of an instant he had lived through a million years, ten million years, even several hundred million or a billion and more — had witnessed the vicissitudes of the world, witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations.

He was still himself, and yet he had witnessed far too many things, gained far too much knowledge, far too many insights, far too many divine-consciousness powers.

Langwan the God King stood at his side.

Watching the radiance pour ceaselessly from the Ancestral Spirit Realm into the space between Shen Mu's brows, she could not help but feel somewhat envious. After who knew how long, the stream of light flowing into Shen Mu gradually dimmed, and this transmission of knowledge at last drew to its close. The Ancestral Spirit Realm fell back into stillness.

The twenty-seven ancestral spirits still stood motionless within the red glow, yet their gazes were all fixed upon Shen Mu. The glow between Shen Mu's brows slowly faded, but still he did not wake.

Then, abruptly, the light of the third eye at his brow began to kindle and brighten, and the radiance woven from his divine consciousness blazed ever more dazzlingly.

Not only that — they also felt wave after wave of mighty vital-essence fluctuations issuing from within his body, vital essence and divine consciousness meeting and melting into each other.

Beneath Shen Mu's feet the domain of the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury suddenly spread open.

The starry void rose in a whirling surge, mantling the Ancestral Spirit Realm for a thousand li, and star upon star revolved along its own unique orbit, weaving a river of stars.

The river of stars flowed past Langwan the God King and the twenty-seven ancestral spirits, gathering into a heaven.

In that heaven appeared the figure of Shen Mu the Heavenly Duke. A primal tree, lush and verdant, broke from the earth and soared straight up to the Milky Way, while beneath the Taiji Diagram of the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury lay a tract of darkness — the Nether Capital, fathomless and unplumbed.

The Taiji Diagram revolved slowly, and heavenly palaces rose and floated in graceful disarray, some drifting in the heights of heaven, some near the earth, and some upon the very surface of the Taiji Diagram itself. Langwan the God King and the twenty-seven ancestral spirits saw phantom forms of ancient gods, each at his own position, each at his own office, together guarding this divine treasury of Shen Mu's.

Langwan the God King wore a look of astonishment.

The divine treasury and heavenly palaces Shen Mu had displayed overturned her understanding of the divine-treasury and heavenly-palace cultivation system.

Shen Mu's divine treasury actually encompassed heavenly palaces! This was utterly unlike those divine beings of the Carefree Village!

For the divine beings of the Carefree Village, the heavenly palaces towered above the divine treasury.

What was more, Shen Mu had only one divine treasury, whereas the people of the Carefree Village had seven! And there was yet another oddity: the number of Shen Mu's heavenly palaces was wrong as well.

Most of the divine beings of the Carefree Village had but a single heavenly palace, yet Shen Mu had as many as fourteen — though many of them were incomplete and defective.

And at this very moment, within Shen Mu's Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, a fifteenth heavenly palace was swiftly taking shape!

"Opening a heavenly palace?

" Langwan the God King's gaze flickered as she studied with great care how Shen Mu was opening this new heavenly palace, and thought to herself: "Perhaps it will prove of great use to us, the Creator race.

In those days, for the sake of opening a divine-consciousness heavenly palace, who knows how many Creators died.

. .

" At that time, when Kaihuang established the Carefree Village, Langwan the God King had led her host to attack it, and in the end both sides had suffered grievous losses.

She had then keenly realized that if the Creator race could not accept the divine-treasury and heavenly-palace cultivation system, the Creators would certainly be no match for the Carefree Village — and the gap would only widen as time went on.

And so she had resolutely made everyone accept the divine-treasury and heavenly-palace cultivation system. Yet of how to open divine treasuries and heavenly palaces they knew nothing whatsoever.

Fortunately, they were Creators, and they had captured no small number of divine beings from the Carefree Village. To obtain the memories of those divine beings was an easy matter for them. But knowing was one thing; opening was quite another.

In those years, in order to open the seven divine treasuries and heavenly palaces, who knows how many Creators had died in failure. The Creators who perished in this manner were even more numerous than those who had died in the campaign against the Carefree Village!

Only after countless failures had they at last mastered the divine-treasury and heavenly-palace cultivation system.

Yet the seven divine treasuries and heavenly palaces they opened were still different from the Carefree Village's system.

The Carefree Village followed the divine-path system, while they themselves followed the system of divine-consciousness divine treasuries and divine-consciousness heavenly palaces! And now, what Shen Mu had shown them was yet another system.

Though born from the divine-treasury and heavenly-palace cultivation system, it was far more exalted — more exalted even than their divine-consciousness system!