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

"God King, what is he doing? " one of the ancestral spirits rippled its divine consciousness and asked.

Langwan the God King studied closely the heavenly palace Shen Mu was opening and said, "He is comprehending a divine-consciousness cultivation art at the Emperor-Throne level. .

.

It should be the Grand Emperor's Da Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness! " She could not restrain her astonishment.

Shen Mu was actually amending the Grand Emperor's Da Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness!

The sheer audacity!

What she did not know was that the Da Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness Shen Mu had obtained was nothing but a fragmentary remnant; the arts for several divine treasuries were missing, and much of the art at the heavenly-palace stage was likewise lacking, which was precisely why Shen Mu had never been able to form a divine-consciousness heavenly palace.

But now he had gained the knowledge foundation of the Creator race, and the might of his foundation in divine-consciousness knowledge was without peer anywhere under heaven — it was absolutely impossible to find a second person to equal him! Even the Grand Emperor might have been finer in divine-consciousness knowledge, but he certainly did not possess more of it than Shen Mu!

Armed with such a foundation, Shen Mu's completion of the missing parts of the Da Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness was as natural as water finding its own channel! After all, the Grand Emperor had been the founder of this art; Shen Mu was merely filling in what was absent, and it cost him little trouble.

This divine-consciousness Da Luo heavenly palace grew ever more massive and imposing, showing every sign of pressing down the other heavenly palaces.

Yet Shen Mu's primary heavenly palace was even more magnificent, and it steadily kept the Da Luo heavenly palace a full measure beneath it, never letting the newcomer supplant the host and seize the master's seat.

The Da Luo heavenly palace took form, and Shen Mu's aura grew yet a measure more profound.

But the changes were not yet over. In the next instant, Langwan the God King and the twenty-seven ancestral spirits felt a wondrous aura radiating from his body, and they seemed to hear a wondrous cadence — it was the Dao humming low.

A faint smile upon his face, Shen Mu seemed to have entered a marvelous state beyond all speech and description.

He was casting a divine power.

The rhythm of the Dao turned into leaping notes between his fingers and palms; the union of vital essence and divine consciousness, the heritage and knowledge of the Creator race, and his own insights into dao-methods and divine powers — all at this moment fused into a Dao realm. Divine power entering the Dao!

Divine-consciousness powers and the vital-essence dao-method powers, in this instant, combined perfectly into one, and beneath his hands the transformation became the first heaven of divine consciousness entering the Dao.

He raised one palm aloft, and vital essence and divine consciousness transformed into the forty-nine Heavenly Ways, hanging high like the vault of heaven; he pressed one palm down upon the earth, and vital essence and divine consciousness transformed into the thirty-six Great Ways of the Primal Capital — heaven round, earth square. The Heavenly Ways and the Great Ways of the Primal Capital belonged to different systems, yet, threaded through by divine consciousness and vital essence, they combined into a perfect whole.

Different as they were, the great ways of heaven and earth fused together, and where the ways of heaven and earth merged, four smooth arcs took shape, and upon those four faces there appeared four different countenances of gods and demons — one wrathful, one joyful, one sorrowful, one merry.

This was the first heaven of his divine power, the Seal of the Four Venerables of Heaven and Earth!

Yet even after this great divine power entering the Dao had taken form, Shen Mu still felt that he had not fully opened the breast of his heart; another divine power swelled and pressed to burst forth. He was still in the midst of enlightenment, and the second heaven of divine power entering the Dao swiftly took shape as well! A gateway formed behind him, linking heaven and earth — the sixty-four Great Ways of the Nether Capital and the forty-nine Heavenly Ways transformed into a divine power unlike any other.

This gateway was different from the Heaven-Upholding Gate. The Heaven-Upholding Gate was the Nether Capital upholding Heaven, and was not truly connected to the Mystic Capital; Shen Mu's gateway, on the other hand, was a divine power formed by fusing the forty-nine Heavenly Ways of the Mystic Capital with the sixty-four Great Ways of the Nether Capital.

The second heaven of divine power: the Mystic Gate of Heaven and Earth.

Even when this divine power was unleashed, he still felt that he had not spoken his heart directly, had not scattered all the insights within him in a single free outpouring.

The third heaven of divine power entering the Dao took shape: the Celestial River Views the Four Extremes.

Even the third heaven could not give his knowledge foundation free and unimpeded expression, and so Shen Mu at once comprehended the fourth heaven of divine power — Perfection Gathered in Da Luo Heaven!

Sunk in the wondrous realm of enlightenment, he comprehended, without quite knowing it, the fifth heaven, the sixth heaven, the seventh heaven of divine power entering the Dao. .

.

Langwan the God King and the twenty-seven ancestral spirits stared blankly at this sight, their hearts filled with both dread and awe.

They knew that the knowledge foundation of the Ancestral Spirit Realm was not enough by itself to let Shen Mu comprehend so many divine powers entering the Dao.

At most, it could allow him to sense divine-consciousness powers and bring his divine consciousness into the Dao; as for how many heavens of divine consciousness entering the Dao he could grasp, that would depend on Shen Mu's own native insight. What they had not expected was that Shen Mu had long treasured in his breast the ancient-god great-Dao runes accumulated over a million years by the Daoist Gate of the Heavenly Court.

In all these years, although he had not thoroughly fathomed every one of the ancient-god great-Dao runes, nor used the Taiwei Calculation Canon to complete them all, his accumulation of knowledge in this regard was not much less than the divine-consciousness knowledge amassed by the Ancestral Spirit Realm!

He had all along stood on the very edge of divine power entering the Dao, like a great volcano beneath which lurked boundless heat and fury, waiting only for a chance to erupt.

And now the knowledge of the Ancestral Spirit Realm surging into his mind was the same as pouring still more heat and fury into that volcano on the verge of eruption. Naturally, then, with one breaking of wind and cloud, the vast heavens burst open and earth and sky reeled with awe! He fused divine consciousness with vital essence, fused the two kinds of knowledge into one body, into one furnace — truly it was like the surging river pouring down from heaven itself, rushing all the way, free and rapturous without restraint.

At last, only after he had created the eighth heaven of divine power entering the Dao did Shen Mu wake from his enlightenment. His knowledge foundation was not yet exhausted; rather, the union of divine consciousness with the great-Dao runes had met a bottleneck.