Chapter 1001 — The Twentieth Sword

How could she possibly be a divinity visualized into being? " Shen Mu's mind rang like a struck bell, and he blurted out, "You mean there really is such a beautiful, such a perfect woman in this world?

" He found it hard to believe.

And yet Shujun's words had indeed woken him. God King Langwan was too beautiful, too perfect, and so he had taken it for granted, decided in advance that she must be a divinity visualized by the Creators, and overlooked a great many details. A divinity visualized into being is much like an ancient god.

Bound by the divine consciousness and thought with which the Creators visualized and constructed them, fire is fire and water is water; they cannot change their own nature, but can only cultivate along that nature, ever raising themselves higher. Consider the ancient gods: an ancient god cannot open a divine treasury or a heavenly palace, and no ancient god takes divine consciousness as a weapon of battle, much less visualizes other living beings into existence. And yet God King Langwan was the exception!

She could visualize, and she had opened a divine treasury and a heavenly palace. From the arts of the Dao and divine power of Wuyou Township she had comprehended divine-consciousness arts, and reformed the divine arts and Daoist methods of the whole Creator race. Seen this way, she truly was not a divinity visualized by the Creators; she was a living, breathing being!

Shen Mu broke into a smile.

He rubbed his hands together and said, "And here I thought she was visualized into being. .

. " Shujun had no time to guess at his thoughts.

He urged him on.

"How do we get into Wuyou Township?

" Shen Mu said in surprise, "You are coming too?

" Shujun said with a cold laugh, "Naturally! Once I am reborn I must cultivate a divine treasury and a heavenly palace, and the best way is obviously to follow you into Wuyou Township and see how they cultivate! " Shen Mu said awkwardly, "In your present appearance.

.

.

" "One moment! " Shujun took out a Primeval Divine Stone and visualized for a moment. His great head shrank, a scrawny body grew out beneath it, and before long he had become a frail youth topped by an oversized head. "This will do, will it not? This body is useless; it is only for walking about in, to look like a human.

Later, when my divine consciousness has recovered somewhat, I will forge my flesh anew. " Shen Mu looked at the stubble covering his face and nodded with great reluctance.

"It is only that you look a bit old, and you are pretending to be young, so you end up looking rather odd.

" Shujun's face went black, which made him uglier still. Shen Mu said hastily, "The Creators will shift away the belt of dead stars that encircles Wuyou Township, and the gods and demons of Wuyou Township will help them. It will be chaotic then. While they are moving the stars aside, we slip into Wuyou Township.

First, let me change my clothes; this scarlet robe and red bellyband are far too conspicuous. " Sure enough, as he had expected, not long after God King Langwan and Kai Huang announced the peace pact between the two races, the Creators began to shift away the belt of dead stars surrounding Wuyou Township.

The gods and demons within Wuyou Township flew out as well. Some drove great tower ships and mighty vessels, and some simply used their magic power to push the stars, driving them away from Wuyou Township.

Shen Mu and Shujun seized the chance to slip in among the lowest of Wuyou Township's Thirty-Three Heavens, Taihuang Heaven.

At the same time, Kai Huang's orders came down. Every department of the Heavenly Court attended to its own duties, orderly and methodical, preparing to assist Shen Fengqing in opening the Nether Capital of the Other Shore and establishing the cycle of life and death. Wuyou Township's greatest advantage over the Creators of the Other Shore lay in this: all the ministries of state from Kai Huang's era had been preserved.

Kai Huang needed only to grasp the general direction and issue his commands, and the whole machinery of state would stir into motion and accomplish the goals he had set. This was the state system that the Woodcutter Sage, one of the Four Great Heavenly Masters, had drawn up for Kai Huang. Under it, each person's talents were fully used and each attended to his own duty; every god and demon could take part in building the home and the nation, and yet no one had to be very busy, each keeping time enough to cultivate and raise himself higher. The Woodcutter Wen Tiange, first among the Four Great Heavenly Masters, had won imperishable merit in Kai Huang's age.

"Zixi, you have traded blows with Mu Tianzun. What is his swordplay like? " Kai Huang summoned Yan Yunxi and asked. Yan Yunxi's eyes shifted and shone.

She smiled.

"Does Your Majesty truly mean to contend with his own descendant? It would somewhat compromise the dignity of an emperor.

" Kai Huang shook his head. "Not contend with a descendant, but contend as Shen Tianzun with Mu Tianzun.

Though he and I are kin, we differ in our ideals, and a clash of ideals is sometimes more terrible than hatred; it piles resentment ever deeper. " He stroked the Wuyou Sword lightly, his mind wandering, and only after a moment did he speak again. "Rather than wait for our ideals to collide and the conflict to become irreconcilable, it is better to settle first who is stronger and who is weaker. With temperaments like his and mine, truth is no longer something spoken; it is something beaten out.

" He drew the Wuyou Sword and studied the divine blade that had grown up with him. "That year it was this sword that blazed in his hand, that showed me the wonder of swordplay and fixed my resolve to found my Dao upon the sword. " He brandished the Wuyou Sword; the long blade gave off a cold, limpid sword-light that coiled and filled the heavens, and he went on unhurriedly, "It was this sword, too, that passed from my hand to his, and let him comprehend a swordplay without peer. This sword ties him to me, across a million years, across forty thousand years.

I want to know how much he has risen from what he was then. You are the one in Wuyou Township who has seen his swordplay in recent years; you know what he is made of. That is why I ask you.

" "Mu Tianzun's swordplay has been without peer in the world for a million years! " Yan Yunxi drew her sword and said in a low, grave voice, "And Your Majesty's sword way stands at the summit of the last million years as well! Your Majesty, I once met him in the Origin Realm and asked him to teach me a move of the Kalpa-Lifting Sword. Pray watch, Your Majesty! " She roused her divine sword, the sword-light leaping as she imitated Shen Mu's Kalpa-Lifting Sword and executed that move, Sword Form Nineteen. Kai Huang's eyes flickered.

In years past Shen Mu had used the Kalpa-Lifting Sword at the Jade Pool as well, breaking Lady Yuanmu's projection with a single stroke and astonishing the age.

Only at that time he had not had the chance to look closely. Now Yan Yunxi performed the move before his face. Though she was a master at the great perfection of the Lingxiao realm, she still found it somewhat taxing and could not fully bring out the essence of the move.

"When this move is executed in his hand, it is yet more exquisite, its changes so many that I cannot block it. " "It is a basic sword form.

" Kai Huang danced the Wuyou Sword, executing move after move. "Before this form there are four other basic sword forms. " His sword-light flashed; he executed Sword Form Eighteen, and once Sword Form Eighteen was done it turned back into Sword Form Seventeen, tracing the sequence all the way down, drawing out the four great basic sword forms that the Jingping Reforms had created.

Kai Huang closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them, his gaze bright as snow: "After Sword Nineteen, there is also Sword Twenty! " Also, there is no third update today. . .