Chapter 1069 — The Five Stars Fall in Succession

On the other side, Shen Mu's sword light met the Zhen Star Lord, whose reaction was just as swift: the mirror in his hand rose to meet the sword light, while the white banner in his other hand swept up and drove down hard into the Heavenly River! Boom—the waters of the Heavenly River burst apart of a sudden.

That great white banner was like a standard blotting out half the sky.

With a swish, Shen Mu's sword light pierced into the mirror, vanished, and in the next instant flew out from the white banner. Flying out with the sword light came countless Creators of colossal frame, each with a vertical eye upon its brow, each vertical eye a Primeval Godstone; their bodies were firm, powerful beyond measure, and seizing Shen Mu's sword light, they turned it back and thrust at Shen Mu himself.

The Zhen Star Lord was first among the Five Luminaries, mighty in strength. What Shen Mu's sword contained was the swordsmanship and the sword way of later ages: nineteen foundational sword forms composed his art, and the twentieth form unified them, fusing his essence, spirit, and qi into the blade and transmuting them into the Way of the Sword.

And the Zhen Star Lord's white banner was linked with that soul-summoning mirror, and hidden within the banner were the corpses of many Creators. The flesh of these prehistoric Creators had been tempered to immense strength, and under his command they seized Shen Mu's sword light and turned it upon Shen Mu to kill him.

To turn Shen Mu's own swordsmanship to his own use and slay him with it — well did he deserve to be the strongest of the Five Luminaries Star Lords. And now his birthplace had come: the Zhen Star had descended, his magic power waxed ever greater, his cultivation in the Great Way ever more profound, his strength soaring; and with the marvels of the corpse-hiding banner and the soul-summoning mirror beside it, it straightway made the guest into the host.

Yet in the next instant, the vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened and his divine consciousness erupted; in a single blink that dread consciousness swept over every Creator corpse come charging in!

Thousands of Creator corpses were under the Zhen Star Lord's control, and his control rested upon the art of soul mastery. He was an ancient god who ruled the Way of Death; in that year he had slain the Creators, mastered their souls, and through their souls commanded their bodies.

These Creators were the Zhen Clan, and well-nigh the whole of the Zhen Clan had perished by his hand.

That the Zhen Star Lord had used the Way of Death to exterminate the Zhen Clan was a deed that shook prehistoric times. And now Shen Mu's consciousness surged in, and almost in the very instant of contact he seized these Creators' bodies with it and performed the Grand Emperor's art of borrowing life, wiping away the Zhen Star Lord's soul mastery!

The Grand Emperor's supreme Dalu divine consciousness, improved by Shen Mu himself and joined to the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system, surpassed the Zhen Star Lord in the subtlety of its arts beyond all reckoning; to restrain his soul mastery was effortless.

The Zhen Star Lord was startled at heart, thought to himself that this boded ill, and then saw his white banner torn to shreds by thousands of Creators with their sword light, and his soul-summoning mirror smashed to powder.

The Creators charging at him were ranked above and below in thirty-three tiers, their forms staggered in orderly array, forming a sword formation. The Zhen Star Lord roared all at once, his serpent body writhing, and instead of retreating he advanced, charging to meet the Creators.

These Creators were all ghosts of his own slain; therefore he feared them not in the least. But the sword light blazed.

Though it was Creators who held the swords and set the formation, the one who wielded the sword art and the sword formation was Shen Mu; in truth Shen Mu was borrowing the Zhen Clan's Creators to trade blows with him.

The sword formation was completed almost in an instant: it was the Thirty-Three Heavens.

Agony tore through the Zhen Star Lord's body.

Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Way cut his flesh into thirty-four pieces, and the might of that sword way burst forth: the sword forms became the sun and moon, the mountains and rivers, the oceans and streams, even the grass and trees and living things of the Thirty-Three Heavens!

This sword way, the summit of later ages, rushed into his body; his primordial spirit crumbled beneath its power, and his flesh collapsed as well.

He ruled death, and in that moment he felt the coming of death.

Shen Mu slew the strongest of them, the Zhen Star Lord, with Kaihuang's sword art, and of a sudden whirled about — but it was already too late.

Swift as speech, swift as thought: he had slain the Zhen Star Lord in a single blink, yet the Tai Bai Star Lord's charge arrived in that same blink. The Tai Bai Star Lord came at him treading two dragons, and a vast dragon claw seized Shen Mu's body and crushed it down.

Shen Mu's body was pressed against the surface of the Heavenly River and slid backward at furious speed, while the Tai Bai Star Lord, feet on two golden dragons and bronze battle-axe in hand, hammered madly down at Shen Mu where the dragon claw held him: the axe rose and fell, and Shen Mu was hewn into a mire of flesh!

The golden dragon lifted its claw and tossed up Shen Mu's mangled body; the two golden dragons spat out two golden pellets, and from the pellets shot a myriad streams of golden qi that riddled Shen Mu through and through.

The Tai Bai Star Lord gripped the axe in both hands, opened his eyes, and white light shot from them — chih-chih-chih — the white light slashed in linked arcs, cutting at Shen Mu!

At that very moment, a great hand suddenly seized the back of his tiger head and wrenched it around.

The Tai Bai Star Lord was alarmed; his head was pulled back, and he saw a qilin face.

The Dragon Qilin's two hands gripped the corners of his tiger mouth and tore them apart, then opened his own mouth and spat out the Qilin Pearl and the Black Water Dragon Pearl, blasting them into his throat. The Dragon Qilin's hands strained and clamped the Tai Bai Star Lord's great mouth shut.

The two divine pearls had been tempered by the Dragon Qilin through a thousand hammerings and a hundred smeltings; the Dragon Qilin had cultivated at Shen Mu's side, and Shen Mu had never begrudged him any of the Emperor Throne arts. Every divine art and dao method Shen Mu created, he was the first to learn: the Ancestral Dragon Grand Mystery Art, the Three Prime Gods' Undying Consciousness, the Flawless Creation Mystery Art, the Martial Combat Heavenly Art, the Dark Demon Kaya Sutra — he had studied them all.

The two divine pearls too had been refined into divine weapons; now, borrowing the magic power of six heavenly dragons of the Jade Capital realm, his cultivation ran deep and mighty, straight to Lingxiao, and the might stored in the pearls burst inside the Tai Bai Star Lord's mouth.

The Tai Bai Star Lord's body convulsed violently; his two eyes flew from their sockets, and his throat and five viscera were all but wholly destroyed by the power of the Black Water Dragon Pearl and the Qilin Pearl.

Yet he did not die.

The two golden dragons beneath his feet flew up into his hands, and one on either side they coiled about the Dragon Qilin's neck.

The golden dragons were formed of golden qi, sharp beyond measure, and they would have taken the Dragon Qilin's head from his shoulders.

The two heavenly dragons on the Dragon Qilin's shoulders hastened to open their great jaws and bite down on the two golden dragons, their dragon muzzles cut till blood ran freely. The Tai Bai Star Lord seized the chance to break free of the Dragon Qilin's hold and charged to kill him, though having lost both eyes he was much inconvenienced. The Dragon Qilin feared him not at all.