Chapter 1083 — Darkness Is About to Descend

"Achou?"

Shen Mu's face at once filled with alarm, and he asked hastily, "Which Achou?"

The deity did not recognize him. "That, I could not say. This is the borderland. Humans and demigods live mingled here; we have no jurisdiction, and neither do the demigods. There has never been a census."

Shen Mu's expression shifted slightly. He turned quickly to Yan'er. "Watch the lantern. Whatever happens, it must not go out."

Yan'er was baffled. The lantern was Wei Suifeng's treasure, and Wei Suifeng was, after all, the Great Emperor Yunluo; how could a lantern he had refined be so easily snuffed out?

Yet Shen Mu was deeply alarmed. Pacing to and fro, he hurried to Yue Tianzun and Ling Tianzun. "Move the people at once — every human clan, inland, far from this place. Something unspeakably terrible is about to happen here!"

Yue Tianzun was stunned; then she hastily gave the order, commanding that the human clans here be relocated inland.

"Darkness is coming. Darkness is coming. That day of darkness must have issued from one of the heavens near here — those demigods have looked in the wrong place."

Shen Mu lifted his head and gazed at the sky. Several heavens hung there, and certain exceedingly powerful demigods were flying toward them, leaving trails of divine light across the heavens like meteors scoring the horizon.

Shen Mu murmured, "Achou is in one of the heavens near here. But when the darkness falls, it will surely spread to this place as well... This lantern cannot possibly hold it back! Sister Yue, Sister Ling, I must leave this place at once for the Heavenly Court. I must reach it before the darkness descends, and finish what I set out to do!"

Yue Tianzun and Ling Tianzun were both reluctant. "You have only just come, and you must leave already?"

Shen Mu sprang swiftly onto the treasure chariot and said to the two of them, "We shall meet again one day. Rest assured, I will return to see you both! Yan'er, watch the lantern. Pi, prepare to depart!"

He stepped into the carriage, opened the window, and said in a low voice, "You must not stay here either. Leave at once!"

Seeing the gravity of his face, Yue Tianzun and Ling Tianzun knew this matter must be no small thing. Ling Tianzun stepped forward and placed the peach-wood hairpin in his hand. "Before we part, return my hairpin to me."

Shen Mu took the peach-wood hairpin into the space between his brows. The instant it fell into the Shen Character Continent, a peach-wood hairpin appeared again at Ling Tianzun's temple.

Ling Tianzun smiled and said softly, "With that, I can hold on a while longer."

Six heavenly dragons drew the treasure chariot up into the air, riding wind, cloud, thunder, and lightning at furious speed. As the chariot passed the palace borne on the back of the great blue bird, the man lashed to the pillar, his face smeared with blood, raised his head and shouted at the chariot, "I cannot die! If I die, not one of you will escape!"

Shen Mu watched the man through the carriage window, his face blank, and said nothing.

The woman in the palace came out once more and gazed at Shen Mu in the carriage from afar. Shen Mu gave a slight nod; the woman returned a faint bow.

"I keep kindness and grievance distinct. One day, I shall repay you." The woman's spiritual sense rippled into Shen Mu's mind.

The dragon-drawn chariot passed the palace and flew toward the Heavenly River.

The man on the pillar, his chest pierced by the great spear, laughed. "Nuxin, I feel a terrible power surging in the darkness. Tubo has been reincarnated. Do you mean to take this chance to be rid of him?"

"The Creator's greatest enemies, apart from Taidi and Taichu, are none but Tubo."

The woman said calmly, "Taidi and Taichu must die. Tubo must die as well. This is a perfect opportunity. With Tubo gone, the Creator race will have no natural enemy left! I can give birth — bear many Creators — and breed the Nuxin tribe anew!"

"I can help you."

The man's voice was gentle. "We are husband and wife, after all..."

Better he had not spoken of it. At the mere mention, wrath surged up in the woman. She turned, fetched a tray from the palace, and on it lay a hundred-odd silver needles.

She pinched up a needle, gave it a light shake, and it grew to the length of a foot. One after another she drove them into his body.

The man screamed in agony, a wailing hideous to hear.

Just then, the woman sensed something. She looked quickly up at the sky. The man bound to the pillar grew agitated too, and said urgently, "You felt it as well? This surging dark power — it comes from Tubo! They have found Tubo already! Husband and wife together, we can be rid of this natural enemy—"

At these words, hatred rose in the woman's heart. She snatched up her whip and lashed him madly until his whole body was striped with wounds.

Screaming in pain, the man on the pillar laughed. "So long as you are at my side, beat me ten times harder and I am still glad!"

The woman put away her whip and looked up toward where the darkness churned. She sneered, "To take Tubo unawares is no easy thing. Your true body must come. Where is it? Why have you still not shown yourself?"

The man looked at her tenderly. "My true body has been here all along, silently watching you, watching the way you look. Watching the way you beat me — even if I watched another hundred thousand years, a million years, I would never tire of it..."

The woman thrashed him savagely again. "Get out here!"

This time Yue Tianzun and Ling Tianzun sensed the dark ripple as well. The darkness came not from nearby, but from the heavens above their heads.

The Yuan Realm holds ten thousand heavens and worlds, hanging at the rim of the sky. For the later-born races, whence these heavens came and why they hang over the Yuan Realm is a mystery.

They know only that the heavens hang there.

When Yun Tianzun returned from his wanderings abroad, he had once let slip that these heavens might be worlds created by some prehistoric race — though he did not elaborate.

Suddenly the earth convulsed violently, and countless strands of dark demonic qi gushed up from underground. The people of the borderland fell into chaos, scattering in every direction as though the sky itself were caving in.

Startled, Ling Tianzun and Yue Tianzun looked up. That heaven in the sky was like an enormous demonic eye, and the demonic qi spilling from its rim resembled numberless writhing tentacles.

The demonic qi welling from the riven earth of the Yuan Realm was flying toward that heaven. But the two of them quickly sensed that this qi came not from underground, but from another space and time.

Youdu!

"Something momentous has happened in Youdu!" both thought at once.

Now the dark demonic qi grew thicker and thicker. Yue Tianzun rose hastily into the air and cried urgently, "Move the people here away, quickly!"

Beams of light streaked across the sky one after another, all flying toward that heaven — those were demigods of extraordinary power!

On the Heavenly River, Shen Mu urged them on without cease. The dragon chariot flew faster and faster, racing straight for the Heavenly Court, when suddenly he saw the stars in the sky blaze brilliantly bright, blotting out the radiance of the sun.

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. Those were ancient gods hauling their ancestral stars, flying in from a distant space and time!

At that same moment, he saw several great tower ships and mighty vessels dragging a colossal object past the Heavenly River, flying toward one of the heavens of the Yuan Realm.

He was already far from that heaven now; seen from such a distance it was no more than a black line.

And the colossal thing those ships dragged was a vast divine platform, with two enormous baleful auras coiling around each other like serpents, churning without cease, reaching to the very summit of the sky!

"Sacrifice, my people!"

A muffled roar came from the heavens — the voice of an ancient god. "Sacrifice, and let us descend!"