Chapter 1083 — Darkness Is About to Descend

More tower ships sailed in, appearing ahead of the dragon chariot. Ship joined to ship until they had assembled into an enormous altar.

Demigods dragged out from the cabins an untold multitude of living beings, of every race, and drove them up onto the altar.

The blood sacrifice began. In the crimson glow, the qi and blood of those creatures steamed away without cease; they opened their mouths and screamed to heaven, their bodies shriveling visibly before the eye!

In the sky, beams of bloody light drew those stars nearer and nearer, lower and lower.

Ancient deities of every monstrous shape came down from the heavens, following the bloody beams onto the altar. They opened their vast jaws and drew in one long breath, and countless limbs came dancing through the air into their gullets!

The grotesque ancient gods roared with laughter, crying out to one another, "Come — let us go and meet that Achou!"

The dragon chariot passed by to one side. The dragon-qilin turned its head toward the carriage and ventured, "Sect Master?"

"Pay them no mind."

Shen Mu said indifferently, "The darkness is coming. Make all speed. We cannot waste this chance. We have only five opportunities left to return to the past."

The dragon-qilin assented. "But those tower ships have sealed off the Heavenly River. It may not be easy to get through."

"Drive straight through," said Shen Mu.

The ancient gods enthroned upon the altar at once noticed the approaching chariot. Pairs of eyes fixed upon it, and the demigods on the many tower ships turned to look as well, stirring with eagerness.

"This chariot looks familiar..." mused an ancient god with a wolf's head and a man's body. He was Kuimu Lang.

An ancient god with a rooster's head and a man's body pondered. "The Heavenly Emperor seems to have a carriage like this as well..."

"In the Heavenly Court, anyone of any standing owns such a chariot. But the Heavenly Emperor's is drawn by ten heavenly dragons, and the Four Emperors' by nine."

An ancient god with a dragon's head, horns of wood sprouting from his brow and a face like some great crocodile, spoke up. "Feudal lords have eight dragons; crown princes, seven. Six dragons, I have never heard of."

"Jiao the Wood-Dragon, six dragons I have heard of. A hundred thousand years ago, that god of calamity rode in a chariot drawn by six heavenly dragons. In those days even the Star Lords of the Five Luminaries..."

Shen Mu opened the carriage window, showing half his face in profile. He gazed ahead, not at these Twenty-Eight Mansions deities, and said mildly, "It is I. So long as you do not hinder me, I will not hinder you. Twenty-Eight Mansions, clear the road."

The twenty-eight ancient gods fixed their eyes on his profile and hesitated.

Suddenly Kuimu Lang swept out his great hand and bellowed, "Clear the riverway!"

The tower ships shifted to either side, and the six heavenly dragons drew the chariot forward. The gaze of the ancient gods on both banks remained fixed on Shen Mu within the carriage.

Suddenly one of them chuckled. "Mu Tianzun shook the world in his day at the battle on the Heavenly River. I wonder whether his fighting strength still holds. You have taken the field a number of times since then — and lost a number of times as well."

The dragon chariot glided to the center of the fleet. Shen Mu closed his eyes to rest and said nothing.

Gui the Metal-Sheep laughed. "You vanished from the world seventy thousand years ago. They say you lost a bout with Hao Tianzun and your heart turned to ashes. A hundred thousand years have passed. Your old rivals have all become famed powers of the age, yet you look exactly as you did before. Have you improved at all?"

Shen Mu opened his eyes and said lightly, "I have advanced from the Revered God realm to the Heavenly God realm."

Laughter erupted on every side. "Everyone else has already reached the Lingxiao realm — Yun Tianzun has even attained the Imperial Throne realm! And you are still a Heavenly God!"

Shen Mu closed his eyes again. "I am not like them."

More laughter burst out around him.

The dragon chariot drove on.

Suddenly Jing the Wood-Jackal reached out to seize the chariot, laughing, "Mu Tianzun, come down and play a while!"

Shen Mu sat unmoving in the carriage. The great hand was on the verge of closing on the chariot's canopy when a doorway suddenly appeared before his palm.

The Gate of Heaven and Earth.

Jing's hand passed through the doorway, and on the far side it had become bare bone.

Jing cried out in terror and tried to pull his hand back, but the force within the gate dragged him — with a whoosh — through the door.

On the far side he had become a skeleton. It swayed, toppled into the Heavenly River, and was swept away by the current.

A dead silence fell all around.

"My Heavenly God realm is not like theirs," came Shen Mu's calm voice from the carriage.

The dragon chariot drove on, out of the ring of tower ships.

The remaining twenty-seven Mansions watched in dread as the chariot drew farther and farther away.

"A divine art more fearsome than Tubo's..." someone said hoarsely.

On the chariot, Yan'er's eyes flickered. She said softly, "Young Master, they always say your cultivation realm is low. Could we not stay in the past and cultivate a thousand years?"

Shen Mu gazed out the window, toward the distant Heavenly Court. "A tree without roots, water without a source — cultivate for however long, and it is useless."

Yan'er was puzzled by his meaning.

"Without soil fit for reform, even a thousand years in the past, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, one would only attain an ordinary Imperial Throne."

Shen Mu withdrew his gaze and said unhurriedly, "By then I would sink into the common run, fit only to contend with the likes of Hao Tianzun and Huo Tianzun, unable to tower over the age, unable to overcome the Ten Tianzuns. Only by drawing on what the Jingping Reforms have wrought can I surpass them. Every achievement of mine comes from the Jingping Reforms — not from the past."