Chapter 1085 — Three Tianzuns Rob the Treasure Hall by Night

Ahead, Hao Tianzun, small white banner in hand, slew every god and slaughtered every demon who crossed his path, with a heart cruel and a hand merciless.

His strength was already at its zenith. Though he had not yet cultivated into the Imperial Throne Realm, he was, after all, the son of the Heavenly Emperor and Yuanmu — the power of his bloodline vast and surging, his battle might enough to make the spirit quail.

In the inner palaces, chaos reigned at this moment. Every deity of real strength had already gone to the Jade Capital to prepare against Achou's invasion; the gods and demons left behind were no match for him at all, and more often than not died at his hand before they could even make out his face, their very souls drawn into the small white banner refined by the Netherworld Emperor. Hao Tianzun crashed on ahead, and Yun Tianzun followed at his back.

Not long after, Shen Mu, trailing in their wake, suddenly started — he had seen a treasure hall.

The Pixiang Hall.

His heart hammered several times; the two men ahead sensed the pounding almost in the same instant.

Yun Tianzun immediately hid his form, while Shen Mu, as if melted down, dissolved into a black shadow and pasted himself flat against the ground. Hao Tianzun saw nothing and continued forward.

A moment later, Yun Tianzun reappeared, cast a look all around, found nothing, and at once set out after Hao Tianzun.

Shen Mu materialized from the black shadow, looked at the Pixiang Hall, and a complicated expression came over his face.

Within this hall lay suppressed the remnant soul of Yu Tianzun; but this treasure hall was the hall the Heavenly Emperor prized above all others, and its seals and restrictions were so many, so dense, that even the Lame Elder could not enter.

He was powerless to do anything about it. Shen Mu drew a long breath and resumed his pursuit of the two.

Before long, he came upon the second of the seventy-two treasure halls — the Zhaoyang Hall.

Hao Tianzun arrived before the Zhaoyang Hall, where two ancient gods in the form of qilin kept guard, their faces severe and ferocious.

As Hao Tianzun stepped forward, the two qilin ancient gods raised their claws and shouted in deep voices: "This is an important place — Tianzun, halt! " Hao Tianzun wore a broad smile and laughed: "I have come on the order of my imperial father to inspect the Zhaoyang Hall.

I ask the two elders to make an exception.

" "On the emperor's order?

Then do you have His Majesty's written edict?

" Hao Tianzun took out the edict and stepped forward, smiling: "Please look, both of you. " The two qilin ancient gods were ancient gods conceived in an ancient divine mountain; they bent their gazes to the edict in his hand — but at that instant, Hao Tianzun abruptly flipped the edict over. On the reverse of the edict was set a mirror, and a blaze of light burst from the mirror, shining upon the primordial spirits of the two qilin ancient gods.

The two qilin ancient gods could not stir at all. Hao Tianzun sprang up, slew both ancient gods in cold blood, and gathered up their primordial spirits; only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. He hurried to the front of the Zhaoyang Hall and murmured: "Mother said those two treasures must be in here. Achou's assault on the Heavenly Court is exactly the chance to steal them.

With those two treasures, I will be able to rule that ancient race. .

.

" Countless seals and restrictions lay before the Zhaoyang Hall.

It was plain that Hao Tianzun had received Lady Yuanmu's instruction and knew how to break the seals; he retreated two steps, his hands flying, and his primordial qi turned into roaming dragons and soaring phoenixes that pressed their seals against the hall.

At once, countless iron chains surfaced all around the Zhaoyang Hall and sealed the great hall shut.

Hao Tianzun's eyes flickered, his heart anxious and urgent, and he worked through one seal-breaking art after another, until after a time he at last succeeded in undoing the seal. In the brief instant the seal parted, his form abruptly became a streak of light and shot into the hall.

The seal closed again immediately. No sooner had he entered than Yun Tianzun stepped up before the hall.

He pondered a moment, then his hands flew and his primordial qi took shape as every kind of seal-breaking art — and astonishingly, he performed, exactly as they had been done, all the hand seals Hao Tianzun had used a moment ago!

The breaking of the Zhaoyang Hall's seals and restrictions was exceedingly complex; even a heaven-blessed genius could not possibly learn so many means of unlocking them in so short a span. Yet he had learned them at a single glance, with not a hair's breadth of error! He was the first being in all the world to cultivate into the Imperial Throne Realm, and his Purple Empyrean Azure Sky Art had from the very beginning excelled at absorbing and imitating the peerless arts of others.

In later ages, Yun Jianli of the Yun family would carry that art through endless refinement, absorbing the essence of every generation's transformations, so that it never once fell behind the times.

Yun Tianzun finished his unsealing; the restrictions and seals of the Zhaoyang Hall opened, and he too flashed inside.

The seal closed of itself the moment his body crossed into the hall. Shen Mu came to the front of the hall, went over the two men's methods in his mind, and shook his head: "I did not remember it all.

But fortunately, the mirror I refined through the Way of Painting remembered it for me.

" He turned his palm over and brought out a mirror; light shone from the mirror, and the very methods the two men had used to break the seals and restrictions were cast out in full.

Wherever the mirror's light fell, the Zhaoyang Hall's seals and restrictions opened one by one, and Shen Mu too strode forward and charged in.

Within the Zhaoyang Hall, Shen Mu's foot abruptly trod on nothing — the hall had no floor at all; within it was a vast open space.

He hurriedly launched himself into flight, lest he fall without end.

Only then did he notice that all manner of treasures floated in the air inside the hall, radiating all kinds of treasure-light, dazzling in the extreme.

But apart from the treasures, there were also palace lanterns, one after another. The lanterns drifted in the open space of the hall, a full person in height, and their radiance overwhelmed the light of the treasures.

Strangely, each lantern shed threads of fine light about it, arranged with great regularity.

Shen Mu's heart tightened: "These lanterns are the restrictions guarding this treasury's treasures! " The treasures floating in the Zhaoyang Hall were all vast in shape, plastered over with talismans.

Nearby, Shen Mu saw an enormous round sphere, some six zhang tall, incomparably smooth, with no flaw to be found upon it.

"What is this sphere? " He wanted to draw near and examine it, but a bizarre heartbeat came from within the sphere, and Shen Mu started: "This is not a sphere — it is an egg, and within the egg is a living creature!

" Before he reached it, a man-tall palace lantern suddenly blazed, and ten thousand threads of light converged and shot straight at him.

Shen Mu's form flashed and shifted, evading one beam after another; his movement art ran through a thousand changes — the art taught him by the Lame Elder shone brilliantly in this place.

Shen Mu pressed close to the sphere, laid his palm against it, and at once felt the heartbeat within become a majestic note of the Way, as if someone inside were intoning the mysteries of the Great Way. "Can it be an ancient god?

" Shen Mu was puzzled.

Were not the ancient gods already born in the age of primeval antiquity? Why, then, was there an ancient god that had yet to be born into the world, and was even sealed up here?