Chapter 1091 — The Last Lesson Before Parting

Suddenly something occurred to him, and a flicker of doubt stirred.

Right now Ling Tianzun, Yue Tianzun, and Yun Tianzun were all absent from the Xiaohan Heavenly Court. What on earth had happened, that all three Heavenly Venerables should be sent out together?

Yun Tianzun and Yue Tianzun were one thing; their strength was unfathomable. But Ling Tianzun was hardly known for her fighting power. In truth, her cultivation realm had always been low.

The last time Shen Mu had met Ling Tianzun, she had been no more than a True God.

To her, the height of one's realm meant nothing; what mattered was the study of her own divine abilities.

That Ling Tianzun too was absent from the Heavenly Court meant the matter was urgent and grave.

The Heavenly Dragon Treasure Chariot halted. Shen Mu slipped quietly into the Xiaohan Heavenly Court and found Ling Tianzun's dwelling, where a host of little bamboo horses were still sorting through scattered manuscripts. Her residence remained a scene of utter disorder, a chaos of clutter.

At the sight, Yan'er could not help but relapse into her old ailment, and busied herself tidying up for Ling Tianzun.

Shen Mu helped sort the books and drafts as well, and all at once came upon a stack of drawings. He froze.

He leafed through the stack at speed. Ling Tianzun had drawn a young woman, along with all manner of creation runes.

"Langwo!"

Shen Mu's heart skipped. Yet on closer inspection, he confirmed that what Ling Tianzun had drawn must be Langwo in her maiden years.

The Langwo of that time was lovely of form, pure and brimming with vitality; a single glance set the heart pounding, stirring the feeling of being in love.

Compared with the Creator Langwo of her girlhood, the later Divine King Langwo was more beautiful still, yet her heart had grown cold by degrees, with less feeling and more reason.

Ling Tianzun's brushwork had not attained the Way of Painting, yet she had captured the girl's beauty all the same. Clearly this was not the first time she had seen Langwo.

Shen Mu steadied himself and looked through the other drawings. Most of them were covered in creation runes.

Beyond these, he found another kind of drawing: the blueprint of an artifact of immense size and staggering complexity.

Shen Mu scanned it quickly, his expression grave. "A creation artifact!"

This was not a mere artifact. It was a structure, an edifice of one!

The creation artifact was colossal beyond measure and monstrously intricate, a leviathan that pushed the Way of Creation to its utmost limit!

"Could this creation artifact be the very one that will stand in the Zaofu Heavenly Palace of later ages? The one Lady Yuanmu used to create Yun Chuxiu, and the Ten Heavenly Venerables used to forge the artifact Yu Tianzun?"

Shen Mu mused. The blueprint was extraordinarily complex, and judging by the materials it required, there was no divine gold or divine iron in all the world capable of forging a creation artifact. Not even treasures such as Guixu Abyss Iron or Tianyin Gold would do.

Guixu Abyss Iron and Tianyin Gold both harbored a natural dao-rhyme and possessed attributes of their own, whereas forging a creation artifact demanded a divine metal wholly devoid of attribute, so that the Way of Creation might be pushed to its absolute limit!

"No wonder Yun Tianzun went to the Zhaoyang Hall to steal treasures. Beyond the Taidi Seal and the Taidi Altar, his aim was to find a treasure that could perfectly accord with the Way of Creation. Such a treasure could indeed only appear in the Ancestral Court."

He saw yet other drawings: the consciousness runes contained within the Taidi Seal and the Taidi Altar. Ling Tianzun had deconstructed both, and from them had comprehended the runes of divine consciousness.

Though the Creators of the Primordial Era possessed mighty consciousness, they had never developed it along the path of runes; of the runes of the Great Dao they knew nothing at all.

"If Taidi were here and saw the consciousness runes Ling Tianzun has deconstructed, he would surely be moved to endless feeling, and would deem her a kindred spirit of the Dao. And the very next moment, he would strike her dead without mercy!"

Shen Mu studied the consciousness runes Ling Tianzun had sorted out, his gaze flickering. She was wholly absorbed in scholarship and cared nothing for the things of the world. Yu Tianzun had once said her aptitude and insight surpassed even his own; perhaps that was Yu Tianzun's modesty, but her aptitude and insight were unquestionably extraordinary!

The Taidi's consciousness runes had most likely been deconstructed at Yun Tianzun's request, so that the Taidi's weaknesses might be deduced from them.

"In other words, from these consciousness runes Yun Tianzun deduced the flaw in the Taidi's Daluo Supreme Consciousness, and laid a trap for him in the Taixu. The Taidi's Supreme Consciousness Domain has been broken! The moment he unleashes it will be the moment of his death!"

Looking at these drawings, Shen Mu suddenly understood why all three Heavenly Venerables had to be sent out together.

"They have gone to the Taixu, to make their move against the Taidi!"

His eyes blazed with light as he raised his head. In recent years Ling Tianzun had set aside her deeper study of the immutability of matter, and had instead driven the Way of Creation to its utmost; and on top of that, her study of the Taidi's consciousness had consumed a great deal of her time.

Yet on that basis, Yun Tianzun had also settled upon a means to deal with the Taidi and the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor!

"In the Taixu, a great battle has likely already broken out!"

Shen Mu's heart surged. But now there was no time for him to hurry over and witness this battle that would shape the ages to come!

In the land of Taixu, a heaven-shaking roar rang out. The Taidi's towering figure crushed the sky of the Taixu, crushed the stars that the Creators had brought into being through contemplation, shattered sun and moon, mountains and rivers, and brought down the worlds the Taixu Creators had made with their consciousness!

A dreadful backlash of consciousness surged in reverse, crashing into the brains of the Taixu Creators.

The once serene land of Taixu became in an instant a vast slaughterhouse. Under the crushing backlash, the Creators who had fled into the Taixu could not help but lift their heads to the sky and gape their mouths wide, as runaway consciousness poured into them, blasting apart their consciousness, blasting apart their brains, shattering their very thoughts!

There were two lands of Taixu in all. Upon the other, the maiden Divine King Langwo stared blankly at the scene.

Yun Tianzun stood at her side and said softly, "Langwo, you and your people do not understand scheming and intrigue. Today I will give you a lesson, and it will be the last."

His expression was complicated as he went on, "For the survival of a race, no means are too great a price!"

Divine King Langwo opened her mouth, then looked past Yun Tianzun to the chieftains and elders of the various Creator races behind him. Not one of them rose to intercept the Taidi, to stop the slaughter.

"For the continuation of a race, every sacrifice is worth it!"

In an indifferent tone, Yun Tianzun continued, "The first land of Taixu may be destroyed by the Taidi as he pleases, and its Creators slain by his hand. The consciousness that collapses within the Taixu will turn that land into a death zone. That consciousness backlashes against us, yes, but it backlashes against the Taidi as well. The stronger the cultivation, the stronger the backlash."

He forced a faint smile. "With the deaths of a million of your people, I buy the lives of the hundred thousand behind you."

The maiden Langwo looked imploringly at the chieftains and elders of the races. Behind those chieftains and elders stood a hundred thousand Creators.

"Save them, please..."

Langwo heard herself beg them in a voice she did not recognize: "I beg you!"