Chapter 1102 — The Third Ancient Divine Egg

A faint smile touched Long Qilin's lips, and he thought to himself, "Release first to catch — such is the art of rearing men. Crown Prince Youming has become a turtle in my jar."

Yan'er felt a little uneasy. "This Brother Youming is so simple and honest, and so generous besides," she whispered. "We stole his Lapis Azure Heaven Banner and got him suppressed by the Northern Emperor for six hundred thousand years. Isn't that going too far?"

Long Qilin hesitated. "If we hadn't stolen the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner, Youming would likely have died long ago and never lived to see the Jingping era. Stealing this treasure amounts to saving his life."

Yan'er could not shake the feeling that deceiving Crown Prince Youming was a stain on her conscience. She thought for a moment, then said, "Even if we don't steal the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner, the Northern Emperor Xuanwu will find some pretext to suppress him, lest the Yin Tianzi and his kind do him to death. Fat Dragon, if we can avoid stealing it, then we shouldn't."

Long Qilin wavered, then nodded. "Very well. We'll stay here. Under the protection of the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner, we can hold out until the Hierarch recovers."

Their plan settled, the two followed Crown Prince Youming to Lingxiao Hall in the Black Tortoise Heavenly Palace. Before they had even entered, they were startled by the dazzle of pearls and jewels.

Once inside, they were startled again: a column of jade and lapis rose high, and tier upon tier of sky-blue canopies dressed it like the joints of a sugarcane.

Drawing closer, they saw the canopies unfurling slowly outward, layer upon layer, like a single square canopy-glyph stacked over and over upon itself.

Within the canopies, all manner of treasure-light shone through, as though each one hid a tiny sun.

Long Qilin stood below and looked up, and his eyes swam. Every canopy bore jade garlands and hanging pearls, and within them were treasures of every kind — bells and cauldrons, towers and pagodas, trees and flowers, clouds and rivers.

Stars also moved within the canopies, now near, now far; near at hand they blazed blindingly bright, far away they were like stars in the night sky.

"Well, I'll be!"

Long Qilin ventured, "Brother, how does one use this Lapis Azure Heaven Banner?"

Crown Prince Youming stepped forward, hoisted the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner onto his shoulder, carried it outside Lingxiao Hall, and set it upright before the hall. "This treasure grants whatever is asked of it, and it is wonderfully efficacious. My father and mother spent a lifetime's savings to forge it. Using it is very simple."

He bowed to the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner and said, "Little treasure, give me something to eat."

The canopies of the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner revolved gently, and all manner of rare delicacies came tumbling down out of them.

Long Qilin and Yan'er were astonished.

Crown Prince Youming caught the food falling from the air, shared it out among them, and said, "Little treasure, make it rain."

Scarcely had he spoken when clouds gathered, and soon a fine drizzle was falling over the Black Tortoise Heavenly Palace.

Crown Prince Youming laughed heartily and bowed. "Little treasure, please guard the Black Tortoise Heavenly Palace!"

Whoosh —

The Lapis Azure Heaven Banner abruptly grew countless times larger. Canopy upon canopy became heaven upon heaven, twenty-eight heavens in all, wrapping the Black Tortoise Heavenly Palace in layer after layer, three within and three without. In those heavens hung treasures of every kind, the sun and moon ran their courses, the Dipper turned and the stars shifted — a blaze of glory beyond compare!

And in the spaces between those heavens hung jade garlands and suspended pearls, now grown immeasurably vast, like giant planets in outer space.

Great bells and cauldrons, towers and pagodas, flowering trees and cloud-rivers also floated in the sky, drifting slowly along and shedding divine radiance of every hue!

Long Qilin looked up. At the very summit of the twenty-eight heavens hung a celestial sphere, its surface covered in runes of the Great Way that flickered in and out of being. That must be the core treasure of the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner.

"That sphere!"

The palace maid whom Gongyun had borrowed to be reborn was suddenly shaken to the core. She hurriedly sent a voice transmission to Shen Mu's divine sense in the halo behind Yan'er's head: "The Northern Emperor Xuanwu brought a terrifying thing out of the Ancestral Court! This couple truly has gall beyond measure — they dared to refine that egg into a treasure!"

Shen Mu sat beneath the Dragon Blood Treasure Tree, quietly circulating his mind and driving the Mystic Body Three-Cinnabar Art to refine the Hongmeng primal liquid that Wei Suifeng had poured into his belly. He felt his flesh and his vital essence growing stronger and stronger, yet the Hongmeng primal liquid within him was still not spent.

"An egg?"

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. The body beneath the tree lifted its head and looked toward the zenith of the twenty-eight heavens, where a vast celestial sphere indeed hung suspended, shining in company with all the other strange treasures.

"That is... an egg?"

The divine sense Shen Mu had lodged in the Dragon Blood Treasure Tree nearly lapsed into disorder. That celestial sphere really was an egg, and it resembled the Taichu Egg and the Taishi Egg!

Yet it differed from the Taichu Egg and the Taishi Egg. The runes of the Great Way on the Taichu Egg were branded on its inner wall — Shen Mu had obtained half of the Heavenly Emperor's eggshell and fused it with his vertical eye, so he knew that well enough.

As for the Taishi Egg, its sound of the Way came from within, and he had yet to make any headway in his study of the Way of Taishi.

But the core treasure of the Lapis Azure Heaven Banner was likewise an egg from the Ancestral Court, and the strange thing was that its runes of the Great Way were branded on the outside of the shell!

"Could it be that besides the Heavenly Emperor Taichu and Taishi, there are other ancient divine eggs in the world?" He steadied his disordered divine sense and thought to himself.

"Xuanwu carried this egg out of the Ancestral Court — is he not afraid of bringing down a great calamity?" God King Gongyun was most displeased.

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. God King Gongyun seemed to know a great deal about these strange ancient divine eggs, so he ventured, "God King, what is the origin of such eggs?"

Without waiting for Gongyun to answer, he went on: "I know that the Heavenly Emperor was born from an ancient divine egg that the Juyu clan dug out of a stone vein, and that is why he is immeasurably powerful. But I did not know that such ancient divine eggs were more than one."

The palace maid hesitated, her divine sense rippling, then said, "Since you know the Heavenly Emperor's origins, there is no need to hide it from you. In those years, after the Juyu clan discovered the most ancient Taichu divine stone vein in the Great Void, they dug out the Taichu Egg. The Taichu Egg was born alongside the Taichu prime stone, and the ancient god that later hatched from the egg is the present Ancient God Heavenly Emperor. But other creator races also discovered other exceedingly ancient veins, and the divine stone produced by those veins was not Taichu divine stone."

Shen Mu's heart skipped a beat.

Gongyun continued: "Those ancient veins, together with the Taichu vein, make five in all. After the Taichu Egg was mined from the Taichu vein, the other veins yielded discoveries one after another, and two of them have still produced nothing. When the Great Emperor campaigned against the various races and slaughtered the creators, two other ancient divine eggs vanished in the course of the great war."

Shen Mu blinked. One of those ancient divine eggs had fallen into the Heavenly Emperor's hands, and the Heavenly Emperor had hidden it in Zhaoyang Hall.