Chapter 1115 — The White-Robed Heavenly Master Appears

Gradually, a strange and uncanny power spread out on every side; his divine art reached out to sense every wandering soul between heaven and earth, every mote of black soul-sand, threading through one heaven after another, one world after another, up to Xuandu on high and down to Youdu below, its span stretching to the farthest, shrouding the four poles of the cosmos. His thought and spirit seemed to pass through all these worlds, sensing the traces left behind by the Southern Emperor, the Vermilion Bird, and little by little, in the Southern Pole Heaven, he found motes of drifting black soul-sand: a shattered portion of the Southern Emperor's soul. He drew this black soul-sand back toward the Yuan Realm, and just then he sensed another portion of the Southern Emperor's soul.

Yet this soul was resisting his Soul-Pulling! Puzzled, Shen Mu let his thought and spirit follow that strange pull, through one world after another, until he came to the Heavenly Court, and following the sense of it arrived at the Heavenly Court's West Heavenly Gate.

His mind followed that sense into a heavenly palace, through layer upon layer of gates and halls, into a Lingxiao Hall, and there he saw a female emperor gazing at 'himself' with a face like frost.

That female emperor gave a cold laugh, reached out a palm and pressed it down, cutting off Shen Mu's Soul-Pulling Art, and said in fury, "Yin Tianzi, you mean to plot against me again?

Have you not yet taken your fill of your grandaunt's iron fists? " Shen Mu withdrew his spirit, raised a hand and seized the Vermilion Bird's plume, gave it a light shake, and gathered all the surging black soul-sand into it, and said in astonishment, "Yan'er, your mother's reincarnation is in the Heavenly Court; she has become the Heavenly Master of Qionghua Palace at the West Heavenly Gate!

" Disbelief came over his face, and the words slipped from him: "The Heavenly Master of Qionghua Palace at the West Heavenly Gate is one of the Heavenly Court's Four Great Heavenly Masters, named Bai Yuqiong! Third among the four Heavenly Masters!

Your mother, reincarnated in this life as Bai Yuqiong, is already of the Imperial Throne realm, and holds high station and great authority in the Heavenly Court! " Yan'er's eyes went wide and she stammered, "That Heavenly Master Yuqiong in the Heavenly Court is my mother, the silly muddle-headed Que Feiyin of those years?

" Shen Mu nodded, paced to and fro, and muttered, "It seems I miscalculated after all. Yin Tianzi did not manage to kill her the full ninety-nine times, so her Vermilion Bird soul still has not awakened.

This time it is bad, truly bad. . .

" The veins at his temples bulged out one by one, throbbing without cease.

"The Vermilion Bird's reincarnation has already cultivated to the Imperial Throne, and could become the Heavenly Court's third Heavenly Master; she must be incomparably clever, incomparably formidable. To make her die one more time will be harder than hard!

And the crux of it is that I do not know how many times she has already died, or how far short of ninety-nine she still falls. . .

" He clenched his fist hard and cursed in fury, "Yin Tianzi, you good-for-nothing wretch, you cannot even kill this one woman; you are unworthy of the name of Beauty Killer! " Long Qilin pursed his lips and thought, "It was plainly the Cult Master himself who let things get out of hand, yet he insists on laying the blame at Yin Tianzi's door.

The Cult Master only thought to borrow Yin Tianzi's hand and make my mother-in-law's reincarnation clever, so that she might live on from the Longhan Era; he never reckoned that under Yin Tianzi's tempering she would grow so clever that she cannot be killed at all! " He could not help shaking his head. Shen Mu was somewhat scorched and battered, his brows knit with worry.

Heavenly Masters, and the Heavenly Court's Heavenly Masters above all, which of them is not a figure cunning as a ghost?

To rise to the third Heavenly Master, one can well imagine how high Bai Yuqiong's wisdom must be!

Though in the Heavenly Court the Four Great Heavenly Masters rank a little below the Four Directional Great Emperors, such as the Red Emperor and the Black Emperor, they are by and large figures on equal footing.

More to the point, all Four Great Heavenly Masters are of the Imperial Throne realm!

Que Feiyin, reincarnated into this life as Bai Yuqiong, is clever and quick-witted, and must likewise be one skilled at borrowing the momentum of others; otherwise she could never have worked her way into the ranks of the Heavenly Court's Four Great Heavenly Masters. Yan'er looked at him with pleading eyes.

Shen Mu smiled and said, "There is no need to worry.

Your mother's reincarnation carries the memories of her former life, and she knows us. By now she must understand why she met us on the Heavenly River in those days, and know who we are.

She knows too that the reason she was plotted against by Yin Tianzi yet did not lose her memories of a past life was that jade pendant I gave her.

We need only find this Heavenly Master and tell her that she is the reincarnation of the Southern Emperor; she ought to agree to die one more time. " Joy filled Yan'er's heart. Long Qilin blinked and thought, "The Cult Master is deceiving my wife again. And the crux of it is that my mother-in-law does not know she is one soul of the Southern Emperor!

She is already an existence of the Imperial Throne realm, with her own thoughts and consciousness; why would she be willing to die again?

To awaken the Vermilion Bird soul will be difficult! " Shen Mu understood this as well; he simply had not told Yan'er, lest she begin to fret again. Suddenly the sky darkened.

Shen Mu's heart gave a start, and he was just about to have Yan'er take out the lantern when he realized that he was not in the ancient past at all, but had already returned to his own age; he could not help laughing at himself.

"Ever since I crossed back into the ancient past, my nerves have been stretched taut, and even after returning to the present I still have not gathered myself. " He looked up, and the smile on his face slowly froze. What blotted out the sky was a colossal body, its head out of all proportion to its frame, the head larger even than the body, and behind its skull grew bone spikes like mountains of bone, dense beyond counting; a light shake set the whole range behind its head swaying.

It was a giant beast that had come out of the void, with a single enormous eye in its face, its pupil layered many times over, ring upon ring of iris narrowing inward without cease!

It had six legs, with thin membranes of flesh between them; once it had bored out of the void it abruptly spread those fleshy wings, beat them, and cut across the sky, flying swiftly away! A Void Beast!

Shen Mu was struck dumb, staring blankly as the Void Beast flew off into the distance. The overlord among the ancient giant beasts that dwell in the Ancestral Court had appeared in the Yuan Realm, appeared in the skies above Jingping!

In that hurried moment he glimpsed a woman standing on the Void Beast's back; dimly it seemed to be Divine King Langwo! Shen Mu strode quickly in pursuit, and all at once saw tower ships and great warships of the Heavenly Court split open the sky of the Yuan Realm, banners streaming, drums rolling like thunder that came down from the heavens.

Giant gods pounded the great drums at the prows, and on the decks the heavenly soldiers and generals shouted in wave upon wave as they gave chase to the Void Beast.

"Divine King Langwo, she has found the position of the Ancestral Court, and summoned a Void Beast out from there.

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