Chapter 1171 — A Bosom Friend in the Boudoir

He was about to leave when Gong Heavenly Venerable's voice came from behind him. "If I were you, I would never subdue these void beasts. It is not that void beasts cannot be subdued, but that they are exceedingly strange. Every void beast is the equivalent of a small part of a human brain, and all the void beasts together make up a complete brain."

Shen Mu was taken aback. There was such a bizarre creature in the world?

Gong Heavenly Venerable went on, "And the mother beast is the equivalent of the brain's thought, controlling every void beast. When void beasts first appeared out of the void, many Creators went to subdue them. But later the mother beast appeared, and those Creators were all devoured by the void beasts. Not one of them escaped."

Shen Mu thanked her, then suddenly recalled the crux of the matter and ventured, "Fellow Daoist Gong, you say the void beasts appeared suddenly out of the void? There was no such creature before?"

Gong Heavenly Venerable shook her head. "The ancient giant beasts of the Ancestral Court are fearsome and incomparably powerful, but there was no creature as monstrous as the void beast. This creature was born out of the void, and from the moment of its birth it stood at the head of all ancient giant beasts, devouring the rest. A single void beast is not the strongest of all the ancient giant beasts, but void beasts breed far too quickly. However strong the other giant beasts were, they could not withstand such numbers, and little by little they died out."

Shen Mu felt this deeply.

The void beast eggs of the nineteenth void were the most terrifying thing he had ever sensed.

"If all the void beasts together form a complete brain, then is this creature born of nature, or made by someone?" Shen Mu asked.

Gong Heavenly Venerable hesitated a moment, then said, "Come with me this way."

Shen Mu followed her. Divine King Gong Yun led him to the rear of the ore vein, where he saw a vast basin, and within that basin lay countless dry bones.

Those bones were the size of mountains; even a single beast leg was tens of thousands of zhang long.

"In those days my Nuxin Clan honored women above all, and a woman's physical fighting strength is not the equal of a stinking man's."

Divine King Gong Yun led him into the basin, walking upon the enormous bones, and said apologetically, "I did not mean you... That is why we of the Nuxin Clan would tame giant beasts and use them in battle. This is where the Nuxin Clan buried their giant beasts. Come, look at this beast bone."

Shen Mu looked down. This skeleton had six thick legs, and the leg bones were sturdy as mountain peaks.

"This strange beast was called the Shanxu. It was like a walking mountain range, and its mouth gave out a hushing, whistling cry. It had six legs, just like the legs of a void beast. But the Shanxu had none of the void beast's sharp claws."

Divine King Gong Yun moved on to another enormous skeleton, whose legs bore claws sharp as curved sabers, eight or nine to each leg, the number varying.

"This is the Queqi."

Divine King Gong Yun said, "Its body was covered in trees and moss. When it lay prone upon the ground, one would mistake it for nothing more than a hill, and yet its claws were incomparably sharp, exactly like a void beast's claws."

Shen Mu studied the Queqi's claws. They were indeed extraordinarily sharp and identical in shape to a void beast's claws, only much smaller.

"This skeleton is a Pohao. It walked with a hobbling gait. They had fleshy wings and were skilled at lying flat upon mountain peaks and then gliding down. The Pohao's fleshy wings were the same as a void beast's fleshy wings."

Divine King Gong Yun came to yet another giant beast's remains and said, "This strange beast was called the Daxiong. It had a single eye, and was born with a powerful divine consciousness, skilled at bewitching people. That giant beast over there is named the Xiufeng. It has no eyes; only a great mouth upon its head."

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart, and he said gravely, "You mean the void beasts were made by someone?"

Divine King Gong Yun shook her head. "I cannot be certain. But I once cut open a void beast's body and found within it the organs of all kinds of other giant beasts. Stranger still, these void beasts have no sex at all, and no capacity to breed."

Shen Mu was dumbfounded.

Divine King Gong Yun said, "Strange, is it not?"

Shen Mu nodded. "No male or female, which means the void mother beast reproduces asexually. Still, if the mother beast were killed, that ought to put an end to the void beasts."

Divine King Gong Yun shook her head. "A void mother beast has been killed before. After the mother beast is killed, the most vigorous of the void beasts grows reproductive organs and becomes the mother beast."

Shen Mu was struck dumb. "That reminds me of a kind of divine artifact..."

"The Creation Divine Artifact!"

Divine King Gong Yun said, "The Creation Divine Artifact occurred to me as well. But I have also seen a Creation Divine Artifact made by Ling Heavenly Venerable, and that artifact could not create complete life."

Shen Mu frowned and ventured, "Then could it have been made by the Great Emperor?"

Gong Yun shook her head. "It was not the Great Emperor's doing. The void mother beast he controls is already the seventh generation of void mother beast. When the void mother beast first appeared, he was still young and had no such cultivation."

She came to the void beast Shen Mu had subdued, gently stroked the void patterns upon its body, and said, "Look at these patterns. Do they not resemble one kind of the runes of the great Dao?"

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. He too had long since noticed that the void patterns on the void beasts were magnificent and very like the runes of the great Dao, and he had even meant to comprehend their mysteries and grasp the void runes.

"Knowledge of the Dao of runes is knowledge the Creators did not possess. For our era, it was far too advanced."

Divine King Gong Yun said, "Only the Ancient God Daosheng bore such runes, but the Creators could not understand them."

Shen Mu pondered a moment, then said, "The Supreme of Ten Thousand Daos, the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, should be well versed in every kind of great Dao. Could the void beasts have been made by him?"

"It was not him either. He cannot control the void beasts, and he is not omnipotent."

Divine King Gong Yun gazed up at the sky. "In this Ancestral Court, there is more than us and the void beasts."

Shen Mu shivered. More than us in the Ancestral Court?

What did that mean?

Could something else have been sealed within the Ancestral Court by the ancient gods of the primordial age?

"Mu Heavenly Venerable, you must be careful. The danger does not come only from the void beasts and the Heavenly Venerables here."

Divine King Gong Yun meant to see him off. Shen Mu, hearing the note beneath her words, understood, and leapt back onto the bone mountain behind the void beast's head. To Divine King Gong Yun below he said, "Divine King, I would like you to owe me one more favor. How does that sound?"

Divine King Gong Yun raised her eyes to him. "That depends on whether your information is worth it."

Shen Mu smiled faintly and said unhurriedly, "I hear your relations with Hong Heavenly Venerable are poor."

Divine King Gong Yun's face turned cold. "I have beaten him several times. A pity I never managed to beat him to death. Why do you bring this up?"

"Hong Heavenly Venerable is not the Great Emperor."

Shen Mu said with a smile, "Your bosom friend of the boudoir, Qiang Heavenly Consort, is the Great Emperor."

Divine King Gong Yun was struck dumb, then said flatly, "Impossible!"

Shen Mu laughed heartily. "That little hussy, is she not on rather good terms with you? Always coming to find you over this and that?"

As if possessed, Divine King Gong Yun nodded.

Shen Mu pressed on. "Does Hong Heavenly Venerable hide the moment he sees you? Hiding as far away as he can?"