Chapter 1174 — Tearing It Apart to My Heart's Content

Shen Mu steadied himself and continued his examination. Beneath the cracked ancient god egg lay a small, round pit. He could not help but start. He had seen pits of this kind before.

On the Creators' continent in the Blood-Rust Belt, there stood a great many altars, and nearly every altar bore a round pit of this sort. Those pits gathered the sacrificial power of the Creators, and that power evolved into wondrous forms - ancient gods manifesting as the Lord of Heaven, the Earth Mother, the Lord of Soil, and others besides, each of terrifying combat strength. "Could it be that the Creators imitated these altars, gathered their own divine consciousness, and visualized the forms of ancient gods to build their war machines?"

Shen Mu pondered deeply as he walked toward the ancient god egg split in two. The Creators must have learned a portion of the ancient gods' knowledge, and from it designed altars resembling those of the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor Taichu.

"The shell is a treasure. This ancient god who emerged from it had no idea how precious his own shell was, and so he ran off the moment he was born!"

He came to stand before the shell at the center of the altar. The shell was truly enormous, forcing him to crane his neck and look up. This ancient god egg was in no way smaller than the ancient god egg of Heavenly Emperor Taichu.

"That ancient god who cracked out of his shell - who knows where he has gone. Could the great terror Heavenly Emperor Taichu spoke of be him?"

Shen Mu blinked. In that year, the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor had led a host of ancient gods to seal the Ancestral Court. To be sure, part of his intent had been to seal away his own inglorious past, but surely he had also meant to seal a monstrous beast as terrible as the Void Beast. And the Void Beast seemed to be a freak assembled from disparate ancient behemoths, less a creature born of heaven and earth than an abominable being artificially created to destroy the world. Could the one who made such a beast be the ancient god who had emerged from this very shell?

"Be that as it may, this ancient god has left a flaw behind!"

Shen Mu strained every fiber to drag the shell. He hauled it into the space between his brows, storing it within the Shen-Character Continent. The shell was so vast it all but shrouded half of that continent. He did not yet have the dharma power to refine it smaller, and so for now he could only leave it as it was.

The two ancient god eggs he had obtained before had both been refined - one shrunk considerably by the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, the other refined as a treasure by the two Xuanwu Emperors into the central pivot of the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner. If he possessed dharma power of their caliber, Shen Mu too could refine the shell down to a smaller size.

"I have already deciphered the runes of one Egg of the Primordial Beginning. With this shell as well, I can unravel the Great Dao of the Ancient God of the Primordial Beginning."

His gaze flickered. He dragged the other half of the shell along, thinking, "If I can find a place of treasure here and gain firm footing, I will attempt to break through Ling Tianzun's divine arts and free my eldest senior brother first!"

He stacked the two halves of the shell together, lest they obstruct the vision of the vertical eye between his brows. But no sooner had he put the two halves away than the earth shook and the mountains swayed!

Shen Mu's blood ran cold. Without a word he swept up Yan'er and Long Qilin, drew the two of them into the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, and took to his heels, fleeing outward! The Lapis Azure-Sky Banner blazed with light, its treasures of every hue shining in dazzling splendor. The treasures within the Banner had all been crudely refined by the two Xuanwu Emperors, hardly exquisite work - in Shen Mu's eyes, a wanton waste of heaven's bounty. Yet the Banner held far too many treasures, and every one of them was a rare prize seldom seen even in the Ancestral Court. Crude as their refinement was, their might was by no means small.

Shen Mu raised the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, manifesting the Twenty-Eight Heavens, and charged out! At that very moment, countless chaos stones came crashing down from above within this primordial mine vein. Every stone brimmed with vast and boundless chaos qi, inconceivably heavy. They smashed against the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, shaking one exotic treasure after another into ceaseless radiance. The light formed dao patterns in ordered alternation of bright and dark, resisting the might of the chaos stones.

A muffled roar rose in Shen Mu's throat. He drove the Three Elixirs of the Mystic Body art with all his strength, charging madly outward - yet the falling chaos stones grew ever larger, until they began to smash through the layers of heavens one by one!

With a single thought, Shen Mu reversed the Twenty-Eight Heavens, their order shifting without cease, sending the crashing chaos stones behind him. His fleshly body swelled joint by joint, and he poured every scrap of his primal qi and divine consciousness into that flesh, transmuting it all into the power of the body.

Within every aperture of his body, rosy clouds steamed and surged, and from those clouds the sound of the Dao chanted aloud. Above his crown appeared the phantom of the Lord of Heaven; the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor sat enthroned in the celestial court between his brows. At the soles of his feet, the Bubbling Spring were the Twin Lotuses of the Returning Abyss; in his cinnabar field sat the Lord of Soil; the Earth Mother took root in his heart and lungs.

In every aperture throughout his body, the Orthodox Gods of the Zhou-Heaven Stars emerged. His two eyes were the Great Sun and the Great Yin, his five fingers the Five Luminaries - nay, a double set of Five Luminaries. The Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits and the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends were arrayed across his chest, front and back. In the Eastern Celestial Palace, the Azure Dragon commanded the stars of the eastern heaven; in the Western Celestial Palace, the White Tiger commanded the stars of the western heaven; in the Southern Celestial Palace, the Vermilion Bird commanded the stars of the southern heaven; in the Northern Celestial Palace, the Black Tortoise commanded the stars of the northern heaven.

The configuration of stars throughout his body differed from that of the present heaven and earth. He had drawn upon the Grand Emperor's supreme divine consciousness of the Great Net to reshape the forms of the Orthodox Gods of the Zhou-Heaven Stars. Yet where the Grand Emperor had used divine consciousness to strengthen his flesh, Shen Mu worked both channels at once - divine consciousness and primal qi together, swelling his body. And now, for the first time, he had raised his fleshly body to its very peak.

He had no idea how much power his flesh could truly contain, nor had he ever imagined how mighty his body would be when he used divine consciousness as formidable as an emperor's throne to strengthen it. But now, driving the Three Elixirs of the Mystic Body art, Shen Mu felt himself a primeval ancient god grasping the power to cleave heaven and earth apart - one who could shift the stars and turn the Dipper with a lift of his hand, pluck down the stars and seize the moon! If this power were unleashed, say nothing else - even a being at the Lingxiao realm could not withstand his supreme martial divine art!

As for his primal qi cultivation, it added little to his might. His primal qi cultivation was only equivalent to somewhere between the God-Slaying Terrace and the Jade Capital realm. Yet primal qi served to form the various Great Dao runes, which were then branded across every part of his flesh, strengthening the power of his body - and thus raising both its strength and its resilience once more.