Chapter 1194 — The Master's Yellow Talisman

Shen Mu sailed back to Jingping on a great storied ship, in company with the Jingping caravan, and went first to call on the Mute Craftsman and the Blind Elder and tell them of the Ancestral Court. Both men's eyes gleamed — the Blind Elder's blazed brightest of all — and they were all for setting off for the Ancestral Court that very moment.

Shen Mu hastily stopped them, saying: "There are rare treasures and exotic herbs aplenty there, and we must bring Grandmaster Alchemist along. Besides, that treasured ground of mine is the foremost treasured ground in the Ancestral Court; it needs strong hands to guard it, lest the experts of the Ten Heaven Venerables' line snatch it away. That is why I mean to ask the Human Emperors of every generation from the Hall of Human Emperors to come and hold it in force. The Ancestral Court is far off, and perilous withal; when we go, we should go together, so that we may watch over one another.

" Only then did the two elders hold their impatience in check.

Ling Yuxiu sent someone at once to contact Grandmaster Alchemist and the First Ancestor, the Human Emperor, saying: "It will take them several days to get here.

Wait a few days, the two of you. " Shen Mu took out the Woodcutter Sage's letter and, without a word, set the Soul-Guiding Art in motion.

After a while he put the letter away, fetched the Moon Heaven Venerable's lantern, and rose to leave.

He had already sensed where the Woodcutter Sage was; seek in that direction, and he would find Fengdu.

The Primordial Realm was vast beyond measure. Lantern in hand, Shen Mu pressed on for the better part of half a day, and at last came to the source of the Surging River.

Here the Surging River was no longer the Surging River but the Heavenly River — it flowed out from one after another of the Primordial Realm's many heavens, gathered into a single current, and drifted aloft from the Primordial Realm to the Heavenly Court beyond the realm, and from there to the Four Extremes Heavens. Shen Mu walked to the river's source and looked about.

He saw that the sheer cliffs that had once spanned the Wasteland from south to north had been split into countless sections by the unsealed Primordial Realm; cliff after cliff stretched in broken lines from the realm's south to its north.

He strolled on with his lantern, and before long his figure flickered — and vanished from the Primordial Realm. At that very moment, in the heavenly palace atop the Primordial Tree, the clay statue of the Dawn Heaven Venerable gave a sudden stir; outside the palace, the divine artifact, the Imperial Heaven Venerable, at once opened its eyes and swept them toward the spot where Shen Mu had disappeared!

Its gaze pierced fold upon fold of the void and penetrated heaven after heaven, yet all along it found no trace of Shen Mu.

"Could the brat have gone to the Nether Capital?

" The divine artifact swung its gaze straight into the Nether Capital, while the clay statue in the heavenly palace — astonishingly quick and lively for clay — knit its brows and said: "It is one thing for him to run to Jingping to raise troops and horses; but dashing about the realm like this, he is surely plotting something. Mu Heaven Venerable, can you not just keep yourself quiet and be a good pawn. .

. " The Imperial Heaven Venerable's gaze swept into the Nether Capital like two blazing columns of light, monstrously thick; it searched the darkness, found no Shen Mu, and then turned to sweep over the fleshly body of the Earl of Earth in the dark Nether Capital.

Just then a paper boat came drifting along, swaying and tilting. An old man on the boat raised a storm lantern and shone it full into the Imperial Heaven Venerable's face — and the clay statue's eyes went black in an instant; it was struck blind.

The old man took a sheet of yellow talisman paper between his fingers and pressed it against the Imperial Heaven Venerable.

When the clay statue's sight returned and it looked up, there was a sheet of yellow talisman paper stuck between the Imperial Heaven Venerable's brows, written all over in Nether Capital characters scrawled like ghost-script. "Nether Heaven Venerable!

" The clay statue flew into a towering rage.

The Nether Heaven Venerable's stroke was masterful indeed — a single talisman had sealed his Imperial Heaven Venerable, stopping every aperture of its body, so that he could no longer command it at all! "This talisman is not so easy to take off.

I must be careful.

" He sprang into the air, drew near the Imperial Heaven Venerable's brow, stirred up the magical power within the clay statue, and reached out cautiously toward the yellow paper. At that very instant, the sheet on the Imperial Heaven Venerable's brow abruptly flew up — it was two sheets of yellow paper after all!

With a swish, the other talisman pasted itself onto the clay statue's brow!

The clay statue instantly felt itself sealed on every side; neither primordial qi nor divine consciousness could leave the body and take form as a divine power.

Not only that — the body felt impossibly heavy and dense, and it plummeted from the air as though beyond all control!

After a long while, there came a heavy slap from below, the sound of something enormous striking the ground; the clay statue had smashed utterly, past all hope of being stuck together again!

Only then did the divine consciousness and primordial qi within it feel free once more — and there was the yellow sheet rising, with the Nether Heaven Venerable's ice-cold voice coming from it: "Do not provoke the Nether Capital.

. .

" Swish.

The yellow paper vanished from sight.

At the same time, the sheet on the Imperial Heaven Venerable's forehead fell away of its own accord as well and was seen no more.

"Nether Heaven Venerable!

" The Imperial Heaven Venerable clenched its fists, yet it refrained from striking into the Nether Capital.

By this time, Shen Mu had arrived at the Tianyin Realm.

Ever since the Primordial Realm broke its seal, the Tianyin Realm had lost all contact with the outside, and the fissure that had once linked it to the Wasteland was gone as well. Shen Mu entered the Tianyin Realm and, gazing into the distance, saw that many practitioners of the divine arts and gods from Jingping had already built divine city upon divine city here, living and multiplying apace.

Ever since Shen Mu discovered the Tianyin Realm, Emperor Yanfeng and Jiang Baigui, the former Imperial Tutor of Jingping, had sent some of Jingping's practitioners and common folk to live here — to help Lady Tianyin build up the Tianyin Realm as well. After all, Lady Tianyin had virtually no people of her own — only herself.

She was no longer an ancient god now, yet she possessed the might of an ancient god; and what was more precious, she had leapt clear of the Dao-shackles of the ancient gods and could cultivate other Great Daos.

Of course, when the Woodcutter Sage, King Yan, Xu Shenghua, and the others were invited by Shen Mu to decipher the Dao-runes of the Tianyin Realm, that had also helped Lady Tianyin awaken the divine powers of her own Dao and rid the realm of its twin scourges, the soul-black sand and the famished dead. The practitioners and common folk sent by Emperor Yanfeng were likewise meant to develop the divine arts of the Tianyin Realm — a benefit beyond measure to Jingping and to Lady Tianyin alike.

When the Jingping Cataclysm broke, however, this place was spared its ravages, a mercy of no small account. "That year, for reviving Lady Tianyin, for quelling the turmoil of the Tianyin Realm, and for deciphering its Dao-runes, Lady Tianyin gave each of us a pearl.

" Shen Mu looked into the distance and saw Lady Tianyin seated above the Sea of Tianyin, deep in cultivation. All the broken souls under heaven returned to the Tianyin Realm, every one of them subject to Lady Tianyin's divine power.