Chapter 1287 — The Eighteen-Layered Heavenly Gate

Now came his first battle with it! As the Great Heavenly Court art revolved and the cultivation of the countless inner-demon Mu Tianzuns gathered and surged into his divine sword, Shen Mu raised a long whistle, his breast full of fierce exultation, and swung his blade up to meet the onrushing Heavenly Venerable Hao!

In that instant the sword-light became a vast vortex, spinning, surging, soaring within the dark valley, and it turned into a pillar of light that dazzled the whole of the Great Void, rising straight to the clouds, straight beyond the heavens!

BOOM — the frenzied sword-current whirled and spilled outward, bursting through the dark valley, shattering the mountain ranges to pieces, razing the corpse-walkers that came scrambling on all fours, so that they burst apart amid the surging sword-light!

At last the sword-light subsided, and from the sky corpses fell like rain — the corpses of the inner-demon Mu Tianzuns, strewn every which way, littering the ground.

Everywhere were collapsed heavenly palaces, ruined Xuandu, Youdu, and all the other heavens and myriad worlds. Shen Mu had lost.

Heavenly Venerable Hao lay sprawled on his back, limbs splayed, gasping for breath, and sneered, "I have beaten you at last.

. .

cough, cough. .

.

" He spat blood in great mouthfuls, then lurched to his feet, an expression on his face as though smiling yet not smiling, weeping yet not weeping. "At last I have beaten you, Mu Tianzun!

A million years I have lived in your shadow, and today I have killed you at last — today I have stepped out of your shadow! " He laughed aloud, his voice brimming with exultation.

"You are no longer the demon in my heart!

" Just then his pupils shrank to pinpricks.

In the dark valley, ground to powder, matter was flowing back, restoring itself! The shattered Shen Mu recovered with astonishing speed: heavenly palaces rebuilt, Xuandu floating once more, Youdu settling back into the earth, and the Ancestral Court, the Primordial Realm, the Four Poles Heaven, all the heavens and myriad worlds reappearing one after another as swift as flight. "Heavenly Venerable Hao.

" Shen Mu shook his sword, gathered all his strength and the torrent of the Great Dao, and came charging sword in hand, his spirit soaring to the heavens.

"Even if you cultivate a true Heavenly Court, I, this demon in your heart, will still be stamped forever in the depths of your mind, never to be erased!

"