Chapter 1291 — Alliance of the Weak

The woman's voice came drifting toward him, slow and unhurried: "Kneel to me. Bow to me. Speak what is in your heart."

Hao Tianzun struggled with all his strength, then crawled flat before the woman's feet and knocked his head to the ground in worship.

No sooner had he spoken the thing in his heart than he felt his wounds closing at a speed beyond all imagining!

The divine blood he had shed was flowing back, returning into his body.

His frame swiftly grew light again.

Flesh and blood knit themselves between his neck and his head, soon merging into one, so that he need no longer fear that a surfeit of qi and blood would blow his skull off.

At the same moment he heard the clear ringing of the Dao; he felt his celestial palace reassembling within him, and the Dao-wounds upon his body receding one by one, until they were no more!

This was too wondrous.

This was no medicine, no spell, no art of creation, no art of making things; it was more like a wondrous Dao healing him according to his own will!

"Taisu?"

Shen Mu's voice reached Hao Tianzun's ears, and the prostrating Hao Tianzun stirred inwardly: "Taisu? My father is named Taichu, and this woman is named Taisu. Can she be... can she be an innate divinity born from the ore veins of the Ancestral Court?"

A faint panic rose in his heart. To be reborn by borrowing Taisu's power plainly carried enormous hidden peril!

Taisu might well seize the chance to take control of him!

Yet he endured. To restore himself with Taisu's power might be a terrible thing, but to refuse her power would be worse still; he might even die!

"Mu Tianzun." The woman's voice came to him, sweet and pleasing to the ear, like the most profound of divine melodies.

Shen Mu halted and looked toward the woman standing behind Hao Tianzun.

The goddess was flawless. As she stood there, Dao-lights of every hue flowed around her as in a dream, spreading gently, their canopy stretching wider and wider.

Shen Mu drifted lightly backward and laughed: "Taisu. Brother Taisu, do not forget: without me, you could never have been born. There is no enmity between us; in truth, you might even say I did you a kindness. Had I not freed you from the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner, you would still be a treasure inside that banner, to be handled at another's whim!"

The Dao-light abruptly swept down upon Shen Mu and snapped shut with a swish. Shen Mu's eyes jumped; before the light could close, he escaped from the Dark Capital of the Great Void and arrived in the Great Void itself, laughing: "Brother Taisu, I will do you a courtesy today and spare Hao Tianzun's life. Brother Hao, I leave you your life; I will come to collect it another day!"

He appeared in the Great Void, and at once discovered to his horror that the Dao-light was still all around him!

Shen Mu's blood ran cold. The Dao-light was the manifestation of Taisu's own great Dao, marvelous beyond measure; in the mere blink of his horror it had already taken form as a divine object, inverted over his head!

It was a great bell. When Shen Mu had once probed Taisu's divine egg, sending his consciousness into it, he had seen only the vastness of Hongmeng, and the qi of Hongmeng had taken the shape of a great bell, identical to the one before his eyes!

Upon the walls of this bell were birds and beasts, insects and fish, the sun, the moon and the stars, rivers of stars and constellations, the ten thousand phenomena of heaven and earth; within it was stored a might close to that of the cleaving of heaven from earth!

Shen Mu's hair stood on end. Without another word he brought out the egg of Taishi, and the obscure, hard-to-fathom Dao-speech of Taishi issued from his mouth: "Brother Taishi, I care not what dealings you have with Taisu, but if you lend me an arm and help me escape this calamity, I will search with all my heart and soul for the Taishi divine stone and the Taishi primordial stone, seize back the Taishi ore vein, and help you be born!"

"Why did you not say so sooner?"

A long laugh came from within the egg of Taishi. Above Shen Mu's head the divine bell of Taisu erupted in power, a heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating might crashing down; wherever the sound of the bell passed, space ceased to be, and all things were ground to powder!

Countless Dao runes surfaced upon the egg of Taishi, as though numberless ancient gods and living beings were chanting one name in unison; a vast radiance rose to meet the bell's sound and held it up, so that the sound could not descend.

Then the voice of the ancient god within the egg of Taishi came into Shen Mu's mind: "She has already been born, and I have not. I am no match for her. I cannot hold her off for long; we must go quickly!"

Shen Mu's face darkened. He had supposed the egg of Taishi could withstand Taisu's attack, and it was on that assumption that he had pledged to recover the Taishi ore vein and help him be born.

He had not expected this Taishi to be a silver spear with a wax head: fine to look at, useless in the hand!

He raised both hands high, lifting the egg of Taishi aloft, and bolted away at a mad gallop.

The divine bell of Taisu shattered the Dao-light of the Taishi egg, then transformed into a great cauldron; beneath the cauldron lay a thick earth-breath, swirling and rising, and as the great cauldron revolved, Shen Mu, fleeing for his life, suddenly felt that heaven and earth themselves revolved and twisted for its sake!

Though he fled with all the frenzy he could muster, he was sinking steadily toward the cauldron!

"Taishi!"

Shen Mu shouted. Upon the surface of the Taishi egg more intricate Dao-patterns emerged, revolving counter to the cauldron, and from the egg came an obscure and mysterious Dao-speech: "Yin and yang conjoin, mingling into one; from the one comes form, form without substance!"

The Taisu divine cauldron was twisting heaven, earth, time and space when the great Dao overflowing from the Taishi egg struck it, and at once the twisting of time and space halted.

Shen Mu seized the moment and escaped.

"Brother Taishi!"

Taisu's voice came from far away: "You and I once agreed to scheme great things together. Will you truly go back on your word?"

Shen Mu raced on, holding the Taishi egg high. From within the egg an obscure voice came, chuckling: "Brother Taisu, you were born before me, and you are not perfect. I know your mind. To restrain me, you will surely smash my egg as well and force me to be born early. Our former alliance existed so that we might stand against Taichu; now there is no need for it. I will join hands with him!"

"If you join hands with him, you make an enemy of me!" Taisu was furious beyond measure.

Neither spoke further.

Taisu knew that, with Taishi's hand in the matter, Shen Mu would be hard to take, and so she pursued him no longer.

Shen Mu fled on and on with the Taishi egg held high, covering tens of thousands of li in a single dash, only to find that the armies of gods and demons of the Land of No Sorrow and of the Creator had stormed into the Heavenly Court's main camp; gods and demons of both sides slaughtered one another in savage battle, and nowhere was stable.

Shen Mu fled the whole way. The battlefield was truly vast; everywhere gods and demons warred and killed, leaving him no leisure to halt.

After a long while, Shen Mu finally stopped, set down the Taishi egg, laid his palm upon the divine egg, and panted for breath. Here there were fewer gods and demons about; only a few battlefield deserters had fled to this place, and meeting deserters from the other side, they fell to fighting once more.

"Take your hand away! You are pressing on my head!" came a voice from within the egg.

Shen Mu hastily withdrew his hand and went on panting.