Chapter 1298 — The Emperor Venerable's Severed Head

Shen Mu walked out of the Great Void, and he had not gone far when he came to its entrance.

He looked back and saw the Great Void lying beneath his feet.

The Collapsed Void had been broken apart, and the Great Void now lay exposed, bare before the Heavenly Court; it could not be held by force. All they could do was lean upon the Void Bridge, that natural chasm, to buy time—and how much time it could buy, no one could say.

From the entrance of the Great Void to the Heavenly Court was a journey of several months at the pace of his own legs.

The Great Void's geography was peculiar: spirit-energy translocation bridges could not be used to move supplies through it, and so it would take the Heavenly Court's armies half a year, even more than a year, to march here. But for a Heavenly Venerable, a few days of running at full speed was all it took to strike straight at the Great Void.

That was what made it so deadly.

In the past, Kaihuang could still use the safety of the Heavenly Court to threaten the other Heavenly Venerables, and that was because the Heavenly Court lay so far from the Great Void that it cost the Venerables a great deal of time to travel back and forth.

Now the distance had shrunk enormously, and the Great Void might face annihilation at any moment. "Holding the Void Bridge will still require Heavenly Venerable Moon.

After all, the Three Rooms on the far side of the Void Bridge were made by her.

" Shen Mu frowned.

Heavenly Venerable Moon's wounds had not healed; her legs were severed, and he could not bear to send her into such peril. "Taishi might be able to heal Heavenly Venerable Moon's dao wound.

But Taishi's price is certain to be impossibly harsh, and Taishi has not yet emerged into the world. .

. " His frown deepened. The ancient god Taishi had been imprisoned by the Celestial Emperor Taichu in Zhaoyang Hall for so many years that he had grown exceedingly cautious—and exceedingly worldly besides.

He would surely seize on this as a bargaining chip and name a price Shen Mu could never accept.

To move him to emerge and heal Heavenly Venerable Moon was all but impossible.

"I should go to the Ancestral Court after all, and see whether Grandpa Alchemist's skill in medicine nowadays can deal with a dao wound. " His mind made up, Shen Mu took out Heavenly Venerable Moon's lantern and set off toward the Heavenly Court.

With that lantern to travel by, the journey no longer took months; in only a few short days he could reach the Heavenly Court.

As he walked the road to the Heavenly Court, a thought suddenly stirred in his heart: "I wonder how the Great Emperor is faring.

.

. " The Great Emperor and Heavenly Venerable Hao had both been crippled in their fight; his wounds could be no lighter than Hao's—perhaps even heavier. Heavenly Consort Qiang had likewise taken a devastating blow, her injuries in no way inferior to those of the Great Emperor's true body. "There is no ultimate void inside the Great Void; it exists only outside.

Once he is out there, the Great Emperor's Daluo Heaven imprint of divine consciousness in the ultimate void can descend, and his cultivation of divine consciousness should recover swiftly. But the dao wounds on his body. .

. those, I fear, will not heal so easily in a short time. .

. Wait!

" Shen Mu was suddenly on his guard. "Why did the Great Emperor come to mind so abruptly? Nothing happens without cause, and neither do thoughts and impulses.

My divine consciousness is now among the strongest under heaven; for such a thought to surface out of nowhere can only mean—" The corner of his eye twitched, and he discovered that he had, without realizing it, strayed from the road to the Heavenly Court. Only a being whose divine consciousness far surpassed his own could have invisibly bent his judgment and drawn him off the road to the Heavenly Court without his ever noticing.

Shen Mu acted at once, driving Heavenly Venerable Moon's lantern. The power within the lantern erupted and became a string of light dozens of li in length.

He had never cultivated Heavenly Venerable Moon's Way of Space, nor received any teaching from her or from Bai Yuqiong; he had only groped his own way, and so the string of light, in length and in might alike, came nowhere near the spectacle of Bai Yuqiong's activation.

Once the lantern was roused, the space between Shen Mu's brows flashed, and with two thuds the coffins of Her Highness the Empress and Lady Yuanmu flew out; with two bangs, both coffins opened. His divine consciousness burst forth, and two ancient-goddess women who looked almost identical stepped out from their coffins in unison, sleeves and hems fluttering, divine light streaming around them.

At the same time he controlled the two Guixu Goddesses with his divine consciousness, staring warily in every direction. Though the two Guixu Goddesses' battle strength could not reach the level of the Celestial Emperor Taichu, and was no match for Heavenly Lord Tubo and the Earth Mother, their power still stood above that of the Four Emperors of the Ancient Gods.

After Shen Mu roused and took control of the bodies of the Empress and her sister with his divine consciousness, the vertical eye at the center of his brows opened, and the egg of Taishi flew out from it.

He raised his right hand and held the giant egg up in one palm.

From the moment he came to his senses to the completion of all this, only an instant had passed—clean and crisp, truly.

"Great Emperor, come out and negotiate!

" Shen Mu swept his divine consciousness in all directions and said in a low voice.

The void was utterly silent.

This place was far from the Heavenly Court and far from the Great Void, touching neither sky above nor earth below.

It was roughly equidistant from the Heavenly Court and from the Great Void.

And this distance was precisely the distance of the midpoint the Great Emperor had chosen when he waylaid and slew Heavenly Venerable Hao.

The Great Emperor had made it so that Heavenly Venerable Hao could not flee the Great Void, nor escape the land of the Great Void.

And now the distance Shen Mu stood at was precisely one that left him unable to flee back to the Great Void, and unable to flee back to the Heavenly Court. Shen Mu's voice rang out, and for a long while no human word answered.

Shen Mu laughed coldly.

Just as he was about to set off for the Heavenly Court under the escort of Her Highness the Empress and her sister, he suddenly heard, from the dark void, a wailing that turned the blood to ice, and with it funeral music. "Great Emperor, simply come out and meet me—why play at ghosts and gods? " Shen Mu sneered, and saw a sliver of light come drifting through the dark void, drawing closer and closer; it was a band of bizarre men and women in gaudy, parti-colored clothes, striding through the sky as they carried a coffin.

Those men and women had powder on their faces, their cheeks painted snow-white, but onto each cheek a black round blot had been smeared; their eyes were the eyes of dead fish, no pupils at all, only white. Others among them, in green robes, blew trumpets and suonas, piping a music so bleak, so wretched, so mournful that all who heard it could not help but weep.

It was a funeral procession. Only—in this vast emptiness, where not a single star shone, for such a funeral procession to burst forth all at once, arrayed so strangely, could not but make a person's hair stand on end.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, look—your name and title are written on that coffin.

" Taishi's voice came from the egg. Shen Mu laughed coldly and said in a ringing voice, "Great Emperor, when you cannot touch me, you resort to these hollow tricks—truly, it is a thing to be laughed at!

If you want a coffin, I have two here, both of the finest, choicest wood!