Chapter 1328 — Twenty-Four Tiers of the Mystic Realm

In the thirtieth stratum of the void, Shen Mu roamed the vast emptiness, giving himself wholly to abandon, translating the insights and realizations of these years into divine abilities and unleashing them.

"The Unchanging yields to Heaven and Earth's intent; from the Ruins of Return, a single qi is born! Matter and self forgotten, both alike; the Great Way rises from the Ancestral Court!"

Matter and self forgotten, both alike — in his hands this became the thirteenth tier of divine ability, and hard upon it, the Way rises from the Ancestral Court became the fourteenth tier.

"Creation's obscurity opens!"

He unified the Way of Creation into one, forging it into a single great divine ability. His creation divine ability was like a great bell; one toll of that bell, and creation's bell rang with divine elegance, and accompanied by the lingering resonance of the Way rises from the Ancestral Court, it brought all things to life.

"Consciousness takes the Way before all!"

His fifteenth tier of divine ability took consciousness as its Way. In the ancient Ancestral Court, the forebears dwelt in obscurity; though Heaven and Earth's creation was already accomplished, they had not yet comprehended the Way or divine abilities.

At such a time, consciousness came first. The creator forebears made things by consciousness, and this move of his, consciousness takes the Way before all, carried the vast and boundless grandeur of the primordial age.

"Yet Longhan strove in contention!"

Shen Mu unleashed one divine ability after another, as though he had crossed once more from the savage, wild primordial age into the Longhan era. In Longhan's contendings, the Way and divine abilities bloomed like a hundred flowers, a riot of competing fragrances, and though beautiful and magnificent, they were yet steeped in bloody struggle!

"Chiming's divine body is severed; the Shanghuang Way of Man is accomplished!"

With these two great divine abilities unleashed, Shen Mu's primal spirit and fleshly body swelled, and he rampaged through the thirtieth void, three heads and six arms, like a giant who had split Heaven and Earth apart.

And the Shanghuang Way of Man is accomplished carried on the Shanghuang ideal that human life is greater than Heaven. The heroes of the human race bore suffering on their backs, hewed their way through wilds and cleared the brush, pressing forward through hardship, struggling against Heaven and Earth, struggling against injustice — refusing to yield, refusing to soften, never speaking the word defeat. All that spirit and mettle was contained in this one move.

"The Kaihuang acquires the Way of the Acquired; Jingping begins its contendings!"

His breast surged with fierce ardor. The Kaihuang era's path of the Acquired Way and its road of proving the Way, Jingping's calamities and contendings — all of it was transmuted into the divine abilities in his hands.

He stood in the thirtieth void as though standing at the highest place in all the world, and there, unleashing divine abilities that encompassed the great spirit of an age, everything flowed naturally and smoothly, as water finding its channel.

But when this one great divine ability was unleashed, Shen Mu's unrestrained and heroic divine abilities, his aura, his momentum — all at once turned inward and restrained.

His divine abilities grew obscure; the movement of his palms slowed; the Dao runes scattered into fragments. Having continuously created so many great divine abilities, pushing his divine ability entry into the Way all the way to the twenty-first tier, he had essentially exhausted the accumulation of all these years.

Yet still he had sentiments he wished to give voice to, insights of his own he wished to sort into order.

His unleashing of divine abilities grew slower and slower. Gradually, the divine abilities harboring the Way of the Grand Simplicity were drawn out of him, and then he attempted to create divine abilities of the Way of the Great Ultimate and the Way of the Great Beginning as well.

"Grand Simplicity suddenly splits the chaotic bud; the Great Ultimate evolves and yin and yang proceed!"

"The Great Beginning's form and substance questions the blue void!"

When Shen Mu unleashed this final move, he suddenly felt his mind go utterly blank. Divine ability and Dao method had nothing left to sustain them, and at once he awoke from the state of entry into the Way.

He was in the thirtieth void. Now that he had awakened, the void's immense power immediately came crushing down. Shen Mu's fleshly body began to dissolve madly, his body cracking apart and crumbling.

He acted on the instant, fleeing from the thirtieth void at once!

It was the first time he had delved so deep into the void, and doubt and confusion filled his heart. "Strange — how did I end up here? The thirtieth void is not a place I could possibly reach..."

He retreated swiftly to the twenty-ninth void, but the void's power was still immensely strong, beyond what his fleshly body could endure.

If he had still possessed the primordial stone of the Great Origin as before, his primal spirit could barely have reached this place, though it could not linger long. Now, without the primordial stone of the Great Origin, the strength of his primal spirit was far inferior to what it once had been, and reaching such a perilous place was utterly impossible!

Had he been clear-headed, he would never have taken such a risk, gambling his life to breach such high void. But when he sank into the state of comprehending the Way, he had no such misgivings.

In the instant he retreated from the thirtieth void to the twenty-ninth, he lifted his head and gazed upward, trying to see into the deeper strata of the void, yet he could see nothing at all, and could not help feeling some regret.

"I wonder what the ultimate void truly holds..."

He retreated from the twenty-ninth void to the twenty-eighth, and only then did he feel somewhat better. But the twenty-eighth void was the limit of his primal spirit; his fleshly body was far from being so formidable.

Without the primordial stone of the Great Origin, the weakening of both his primal spirit and his fleshly body was indeed severe.

Shen Mu descended from void to void, and when he came to the twenty-third void, the void's damage to his fleshly body finally dropped to its lowest point.

He could not help wiping cold sweat from his brow. To have come muddle-headed to the thirtieth void had been far too perilous.

Now that the peril had passed, he at once began savoring what he had gained during his entry into the Way.

Ever since that last time, when Xu Shenghua had spurred him into the Way and he had comprehended the ninth tier of divine ability, the Void-Form Guest of the Great Ultimate, his accumulation had deepened day by day, and his understanding of the Way of the Great Ultimate, the Way of the Grand Simplicity, the Way of the Great Beginning, and the Way of the Great Origin had grown ever more exquisite.

His knowledge of the Taigu, Longhan, Chiming, Shanghuang, and Kaihuang eras had also grown ever greater, until at last, both history and his understanding of the Way were transmuted in this single entry into the Way into divine abilities uniquely his own.

"From the ninth tier of divine ability, I vaulted in one leap to the twenty-fourth tier — one could say my cultivation in the Dao realm has come directly to the level of the twenty-fourth tier."

Shen Mu could not help but marvel. This entry into the Way — the benefits the primordial stone of the Great Beginning had brought him were simply too great.

Yet the final three tiers were not complete.

Grand Simplicity suddenly splits the chaotic bud!

The Great Ultimate evolves and yin and yang proceed!

The Great Beginning's form and substance questions the blue void!

In these three tiers, his accumulation was still insufficient to reach the level of complete tiers; all three great divine abilities were fragmentary.