Chapter 1431 — Fragments of the Great Luo Heaven

Through the vertical eye in Shen Mu's brow he gazed down into the depths of the earth—yet what his sight fell upon was no earth at all, but a horrific vision of a cosmos in the throes of destruction. The Great Dao, the stars, the galaxies, space, the heavens, countless living beings—all were ground to dust, and even the indestructible divine consciousness of mighty beings perished along with the collapsing cosmos.

Most dreadful of all was the sight of layer upon layer of the Void being annihilated in turn. The Void is everywhere, yet only powerful gods can perceive its existence; fewer still can enter it; and those who can brand their divine consciousness and the Great Dao upon the Void, existing alongside it—rarer yet.

As for branding one's cultivation into the higher layers of the Void, such beings are rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

Among the Heavenly Venerables of the present day, only the Great Emperor and Kai Huang have achieved this, and the mighty leaders of the Creators in the Ancient Age could do so as well. The Great Emperor transformed his divine consciousness and Great Dao into the Great Luo Heaven of Consciousness, branding it into the thirty-sixth layer of the Void, the Ultimate Void. Kai Huang branded his Sword Dao into the thirty-fifth layer of the Void, while the leaders of the Creators and a great many primal spirits of the Ancient Age branded their divine consciousness into the other layers of the Void.

In those years, to eradicate the Creator race once and for all, the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor led the Ancient Gods and a number of powerful Demigods deep into the Void, erasing bit by bit the brands the mighty Creators had left there; Divine Emperor Langxuan, then the progenitor of the Demigods, had followed the Heavenly Emperor to obliterate those brands, and the memory was seared into him. He knew well how difficult it was to erase a Creator's brand—those brands of divine consciousness gnawed into the Void like woodworms, hard to find, hard to utterly destroy.

And now, he had seen the thirty-fifth layer of the Void collapse utterly within but a short span, the brands of the mighty entrusted to that layer shattering and perishing one after another.

Boundless dread rose in his heart; his eyes went wide despite himself, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and his face turned pale. Then he saw the destruction of the thirty-sixth layer of the Void.

The thirty-sixth layer of the Void—the Void in which the Great Emperor had entrusted the Great Luo Heaven of his divine consciousness, also called the Ultimate Void, the Great Luo Heaven, the Supreme Heaven—in the great calamity of the cosmos's destruction, this Ultimate Void burst apart entire, like an eggshell hurled from the heights onto the ground, like a water-filled sphere pierced by a needle. Divine Emperor Langxuan trembled and trembled again; the dread of this great annihilation swept over him, reaching the deepest recesses of his Dao heart. His Dao heart had never been as strong as Shen Mu's—such was the weakness of the Divine Treasury Heavenly Palace system. Shen Mu could remain composed when beholding the great annihilation; he could not.

"This annihilation that destroys all things—even. .

. even a Heavenly Venerable could not withstand it.

.

.

" he thought in terror. Yet what was strange was that all he saw were motionless images. Countless rivers of stars shattered, the heavens annihilated, the Void disintegrated, the Ultimate Void exploded—and all of it was still, motionless.

Images, yes—and yet not so, for an image is flat, whereas the scene he beheld through Shen Mu's vertical eye was three-dimensional.

Then he saw the "big thing" Shen Mu had spoken of. It was a coffin—a coffin that had flown out from the Great Luo Heaven of the Ultimate Void.

He knew not what divine metal it was cast from; it gleamed with a metallic luster, yet it had rotted with the cosmos's destruction and was covered all over with rust.

The surface of the coffin was covered thickly with Great Dao runes Langxuan could not recognize; amid the great annihilation of the cosmos, it came flying along with a fragment of the Great Luo Heaven, seemingly flying toward them.

What was peculiar about this coffin was that it lay within the fragment of the Great Luo Heaven, and within that fragment stood a massive wooden altar; the coffin rested upon the altar, standing upright.

Half of the Great Luo Heaven fragment had already entered the Ancestral Court and was buried in the ground beneath it.

The reason Divine Emperor Langxuan had not been able to see it was that his divine-consciousness eye could not perceive the Great Luo Heaven.

Watching this scene, Divine Emperor Langxuan was somewhat at a loss. Shen Mu's voice came, unhurried: "The being in this coffin was a mighty one of the previous cosmic year.

At the very moment of the cosmos's great annihilation, he sought to enter our cosmos through sacrifice. The point in time he occupies is exceedingly peculiar: the rear end of the coffin lies in his own cosmos, where time and space do not exist, still frozen at the instant of the great annihilation, preserving himself by means of the Great Luo Heaven fragment.

But the front end of the coffin has already entered our cosmos—and has existed within our cosmos for a vast span of ages. " Somewhat uncomprehending, Divine Emperor Langxuan eyed him doubtfully and asked, "How many years has he existed in our cosmos?

" "Since roughly the very beginning of the cosmos's opening, he has existed.

" Shen Mu could not be certain either.

"Probably at the very beginning of the cosmos's opening, he began to steal the Primordial Essence Fluid of the Jade Pool—only, at that time he must have had misgivings, fearing discovery by the Ancient Gods and Creators of that era, and so dared not recklessly plunder the Jade Pool's power.

Once the Creators and the Ancient Gods and Demigods had all left the Ancestral Court and sealed this place, he had no more scruples: he severed the Jade Pool's eight dragon veins outright and plundered its power without restraint. " Divine Emperor Langxuan shook his head, his voice hoarse: "How can that be? How can half of him remain in the cosmos of the previous annihilation, and half in our own age? " "If you erase the element of time, it becomes comprehensible. " Shen Mu explained to him earnestly: "Time does not exist.

Remove time, and even the destruction and birth of a cosmos is nothing but the transformation between energy and matter.

The process of energy becoming matter is the cosmos's expansion; the process of matter becoming energy is the cosmos's collapse.

The change of matter gives rise to the illusion of time's passage. In seeking to enter our age from the previous cosmos, all he wanted was to avoid becoming the energy of the cosmos's destruction—and so he steals energy from our age to substitute for himself. That is why he plunders the Jade Pool's power: he must maintain the mass-energy balance between the two cosmoses. " Divine Emperor Langxuan was still somewhat perplexed, yet he knew that someone had achieved tremendous success by means of this theory. Heavenly Venerable Ling's Immutability Divine Ability was precisely such an incomprehensible enigma.

After Heavenly Venerable Ling created this divine ability, the Ten Heavenly Venerables were shaken beyond measure. Because it was unknown, it inspired dread.

Nearly all Ten Heavenly Venerables set out, determined to eliminate Heavenly Venerable Ling—yet Ming Fangyu seized the prize first, her primordial spirit entering the Heavenly Emperor's fleshly body to slay Heavenly Venerable Ling above the Heavenly River, so that in the end Ming Fangyu's primordial spirit and the Heavenly Emperor's body vanished together without a trace.