Chapter 1481 — The Nine Nether Great Prison Suppresses High Heaven

"Dead?"

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit came out to welcome them and invited them into his own heavenly palace, saying with an air of leisure: "I have been waiting for this day, waiting for my own death, for release from the bonds of the Heavenly Dao. Shepherd Heavenly Venerable, you are free and unfettered. You are not an ancient god born of the Great Dao, so you do not understand the oppression the Great Dao lays upon me. This is my body. Look — can I still command my own body now?"

"Do you know what it means to have no say over yourself?"

He said bleakly: "The Dao-born gods are born with no say over themselves. Now the consciousness of the Heavenly Dao has taken complete control of my body — even of my primal spirit. Though I have a consciousness of my own, my every movement, my every word, is commanded by the Heavenly Dao. Do you think it is I who controls this body now? No! It is the Heavenly Dao!"

"It is the Heavenly Dao that goes its slow way through this universe! I am no free being — I am nothing but a puppet of the Heavenly Dao! You envy the Lord of Heaven's strength, the Lord of Heaven's eminence, his boundless authority and boundless power — while I hate. I hate that from the moment I was born I was imprisoned in this body, caged in this prison!"

At this moment he was in fact somewhat exhilarated; only, in front of Shen Mu and the others, he suppressed his exhilaration.

"I even envy the Sacrifice Gods. They were born of sacrifice and bear none of the many constraints of the Dao-born gods. I envy too the countless living things of the great thousand worlds. They are as small as ants, and yet they are free and unfettered..."

"No! You do not envy them!"

Shen Mu halted and looked at him coldly: "How could the Lord of Heaven envy such ants? Lord of Heaven, your aim is to leap out of the Heavenly Dao's grasp — and in leaping out, you do not mean to become an ant, but to keep the Lord of Heaven's power, to remain high above! What you wish to do is not to become one of the living, but to rule the living!"

"Wrong!"

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit stopped as well, turned, and looked at Shen Mu and the other four, and said gravely: "You are right that I do not envy the ants, but the second half of what you said is utterly, utterly wrong! I do not mean to rule the living. What I mean to do is transcend! To transcend the Heavenly Dao and reach a state as utterly unbound as that of my Daoist brother Taiyi!"

Shen Mu pointed at him and laughed heartily: "Do you know what the Grand Heavenly Venerable thinks? Do you know that what the Grand Heavenly Venerable calls transcending the Heavenly Dao means letting the Lord of Heaven that once was die utterly, becoming one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables, becoming the sovereign of this universe? You cannot transcend!"

Though he laughed heartily, there was not a trace of joy on his face or in his heart.

Zai Fu frowned.

He knew Shen Mu well; after all, Shen Mu had been raised by him and the other elders of Yincan Village, and this expression of Shen Mu's usually meant that his care and his regard had reached the point where he would throw reason to the winds!

At such a time Shen Mu had only one way of doing things: at any cost!

He quietly turned the hilt of the Heaven Blade, and Zhe Huali, Luo Wushuang, and the others understood at once; Tian Shu abruptly threw back his head and gulped down two fierce mouthfuls of wine to steady his nerve.

They were prepared. Even if Shen Mu truly tore off all pretense with the Lord of Heaven on the Lord of Heaven's spirit platform, even if they were to face the assault of the Heavenly Dao, they would not flinch.

"Of course I know."

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit remained as calm and aloof as ever, speaking without haste: "The Grand Heavenly Venerable is me; his thoughts are my thoughts. Shepherd Heavenly Venerable, do you think the Grand Heavenly Venerable is merely one of my souls, that he wandered too long in the red dust of the mortal world and was tainted by it, and so became one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables? Do you think he and I are not of one mind, that his thoughts and mine are not one? Do you think he did those things behind my back? Then you are wrong — utterly wrong."

The white light in his eyes drifted like floating clouds of dawn, and his voice rang out like a heavenly bell: "The Grand Heavenly Venerable is me. Every thought of his is my thought! Every deed of his is my deed; every notion of his is reflected without reserve in my heavenly heart. His desires and his pursuits are my desires and my pursuits!"

Shen Mu clenched his fists and said, his voice hoarse: "His desires and pursuits are a part of your desires and pursuits — is that not so?"

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit smiled: "You have finally grasped this point. That is right: every thought of the Grand Heavenly Venerable is only a part of my thoughts. He is a part of me; he cannot take my place. When I die, when I break free of the Heavenly Dao's control and my mind descends, all his thoughts and desires will become a part of me."

"Then do you still have a heavenly heart? Do you still have the heart of the Heavenly Dao?"

Shen Mu pressed him: "At that time, will you become one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables, or will you still be the Lord of Heaven?"

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit thought for a moment and said: "What is the heavenly heart? What the heart of the Heavenly Dao seeks is that the heavenly heart be my heart; what I seek is that my heart be the heavenly heart."

The instant his words fell, Shen Mu struck — and his very first move was the twenty-fifth heaven of the Divine Ability Dao Realm: Nine Hells Lock the Heart, the Dao Endures!

Countless keen thorns erupted upon the Lord of Heaven's spirit platform; sharp and piercing, they began to swell the instant they touched the ground, turning into leaning mountain peaks one after another, becoming hell platforms!

Layer upon layer of hell platforms revolved, dancing around the Lord of Heaven's primal spirit, binding him fast within the Nine Hells Platform!

Nine Hells Lock the Heart — what it locks is the Dao heart!

The Dao heart is not the same as the Dao realm. Once the Dao heart is locked, it affects one's performance in the Dao realm, one's perception of the Dao, one's power of recovery, one's advancement in cultivation!

In the instant Shen Mu unleashed Nine Hells Lock the Heart, the Dao Endures, the Heavenly Dao rune marks on the ground of the Lord of Heaven's spirit platform hummed, and the treasures of the Heavenly Dao standing upon the spirit fetus roared and shook — this was the wrath of the Heavenly Dao!

Should anyone dare raise a hand against the Lord of Heaven, the Heavenly Dao would take control of the Lord of Heaven and wipe that person from existence!

When Shen Mu moved, Zai Fu, Zhe Huali, Tian Shu, and Luo Wushuang all drew their blades and rose; four blade-sounds rang out, and four figures were hurled in four directions. Their cultivation was still not enough — before the surging, overwhelming might of the Lord of Heaven and the Heavenly Dao, any exquisite blade art or divine ability would be shattered with ease!

Just as Shen Mu seemed about to be buried in the might of the Heavenly Dao, suddenly all those treasures of the Heavenly Dao and Heavenly Dao marks froze.

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit trembled, straining every fiber of his will against the will of the Heavenly Dao, and said hoarsely: "Shepherd Heavenly Venerable, disperse your divine ability and you may yet live — I cannot withstand the will of the Heavenly Dao!"

Shen Mu looked at the Lord of Heaven's primal spirit within the Nine Hells Platform and clenched his fists: "You walk out of this divine ability first!"

The Lord of Heaven's primal spirit took a step, walking upward.

The moment his foot moved, thorns sprang up in a thicket!

Countless thorns thrust in from the four walls of the Nine Hells Platform, so that he could not advance a single inch!