Chapter 1603 — The Turning Wheel and the End

Something was wrong with this woman's state. If she entered the place Kaihuang had spoken of, it would surely be monstrously dangerous.

He decided on the instant, and began trying to fuse the Way of Guixu by means of the Way of the Supreme Ultimate.

The Ancient God of the Supreme Ultimate had gone astray when fusing the Empress and Yuanmu: the Goddess of Guixu he made was incomparably powerful, yet mad and addled. Clearly the method was immature. But Shen Mu could not afford to care about that now.

Yet when he truly set to work, Shen Mu still found the difficulties piled mountain-high. His understanding of the Way of the Supreme Ultimate was inferior to that of the Ancient God of the Supreme Ultimate.

"More to the point, the Empress and Yuanmu are birth and extinction, and birth and extinction do not perfectly answer to the yin and yang of the Way of the Supreme Ultimate; the two belong to different Ways. The Ancient God, working so crudely, was bound to run into trouble."

He could not help sinking into thought, letting his primordial spirit recite the Way of Reincarnation while he himself pondered how birth and extinction might be fused perfectly.

He paced back and forth, trying to fuse the two Ways of birth and extinction by means of the Way of Great Simplicity, the Way of Great Commencement, and the Way of Great Beginning, and could never satisfy himself.

Just then, hearing the chanting of his own primordial spirit, his mind rang like a struck bell, and he laughed at himself: "I have thought and searched in a hundred directions, never realizing that I gave myself the answer long ago! What a blunder, what a blunder!"

"The Way of Reincarnation: one birth, one extinction; birth and extinction both lie within reincarnation. In the small, one speaks of the reincarnation of a life; in the large, of the reincarnation of matter; larger still, of the reincarnation, the birth and extinction, of the cosmos. All living beings, the vast universe, the karmic causes of every desire, revolve through the six paths of rebirth, struggling without cease, cycling on and on."

"I only searched among others, among the Five Primal Supremes, and never searched within myself. So that is it. So that is it!"

He calmed his mind. The Way of Reincarnation was what he had learned from Yin Tianzi; Yin Tianzi's Way of Reincarnation had already been extremely profound, but after Shen Mu's improvements it grew more unfathomable still — otherwise it could never have so mesmerized the Empress and Yuanmu, who believed it could resolve their own predicament.

Yet whether it was Yin Tianzi's Way of Reincarnation or Shen Mu's improved version, both were the reincarnation, the birth and extinction, of life, reaching no larger level, and so each had its natural limits.

With the Way of Reincarnation as it stood, the Goddess of Guixu's dilemma could not be solved.

For the Way of Guixu was more like the reincarnation of matter; it touched upon the birth and extinction of the cosmos.

"And if the Way of Reincarnation is expanded further outward, it can take in the Creation divine art, and Heavenly Venerable Ling's Unchanging art, and the Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha's Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas. Extend it further still, and one may even bring in the Five Primal Supremes, the Way of the Great Change among them. Only then can the reincarnation, the birth and extinction, of the cosmos be explained clearly."

"Only, how to unify such a Way of Reincarnation is the crux. With the birth-and-extinction reincarnation of life alone, there is the bewilderment of the womb, and I can use the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas' entering the Way in a dream to avoid it. But for the reincarnation of matter and energy, even the cosmic cycle of birth and extinction, it is all too easy to lose oneself. I must find a principle eternal and unchanging, untouched by birth and extinction, so as to ensure that I do not sink into confusion within reincarnation..."

Shen Mu's eyes suddenly brightened. He halted his steps. The domain of the Divine Treasury opened, and behind him the World Tree emerged and stood towering at his back.

"The World Tree can endure the great kalpa of the cosmos' birth and extinction without perishing. With the World Tree as the root, such a great unification can be achieved!"

He sat down beneath the tree and fell into utter silence, comprehending the Way of Reincarnation, seeking to raise this Way to a higher level.

Above his head, his primordial spirit, vast and great, sat within his heavenly court and continued to expound the Way of Reincarnation.

And Shen Mu himself had sunk into extinction, as though he had become a Guixu, collapsing upon himself.