Chapter 1713 — Bringing Down the Empress

Just then Shen Mu stepped forward, and with a thunderous boom the twisted Taihuang Heaven was pressed flat and level, no longer collapsing into the Empress's divine power.

The Empress was shaken until her blood and qi churned. She pushed out her hands, and lotus leaves spread across the great abyss; within the chaos pool in its depths the breath of chaos surged, passing through the lotus leaves and transforming into magic power of her own.

The power of one who has attained the Dao in the Abyss of Return comes from within chaos itself: passing through the lotus of the abyss, it is transformed into one's own invincible strength, a strength that devours all things.

This was the Empress's first battle since attaining the Dao.

In recent years Shen Mu had won no small renown in battle; the battle of Youdu and the battle of the Ultimate Void had both yielded him impressive spoils. But Shen Mu was not, after all, a true attainder of the Dao, and she was confident she could cut him down.

Yet just as her cultivation and power reached their peak, Shen Mu made his hand a sword and cut forward with a single stroke.

His palm sliced through the Empress's great-abyss art as though an incomparably keen blade were cutting into bean curd, cleaving her divine power apart.

His strike not only cut open the great abyss; it sliced through the lotus leaves within it as well.

And the chaos pool beneath those lotus leaves was the cornerstone of the Empress's attainment. Before this one sword stroke of Shen Mu's, the chaos pool was cut clean in two.

More than that: the chaos pool was split as though heaven and earth were being parted for the first time, and it exploded violently, as if a universe were being born. With a bell note of incomparable clarity, the chaos pool swelled outward, like two divine bells whose bosses faced each other.

In an instant, the Empress's lifetime of cultivation was about to be reduced to nothing, evolving into the Five Primal Forms, Taiyi, Taichu, and the rest.

The Empress cried out sharply and flew backward, letting her cultivation evolve through the Five Primals and become a universe of stars; then she abruptly roused her divine power, and the evolving universe was annihilated, restoring her cultivation and strength to what they had been.

The Dao of the Abyss of Return is not only a Dao of destruction; it likewise contains the Dao of genesis. The mystery of the birth and death of universes lies wholly within the abyss.

Having attained the Dao in the Abyss of Return, the Empress could naturally command both states and knew them by heart.

Shen Mu gave a cold snort and stepped forward again, splaying his five fingers into the art of the red-rope knot and pressing it toward the Empress.

The Empress's divine power erupted beneath her feet. Behind her, Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi lost their footing and tumbled toward her.

And beneath the Empress's feet the great abyss of the Abyss of Return appeared, swallowing Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi with a gurgling sound.

The Empress raised her hand and met Shen Mu's red-rope knot seal head-on. Five terrible forces drove into her body; a series of thundering booms came from within her flesh, and her arms, her legs, and her head burst apart.

Yet with a flash of blood light, the Empress was restored once more, whole as before.

With attainment of the Dao in the Abyss of Return and its transformations of birth and death, the Empress had become almost impossible to kill.

Hiss.

Shen Mu drew back his four fingers and touched his index finger to the center of the Empress's brow.

The Empress's mind went dim and muddled. Knowing she could not prevail, she sank at once, her figure merging into the great abyss, plunging into its depths.

The vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened; with a humming note, a beam of primordial divine light shot forth and pierced the great abyss.

In the abyss the Empress whirled her long sleeves, dodging the primordial light from Shen Mu's eye, but there was no dodging it, and in moments her flesh was riddled with wounds.

From the shadows behind Shen Mu, Lord Shang's figure flickered out like a ghost, about to charge into the abyss.

Abruptly Shen Mu closed the vertical eye at his brow and raised a hand to block him. "Lord Shang, there is no need to pursue."

Lord Shang stepped back and vanished once more into his shadow.

The great abyss closed and was gone.

Shen Mu flicked his sleeve and rose step by step into the sky above the thirty-three heavens of the Land of No Sorrow, where the Great Luo Heaven of the One Qi floated, the light of the Dao Tree scattering across the thirty-sixfold void, supremely holy.

Shen Mu strode quickly to that Dao Tree. Heavenly Venerable Yun came out, and the two exchanged greetings.

"Brother Yun, when you were in the great abyss of the Abyss of Return, how did the Empress transform into Madam Yuanmu?" Shen Mu asked, forgoing pleasantries.

Heavenly Venerable Yun said, "She borrowed the Dao of Reincarnation; her consciousness was reborn through reincarnation within her own body, and she became Madam Yuanmu."

"So that is where the trouble lies," said Shen Mu, enlightenment dawning on him.

Heavenly Venerable Yun was puzzled.

"The Empress and Yuanmu are in truth both the consciousness of the Goddess of the Abyss of Return, two different personalities and nothing more. When the Empress holds the upper hand and rouses the art of reincarnation to become Yuanmu, it means the Empress and Yuanmu have merged into one."

Shen Mu said, "I met the Empress just now, and found that they have already begun to merge."

Heavenly Venerable Yun's expression changed, and the words escaped him. "Does that not mean she has no weakness left? That even the Dao of Reincarnation cannot control her?"

Shen Mu shook his head and smiled. "That is why, when she fled, I touched a finger to her brow and used the art of reincarnation to plant another Madam Yuanmu within her. At the moment she was struck, her consciousness had already reincarnated through a thousand lives in my art; I cultivated the new Yuanmu consciousness until it ripened."

Heavenly Venerable Yun stared straight at him, a chill running through him, and after a moment he said, "Brother Mu, do you know how terrifying you have become?"

Shen Mu was taken aback. He thought it over carefully and nodded in silence.

Heavenly Venerable Yun let out a foul breath. "I can no longer make sense of your divine arts. Perhaps you really are becoming the Seventh Young Master of Miluo Palace."

Shen Mu was silent a while, then his face brightened into a smile. "When this universe can no longer hold me, I will go and plague other universes. But before that, I mean to sweep away every obstacle in my path."

At the Heavenly Court's main camp, a great abyss appeared. The Empress rolled out of it, and a sweetness suddenly rose in her throat. She hastily forced down the blood surging upward, shocked and furious at heart. "The Lord of the Lingguan Hall did not speak falsely. The Heavenly Emperor Hao truly cannot last ten moves against him."

Just then the laughter of Madam Yuanmu came abruptly into her mind. "Elder sister, you are wounded. Best hand the body over to your little sister."

"Oh no."

Darkness came before the Empress's eyes, and her consciousness sank into the dark.