Chapter 616 — Following the Same Pattern
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu's Kalpa-Opening Sword clashed with the Nine Phoenixes; the two great divine powers were near equals in might. The Nine Phoenixes were pierced through by the sword-light, and at once the sword within the sword of the Kalpa-Opening Sword burst forth — eight thousand blades against the countless divine powers inside the Nine Phoenixes' body.
Just then the Cangwu tree came sweeping in with a boom, branches dancing, radiance scattering on every side, and under that collision the Kalpa-Opening Sword's power ran dry.
Shen Mu fell back and drew his sword free, rousing the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art; eight dragon cries rose within him, the Ancestral Dragon's Eight Notes reverberating — Adhere, Kill, Seize, Capture, Draw, Pull, Spin, Hammer, Refine — and his somewhat withered, failing blood and qi turned in a single instant incomparably thick and fierce. Within Shen Mu's body, divine treasury after divine treasury abruptly reversed, shifting from divine-path treasuries into demon-path treasuries: Spirit Fetus, Five Luminaries, Six Harmonies, Seven Stars, all inverted in the blink of an eye, divine-path treasuries below, demon-path treasuries above.
The primordial spirit born of the union of his spirit fetus and soul descended into the demon-path Primordial Fetus treasury, standing upon the demon soil, and the demon soil beneath his feet was the Six Harmonies Continent transformed from his demon-path spirit terrace. What blazed in the sky were the demon sun and the demon moon; what stood within the demon palaces of the Five Luminaries' stars were the Five Luminaries Demon Gods.
In the very instant Shen Mu drew his sword back, he thrust out again — still the first stance of the Kalpa Sword: Opening the Kalpa.
The spherical radiance their divine powers had struck out a moment before swelled open once more in the valley, only this time black sword-light mingled within it; streak upon streak of sword-light, dark as ink, burst outward from the center of the orb of light and stained it black in an instant.
The two men's divine powers were all but ground away to nothing, and the power bursting from the light all around had not yet fully unfurled, yet every tree in the valley had already gone down, toppling in all directions with the orb of light as their center.
Boulders floated into the air and shot off in every direction at a speed beyond all horror. Amid the light, Shen Mu retreated and drew his sword a second time, while Qi Jiuyi stepped forward once more, hands clasped; the phoenix nest in the tree suddenly flew out, and streak after streak of golden straw and wutong branches hurtled at Shen Mu.
Shen Mu drew his sword and flicked his wrist; the eight thousand swords abruptly merged, fused into one, and became the Carefree Sword in his hand, sword-light flashing as it met the flying golden straw and wutong branches. Upon him surfaced a Dao-rhyme that verged on the Dao itself, and the sword in his hand was like leaping numerical symbols, ceaselessly evolving.
The Fourteenth Chapter of the Dao Sword.
The Dao nourishes all the heavens and the great earth; it feeds the ten thousand laws, and all under heaven returns to oneness! Not even the old master of the Dao Sect had fully comprehended the Fourteenth Chapter of the Dao Sword; he had refined but half a stance, and yet even half a stance was already a divine chapter of swordsmanship without peer in all Jingping.
It was not that the old master lacked the aptitude or the comprehension; it was that the Dao Sword touched upon the numerical principles governing all things between heaven and earth, and if the numbers went wrong, the Dao Sword could never be refined to completion.
And Jingping's sun, moon, and stars were all false; there were errors in the celestial star-calculations, minute beyond measure, and to comprehend the Fourteenth Chapter through error was of course to comprehend nothing.