Chapter 656 — Heaven Collapses, the Earth's Bonds Severed
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
Shen Mu watched until his eyes blurred. He wanted to open the little box and lend aid with the God-Slaying Mystic Saber, but the three moved too fast — the Great Sun Star Lord faster even than the First Ancestor and Chixi — and if he loosed the divine saber rashly, it might well be the First Ancestor or Chixi it cut down.
Of course, it was even more likely that it would miss all three, and then the God-Slaying Mystic Saber would turn around and finish Shen Mu instead.
Suddenly the Great Sun Star Lord flew to a point above Chixi's head, his three claws clamped onto the thousand-layered Heaven-Suppressing Tower, and he lifted the tower up and hurled it away.
"This is bad!" Shen Mu's heart lurched.
Chixi's face too went pale with shock; the Great Sun Star Lord's wings came slashing at him head-on, and he hurriedly sealed them off with six swords swift as wind. But when he caught those wings, his body was shaken violently, sent tumbling and rolling, knocked down by the Great Sun Star Lord into the dark starry void.
At the same moment, the First Ancestor Human Emperor pressed a seal against the Great Sun Star Lord's back, over his heart. Layer upon layer of feathers suddenly thrust out from the Star Lord's back and blocked the seal — even so, he was struck until he spat blood.
He twisted his head; his neck turned it round to his back, and he opened his mouth and spewed down the divine fire of the sun. The divine fire fell like a waterfall from the heavens, and at the same time the divine light of his three eyes shot out, sharp beyond compare.
The First Ancestor Human Emperor's face darkened, and the melancholy air about him grew ever thicker. The Great Sun Star Lord suddenly sensed an incomparably intense aura of deadly peril; the divine feathers all over his body bristled and burst outward, like a crested fire-pheasant dragon with its hackles up.
He had taken a palm from the First Ancestor Human Emperor on purpose in order to knock Chixi flying, all so that he might face the First Ancestor alone. The First Ancestor was the strongest; only by removing him first could he win a complete victory.
And now, clearly, having seized the initiative, the First Ancestor had without hesitation brought out his final measure.
Shen Mu gazed from afar, his face grave, and murmured: "The first of the Three Forms of Heaven Toppling — the Azure Heaven Overturns, the Earth's Bonds Severed..."
The First Ancestor Human Emperor's Three Forms of Heaven Toppling were three seal arts Shen Mu had still not mastered. It was not that his aptitude or insight fell short, but that these three seal arts demanded the courage and the strength to perish together with heaven and earth.
Shen Mu knew in his heart that he could not do it.
From the tower ship, Shen Mu saw that patch of starry sky suddenly turn incomparably brilliant: a golden, resplendent heavenly court appeared beneath the First Ancestor's feet, sun and moon rising, a myriad stars glittering — and then the azure heaven collapsed, sun and moon were destroyed, the stars fell like rain. The instant in which a whole heaven and earth perished was, incredibly, so magnificent, so beautiful.
Shen Mu's face changed drastically; he turned at once and ran, box in arms, hurtling with a whistle toward the tower. Ling Yuxiu too had plucked up her courage and come out of the tower, meaning to watch the battle; Shen Mu came charging straight at her, hoisted her onto his shoulder without a word, and rushed into the tower.
Boom —
An unspeakably dreadful shockwave rolled over them; the two were flung high and slammed against the ceiling. The whole tower ship spun madly, twisted by the terrible surge, and from its hull came creaking and groaning, and then the crack and snap of breaking timbers.
Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu shuddered with dread: this great treasure of the Chiming Era might come apart at any moment in the violent convulsions.