Chapter 894 — Peerless Through All Ages
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
The Empress Dowager's detached palace stood there, undestroyed for a million years, cast from divine gold—extravagant beyond measure. Yet no extravagance could withstand the impact of a powerhouse like Yan'er. The palace lay in utter ruin, nearly half of it smashed apart by the fat bird Yan'er had transformed into.
In particular, when her Dragon Sparrow spirit-primordial unleashed the Heaven-Carrying Dragon Sparrow divine ability, the Vermilion Bird's sacred fire melted the palace to slag as the spirit-primordial crashed down, molten metal streaming everywhere. That sacred fire burned all things without exception, setting ablaze whatever remained of the palace that had not been crushed. Yan'er rose from the rubble, withdrew her spirit-primordial, flapped her wings, and shook the debris from her body. A nearby long pavilion, already teetering, had been set alight by the sacred fire; now the gale from her wings swept over it, and it collapsed at once into the sea of flames.
Long Qilin also clambered up, shaking the dust from his body.
Shen Mu stood, then set busily to work again as though nothing had happened. Long Qilin watched him use the Vermilion Bird's sacred fire to melt the divine gold, refining it out, imprinting teleportation runes upon it—clearly he meant to build a large-scale teleportation formation and leave this place. Shen Mu bustled to and fro, yet Long Qilin could tell his mind was heavily burdened, for Long Qilin too was well versed in the arts of calculation, and he saw Shen Mu err several times while computing the spatial nodes. Such a thing was impossible in ordinary times.
As one of the most powerful masters of calculation in the world today, the odds of Shen Mu making an error in his reckonings were infinitesimal; consecutive errors were even more impossible.
That he now erred again and again surely meant some worry was disturbing him, preventing him from focusing.
"Sect Master, what did you see in the Great Abyss? " Long Qilin probed. Shen Mu stopped building the teleportation formation and stared blankly, lost in thought.
After a moment he said, "The Ancient God Heavenly Emperor—the one who killed Ling Tianzun. When he threw himself onto the severed face of the Heavenly River, I saw his face. It was exactly the same as the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor I saw in the Tianyin Realm.
" Long Qilin was baffled.
"Ancient God Heavenly Emperor? " "His fleshly body, rather. But who it is that controls that body, I have no way of knowing.
" Once Shen Mu began to speak, his thoughts came alive. "The Ancient God Heavenly Emperor's fleshly body is not in the Heavenly Court.
That is why the one who governs the Heavenly Court is so urgently driven to create a perfect Heaven-Subduing Celestial Venerable.
Because the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor's body is the most powerful body in all history—no single Celestial Venerable could fully unleash its entire strength. They must join forces to draw out the full power of the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor's body! " He paced back and forth, his thoughts quickening. "This body is the tool by which they check one another.
No one can fully control the Heavenly Emperor's body; instead it preserves a balance among them, so none dares strike at another.
Yet without the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor's body, who among them controls the Heavenly Court? Power will make them suspect one another, and without the body, the Lord of Heaven and the Earth Lord pose a great threat to them as well.