Chapter 1069 — The Five Stars Fall in Succession
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
The sword formation was completed almost in an instant: it was the Thirty-Three Heavens.
Agony tore through the Zhen Star Lord's body.
Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Way cut his flesh into thirty-four pieces, and the might of that sword way burst forth: the sword forms became the sun and moon, the mountains and rivers, the oceans and streams, even the grass and trees and living things of the Thirty-Three Heavens!
This sword way, the summit of later ages, rushed into his body; his primordial spirit crumbled beneath its power, and his flesh collapsed as well.
He ruled death, and in that moment he felt the coming of death.
Shen Mu slew the strongest of them, the Zhen Star Lord, with Kaihuang's sword art, and of a sudden whirled about — but it was already too late.
Swift as speech, swift as thought: he had slain the Zhen Star Lord in a single blink, yet the Tai Bai Star Lord's charge arrived in that same blink. The Tai Bai Star Lord came at him treading two dragons, and a vast dragon claw seized Shen Mu's body and crushed it down.
Shen Mu's body was pressed against the surface of the Heavenly River and slid backward at furious speed, while the Tai Bai Star Lord, feet on two golden dragons and bronze battle-axe in hand, hammered madly down at Shen Mu where the dragon claw held him: the axe rose and fell, and Shen Mu was hewn into a mire of flesh!
The golden dragon lifted its claw and tossed up Shen Mu's mangled body; the two golden dragons spat out two golden pellets, and from the pellets shot a myriad streams of golden qi that riddled Shen Mu through and through.
The Tai Bai Star Lord gripped the axe in both hands, opened his eyes, and white light shot from them — chih-chih-chih — the white light slashed in linked arcs, cutting at Shen Mu!
At that very moment, a great hand suddenly seized the back of his tiger head and wrenched it around.
The Tai Bai Star Lord was alarmed; his head was pulled back, and he saw a qilin face.
The Dragon Qilin's two hands gripped the corners of his tiger mouth and tore them apart, then opened his own mouth and spat out the Qilin Pearl and the Black Water Dragon Pearl, blasting them into his throat. The Dragon Qilin's hands strained and clamped the Tai Bai Star Lord's great mouth shut.
The two divine pearls had been tempered by the Dragon Qilin through a thousand hammerings and a hundred smeltings; the Dragon Qilin had cultivated at Shen Mu's side, and Shen Mu had never begrudged him any of the Emperor Throne arts. Every divine art and dao method Shen Mu created, he was the first to learn: the Ancestral Dragon Grand Mystery Art, the Three Prime Gods' Undying Consciousness, the Flawless Creation Mystery Art, the Martial Combat Heavenly Art, the Dark Demon Kaya Sutra — he had studied them all.
The two divine pearls too had been refined into divine weapons; now, borrowing the magic power of six heavenly dragons of the Jade Capital realm, his cultivation ran deep and mighty, straight to Lingxiao, and the might stored in the pearls burst inside the Tai Bai Star Lord's mouth.
The Tai Bai Star Lord's body convulsed violently; his two eyes flew from their sockets, and his throat and five viscera were all but wholly destroyed by the power of the Black Water Dragon Pearl and the Qilin Pearl.
Yet he did not die.
The two golden dragons beneath his feet flew up into his hands, and one on either side they coiled about the Dragon Qilin's neck.
The golden dragons were formed of golden qi, sharp beyond measure, and they would have taken the Dragon Qilin's head from his shoulders.
The two heavenly dragons on the Dragon Qilin's shoulders hastened to open their great jaws and bite down on the two golden dragons, their dragon muzzles cut till blood ran freely. The Tai Bai Star Lord seized the chance to break free of the Dragon Qilin's hold and charged to kill him, though having lost both eyes he was much inconvenienced. The Dragon Qilin feared him not at all.