Chapter 1174 — Tearing It Apart to My Heart's Content
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Shen Mu's blood ran cold. Without a word he swept up Yan'er and Long Qilin, drew the two of them into the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, and took to his heels, fleeing outward! The Lapis Azure-Sky Banner blazed with light, its treasures of every hue shining in dazzling splendor. The treasures within the Banner had all been crudely refined by the two Xuanwu Emperors, hardly exquisite work - in Shen Mu's eyes, a wanton waste of heaven's bounty. Yet the Banner held far too many treasures, and every one of them was a rare prize seldom seen even in the Ancestral Court. Crude as their refinement was, their might was by no means small.
Shen Mu raised the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, manifesting the Twenty-Eight Heavens, and charged out! At that very moment, countless chaos stones came crashing down from above within this primordial mine vein. Every stone brimmed with vast and boundless chaos qi, inconceivably heavy. They smashed against the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner, shaking one exotic treasure after another into ceaseless radiance. The light formed dao patterns in ordered alternation of bright and dark, resisting the might of the chaos stones.
A muffled roar rose in Shen Mu's throat. He drove the Three Elixirs of the Mystic Body art with all his strength, charging madly outward - yet the falling chaos stones grew ever larger, until they began to smash through the layers of heavens one by one!
With a single thought, Shen Mu reversed the Twenty-Eight Heavens, their order shifting without cease, sending the crashing chaos stones behind him. His fleshly body swelled joint by joint, and he poured every scrap of his primal qi and divine consciousness into that flesh, transmuting it all into the power of the body.
Within every aperture of his body, rosy clouds steamed and surged, and from those clouds the sound of the Dao chanted aloud. Above his crown appeared the phantom of the Lord of Heaven; the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor sat enthroned in the celestial court between his brows. At the soles of his feet, the Bubbling Spring were the Twin Lotuses of the Returning Abyss; in his cinnabar field sat the Lord of Soil; the Earth Mother took root in his heart and lungs.
In every aperture throughout his body, the Orthodox Gods of the Zhou-Heaven Stars emerged. His two eyes were the Great Sun and the Great Yin, his five fingers the Five Luminaries - nay, a double set of Five Luminaries. The Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits and the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends were arrayed across his chest, front and back. In the Eastern Celestial Palace, the Azure Dragon commanded the stars of the eastern heaven; in the Western Celestial Palace, the White Tiger commanded the stars of the western heaven; in the Southern Celestial Palace, the Vermilion Bird commanded the stars of the southern heaven; in the Northern Celestial Palace, the Black Tortoise commanded the stars of the northern heaven.
The configuration of stars throughout his body differed from that of the present heaven and earth. He had drawn upon the Grand Emperor's supreme divine consciousness of the Great Net to reshape the forms of the Orthodox Gods of the Zhou-Heaven Stars. Yet where the Grand Emperor had used divine consciousness to strengthen his flesh, Shen Mu worked both channels at once - divine consciousness and primal qi together, swelling his body. And now, for the first time, he had raised his fleshly body to its very peak.