Chapter 1298 — The Emperor Venerable's Severed Head
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu walked out of the Great Void, and he had not gone far when he came to its entrance.
He looked back and saw the Great Void lying beneath his feet.
The Collapsed Void had been broken apart, and the Great Void now lay exposed, bare before the Heavenly Court; it could not be held by force. All they could do was lean upon the Void Bridge, that natural chasm, to buy time—and how much time it could buy, no one could say.
From the entrance of the Great Void to the Heavenly Court was a journey of several months at the pace of his own legs.
The Great Void's geography was peculiar: spirit-energy translocation bridges could not be used to move supplies through it, and so it would take the Heavenly Court's armies half a year, even more than a year, to march here. But for a Heavenly Venerable, a few days of running at full speed was all it took to strike straight at the Great Void.
That was what made it so deadly.
In the past, Kaihuang could still use the safety of the Heavenly Court to threaten the other Heavenly Venerables, and that was because the Heavenly Court lay so far from the Great Void that it cost the Venerables a great deal of time to travel back and forth.
Now the distance had shrunk enormously, and the Great Void might face annihilation at any moment. "Holding the Void Bridge will still require Heavenly Venerable Moon.
After all, the Three Rooms on the far side of the Void Bridge were made by her.
" Shen Mu frowned.
Heavenly Venerable Moon's wounds had not healed; her legs were severed, and he could not bear to send her into such peril. "Taishi might be able to heal Heavenly Venerable Moon's dao wound.
But Taishi's price is certain to be impossibly harsh, and Taishi has not yet emerged into the world. .
. " His frown deepened. The ancient god Taishi had been imprisoned by the Celestial Emperor Taichu in Zhaoyang Hall for so many years that he had grown exceedingly cautious—and exceedingly worldly besides.
He would surely seize on this as a bargaining chip and name a price Shen Mu could never accept.
To move him to emerge and heal Heavenly Venerable Moon was all but impossible.
"I should go to the Ancestral Court after all, and see whether Grandpa Alchemist's skill in medicine nowadays can deal with a dao wound. " His mind made up, Shen Mu took out Heavenly Venerable Moon's lantern and set off toward the Heavenly Court.
With that lantern to travel by, the journey no longer took months; in only a few short days he could reach the Heavenly Court.
As he walked the road to the Heavenly Court, a thought suddenly stirred in his heart: "I wonder how the Great Emperor is faring.
.
. " The Great Emperor and Heavenly Venerable Hao had both been crippled in their fight; his wounds could be no lighter than Hao's—perhaps even heavier. Heavenly Consort Qiang had likewise taken a devastating blow, her injuries in no way inferior to those of the Great Emperor's true body. "There is no ultimate void inside the Great Void; it exists only outside.
Once he is out there, the Great Emperor's Daluo Heaven imprint of divine consciousness in the ultimate void can descend, and his cultivation of divine consciousness should recover swiftly. But the dao wounds on his body. .
. those, I fear, will not heal so easily in a short time. .
. Wait!
" Shen Mu was suddenly on his guard. "Why did the Great Emperor come to mind so abruptly? Nothing happens without cause, and neither do thoughts and impulses.
My divine consciousness is now among the strongest under heaven; for such a thought to surface out of nowhere can only mean—" The corner of his eye twitched, and he discovered that he had, without realizing it, strayed from the road to the Heavenly Court. Only a being whose divine consciousness far surpassed his own could have invisibly bent his judgment and drawn him off the road to the Heavenly Court without his ever noticing.