Chapter 1341 — The Primordial Supreme Sovereign
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
BOOM—
The one great divine art born of the clash between Shen Mu and Long Han came down upon the Grand Emperor's skull, and his head crashed thunderously into the void, vanishing from the skies above the Ancestral Court.
The Ark of the Other Shore beneath Shen Mu's feet dissolved away. His body stood erect in the air, three heads turning to survey every direction, the vertical eye in the center of his brow opening wide. Three eyes watched every stir within the void.
"Grand Emperor, surely you are not afraid?"
His voice was like a rot festering in the bone, following the Grand Emperor's skull through layer upon layer of void, entering his ears with perfect clarity. Laughing aloud, he said, "As the strongest emperor of the primordial age, you were put in your place by Heavenly Venerable Yun, put in your place by Heavenly Venerable Ling, put in your place by Heavenly Venerable Hao, and put in your place by the four Heavenly Venerables Lang, Xiao, Yan, and Zu. Your entire life has been a life of failure. Run."
The Grand Emperor's skull swept through layer after layer of void, his face dark as a storm. He could hear Shen Mu's voice distinctly; he could see Shen Mu's figure distinctly.
His skull was changing. Flesh and blood were growing.
His cultivation art was the mightiest in all the world: the Great Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness.
Even without the Taichu Primordial Stone, he could force the regeneration of his body — though mending flesh with divine consciousness was far inferior to the Primordial Stone. His injuries were now grievous beyond measure, and the wound to his divine consciousness graver still; to spend that consciousness rebuilding flesh would leave him a hidden affliction for ages to come.
"Keep running."
Shen Mu's voice came again: "It is no hardship for you. After all, these million years you have spent every day in flight. You did not even dare take the form of a man — only a woman's shape, hiding away in the Celestial Emperor's harem, forcing smiles. The august Grand Emperor, the first Celestial Emperor to rule the cosmos and the primordial chaos, reduced to a woman leaning upon the Celestial Emperor's favor, contending with his consorts for his affection, smiling for her keep..."
The Grand Emperor's face darkened further. Suddenly strand after strand of his curling hair lashed out, piercing the void with a shh-shh-shh and nailing his skull in place.
He halted within the twenty-seventh layer of void, his hair branching in every direction like a sea urchin, pinning him there. His Great Luo Supreme Divine Consciousness revolved at full speed; what little of it remained he spent to visualize a body.
Without a body, with nothing but a head, he judged he could not stand against a Heavenly Venerable like Shen Mu, one who had established his Way through divine arts. He needed his complete flesh.
In the early years of Long Han, the reason Shen Mu was enfeoffed as a Heavenly Venerable was precisely that he had established his Way through divine arts.
By the measure of today, Shen Mu's divine arts back then had been crude and green indeed — but the Shen Mu of now lived up to the name in full. His divine arts had truly established a Way; he had truly become the Heavenly Venerable Mu.
Such a being deserved respect. And he deserved a battle with the Grand Emperor.
Beneath his neck, flesh and blood sprouted, swiftly growing into a chest, growing into limbs.
The Grand Emperor visualized without cease, spending the last dregs of his divine consciousness to forge a new body.
"Becoming Consort Qiang, you did achieve something, I grant you — but every bit of it won by your face, by your figure, by your smiles for sale, was it not?"
Shen Mu's voice was utterly venomous as it entered his mind: "You hid your whole life long. When will you dare to fight openly, the way a man does? Or has becoming a woman for so long made you forget that you were ever a man?"