Chapter 1563 — Merged Into One
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The two ancient Taiji gods were both white-haired now, their bodies and features no longer what they had once been; on this journey to Jade Capital City they too had been beset by the Calamity of Destruction, and had grown old.
"They must have left the Long River of Chaos when they were helping the Empress and Yuanmu merge, and only now have they come this far."
Shen Mu's eyes flickered, and he thought, "The reason they were so eager to leave Jade Capital City must be that they fear the Guixu Goddess who will burst from the cocoon will do them harm. After all, they are frighteningly old now, and what is born from that cocoon may well be a Dao-Achiever!"
Only by leaving Jade Capital City and regaining their youth and strength could the ancient Taiji gods have any confidence of coping with what might come.
As weak as they were now, if it was Yuanmu who broke out of the cocoon, they would not escape death.
The two ancient gods were truly frighteningly old — so old that they could not even sense Shen Mu following behind them. After coming ashore, they laboriously dragged the Dao Tree toward the outskirts of the city.
On that Dao Tree, the silkworm cocoon hung from a branch, more than a zhang tall. Within the cocoon Dao light flowed and pulsed, swallowing and disgorging, and dimly one could make out the figure of a woman swimming to and fro like an eel, ceaselessly weaving this great cocoon.
The cocoon was formed of Dao light, and the woman inside was like a silkworm in the midst of metamorphosis, spitting out Dao light to weave the great cocoon.
As the two ancient gods dragged the Dao Tree along, the great cocoon swayed this way and that upon it.
Behind them, the golden Ship of Salvation rose faintly from the Long River of Chaos and glided slowly onto the bank.
From the prow, Shen Mu leaped down. At a flicker of his thought, the golden ship shrank smaller and smaller, until at last it flew in between his brows and came to hover above the crown of the World Tree.
The World Tree had grown taller and more magnificent still; its branches and crown had stretched his Primordial Fetus Divine Treasury to more than ten times its former size, sky high and earth broad. He had spent upward of three years in Jade Capital City, and in those three years the World Tree had absorbed the energies of the great Calamities of Destruction of sixteen universes and grown vastly in strength.
And as the World Tree grew, it fed back into his Primordial Fetus Divine Treasury, making his Ancestral Court broader still, the heavens and myriad worlds within it ever more awe-inspiring, the various divinities within it seeming to take on true substance.
More crucial still were the five great veins within his Ancestral Court. These five veins were more formidable than ever before, ridges rising and falling, a thousand wonders of aspect; all manner of marvellous radiance burst from the veins, and from them came the Dao-sounds of the Dao bursting forth.
From his journey to Jade Capital City, his greatest gain had not been the Dao patterns of the Master of Miluo Palace, nor the Slay-God Mystic Blade of the Slay-God Platform, nor even the supreme treasures of the forty-nine heavenly daos — it was the growth of the World Tree!
He followed the two ancient Taiji gods at an unhurried pace, hesitation in his heart.
"If I struck now, it would be a perfect chance to wipe out Lady Yuanmu and Her Highness the Empress in one blow! The ancient Taiji gods are in no state to stand against me — I could do away with them as well..."
He could not bring himself to decide. The two ancient gods had done no evil; they had even helped him a great deal. To raise his hand against them would trouble his conscience.
But now was the best chance to root out Yuanmu and the Empress for good. They had not yet fully merged, not yet transformed; and if they merged and transformed successfully, if they became a Dao-Achiever, then killing them would be nigh impossible.