Chapter 1603 — The Turning Wheel and the End
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
After Heavenly Venerable Gong departed, Shen Mu was left alone in the Great Abyss of Guixu, facing Her Highness the Empress by himself. Smiling, he began to edge backward, step by step. The Empress frowned faintly. "There is no need to retreat, Heavenly Venerable Mu. You cannot get away. This is Guixu."
Shen Mu's figure abruptly became a streak of flowing light, howling outward in flight, and he laughed a long laugh: "How would I ever know, if I never try?"
The Empress did not stir. She gave a cold laugh. Just as Shen Mu was about to fly out of the twin lotus on its single stem, the petals suddenly revolved, and in an instant the two blossoms contracted into buds and sealed him inside the flower's chamber.
Shen Mu flew at breakneck speed around the bud, and found no exit at all.
He immediately brought out his teleportation art; but teleportation is founded upon space, and the space within this flower chamber was wholly severed from the outside world, so his art could not pierce through it.
Shen Mu landed, his brow deeply furrowed.
If there was any place left in this world that he feared, the Great Abyss of Guixu was certainly one of them.
The Guixu art was one of the few divine arts capable of utterly annihilating a soul. There were not many arts that could extinguish a soul completely: the arts of the Five Primal Supremes, and the Great Emperor's divine sense, the Great Luotian, could all accomplish it.
Beyond those, there was the art of Guixu.
And Guixu itself was a place that even Kaihuang, in the hour he attained the Way, could not see through. Ranked alongside the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court and the Chaotic Space, its extraordinary nature was plain to see.
As the Dao-born deities of this place, Her Highness the Empress and Lady Yuanmu were strong enough to be counted among the ancient gods, though they were not the mightiest of them; yet the power of Guixu itself far surpassed both these ancient gods. That alone showed how uncanny the place was.
The Empress lifted her hand, and the twin lotus bloomed once more. Beyond the blossom the tides receded, and the lotus itself began to sink slowly into the great abyss.
"This is the place of this Empress's birth. Once I devour the little slut, I shall command all that is here. I shall control the twin lotus, make it bloom, make it close; I shall command the tides, and even command the abyss, and make the abyss devour all the heavens and myriad worlds, and numberless stars!"
The Empress's face was indifferent. "Heavenly Venerable Mu, however vast your powers, before this Empress your abilities have no ground to stand on."
Shen Mu sighed in helplessness. "Your Highness speaks the truth. The you of this moment has exceeded my understanding. When I look upon Kaihuang, upon the Great Emperor, upon Heavenly Venerable Xiao and Heavenly Venerable Hao, I can clearly reckon the measure of their strength. Only before you can I not plumb the depths. What manner of monster did the Ancient God of the Supreme Ultimate make of you..."
"A little scoundrel." The Empress's neck twisted, and her head turned half a circle, the back of her skull swinging round to the front to reveal the face of Lady Yuanmu, most bewitchingly lovely. "Calling me a monster. I want to eat you, to bite every inch of your skin, little by little..."
The Empress's neck twisted back again, and her voice turned shrill. "Little slut, do not test this Empress's limits!"
"You have limits?" Lady Yuanmu turned the head round once more and giggled. "I have only ever talked; I have hardly done anything truly beyond the pale. But you? How many things have you done that even you find revolting? Sister, can you even count them all?"
The two fell to quarreling again. Shen Mu quietly retreated, thinking, "So long as I am fast enough, I ought to be able to walk out of here..."