Chapter 1713 — Bringing Down the Empress
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
"Empress, you have disappointed me. In that case, what use have I for keeping you alive?"
Just then Shen Mu stepped forward, and with a thunderous boom the twisted Taihuang Heaven was pressed flat and level, no longer collapsing into the Empress's divine power.
The Empress was shaken until her blood and qi churned. She pushed out her hands, and lotus leaves spread across the great abyss; within the chaos pool in its depths the breath of chaos surged, passing through the lotus leaves and transforming into magic power of her own.
The power of one who has attained the Dao in the Abyss of Return comes from within chaos itself: passing through the lotus of the abyss, it is transformed into one's own invincible strength, a strength that devours all things.
This was the Empress's first battle since attaining the Dao.
In recent years Shen Mu had won no small renown in battle; the battle of Youdu and the battle of the Ultimate Void had both yielded him impressive spoils. But Shen Mu was not, after all, a true attainder of the Dao, and she was confident she could cut him down.
Yet just as her cultivation and power reached their peak, Shen Mu made his hand a sword and cut forward with a single stroke.
His palm sliced through the Empress's great-abyss art as though an incomparably keen blade were cutting into bean curd, cleaving her divine power apart.
His strike not only cut open the great abyss; it sliced through the lotus leaves within it as well.
And the chaos pool beneath those lotus leaves was the cornerstone of the Empress's attainment. Before this one sword stroke of Shen Mu's, the chaos pool was cut clean in two.
More than that: the chaos pool was split as though heaven and earth were being parted for the first time, and it exploded violently, as if a universe were being born. With a bell note of incomparable clarity, the chaos pool swelled outward, like two divine bells whose bosses faced each other.
In an instant, the Empress's lifetime of cultivation was about to be reduced to nothing, evolving into the Five Primal Forms, Taiyi, Taichu, and the rest.
The Empress cried out sharply and flew backward, letting her cultivation evolve through the Five Primals and become a universe of stars; then she abruptly roused her divine power, and the evolving universe was annihilated, restoring her cultivation and strength to what they had been.
The Dao of the Abyss of Return is not only a Dao of destruction; it likewise contains the Dao of genesis. The mystery of the birth and death of universes lies wholly within the abyss.
Having attained the Dao in the Abyss of Return, the Empress could naturally command both states and knew them by heart.
Shen Mu gave a cold snort and stepped forward again, splaying his five fingers into the art of the red-rope knot and pressing it toward the Empress.
The Empress's divine power erupted beneath her feet. Behind her, Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi lost their footing and tumbled toward her.
And beneath the Empress's feet the great abyss of the Abyss of Return appeared, swallowing Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi with a gurgling sound.
The Empress raised her hand and met Shen Mu's red-rope knot seal head-on. Five terrible forces drove into her body; a series of thundering booms came from within her flesh, and her arms, her legs, and her head burst apart.
Yet with a flash of blood light, the Empress was restored once more, whole as before.
With attainment of the Dao in the Abyss of Return and its transformations of birth and death, the Empress had become almost impossible to kill.
Hiss.
Shen Mu drew back his four fingers and touched his index finger to the center of the Empress's brow.
The Empress's mind went dim and muddled. Knowing she could not prevail, she sank at once, her figure merging into the great abyss, plunging into its depths.
The vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened; with a humming note, a beam of primordial divine light shot forth and pierced the great abyss.