Chapter 499 — Human Schemes Cannot Best Heaven's Will

Beneath the cliff stood two gates, opening onto two different worlds, and the ones within each gate had their own fears to reckon with.

This was not their first meeting, nor their first crossing of blades; many years ago they had fought, back when the Shanghuang Era was on the verge of being buried. After that they had clashed several more times, though by then the Kaihuang Era had already begun.

On this cliff alone they had fought at a distance more than once.

Now they had both left that desolate, deathly world behind; what appeared here were only their projections.

Their cultivation was too high, their strength too great—without some stroke of fate, their true bodies could not enter this world. No living thing remained in this world; nothing could survive here. This was the Ruins of the Shanghuang Era, a place even more hostile than the Ruins of the Kaihuang Era.

In the Ruins there were at least stone statues transformed from gods, sheltering a patch of land and letting living things survive; here there was only the desert, and when night came and the darkness swept in, there was nowhere at all to take cover.

As early as thirty or forty thousand years ago, no living things remained here—only gods.

In the early Kaihuang Era, the gods here departed one after another for other worlds, and the two of them were the last to leave.

"The woman of the Bai family from forty thousand years ago—have you also come seeking the one who left the inscription? " The one-armed godfiend in the stone gate was tall of frame, the long saber on his back ringing with a clang, its blade intent seeming able to pierce through time and space and cut into another world.

He sneered: "So you too have heard word of his emergence and come looking for him.

I long ago sensed that something was wrong with your sword art—it surpasses the Shanghuang Era, and the Kaihuang Era as well. I never expected you to be connected to the Youmo Cult Master after all!

" The woman in the divine light on the cliff face trembled slightly, and boundless joy rose from the bottom of her heart; she paid his hostility no mind at all: "He has truly come?

He who crossed through time and space—he has truly appeared here? " "You cannot stop me! " The one-armed godfiend in the stone gate stood in the gateway, utterly aloof: "I mean to kill him, and you mean to stop me. You and I have fought for many years, and in the end it is all a muddled account—neither of us can do anything to the other.

The reason I have kept this severed arm is so that one day I might find him, and repay the debt of my arm, and the hatred of my humiliated dao-heart. Unless I can break his sword art with my blade art, I will never be able to give free rein to what is in my heart and advance my way of the blade!

For this day I have waited nearly forty thousand years!

" The woman in the divine light on the cliff walked out of the radiance and appeared on the desert. She was only a phantom, and she said softly, "You cannot reach this world. Whatever you say is useless. " The one-armed godfiend in the stone gate turned; his blood-red cloak billowed and covered the whole gateway. Suddenly, where the cloak swept open, a blade light cut through the barrier between the two worlds! The blade intent was vast and terrifying beyond measure—with that one stroke he had actually sliced open the barrier between the two worlds!

The blade light hissed and shrieked, surging out from the stone gate, and at once the desert ahead was thrown up into two waves of sand, with a sheer wall between them, rising a thousand zhang, stretching for hundreds of li! Just as he was about to set foot in this world, a formless power of heaven and earth suddenly flung him back.

The young woman walked back into the divine light and vanished into the cliff: "With your strength it will be very hard to pass through in your true body. Best give up that hope.

" The one-armed godfiend in the stone gate sheathed his blade and turned to leave as well, the stone gate slowly collapsing: "I will return to this world.

A mere world barrier cannot stop me! " Then the Dragon Qilin carried Shen Mu and the Chest through that cloud.

A moment before it had clearly been daylight, yet in the instant they passed through the cloud the sky turned utterly dark, and in the darkness only the roar of a waterfall could be heard.

Shen Mu looked toward the sound, and saw scattered points of light on the broken cliff in the night. They had returned to the Ruins, and come again to the source of the Yong River.

It was still that great chasm that cut the Ruins from east to west, the cliff of tremendous drop dividing the Ruins into two halves; this too was the origin of the Yong River, the waterfall plunging down from the cliff, and where the water came from was well worth pondering. "The water of the Yong River may flow out of several other worlds; perhaps one could enter those different worlds through the cracks in the cliff.

Perhaps there are stories there unlike any other. . . " Shen Mu looked at the cliff, and his heart suddenly jumped—he saw a headless man standing in a crack in the cliff!

Xing An!

He could not help but feel a chill. Xing An was guarding the entrance to that world of yellow sand and desert, waiting for him to walk into the trap himself! The world of yellow sand and desert was a world without any living thing, a world utterly dead.

This fellow had actually removed his own head and set his headless body to guard there; no doubt his head and eyes were still flying this way and that through the skies of that desert world, searching for any trace of Shen Mu and his companions! The Dragon Qilin noticed it too, and landed without a sound.

The Chest gave off a faint glow, driving back the darkness and keeping watch over them.

At last the Dragon Qilin touched down, and the Chest crept down off the dragon's back and crawled along the ground.

The Dragon Qilin shrank itself as much as it could and then climbed onto the Chest; Shen Mu stood on the Chest as well, and the great Chest set off on its feet, stealing toward the river.

The water here was the source of the Yong River; because it was not very wide and the flow was not great, it could hardly be called a river yet.

The Chest entered the water, its several legs gently stirring the current, and swam silently downstream. Shen Mu let out a breath.

Xing An had set his head down in that world, but that would also cost him the ability to watch this side; it would be very hard for him to discover them. So long as they went a bit farther, the chance of his finding them would be vanishingly small.

Just then, the Chest struck a rock in the water with a thud.

The sound was not loud, but in the deep of night it seemed piercingly harsh. They had not yet gone far from the waterfall, and were not far from where Xing An stood.

Shen Mu looked back and saw that Xing An, standing in the crack of the cliff wall, had not stirred at all.

His heart suddenly moved, and he laughed: "I am being too careful.

I forgot that Xing An's head is not here—he has no ears and no eyes. Even if we walked right past him in broad daylight, he could neither see nor hear us. " The Dragon Qilin breathed out as well and laughed: "The waterfall is so loud here, there is no need at all to worry that he might hear.

. .

Cult Master?

" Shen Mu's expression suddenly changed drastically, revealing utter shock. In the crack of the cliff, Xing An's headless body had turned around. Its neck looked very long, and on either side of the neck was an ear. His whole body was a godlike fleshly body, giving off divine light, and in the darkness it was quite striking.

Xing An had cut off his ears and planted them on his neck!

Now the two ears swayed in the wind and became larger than the ears of the golden elephant of Loulan! Shen Mu made his decision at once and used the Tianyu Clan's divine-sense voice transmission: "Run!

Not by water!

Get ashore!