Chapter 501 — Chixiu Was a God All Along

The bird-headed god turned his head, flapped his wings, and said sourly: "You don't know what you've done? Think again! When the King of Hell chops off your head, at least you'll die with your eyes wide open.

" Shen Mu was at a loss; he could not for the life of him recall what crime he had committed.

"Could it be about my sailing the Soul Boat away? But the Soul Boat doesn't belong to Fengdu—it's the Moonherd's property. The King of Hell despises the Moon Wardens for what they are and refused their allegiance, so taking the Soul Boat out hardly counts as a crime, does it?

" He had meant all along to enter Fengdu to find the Village Head, and to see whether the young Patriarch was there as well. Though the bird-headed god said he had committed a crime, Shen Mu felt no worry—rather, a flicker of anticipation. Besides, there was no running now even if he wanted to.

Suddenly, Xing'an's roar came: "Divine Physician Shen, what have you done to me?

" Shen Mu turned to look.

Of this, the mightiest being in the world, it was no longer possible to say which part was him. He was hung all over with limbs of every kind; the heads were male and female, old and young—and not one of the bodies was his own. Here in the Realm of the Living Dead, the original consciousness of those limbs had revived, the vanished limbs had been restored, and each reclaimed the body that had once been its own, squeezing Xing'an's own consciousness into utter insignificance. Now he could not control or command this towering, monstrous composite of many limbs at all!

"Xing'an, what have you done to us? " twenty or thirty heads demanded at once, and then the limbs began to wrestle and thrash, rolling this way and that like a great ball. Shen Mu was moved to pity.

"Xing'an," he said, "I have done nothing to you.

It is you who have done something to them. You seized their limbs, and that is what made you what you are now.

In this Realm of the Living Dead, the living are the dead, and the dead are the living. Look at me, look at the Dragon Qilin, and you will understand my words. " Xing'an could not move at all now; only the limbs of those others could move. He had plundered so very much from other people that of his own body nothing remained but his three souls. Even his primordial spirit had been stolen from another!

The bird-headed god tilted his head toward Xing'an. "Xing'an, the King of Hell wants to see you too. There is a primordial spirit hidden in you that interests him.

Everyone, come with me.

" The great ball of flesh that Xing'an had become roared, straining with all its might to leave the Realm of the Living Dead; but the limbs on his body would not obey him in the least. Instead they struck out with dozens of legs and feet, hands and feet together, and crawled toward Fengdu.

"Let me go! " Xing'an's voice was full of panic. It was the second time he had felt such dread.

The first time he felt that dread was when he opened the Life-and-Death Divine Treasury and perceived that his own life had an end—that when the limit of his lifespan arrived, Youdu, beneath the Life-and-Death Divine Treasury, would devour his primordial spirit and cast him forever into darkness!

That was the great terror, the outcome he could not accept!

And after he opened the Divine Bridge Divine Treasury, he found the Divine Bridge already broken, and with all his brilliance he could not repair it. So Xing'an took another road, another path to long life. He took the limbs of others.

Since he could not become a god himself, and his flesh was bound to grow old, then he would seize the limbs of others and replace his aging body with them.

He was, after all, proud and lofty of heart; he still wished to become a god by another means. Those who could pass his scrutiny were all the very finest beings in the world, beings who had reached the divine realm in one respect or another. Though he did not kill these lambs in his eyes, still some had died because of him.

Now those people had come back to life out of death, and he was the one who was dead.

They were splitting apart the true-god body he had refined with such bitter effort; they were trying to tear him asunder! Once again he felt that great dread, the great terror of life and death!

The bird-headed god shifted his feet slightly, found a comfortable posture, and settled back down on the mountain top with his head drawn in. "Xing'an, your crimes have come due as well.

But this time what the King of Hell means to investigate is not you, but the remnants of the Heavenly Court inside you.

" "Heh heh heh. .

.

" A sinister, uncanny voice suddenly issued from within Xing'an's body: "What sort of damned King of Hell is that? Nothing but a leftover from an old age! It's me you're looking for, isn't it? " "Kuiwu Shen!

" Shen Mu's heart lurched.

He saw the primordial spirit of Kuiwu Shen suddenly swell out from within Xing'an's branching, forking body, transforming into a colossal thing a thousand zhang tall, savage and terrifying, taller than the mountain peak, more imposing still, his eyes like the craters of two volcanoes, brimming with raging flame, and around the flame a darkness dense beyond measure. He looked down from his height upon the bird-headed god on the mountain below and sneered: "You too are a leftover of the old age.

I have seen you—a Night Wanderer of the Kaihuang era.

You were originally a chiuxiu of the Kaihuang era, a warden of the souls of prisoners, a deity able to fly freely between Youdu and the world of the living, and you named yourself Chixiu! Chixiu, receive my bow! " He bowed his head and made obeisance. The bird-headed god still stood steady on the mountain top, not stirring in the slightest. Kuiwu Shen was startled, and bowed his head again.

The bird-headed god lifted one leg and scratched at the corner of his beak. Kuiwu Shen was greatly shaken. He turned at once and fled, racing madly out of the Realm of the Living Dead. He was not yet dead; his fleshly body was still suppressed beneath Yang Mountain in the Wasteland. Here he had not recovered his body, and only his primordial spirit remained.

The speed of a primordial spirit is unmatched in all the world, faster than the running of any divine leg in the world.

The moment he moved, he crossed the sea of mist in an instant and was about to burst out beyond the bounds of Fengdu's shroud. Just then, the bird-headed god Chixiu spread his wings and flew up, and a great wind howled past Shen Mu and the others!

Shen Mu looked up, and saw in the sky a bird with a human face, its wings spread immeasurably wide, blotting out the sky and hiding the sun.

It reached out its talons and seized Kuiwu Shen's towering primordial spirit! The next moment, the bird-headed god beat his wings and returned, slamming Kuiwu Shen to the ground, then settled back on the mountain top, quietly preening his feathers. Shen Mu shuddered, and the bones in his body knocked together with a clatter.

At such speed, not to mention him—even if Old Cripple were here, he could not have escaped!

The form of this bird-headed god Chixiu was exceedingly strange. In that instant when he flew out, he had shifted directly from fleshly form into pure primordial-spirit form, and that was why his speed could be so great, greater even than Kuiwu Shen's primordial spirit, and why he could so easily overtake Kuiwu Shen and capture him.

And now, flying back, he shifted again from primordial-spirit form into fleshly form. This art of freely turning ethereal and solid at will was profoundly uncanny.

"No wonder Kuiwu Shen said he could freely travel between Youdu and the world of the living. It seems he spoke the truth," Shen Mu thought.

At this moment, chains were coiled around Kuiwu Shen's body, and he struggled without cease, but could never break free of the chains' hold.

For all that this fierce god was unspeakably evil, he was helpless now.