Chapter 526 — I Can Do It Myself!

More of the volumes were destroyed, and Shen Mu's fury broke its banks entirely: the First Ancestor Human Emperor did not hold the lifeblood of past generations of Human Emperors in the slightest regard. The lifelong toil of the Village Elder, of Qi Kang, and of other Human Emperors besides—all of it, ruined in the First Ancestor's hands! Shen Mu's vital essence rocked and erupted with a roar, and his crimson qi became a sea of blood—blood that floated shields and spears, with countless corpses of gods and demons adrift upon it.

The second form of the Village Elder's sword diagram: One Sword Opens the Vast Sea of Blood! His sword art was not the Village Elder's.

The Village Elder's art was the Fourteen Sword Forms; he had folded the eighteen fundamental sword moves into this single stroke.

Save that its conception fell short, and that it carried a few small flaws, the power of the strike already far surpassed the Village Elder's. The instant the move left his hand, the figure of the First Ancestor Human Emperor rose slowly out of the boundless sea of blood, his sword art opening the way, cleaving the blood sea apart; the countless divine and demon corpses whirled up and, instead of hindering him, became his allies, and he came rushing at Shen Mu. Bang, bang, bang—burst after burst of blood-light exploded across Shen Mu's body and he flew backward, wounds pierced into him by the First Ancestor's vital-essence sword.

He crashed hard against the wall of the Human Emperor Hall, then dropped and lay prone upon the ground. The Dragon Qilin was enraged; it opened its jaws and roared, charging the First Ancestor Human Emperor. The First Ancestor's five fingers danced, and from the splayed tips runes burst forth, forming a seal more than ten feet wide that stamped itself onto the Dragon Qilin's gaping, blood-bowl maw.

The qilin true fire in its mouth was blocked at once, and with a flick of his sleeve the First Ancestor sent the beast tumbling into the wall.

Chest strode forward, its lid thrown open, meaning to swallow him whole; the First Ancestor set his toe upon the chest, and with a whoosh it slammed into the Dragon Qilin that had just dropped from the wall, and the two of them went tumbling head over heels out of the Human Emperor Hall and down the steps. "You have seen it now.

That so-called Overlord Body of yours, that so-called Kaihuang bloodline—it is nothing at all.

" The First Ancestor waved his sleeve, and a bookshelf floated into the air; the books upon it fluttered and flew, and between one brush of his sleeve and the next, each volume of a Human Emperor's lifeblood turned into paper butterflies.

The First Ancestor's face was placid: "These books are like you—nothing at all. No amount of effort is of any use.

Why bother?

Why keep struggling and striving for that laughable notion of yours? " Shen Mu stood. His ten fingers flew, swiftly sealing the wounds all around his body, and he charged at the First Ancestor once more: "That you cannot do it does not mean I cannot!

Seal!

" "Forbid! " "Fix!

" "River! " "Mountain! " He came on in madness, driving Human Emperor Kong Xian's Words-Become-Law: the word Seal appeared beneath the First Ancestor's feet, the word Forbid enclosed him, the word Fix appeared before him, the word River coiled about him like a flood dragon, the word Mountain pressed down upon his head.

Words spoken, law follows—the five words issued together, a wondrous art and divine power created by Human Emperor Kong Xian. Yet in the next instant the five great words shattered with a clatter; the First Ancestor Human Emperor brought a palm down like heaven and earth overturned, crashing upon him.

Shen Mu roared.

Dragons coiled about his body, his muscles and sinews wrapped his bones like great serpents, his frame hideous with power, his spine rearing up like a true dragon.

The True Dragon Overlord Body!

An art he had grasped through bitter cultivation in the True Dragon's Lair, fused with the Mystic Body Three-Cinnabar Art, raising his fleshly body to a height it had never reached before.

This was his strongest physical divine power. His right hand, turned over, was yang; his left hand, laid flat, was the seal; in the turning and reversing, the two palms pressed center to center and went up to meet the First Ancestor's palm. The Yin-Yang Heaven-Flipping Hand!

This was the art of the Third Ancestor Human Emperor.

The Third Ancestor had taught him only the opening move, yet Shen Mu had drawn the rest by analogy and grasped a use for stacked palms.

Now he layered pure yin palm-force upon pure yang palm-force, pure yin and pure yang erupting at once, yin and yang converging—its might soared! Boom—Shen Mu staggered backward, then, left hand yang and right hand yin, met the First Ancestor's fist with stacked palms again; but before the power of this move could burst forth, the force hidden in the First Ancestor's fist shattered his yin and yang and blasted him away.

"The third-generation Human Emperor was a failure too.

Use his moves, and you are doomed to lose. " The First Ancestor's palm wind struck the ground, and Shen Mu, who had just landed, was shaken up into the air against his will, then smashed down by a seal and slammed prone against the floor.

Hum.

Two divine lights shot from the First Ancestor's eyes and hammered into Shen Mu. That terrible gaze seemed about to cut him in two at the waist, and the ground all around was scorched red.

Shen Mu rolled over and fled on flying feet from that gaze, weaving through the Human Emperor Hall like a swallow, divine light gathering in his eyes; two beams shot out and collided with the First Ancestor's gaze.

Bang. His sacred pupils were overwhelmed, and he was nailed to the wall.

"You have met him? " The First Ancestor Human Emperor withdrew his gaze and walked to the Third Ancestor's bookshelf.

He took down a book—the Third Ancestor's art—and said without expression, "Now you know: that Yin-Yang Heaven-Flipping Hand he spent a lifetime perfecting is good for nothing; it should long ago have been thrown into the privy!

The books he wrote are not even fit to wipe one's arse with. " Shen Mu slid down the wall, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, and watched the First Ancestor Human Emperor tearing books apart beside the shelf, his heart sinking. Never in his life had he met so powerful an opponent.

The realm the First Ancestor brought to bear was the same as his own—both had opened the Seven Stars Divine Treasury.

The only difference was that Shen Mu's Seven Stars Divine Treasury had already merged with the Six Realms Divine Treasury, so that no realm barrier remained in him, while in the First Ancestor the barrier still stood. On that point alone, Shen Mu's cultivation of vital essence already far exceeded the First Ancestor's—and yet when they truly crossed hands, it was nothing of the sort at all!

The First Ancestor seemed a man with no shortcoming in any respect.

He had not merged his divine treasuries, and yet in fleshly body he surpassed Shen Mu by far. He was like a true god in his youth: his fists, his legs, his muscles, his skin, the very hairs of his head, his bones, his tendons—all had reached an attainment beyond Shen Mu's.

His five viscera and six bowels were monstrously developed; the heart that drove the blood through his body beat with tremendous force, like a great bell tolling, sending qi and blood to every limb in a single instant and letting his dharma power circulate all the faster. His lungs drew long draughts, and wind and cloud rolled with every breath, letting them hold more air; his kidneys marshaled and harmonized the strength of his body, holding it in a state of utter stability.