Chapter 531 — Mystic Mastery of the Battle Array

"How could the Woodcutter Sage appear here? The altar he used looks as though it was prepared long in advance—could someone from this world have summoned him?"

Shen Mu's mind roared. The altar was buried at the very center of the battlefield; the instant the two armies collided, countless lives and blood would trigger it and call the Woodcutter Sage forth.

This was clearly premeditated!

He recalled what the Reclusive Sage of Qingyou had said—that the Woodcutter Sage had awakened more than a month ago and departed with his great axe. The Woodcutter Sage had evidently received some news, and that was why he had risen from his slumber, preparing to descend into this world through sacrifice.

Shen Mu parried his opponent's strike. Behind him, the Heaven-Bearing Gate abruptly swelled. He spun, and the Gate swept a full circle; in an instant, the many heavenly demons who had charged in died without even a groan, their souls returning straight to the Nether Capital!

Whoosh—

The Tiger God bore the Woodcutter Sage down from the altar and charged straight for the enemy camp. The Tiger God turned its head and looked back at Shen Mu in astonishment. A world-shaking voice rang out: "My lord, that man looks like one of your juniors!"

Astride the tiger's back, the Woodcutter Sage turned and looked toward Shen Mu, who stood before the Heaven-Bearing Gate slaughtering the surging heavenly demons. His gaze was bright as snow, illuminating all around the altar.

"Strange—how did he come to Taihuang Heaven..."

The Woodcutter Sage withdrew his gaze. Wherever the Tiger God passed, men and horses were thrown into chaos. The Tiger God roared, and ring after ring of sound waves burst forth; within those waves, countless demons were flung into the air.

In the midst of the chaos, Shen Mu saw this scene, and the image of the pot-bellied Dragon Qilin suddenly surfaced in his mind. He could not help but envy the Woodcutter Sage deeply: "This Tiger God calls him 'my lord'—it must be his mount. Truly awe-inspiring!"

Astride the tiger, the Woodcutter Sage swung his great axe, cleaving apart the divine powers of the attacking demon gods. The Tiger God bounded several times and carried him to the very center of the enemy camp.

From the moment the Tiger God leaped down from the altar to the moment it reached the enemy camp, no more than a breath had passed.

The Woodcutter Sage raised his great axe; the axe rose and fell, and before a four-headed demon god in the enemy camp could even rise, its four massive heads flew from its neck.

"Hatila!"

Demon gods came charging from all sides, wheeling around the Tiger God in a whirl of slaughter. The Woodcutter Sage sat on the tiger's back, swinging his great axe, and the axe-light surged like a tide.

"The Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture! No—what he's using must be the complete Mystic Body Three Elixir Art!"

Shen Mu, forced back again and again by the charging heavenly demons, retreated toward the altar. Catching sight of this in the chaos, his heart stirred: "His comprehension of the Mystic Body Three Elixir Art far surpasses mine!"

The Woodcutter Sage was not merely swinging his axe; with his other hand he unleashed the various divine powers recorded in the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture. Yet those powers were not the individual techniques of the Scripture, but combinations of different techniques—like Fan Xuanshu's Great Luo Heaven Star Palm Power, which fused hundreds of divine powers into a single art.

Anyone else would not have recognized his powers as the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture, but Shen Mu, as the Nether Demon Cult Leader, recognized them at a glance.

Around the Woodcutter Sage, strange force fields burst forth, blasting demon gods away one after another. In the instant those demon gods were flung back, the great axe came out of nowhere and severed their heads in midair. His combat strength was terrifying beyond measure.

Shen Mu longed to observe his divine powers closely, but more and more heavenly demons surged in from all sides. The Woodcutter Sage, having been summoned, slew only the enemy leaders—cutting down the demon gods in the enemy camp—while paying no heed to the rest of the heavenly demon army. Countless demons were still surging toward the battlefield like a tide, killing their way toward the enemy.

At this moment even more heavenly demons poured in, while the divine-power wielders of this world behind the altar also pushed forward. The shouts and cries of slaughter shook heaven and earth.

In a large-scale battle of divine-power wielders like this, an individual's strength was almost negligible. A single moment of distraction, and one could be buried at any time beneath an opponent's attack.

Shen Mu had no time to think further; he could only cast aside every thought in his mind and fight with all his might.

The heavenly demons were astonishingly strong. The demon race's techniques and divine powers were utterly different from those of Jingping Kingdom. They might fall short in the refinement of their moves, but they surpassed in mana, and in combat strength the heavenly demons had their own extraordinary qualities.

The bodies of the heavenly demons differed from those of humans: the Eight Tribes of Heavenly Demons—fish-scaled frog-webbed ones, lava giants, handsome youths, hideous women, scorpion-tailed women, eight-clawed women, eight-tentacled monstrosities, snake-handed freaks.

These demons were of high bloodline, born war machines of immense combat strength. Those around Shen Mu were the elite among them, and not one was much weaker than he.

More and more heavenly demons charged onto the altar—more than ten of them. These demons saw that the Heaven-Bearing Gate behind him was uncanny beyond measure, so they avoided it and attacked in concert.

Shen Mu fought back with all his strength. His eight thousand swords wove back and forth, countless sword-lights surging, when suddenly all the flying swords scattered like locusts, and in an instant mountains and rivers emerged, transforming into Sword-Treading Mountains and Rivers.

On the altar, mountain ranges stretched in succession, waterfalls hung inverted, long rivers raced. The terrible slaughter of a moment before had vanished into thin air.

Yet the next instant, blood flowed out from this landscape painting, dyeing the mountains and rivers red in a heartbeat.

Then the mountains and rivers shattered, and a lava giant swung a great hammer and leaped up from the broken landscape, smashing down at Shen Mu with a thunderous crash.

Shen Mu retreated, both hands raised high. The Carefree Sword flew to him, and the other eight thousand swords clashed with it, ding-ding-ding, sinking into the Carefree Sword in the blink of an eye.

The lava giant brought its hammer down, and a terrifying shockwave lashed out in all directions, sweeping countless corpses around the altar into the air.

Shen Mu swung his sword down with both hands. The lava giant spun its hammer, swift as wind. There was a single ding, and Shen Mu's body shook violently, flung into the air—while the spinning lava giant was suddenly cut in two, hammer and all!

Before Shen Mu could land, he saw a woman with eight claws behind her spread them wide. The corpses in midair burst apart with a series of booms, and the blood gathered in the air into a torrent that engulfed Shen Mu.

Shen Mu swung his sword. The Carefree Sword split apart, and eight thousand swords clashed with a ding-dang clatter, transforming into two long sabers. The sabers crossed, and saber-light burst forth, bright as a full moon in the sky.

Moonlight and saber-light merged into one and suddenly erupted; ray after ray of light shot forth like meteors.

Shh—