Chapter 536 — Forging Iron Before the Foe

On the Black Tiger God's back, Sang Hua was frantic with dread. This was the enemy's lair — the Black Tiger God had brought them charging into it. Could he have turned traitor?

"But he is a god. There would be no need for him to trick us into coming here. If he wanted us dead, he could simply seize us or swallow us whole."

Even as she reasoned thus, panic still gripped her heart.

This was, after all, the enemy's camp.

The demon race had dwelt in Taihuang Heaven for ten or twenty thousand years. In Sang Hua's memory they had always been savage and vicious, capable of every evil. To fall into their hands — even to die would be a mercy.

And now they stood in the very heart of the enemy's camp.

She looked around. Countless demons ringed them with predatory eyes, their numbers so vast they made the heart quail. They were like savage beasts lying in wait, ready at any moment to pounce and tear them limb from limb.

Sang Hua's palms ran with cold sweat. Her gaze fell upon one demon god and could not be torn away.

That demon god was bare-chested, his skin bearing none of the ordinary textures of flesh — only coil upon coil of flame patterns winding across his whole body.

His two eyes were uncanny as well, like two tongues of fire dancing in their sockets. Seeing her look his way, he smiled. "Little girl, I have seen you before. Your family died at my hand, did they not?"

Sang Hua clenched her fists, her eyes tightening, and said nothing.

Shen Mu glanced at that demon god. His pupils suddenly contracted as he recalled the encounter on the night he first met Sang Hua. That night, the heaven-demons had attacked the city. Sang Hua's father had gone to hold off the demon gods and been caught in the siege. One demon god had broken into Sang Hua's home and slaughtered most of her family.

The scene had been horrifying beyond words. Though he could not see Sang Hua's face, he had felt even then the terror and fury of the long-braided girl.

Shen Mu had fled and hidden with her, and only so had she escaped with her life.

At that time, Shen Mu and Sang Hua had dwelt in two different worlds. He had not seen the demon god's face clearly. But now, from Sang Hua's expression, he could confirm that this bare-chested demon god before them was the very one who had butchered her family.

"The architecture here is very like our Ruins. In the Ruins I saw many relics from the Kaihuang era, and they bear some resemblance to these palaces."

Shen Mu suddenly smiled. "Little Sister Sang Hua, perhaps your Taihuang Heaven and our Ruins are connected somehow."

He meant to draw the girl's attention elsewhere, but Sang Hua was too heavy-hearted to catch his words.

The Black Tiger God picked up the thread. "Taihuang Heaven was always Kaihuang's domain, the first of the Thirty-Three Heavens. So it is no wonder the buildings are similar."

"Taihuang Heaven was Kaihuang's domain?"

Shen Mu was greatly shaken and blurted out, "And what is this Thirty-Three Heavens? Has the Kaihuang era not already ended?"

The Black Tiger God said in confusion, "The Kaihuang era ended? Since when? Kaihuang still lives. How could the Kaihuang era have ended? So long as Kaihuang lives, the Kaihuang era shall never end!"

Shen Mu's mind was thrown into chaos. His heart pounded wildly. The Kaihuang era had not ended!

What shocking news this was.

Yet he at once recalled his past encounters in the Ruins and in Fengdu. The Heavenly King statue in the Temple of the Heavenly King, by Kaihuang's decree, had ridden a dragon qilin to slay the Dragon King, and King Yama of Fengdu had also mentioned that Kaihuang had gone to the Land of No Sorrow.

Both incidents revealed that the Kaihuang era should not have ended.

But to hear the Black Tiger God speak it aloud still left him profoundly shaken.

"Shen Mu, your mind is unsteady. It will go badly for you when it comes time to fight."

The Black Tiger God spoke sternly, barking, "Your cultivation of the mind was never strong enough. Steady your heart at once!"

Shen Mu, dazed and muddled, asked in confusion, "What fight?"

"We have arrived!"

The Black Tiger God halted abruptly, shook his body, and flung both of them off. The two landed; the Black Tiger God swayed and transformed into a god with a tiger's head and a man's body. He looked down at the two and frowned, then called out loudly, "My lord, these two are of no use. Their hearts are both in turmoil. Send them to fight, and they will surely lose abominably!"

Sang Hua had just seen the demon god who had nearly annihilated her family, and her heart still seethed; Shen Mu had been shaken by the Black Tiger God's news, his mind in turmoil. Indeed, their condition now was somewhat precarious.

Yet at the Black Tiger God's words they both came to their senses. They looked ahead, and their hearts went cold.

Before them stood a cluster of palaces, strangely arrayed. They bathed in a great fire yet were not destroyed. The flames seemed to emanate from the palaces themselves, burning them nearly transparent, so that from outside one could actually see the arrangements within.

The palaces themselves gave off fire, and the fire gave off light, illuminating the whole city as bright as day.

Above the palaces, god after god and demon after demon faced off against one another. Shen Mu quickly spotted the Woodcutter Sage, with many gods standing behind him — and among them, Sang Hua's father.

Opposite them stood another demon god. Yet this one did not look like a demon at all — rather, there was something almost gentle and refined about him. He simply had no ears.

Where his left ear should have been, there was a face. Where his right ear should have been, there was another face.

Shen Mu could not see behind him, and did not know whether the back of his head also bore a face.

Hall after hall encircled a black pillar several zhang thick. The black pillar was like a black pagoda, driven at a slant into the vast plaza.

An axe of absurd size was also embedded in the plaza, its haft almost as thick as the black pillar.

Only then did Shen Mu realize that it was neither a black pillar nor a black pagoda, but a great spear.

The great black spear crossed with the Woodcutter Sage's axe, standing in the plaza.

The two weapons were so massive they pressed cracks into the ground.

"Enter."

The Black Tiger God urged them on. "When those in front die, it will be your turn."

Shen Mu and Sang Hua walked forward to the edge of the plaza. Around it stood several young practitioners of divine arts, drenched in blood, regulating their breath. They still wore armor — they must have just come from the battlefield.

Opposite, there were likewise young divine-arts practitioners, but these were of the demon race, also fresh from battle, still bearing wounds, each of them fierce of countenance and full of valor.

"My lord, I have brought them." The Black Tiger God bowed to the Woodcutter Sage in the air above.

The Woodcutter Sage said, "Why are their hearts unsettled?"

The Black Tiger God said hurriedly, "My lord's juniors have poor cultivation of the mind. Hearing that it is still the Kaihuang era, their souls have flown from them."

The Woodcutter Sage shot him a glare. The Black Tiger God's two long ears slapped flat against the back of his head, docile, not daring to say another word.

The Woodcutter Sage looked toward Shen Mu, only to find him rummaging through a Taotie pouch. He fished out a piece of black iron and poked at the great fire spilling from one of the palaces.

The Woodcutter Sage frowned. "Unsettled of mind and flighty of temper besides — I wonder if he is of any use. Could I have misjudged him? On the battlefield, he was clearly not so curious and skittish..."

The black iron in Shen Mu's hand caught fire at once. Soon it grew too hot to hold, and he hastily flung it down. The iron landed, yet the flames upon it did not go out, and in the blink of an eye it melted into a puddle of molten iron.