Chapter 549 — Gone Like Smoke and Clouds

The Black Tiger God looked up, and understanding dawned. "You are right. We cannot let the gods and demons of Taihuang Heaven help, or there is no telling what chaos would come of it!"

The man and the tiger set to work at once, smelting the demon soldiers and forging the components the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange required. There was no need to refine away the demon-nature; it was enough to melt them down and recast them.

Both were master forgers, and both were skilled in the arts of calculation. Every component was forged with matchless precision, and every rune-seal upon it had to be stamped without the slightest error, accurate to the unit of a shunxi, a mere blink, striving always for greater perfection.

The Sun-Forging Deity had forged the sun in the sky crooked and warped precisely because, when he designed his man-made sun, he had not demanded high precision of each component. By Shen Mu's reckoning, in the blueprints for that sun and a half, the Sun-Forging Deity had calculated at best to the unit of a hu or a wei, and so the sun hung crooked and warped, a sight too ugly to bear.

Yet for a sun to hang in the sky and look round, one had to calculate at the very least to the unit of a xuyu or a shunxi.

The sun and a half in the sky were several dozen times larger than the great altar. Shen Mu's demands for the precision of the altar's components were already exceedingly high, every component accurate to the unit of a shunxi, and that was why the sun in the sky stung his eyes.

The Woodcutter Sage, too, was a master of calculation and forging, and so he likewise could not abide the sun of Taihuang Heaven.

Ten days later, Sang Hua, Shu You, and the others came hurrying back, bringing several hundred divine-ability practitioners with them, and waited for Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God to activate the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange.

Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God were busy upon the altar, adjusting and testing, not daring to slacken for an instant. In those ten days they had slept only two or three times; they were truly exhausted, yet their spirits ran high.

Not long after, True God Pang Yu, Venerable God Sang Ye, and other deities arrived with thousands of divine-ability practitioners. All of them looked toward the altar, and saw that the great components, black as ink, had now merged with the altar into one body; components long and short alike stood straight up toward the sky like spears, halberds, sabers, and swords.

Those components were covered in strange runes, runes profound and hard to fathom. More runes appeared beneath the altar; the space under the altar had been all but hollowed out by Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God, who had also installed a great many giant components below, of the utmost complexity.

The altar itself had been bored through with complex passages, and within those passages lay countless more components, runes linking every component on the altar.

The whole altar was like a single body, and yet within it lay an internal structure of incomparable complexity.

Thousands of divine-ability practitioners and one deity after another circled the vast altar several times, gazing and marveling as they went. Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God had shown them a beauty of great metal, heavy and new to their eyes!

This beauty was not regular; on the contrary, it was precisely that irregularity, the staggered shadows, the very texture of metal and rune, that revealed a beauty all its own.

Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God installed the last component, checked the alignment of the altar in the other world, and exchanged a glance; each saw the same elation in the other's eyes.

"Ready?" The Black Tiger God was fairly dancing with excitement. "I am ready to rouse the power of the runes!"

Shen Mu nodded firmly. The Black Tiger God sent a surge of divine essence into the activation rune, and at once that rune lit up. The light flowed along the rune, kindling the others; then the light split in two, and like running water it lit up more and more runes!

A humming sound rose without cease. The light poured into the altar's interior, seeped out from within, ran across tier after tier, and kindled rune-seal after rune-seal upon the altar.

At last all the light flowed to the base of the altar and gathered there.

Hummm. A violent tremor ran through the air, and suddenly the whole altar rose tier by tier into the void, divided by its steps into more than nine hundred layers, each turning in a different direction, each turn a quarter circle; and after every turn, the runes of the different layers always locked together with perfect exactness, precision beyond compare!

Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God stood upon one of those tiers, elated beyond words, while below the altar the divine-ability practitioners of Taihuang Heaven and the deities standing in the air could not help but thrill with excitement.

The sight of that great engine of metal coming to life was truly magnificent, truly grand!

The altar turned on and on, and with every quarter turn, surges of spiritual power gushed forth. This spiritual power was the demon-breath and demon-nature within the demon primal soldiers, roused and set free!

Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God had calculated with meticulous care: once the barrier between the two worlds was breached and a funnel-shaped Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange was raised, the energies of the two worlds would keep the bridge stable, and the passage would not easily collapse; and the demon-breath and demon-nature of the demon primal soldiers would be spent in this very blast.

The altar's layers revolved no one knew how many times, until the energy gathered to its utmost; then suddenly a black light shot up into the heavens, its surging might roaring and raging!

Thousands of divine-ability practitioners and the assembled gods, and Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God besides, all raised their heads to look up into the sky, smiling, and then the smiles froze on their faces.

In the sky, that black light, violent beyond measure, struck the half-sun; the half-sun was vaporized in an instant, vanishing into smoke and ashes within the black light!

The Black Tiger God's two pricked ears slapped flat against the back of his skull with a swish, and his mouth fell wide open. "We're done for... Junior Brother, is this stirring up trouble, or courting disaster?"

Beads of sweat the size of beans hung from Shen Mu's left eyelid and dropped onto his left cheek; then the sweat rolled down the youth's forehead like a waterfall, forming two curtains of water over his eyelids.

Shen Mu turned his neck with difficulty and looked at the Black Tiger God. The sweat rolling down the youth-shaped Black Tiger God's face was even more than his own, soaking his upper garment through.

"Senior Brother, look at the expressions on the faces below," Shen Mu said, his voice hoarse, pitched low.

"You look. I don't dare. I'm afraid they won't be able to hold back and will beat us to death... Do you think they'll beat us to death?"