Chapter 559 — The Peak of This Life

"Stranger still, when I performed the Soul-Drawing Charm, many phrases of the demonic tongue I had never learned came surging up in my mind. .

.

" Shen Mu frowned. Those strange impressions still lingered in his head—a language of extreme antiquity.

Suddenly his heart stirred, and he manifested the true form of the Zhen Star Lord, a human head upon a serpent's body, with the Heaven-Bearing Gate appearing behind him and the phantom of an ancient scroll taking shape in his hand. Shen Mu steadied himself and reached out to lift the phantom scroll. As its writing fell into his eyes, he felt the bird-seal and worm scripts on the page recombining at lightning speed; one after another the most bizarre glyphs turned familiar, until every outlandish character was engraved upon his heart!

Shen Mu's face went blank.

This was the language of Youdu, the script of Youdu—he could not read it at all! That scoundrel the Dutian Demon King knew a little of the Youdu tongue and had once taught him a single phrase, the Heaven-Bearing Gate, and back then the Dutian Demon King had deceived him besides, so that Shen Mu had nearly died in Youdu.

As for the writing in this book, the Dutian Demon King had never taught him a word of it.

Yet now he understood every script in the ancient volume without being taught, grasped it without instruction, as though he had mastered it long ago! "This ill-omened place is truly uncanny.

I could not read this book's writing before, yet now I can! The words on the first page resemble a cultivation art, yet are not quite a method of practice; they speak of strange knowledge concerning souls and spirits, yet it is not quite knowledge either—it is more like a divine power. . .

" Shen Mu was utterly astonished. The Youdu language of this scroll was too strange; never before had he seen writing so bizarre—like a cultivation art yet not one, like knowledge yet not knowledge, like a divine power yet not a divine power.

He hesitated a moment, but in the end could not resist and read aloud the words on the first page. From his mouth came a cadenced intonation, obscure and profound, carrying a wondrous rhythm.

These words could not be rendered in the speech of the human race, for human language held no vocabulary for such things—could not even convey their meaning. Only in the Youdu tongue could their import be expressed. The moment Shen Mu read the first line, he felt his soul shudder; the vital qi in his body underwent a strange transformation, turning into demonic qi, while all around, gusts of dark wind rose abruptly, mournful clouds gathered bleak and gray, and the surrounding marsh churned with spray.

Shen Mu hastily stopped and glanced about; everything returned to what it had been. He read on. Wind and clouds shifted again; the water of the marsh boiled as if a pot had overturned, bubbling and gurgling, while above his head the mournful clouds massed into a turning vortex.

Demonic qi came surging from all eight directions, and suddenly one stream of it, like a flood dragon trailing its tail, came hanging down from the vortex's center.

Shen Mu's mind reeled—that demonic qi had already entered through the point between his brows into his Primal Embryo Divine Treasury. Following his voice, it fused with his spirit embryo, and at once the spirit embryo fed it back in return; the demonic qi rolled on in mighty torrents, rushing through his Five Luminaries Divine Treasury and his other divine treasuries, until even the sun, the moon, and the constellations within were stained by it and dimmed to obscurity. As Shen Mu read on, one skeleton after another abruptly rose from the marsh around him, and from beneath the mire many corpses crawled out as well. Startled, he hurriedly stopped, closed the ancient scroll, dismissed the true form of the Zhen Star Lord, and swept a wary gaze over his surroundings.

The instant his voice ceased, the bones toppled down once more. "Too uncanny. This ill-omened place is too uncanny. .

.

" Steadying his mind, Shen Mu resolved to leave this ill-omened place as soon as he could.

"Perhaps once I am out of here, the Youdu tongue in my head will vanish, and I will no longer know the writing in the book.

Eh?

My cultivation seems to have risen somewhat.

. .

" Examining himself, he could not help but be amazed: in this brief span his cultivation had actually climbed a great deal!

He had opened a passage between his divine treasury and his Seven Stars Divine Treasury, and his cultivation had grown immensely deep and powerful—not much weaker than an ordinary expert of the Celestial Being realm—though such depth also made his progress in training seem somewhat slow. Yet in this brief moment he could feel his cultivation rising by a great measure—progress that could only be called terrifying!

"Something is wrong, something is wrong.

. .

There is something off in all this.

There must be some trick hidden in this ancient book.

.

.

" Examining himself carefully, Shen Mu at last discovered where the wrongness lay. Within his body he found a closed gate! A gate set opposite his Primal Embryo Divine Treasury! Another Primal Embryo Divine Treasury!

"This seems a little off. Was it not said that a person has only one Primal Embryo Divine Treasury?

How could there be a second? I am not two people. .

.

Then again, no one ever told me a person cannot have two. Hmm, this must be the work of the Tyrant Body. . .

" Pinning the second Primal Embryo Divine Treasury on the Tyrant Body, Shen Mu found it perfectly reasonable and did not dwell on it further. He surged his cultivation against the gate; it opened a crack, and stream after stream of pure demonic qi poured out, merging with his vital qi, while strange demonic sounds rang out from within the gate, forcing his cultivation back. He stopped at once.

"This Primal Embryo Divine Treasury is a treasury of the demonic path, not of the divine path!

When I opened my own Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, I heard arcane words of the gods; now demonic words sound out, driving my cultivation back, refusing to let me open the demonic Primal Embryo Divine Treasury. .

.

I had better ask the village head.

He understands the Tyrant Body best; he is sure to resolve my doubts! " Setting the matter aside for now, Shen Mu raised his head and surveyed his surroundings. That military governor called Wei Liao had pointed out the way to him; he need only head east to walk out of this ill-omened land.

It was only that the breadth of the great marsh exceeded his expectations. He fixed his direction and pressed on.

After a long while he had walked a thousand li and still had not left the great marsh. Along the way he saw many lakes within it, great and small, numbering in the hundreds, all filled with water—scars left by battles of antiquity. Shen Mu came to the edge of one lake and felt terrifying pulses of dread welling up from within. "These lakes are the traces left by divine powers when gods and demons fought. " Shen Mu proceeded with great caution and did not approach.

The might of the ancient gods' and demons' abilities lingered still, hidden at the lake bottoms; such powers must be terribly unstable, and to step rashly into a lake might bring something dreadful to pass.

Just then he beheld a strange sight: rosy light rose steaming from the lake, and from within that glow came a tinkling ring, like the delicate chime of treasures striking one another, very pleasing to the ear.

Shen Mu halted to watch. The rosy light grew ever denser, and within it he could dimly make out lotus petals spinning one by one. A great lotus dais rose slowly from the water—though the dais seemed to have been smashed, its petals fallen away.

Yet as if the dais held a wondrous gravity, those petals went spinning around it still. And within the lotus dais, several weapons clashed against one another like fighting flood dragons.

Shen Mu turned his head and continued along the lakeshore.