Chapter 560 — Breaking Through the Clouds to See the Blue Sky

Tens of thousands of skeletons and zombies held Shen Mu at their center, rushing eastward like a tide; wherever they passed, everything was drowned beneath them. The Ill-Omen Land was indeed filled with all manner of uncanny things, most of them strange living beings formed from the resentments or lingering souls of gods, demons, and divine ability users who had fallen in battle.

These creatures were shot through with the divine powers those gods and demons had left behind in their death blows, and so their strength was often monstrous and their forms monstrously grotesque and terrifying. That war had been savage beyond measure: the gods, demons, and divine ability users who died here erupted in every kind of negative emotion, divine blood and demon blood mingling together, and so this bizarre place, the Ill-Omen Land, came into being, and the beings within it were twisted in mind as well. Along the way Shen Mu saw every sort of outlandish ill-omened thing: mountains of flesh formed from the mingled blood and meat of gods and demons, white-bone centipedes with hundreds of heads, hand bones that scurried about at random, and monsters with dragon heads, horse bodies, long tails, and bones for every part of them.

Yet however mighty these ill-omened things might be, before the army of the Qisha Star Lord Wei Liao they could only wait to die, flattened by the jubilant legions of skeletons and zombies. The vastness of the Ill-Omen Land was almost beyond imagining; even though Shen Mu and his companions moved at no slow pace, it took them more than two days to reach its edge. "Young friend Shen, a little farther and you will leave the Ill-Omen Land.

This is as far as we can escort you. " Wei Liao halted and cupped his fist in salute. "Here we part.

" Shen Mu returned the salute. "Here we part.

After I leave, I will surely go to Fengdu and question King Yama, to see whether a place can be found for you all to settle. Wait for my word.

" With that he turned and went.

Wei Liao watched him into the distance, then suddenly raised his voice: "Young friend Shen, your surname is Shen as well.

What is your relation to Kaihuang? " Shen Mu looked back and waved a hand.

"Kaihuang is my founding ancestor!

" "No wonder, no wonder.

.

. " Wei Liao was briefly stunned. Watching him walk out of the Ill-Omen Land, he suddenly grew exultant, shouting again and again at the top of his voice: "Boys, let us go!

We will conquer a great domain in the Ill-Omen Land, rule the Ill-Omen, and await the descent of Kaihuang!

" Countless skeletons and zombies followed him with a howl, charging deep into the Ill-Omen Land where demonic qi hung thick. Shen Mu walked out of the Ill-Omen Land and looked back; from within it burst surge after surge of dreadful throbbing, most likely the Qisha Star Lord Wei Liao attacking the other ill-omened domains.

"Though dead, still they fight on in fury; white bones repay their lord's grace.

True warriors indeed! " He walked eastward through the gloom.

The Ill-Omen Land might well become Wei Liao's domain, and that domain, lying within the territory of the demon race, might become a nail driven into the demons' heart.

"Why, I still remember that Youdu tongue! " Shen Mu blinked.

The Youdu tongue in his mind had still not faded; could the uncanniness of the Ill-Omen Land be following him all along?

Not only that, he could also see the gateway of another Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, still standing opposite his original one.

"That I should master the Youdu tongue just like this. .

. there is something very strange about it.

" He manifested the Zhen Star Lord form once more; the Heaven-Bearing Gate appeared again, and that ancient scroll took shape once more. He opened the scroll, yet did not read it aloud; page by page he recited it in silence, committing the Youdu tongue within the book to memory. Half an hour later he had the Youdu tongue in the book entirely by heart, and only then did he disperse the Zhen Star Lord form; the Heaven-Bearing Gate behind him vanished of itself.

"I have seen the Heaven-Bearing Gate only upon the statue at the bottom of the Nether Valley that appears to be an Overlord Body, yet that statue bore no scroll in its hands. Among all the divine beings and divine ability users I have met, it seems I alone gain an ancient volume in my hand when I manifest the Zhen Star Lord form. " Shen Mu pondered hard, and after a while he worked it out: "That Overlord Body statue at the bottom of the Nether Valley is in truth a false Overlord Body, just like Xu Shenghua.

Only a true Overlord Body would have such an ancient volume appear in its hand! I will have to ask the Village Head when I get back; he knows more than I do!

" Having grasped this key point, he was at last at ease, and put the matter from his mind.

The Youdu tongue came from his lips once more as he recited the contents of the book and ran eastward. Surge after surge of demonic qi came rushing in and drilled into the space between his brows, raising his demonic cultivation higher and higher. This time there was no anomaly of the dead returning to life; that revival of the dead must have been the work of the ancient scroll.

Shen Mu set his mind at rest: so long as he did not bring out that scroll, the Youdu tongue within it was simply a marvelous mode of cultivation, and he need not fear disturbing Youdu and being hunted down by the underworld's ghost officers. He raced on; wherever he passed, demonic qi was drawn after him in a straight line like beacon smoke stretched taut, so that he looked not like a divine ability user but like a great demon lord howling as he ran.

Suddenly he stopped reciting the demonic tongue of Youdu; from his mouth came instead a profound and obscure divine tongue, as his demonic essence battered the gateway of the demonic-path Primal Embryo Divine Treasury. At once a demonic tongue sounded in his mind, as though rising from the Nine Springs far down in the darkness, uncanny and unfathomable, disturbing his demonic essence and blocking him from breaking open that gateway. The divine tongue on his lips likewise held a strange power, contending with that suddenly arisen demonic tongue.

In years past, when Shen Mu had opened his Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, a divine tongue had likewise seemed to come from above the Nine Heavens, disturbing his spirit embryo as it broke through the wall; he had borrowed the demonic tongue and the Buddhist tongue to force the wall open, and only thus had he been able to cultivate his spirit embryo.

That time could only be counted a stroke of luck. Now he did the same; his mastery of the divine tongue was by then immeasurably greater than it had been, and using it to contend with the demonic tongue from the Nine Springs came as easily as his own hand, letting his demonic essence flow unimpeded and hammer the embryo wall!

Boom, a thunderous roar came from within his body; another Primal Embryo Divine Treasury was burst open in one rush, his demonic cultivation soaring at once and drawing in ever more demonic qi, while the demonic tongue from the Nine Springs broke off abruptly.

"In this Primal Embryo Divine Treasury there is no demonic-path spirit embryo! " Shen Mu was astonished: this demonic-path Primal Embryo Divine Treasury of his was utterly empty, holding only a spirit altar, and upon the altar were branded all manner of bizarre demonic-path glyphs.

"The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art!

" Shen Mu drove the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art; the demonic essence in his body surged and came swarming into the demonic-path Primal Embryo Divine Treasury. At that instant, with a flash of light, his spirit embryo suddenly appeared within this treasury, seated upon the spirit altar, breathing in and out, taking in and giving out demonic essence.

The demonic essence exhaled by the spirit embryo wove together in the air, forming a demonic sun and a demonic moon.