Chapter 639 — The Head in the Jar

From the vault of that dark cavern down to the light below, the distance was unbelievably vast. Shen Mu fell and fell, until at last a chill of dread crept over even him. His speed of descent grew faster and faster; at this rate, if he could not summon his divine powers to slow his fall, he would surely be dashed into a puddle of pulp!

He tried to rouse his divine powers. No sooner had his vital essence formed a rune-seal than the rune scattered and would not take shape.

This subterranean space possessed a strange power that interfered with the working of his arts and the operation of his divine powers. Shen Mu soon discovered that this interference was an intrusion upon his very thoughts. Whenever he attempted to exercise his divine powers, some inexplicable force threw his mind into disorder, so that he could not bring them forth at all.

"A psychic divine power?"

Shen Mu was astonished. Such powers were rarely seen, yet the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture and certain demon-path arts contained records of them. They were usually illusory attacks: by means of powerful thought-waves one generated a divine power that struck the opponent's brain, plunging him into an illusion where he could not tell the false from the true.

At such times one could use one's own divine powers to shatter the illusion, pierce through to the truth, and slay the foe.

Yet the psychic divine power in this dark subterranean space was far more formidable. It attacked his thoughts directly, preventing him from exercising any divine power at all, and so he had no way to break the opponent's psychic art.

"A psychic divine power — now there's a direction worth studying. When I get back I must speak of it with Imperial Preceptor Jingping, and see whether we might cultivate some scholars well-versed in psychic divine powers. If they took the battlefield, a psychic power bursting forth would leave the enemy unable to use their own arts — it would be like slaughtering chickens and butchering dogs... Bah, what am I thinking? Right now I'm about to be smashed into pulp myself!"

Shen Mu could not concentrate his spirit, but his physical body was still immensely powerful. At once he began to stride forward, attempting to run through the darkness, hoping that by an utterly terrifying running speed he might be able to walk upon the air.

He immediately discovered another peculiarity: the air here was thin, and the farther he fell, the thinner it became, so that even with his legs churning like wheels he could borrow no purchase from it.

Just then he saw a star in the darkness. That star was in fact only the size of a basket, and must be a grain of star sand.

"Eldest Senior Brother's star sand! So he really did come here!"

Joy rose in Shen Mu's heart. He planted both feet upon that basket-sized grain of star sand. The sand was pressed into a rapid fall, but within it was a strange force that resisted the uncanny force-field of this place. After falling for a time its momentum gradually weakened, and then it showed a tendency to rebound.

Shen Mu at once crouched, bending his legs, and suddenly sprang forth, landing upon another grain of star sand. He leaped like a flying thing, stepping across dozens of grains of star sand, bounding like a pellet of stars, and soon drew near to where the earth-core light shone.

The place from which the earth-core light issued was a platform floating in the darkness, with flights of steps on all four sides, wide below and narrow above, floating all alone at the center of the dark like an altar suspended in the void.

Shen Mu landed upon the altar and looked back. He saw grains of star sand drifting in the darkness — the Founding Patriarch had clearly found this place and laid down a formation. Which meant that the thing upon this altar was what the Founding Patriarch had wished to leave behind for Sage Woodcutter.

"What exactly is it? Eldest Senior Brother has already left two things behind — one was the God-Slaying Dark Blade, and a head sealed in a box; the other was a military tally of unknown age. So then the thing on this altar is..."

He looked toward the center of the altar. There lay a stone coffin, a sarcophagus wrought from some unknown stone, stamped with relief patterns like a sealing art.

The stone coffin was over ten zhang long and two or three zhang wide — very large. It could not be the coffin of a mortal, but the burial place of a god.

Shen Mu tried to rouse the Nine Heavens Vision Art, but his divine powers still would not stir. After a moment's hesitation he could only lift the golden willow leaf from between his brows and look into the stone coffin with his third eye.

Even this eye of his could discern nothing unusual, yet he could vaguely make out that there was no corpse within the stone coffin — only a great jar.

Shen Mu pressed the golden willow leaf back to the space between his brows and stepped forward.

"A great jar placed inside a coffin — what sense does that make?"

He was exceedingly cautious, touching the stone coffin with his vital essence. There was nothing abnormal. Even so, Shen Mu did not slacken in the least. Like a spirit-cat he circled the stone coffin at speed, ceaselessly probing with threads of vital essence, and still there was nothing abnormal.

Only then did he set his mind at ease. He stepped forward and tried to open the stone coffin.

The coffin lid was exceedingly heavy and solid. He used all his strength and at last managed to shift the lid aside a little.

Inside the stone coffin there was indeed a great jar. Shen Mu looked along the light and saw that within the jar lay a head — a head with four faces, and at the crown of its pagoda-like topknot there also grew an eye.

This head was steeped in a strange water, and seemed still to be alive. The eye at the top of the pagoda-like crown suddenly opened, and its gaze fell upon Shen Mu's face.

Shen Mu's heart gave a start. In an instant the scene before his eyes shifted and changed — the earth-core, the darkness, the altar, the stone coffin, the head in the jar — all vanished!

He appeared within a palace hall, a hall of the utmost luxury, its floor of white jade, its stars of pearl and jade. A man with no face was walking toward him, saying, "Ying Zhao, I need you to do something for the future of our Kaihuang Era."

"I obey the Kaihuang's command."

"King Buddha Sakra has gathered all the world's arts-masters to build the Land of No Sorrow and forge the Ark of the Other Shore. I need you to preserve some foundation for my Kaihuang Era. I fear that those who remain in the future will forget the Land of No Sorrow, and I fear that enemies to come will destroy the Ark of the Other Shore. Here are the blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore. You possess the strongest divine brain — commit them to memory."

Shen Mu saw mountains of blueprints, and he saw "himself" reading through them page by page. The patterns and writing on the blueprints were exceedingly complex, difficult for any man to remember, yet "he" imprinted every page in his mind without the slightest omission.

"Your Majesty, do we truly have no chance of victory?" Shen Mu heard an unfamiliar voice.

It was the voice of this god called Ying Zhao.

"None."

That faceless man turned his back to him and shook his head. "Not the slightest chance. The more I learn of the enemy, the more despairing I become. One era after another in history has been destroyed, and we too cannot escape the fate of ruin. Yet there is still hope in the future. If you preserve these blueprints, you preserve hope. In time to come, my descendants will seek you out and retrieve these blueprints. He will lead you to the Land of No Sorrow to see me. Then we shall rise again from the ashes and remake heaven and earth!"

"Your Majesty..."