Chapter 639 — The Head in the Jar

That faceless man walked outward, leaving him behind. He committed them to memory with all his heart, and after a very long time at last memorized the incomparably complex blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore.

He destroyed the blueprints. They burned, and burned for a long while before they were extinguished.

When the blueprints had burned away, the hall fell into darkness.

Before Shen Mu's eyes, light surged out of the darkness — a vast and magnificent battlefield of gods and demons. In the sky, on the ground, everywhere were scenes of vigorous gods and demons locked in slaughter. Countless gods and demons perished; it was a spectacle grand and savage.

Shen Mu saw the Kaihuang Heavenly Court falling from the highest heights. The Kaihuang Heavenly Court smashed through layer upon layer of heavens, trailing long flames and streaming light, and plunged into other worlds.

Shen Mu watched, dazed, as "he himself" raised a divine sword, and then lowered it again. He returned to the divine city, stole down into the earth, and in the depths built a dark space, built an altar.

With his own spirit he constructed a strange psychic force-field. He prepared a coffin for himself, and in the coffin placed a great jar. The water in the jar was a divine water refined from his own spirit and life-force, able to preserve a body from decay.

Once more he raised the sword.

"O one who beholds this scene..."

Once again Shen Mu heard that unfamiliar voice, murmuring to itself: "Are you a descendant of the Shen clan? Have you come, in obedience to the Kaihuang's command, to retrieve the blueprints? For the Kaihuang's grace of recognition, I have no way to repay it. This subject offers up his head and waits in silence for Lord Shen to come and take it."

Chi —

The sword-light flashed past. Shen Mu felt a violent pain, and then saw "himself" topple into the jar. He looked outward and saw the headless body of the god Ying Zhao shifting the coffin lid, slowly drawing it closed over the coffin.

After a moment, he heard from the gloomy earth-core the sound of something heavy striking the ground — the sound of this god's corpse falling from the altar and crashing to the earth.

Shen Mu's eyes stung and reddened. He wiped away his tears.

The head in the jar seemed to see him. His head revolved within the jar, and wave upon wave of powerful psychic force resonated with Shen Mu's spirit. Blueprint after blueprint transformed into images and imprinted themselves firmly in Shen Mu's mind. The blueprints grew more and more numerous, while the divine water in the jar, transmuted from spirit and life-force, grew less and less.

When the divine water in the jar was exhausted, Shen Mu's mind was already stuffed full of the blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore.

The god's head was still giving off psychic waves, transmitting the remaining blueprints into Shen Mu's mind. The god's head rotted at a speed visible to the naked eye. When his spirit was utterly spent, nothing remained but a skull lying quietly at the bottom of the jar.

Shen Mu stood silently before the stone coffin for a long while, then suddenly said, "You owe the Shen family nothing — it is the Shen family that owes you! I cannot let you die with your body incomplete!"

He sprang down from the altar. A thread of vital essence suspended him as he descended into the deep, dark earth. After a long while, Shen Mu rose slowly, bearing a headless white skeleton on his back, gripping a spider-silk thread of vital essence.

He returned to the altar, lifted out the great jar, and laid the headless white skeleton respectfully within the coffin. He brought out the skull from the jar and set it upon the neck of the headless white skeleton.

Shen Mu closed the stone coffin and knocked his head three times in obeisance to it. Then he turned, sprang up, and went leaping upward from grain of star sand to grain of star sand.

On his final leap, he was still a thousand zhang from the cave mouth. Shen Mu pointed a finger, and a thread of vital essence flew out a thousand zhang, coiling around the white-bone rope that hung at the cave mouth.

The many skeletons at the cave mouth hastily climbed upward, and with considerable effort at last hauled him out of that bottomless subterranean space.

Scarcely had Shen Mu crawled out of the cave mouth when a tremor suddenly came from the earth-core. His expression shifted slightly. Hastily he burst forth with vital essence, sweeping up all the skeleton monsters around him to form a Great Heaven Star Force-Field, and with these skeleton monsters in tow he ran for all he was worth.

Behind him, the earth collapsed. The divine city, long since ruined into a relic, suddenly plunged toward the earth-core, and the cave mouth grew larger and larger.

Shen Mu pushed his speed to the utmost and shot out of that ancient ruin like wind and lightning. The trembling gradually ceased. He looked back and saw that the ruins of the divine city had become a deep, dark abyss, burying history within it.

Shen Mu set the skeleton monsters down and sat upon a stone, gazing afar at that bottomless abyss, his eyes deep and sorrowful.

One skeleton monster patted his head, as though comforting him. Another came before him, wanting to wipe away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

Shen Mu's face broke into a smile. He rose and bowed in all directions to the skeleton monsters. "I am all right now. My thanks to you, fellow daoists, for your company all these days. Perhaps in the future, if I do not die, I will return, and gather your souls for you once more, and restore you to life. Let us meet again hereafter!"

He strode away. This time the skeleton monsters did not follow. Shen Mu looked back and saw those white bones raising their arms, waving farewell to him.

Shen Mu waved back and strode off.

"Though death come, the knight's bones are fragrant; no shame before the heroes of the world. Kaihuang, my ancestor — you who are far away in the Land of No Sorrow, do you still remember that there was a god named Ying Zhao who, for the sake of a single promise, cut off his own head and took death for righteousness? I fear you no longer remember. I have remembered for you. The sons of the Shen clan do not betray those who follow them, and do not forget the promises they or their forebears have made!"

He ran on foot across that desolate, barren land, heading straight for the place where the Kaihuang Heavenly Court had fallen. There, surely, was the entrance to Taihuang Heaven or the Wild Wastes, as in the memory of the god Ying Zhao.

"I will fulfill your promise for you, and let the dead heroic spirits rest in peace!"

He came to a shattered space, where dazzling auroral light surged. Vaguely he could see another world. The auroral light was the fragments of space, and passing through would be exceedingly perilous.

Shen Mu took a small box from his Taotie Pouch, sprang up, and leaped into the shattered space. Just as he was about to meet the auroral light, the youth suddenly opened the box. A bloodthirsty, heaven-overflowing ferocity transformed into two blade-lights, and with a ka-cha it sheared the auroral light apart!

Before the auroral light could close again, Shen Mu passed through the fragments of space. His body plunged sharply downward. Below, lush mountain forests, vast and dim mountains, and the Southern Heavenly Gate towering on high.

Shen Mu was slightly startled. Below was not Taihuang Heaven, but the Wild Wastes.