Chapter 642 — A Youth's Disdain

The First Ancestor Human Emperor tumbled and rolled, smashing down deep within that vast and boundless space, vanishing into the mist. Then light kindled in the mist—the light of his eyes.

In their last battle he had used his Holy Pupil to nail Shen Mu to the wall of the Imperial Hall, nearly cutting him in half at the waist!

Between Shen Mu's brows the third eye stayed shut, unopened; within his two eyes countless array patterns revolved, and two beams of gaze shot out, boring straight through the First Ancestor's gaze! The First Ancestor Human Emperor's two beams shone forth; the two men's pupil arts collided, and an incomparably dense light burst out, like two small suns illuminating tens of li around them, scattering the mist!

The First Ancestor's divine ability was still far more exquisite than Shen Mu's; the holy light of his Holy Pupil immediately suppressed Shen Mu's Nine Heavens Holy Pupil. The First Ancestor Human Emperor roared, his hair flying, both hands slowly rising; in the sky a chaotic star-cloud appeared, and countless enormous meteors were about to fall from the heavens!

The third eye between Shen Mu's brows opened.

He said in a low voice, "This is the second time I have used my full strength.

" Suddenly his divine-path divine treasury and his demonic-path divine treasury revolved at the same time; divine-path essence and demonic-path essence mingled and flowed, unified beneath his third eye!

His cultivation nearly doubled.

With a single hum, his two beams of gaze crushed the First Ancestor Human Emperor's pupil art outright; those two blazing lights nailed the First Ancestor, pressing him hard to the ground. The First Ancestor's divine ability collapsed and dissolved as well; the chaotic star-cloud in the sky vanished, and the meteors falling from heaven vanished one by one.

Shen Mu's gaze pinned him dead to the ground, pressing until his bones crackled.

Suddenly the essence around the First Ancestor Human Emperor divided into countless strands, the runes shifting, becoming a formation.

"Teleportation divine ability?

" Shen Mu's eyes contracted; the runes around his body leaped, swiftly calculating the First Ancestor's teleportation position.

The essence in his hand became threads of sword light, minute beyond measure; countless threads of sword light gathered and fell into his hand, becoming a precious sword.

Shen Mu raised the sword like the wind, and just in time blocked the seal art of the First Ancestor Human Emperor, who had suddenly appeared! The First Ancestor's figure appeared.

His seal art: one seal for heaven, one seal for earth; between heaven and earth, I am supreme. In the way of seal arts his attainment far surpassed even the Third Ancestor Human Emperor's Yin-Yang Heaven-Flipping Hand!

The Third Ancestor Human Emperor's Yin-Yang Heaven-Flipping Hand was in fact suspect of having borrowed from the First Ancestor; but the Third Ancestor walked the path of the two qi of yin and yang, the Great Nine Vehicles, nineteen steps across and back, three hundred sixty-one footwork patterns, three hundred sixty-one kinds of seal art. In the age of the Third Ancestor Human Emperor, within nineteen steps he was invincible under heaven.

The one who shattered the Third Ancestor's myth of invincibility was his own disciple, the Fourth Ancestor Human Emperor, who created the Ten Crossings of the Dharma Path and beat the old man badly.

The First Ancestor Human Emperor, however, was a notch above: heaven seal, earth seal, between heaven and earth I am supreme. The Third Ancestor could only command nineteen steps, but his seal art spanned the whole of heaven and earth!

Yet his seal art that spanned heaven and earth met Shen Mu's sword. Shen Mu did not use his sword core.

In this clash with the First Ancestor he used no primal weapon at all; he even threw the Taotie Pouch to the ground.

He would rely on his own true strength to crush this deserter of the Kaihuang era, to defeat this man who had destroyed the life's work of every generation of Human Emperors, to trample this bastard who despised the arts of all the Human Emperors, to break his every glory and stamp on his dignity! His sword light was sharp beyond compare; a flick of the wrist brought Sovereign's Tribulation, a vast tribulation aura joining heaven and earth, splitting the sky open and cleaving the earth apart! This was Lizheng's sword art. Lizheng was the Human Emperor of the previous generation, and in swordsmanship his attainment exceeded that of the Human Emperors by far.

In Fengdu, Lizheng was beaten, yet not one Human Emperor dueled him one on one; they all rushed him at once.

It was precisely because in his old age Lizheng had caught the era of reform, and his sword art advanced another step: one on one, among all the Human Emperors, none but the First Ancestor was his match.

In Shen Mu's hands, the move Sovereign's Tribulation had been fused with the Eighteen Sword Forms, the eighteen foundational sword moves. Compared with Lizheng's sword art he could not yet make it flawless, but the power of the sword art in his hands was greater! His mana was boundless and mighty; to say nothing of divine-ability users of the same realm, even among great experts of the Heaven-Human realm, those whose cultivation exceeded his were few!

Shen Mu's mana erupted; his sword light cut straight through the might of the heaven seal and earth seal, shattered the First Ancestor Human Emperor's myth of being supreme between heaven and earth, and forced him to change his moves! There were plainly flaws in Shen Mu's sword art, yet the First Ancestor could not break in, because Shen Mu's mana was too mighty; his terrifying essence cultivation made up for the flaws.

He held the sword in one hand; with the sword in hand his body moved like a roaming dragon. However powerful the First Ancestor's seal art, he always broke it with the single move Sovereign's Tribulation!

He did not even bother to change his moves! "Pull me out, pull me out!

" Before the Imperial Hall, Emperor Yishan struggled up from the ground, wanting to go behind the hall to see how the battle went. Behind him Emperor Qikang said in alarm, "I am stuck fast by the First Ancestor's seal art!

" Emperor Lanpo and the others struggled to their feet, gathered around Qikang, and together pressed down a seal upon the ground around Emperor Qikang; at last, by combined effort, they broke the First Ancestor's seal art and rescued him.

The Human Emperors helped one another up, passed through the pierced-through Imperial Hall, and came to the rear of the hall.

The Human Emperors' faces went blank.

In the mist two figures moved with the speed of lightning; the First Ancestor's seal art—one seal for heaven, the sky pressing down with the force of heaven toppling; one seal for earth, the earth overturning, mountains shaking—and his figure was like a pillar propping up heaven and earth, holding them so they did not fall. Such a seal art was one that entered the Dao through seals; only one who had reached the highest attainment could have created such a wondrous divine ability!

The First Ancestor's seal art held his state of mind. In the last years of Kaihuang, heaven and earth split asunder and the Kaihuang Heavenly Court tottered on the brink; he too had lived through that tragic and heroic age, and wished to hold up the collapsing edifice with his own strength.

His heaven-and-earth seal art embodied that incomparably intense, incomparably vivid feeling: let heaven and earth overturn, let the sky crack and the earth split, he remained steady and firm, a pillar propping up heaven and earth.

His heart, no doubt, thought the same. He was a man who had lived through that sorrowful age, and his seal art bore the deep brand of that age. His seal art could borrow the force of heaven's collapse, and could borrow the force of earth's rending; its power was supreme, its might inexhaustible.