Chapter 652 — The Celestial Palace of Xuandu

Ling Yuxiu was thoroughly bewildered, and followed Shen Mu back to the tower ship.

Chixi looked at the Woodcutter's retreating back and sneered, "Fellow Daoist, when the chance comes, we shall have another contest!"

The Woodcutter, his back still turned to them, waved a hand. The tower ship roared off beyond the heavens and soon vanished from sight.

The starry sky stretched vast and boundless. A tower ship, three pairs of wings quivering, traced band after band of flowing light across the dark sea of stars. It sped on, faster and faster, meeting almost no resistance in that void, until its speed climbed to an unimaginable pitch, racing like a flash of lightning.

Soon they passed through a belt of shattered rock-stars. Boulder after boulder of star-stuff crashed against the tower ship—bang, bang, bang—but the ship's runes rippled and turned, and those mountain-sized stars were instantly ground to powder.

Chixi took out his astrolabe to fix their bearings. A magnificent star chart shone above it. "In half a year we shall reach the Crimson Bright Suspended Realm. During these six months you may move about as you please, but you must not leave this ship."

Shen Mu studied the projected star chart. The stellar orbits within it were exceedingly strange: river after river of stars revolved around one and the same place, and yet that place held nothing at all—only a dazzling radiance.

"Senior Chixi, what place is this?" he asked, pointing at the black-hole-like spot.

Chixi glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. "Country lad. You have never even walked out of your ancestral land; naturally you do not know the wonders of the cosmos."

The Primordial Human Emperor looked, and said, "That is the place set opposite Youdu. It is where the Lord of Heaven resides—utterly mysterious."

Ling Yuxiu had never heard of the Lord of Heaven either. Listening along with Shen Mu, she asked, "The Lord of Heaven stands opposed to Youdu? Tubo of Youdu harvests souls—then what does the Lord of Heaven do?"

Before the Primordial Human Emperor could answer, Chixi cut in: "The Lord of Heaven is the ancestor of all gods. He governs the motions of the heavens, just and impartial. Behind every star and constellation you see in the sky, it is the Lord of Heaven who drives them. The stars of every world and every heaven are under his control. This god is in no way inferior to Tubo. His star-images project millions of incarnations—truly formidable!"

The Primordial Human Emperor said, "The Lord of Heaven may enter any world at will. But Jingping's sky is false; Jingping has no true celestial phenomena, and so the Lord of Heaven cannot enter there."

Ban Gongcuo had never heard of this either, and found himself listening spellbound. Suddenly he said, "Does that not mean the sun, moon, and stars we see are all false?"

"Not all of them are false."

The Primordial Human Emperor said, "In the Desolate Ruins, the sun you see in the daytime is real. Sometimes in daylight you can also see the moon, the star Venus, and a scattering of other stars—those too are real."

Ban Gongcuo was dumbstruck. He murmured, "What we see within the Desolate Ruins is real, and everything outside is false... then the seal upon the Desolate Ruins—whom is it sealing in?"

Shen Mu glanced at him. "The people outside the Desolate Ruins, of course. Has the Great Venerable never wondered why those outside the Desolate Ruins have only the Four-Spirit Body, while the spirit bodies within the Ruins are strange beyond counting?"

Ban Gongcuo was beside himself. "Sealing us in... heh heh, sealing us in... What did we do wrong, that we should be sealed in?"

The people outside the Desolate Ruins had always looked down upon its inhabitants, calling them the Forsaken.

Ban Gongcuo had once been a Great Venerable of the grasslands, founder of the Golden Palace of Loulan, and he had despised the people of the Desolate Ruins above all others, often going to seize its strange beasts and its Forsaken folk to cultivate his shamanic arts. Yet now, hearing the Primordial Human Emperor's words, his convictions and his pride were shattered to bits!

He had lived ten thousand years, and only now did he learn that he himself was one of the Forsaken!

Forsaken by the gods!

"Why, after severing our divine bridge, did they still seal us in? Why would they not let us become gods..."

He did not trust Shen Mu, but he believed the Primordial Human Emperor's words beyond all doubt, for that being was the first generation of Human Emperor—the man who had led the ancestors of every race out of the calamity that ended the world!

Ban Gongcuo's own forebear had been among them!

Anyone might lie to him, but the Primordial Human Emperor alone would not!

As the tower ship flew, it left a dazzling band of light across the starry sky that long refused to fade. The god Chixi looked back at it and frowned. "Fast as this ship is, it is not unmatched under heaven. The treasure ship has left a trail, and I fear the enemy will discover it. We must borrow a road from the Lord of Heaven and reach the Suspended Realm as soon as we can—the enemy must not learn the Suspended Realm's whereabouts!"

Shen Mu's spirits lifted. "Borrow a road from the Lord of Heaven? Then shall we not get to see this towering being?"

"Not for a while yet. From here to where the Lord of Heaven resides is more than a month's flight!"

The tower ship skimmed on like a shadow over light. Several days later, Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu were engaged in the dual cultivation of their primordial spirits when the ship suddenly gave a slight jolt and slowed. The two withdrew their primordial spirits and went up on deck, and there saw a divine city of immense scale drifting all alone in the starry void, with a sun revolving around it.

The divine city was battered and broken; it must have passed through a dreadful war and been ruined in it.

The tower ship passed above the divine city. Looking down, Shen Mu saw many tall statues of gods lying fallen within it, all of them three-headed and six-armed—sculptures of the Crimson Bright era, no doubt.

Before long they came to a shattered star, which likewise bore a great many buildings in the Crimson Bright style.

Along the whole way, ruined divine cities drifted silently in the starry sky, and upon that road one could see countless corpses floating helplessly.

The mighty ones of the Crimson Bright era, seeking a place to shelter, had left countless gods and demons behind to guard their people on the march; most of them had fallen in battle here.

"However wild the customs of the Crimson Bright era, they fought to the death for the survival of their kind." So Shen Mu mused in his heart.

At last the tower ship entered a blank region—a world made of light.

As the ship sailed into the radiance, everyone aboard found that they could not see their own shadows; the light shone in from every direction, leaving no shade at all!

Shen Mu turned to look back the way they had come, and his whole body shook: he saw the Desolate Ruins, shrouded in darkness!

The Desolate Ruins seemed close enough to touch!

And yet Jingping, which lay outside the Desolate Ruins, could not be seen at all!

No Jingping, no Western Lands, no South Sea, North Sea, or West Sea!

That region was veiled by false celestial phenomena, and so could not be seen.

Besides the Desolate Ruins, he also saw the two worlds of Taihuang Heaven and Luofu Heaven!

He raised his head, and suddenly it was as if he had discovered a whole new world. Countless starlights shone across the sky; heavens great and small, bright and dim, appeared upon the vault of heaven, and some worlds were still in the midst of destruction!

Seen from where he stood, these worlds seemed tiny and very near; yet Shen Mu knew that they were in truth immensely far away, and that those slender points of starlight were in fact suns of unimaginable vastness!

"This is Xuandu, where the Lord of Heaven resides, set opposite Youdu," the Primordial Human Emperor said softly.