Chapter 653 — The Heavenly Lord Trapped in the Seal

"The eye..."

The young ones aboard the tower-ship could not help but be awestruck. They strained to look deep into the radiance, trying to make out the Heavenly Lord's eye, yet all they saw was light — nothing else at all.

Ling Yuxiu murmured, "This ship must fly two days before we can see the whole of the Heavenly Lord's eye. Then how vast must the Heavenly Lord's true body be?"

"He should be no smaller than Tu Bo."

Shen Mu said, "I have seen Tu Bo's true body. His horns are made of ruined worlds, one after another; his horns alone are boundless, beyond all imagining. Gods born of this kind possess powers and divine abilities that ordinary folk cannot conceive."

Chi Xi said, "If you could see the Heavenly Lord in his entirety, you would see that countless suns lie hidden within his body."

The light blazed fiercely. The tower-ship sailed on within the Heavenly Lord's gaze. Though its speed was great, the Heavenly Lord's eye was simply too vast; after the ship had flown two days and two nights, Shen Mu and the others looked back and at last barely made out the outline of that single eye.

An eye that poured out boundless radiance, an eye that blotted out their entire field of vision — before it, the tower-ship, spanning the space between heaven and earth, was as a single grain in the vast sea, utterly insignificant.

Yet still they could not see the Heavenly Lord in his entirety.

Gazing at that eye, Shen Mu was marveling inwardly when suddenly the golden willow leaf pressed to the center of his brow seemed to be brushed by a wind, and it fell from his brow.

Startled, he hurried to catch the golden willow leaf. Just then he suddenly felt something burrow into the vertical eye at the center of his brow.

What entered was like a beam of light; the moment it entered his eye, it vanished.

Shen Mu, alarmed and uncertain, circulated his primordial spirit and searched in all directions, but found nothing amiss within his third eye.

"Did I see wrongly?" he thought to himself. He picked up the golden willow leaf and pressed it to his brow once more.

And deep within his third eye, amid layer upon layer of seals, a boundless continent floated in the darkness. This continent was his Shen-family jade pendant, its mountain ranges tracing the shape of the character Shen.

Above the continent, a great Buddha chanted in a mighty voice, Buddhist syllables swirling, seeking to convert and subdue the savage being sealed within the continent by Tu Bo.

Just then, a ray of light shone in, illuminating the dark continent. The light then roamed ceaselessly through the air, circling the Shen-character seal again and again.

At the center of the Shen-character seal, an enormous infant lay sprawled in boredom, holding his own toes up to his mouth to suck on them, babbling and playing.

This infant was Shen Fengqing. Pulling his toes from his mouth, he glanced at the light circling around him, and suddenly his ferocious aspect showed itself, a mouthful of sharp teeth bared: "Hey, big fellow, what are you staring at? Stare any more and I'll eat you!"

"Of course I'm staring at you."

The light shrank into a ball, and from within it came an aged voice: "A fascinating life... that Youdu could produce a malevolent spirit like you shows how much Tu Bo's grip on Youdu has weakened."

Shen Fengqing stood up, clapping his hands and jumping, trying to catch the ball of light.

The ball of light dodged aside. "I am the Heavenly Lord of Xuandu, a god of the same order as Tu Bo. You cannot do anything to me. I came only to look at you, you amusing little creature..."

Shen Fengqing licked his lips in excitement: "As big as old Tu Bo? Then how long would it take to eat you all up?" With that he hopped and skipped, trying to grab the ball of light, leaping higher and higher — but at once the seal pressed down and struck him back down.

From the ball of light came the Heavenly Lord's voice: "So you are a stubborn little devil after all. No wonder you were sealed. I came only to look at you, you amusing little creature; now I shall go."

Shen Fengqing was still hopping and skipping, refusing to give up on catching and eating him. The ball of light flew outward — and just then, beyond the heavens appeared the veining of a willow leaf, blocking his way back. At the same time, the Shen character on the continent burst forth with wave upon wave of demonic light and demonic qi, sealing off the sky!

"Wretched! I've fallen into the seal!"

From the ball of light came the aged voice: "To seal him, Tu Bo paid a great price — he used his own horn to seal him. That willow leaf, pasted upon the eye, will rouse the power of Tu Bo's horn! I am but a single thread of a clone; I cannot break out!"

He had barely spoken when the great Buddha in midair blazed with light, linking the golden willow leaf to Tu Bo's horn.

The Heavenly Lord's thread of a clone was immediately crushed down, falling into the Shen-character seal upon the continent, where it landed and transformed into an old man in white robes — white brows, white beard, white hair, white hair streaming, white brows also drifting before him. He raised his head to look at Shen Fengqing and murmured, "And there is Mahabrahma's seal as well... Of course. It was Mahabrahma who joined the golden willow leaf to Tu Bo's horn, giving the golden willow leaf the power to rouse Tu Bo's seal, and so I am trapped here..."

Shen Fengqing, beside himself with excitement, pounced at the white-robed old man.

Aboard the tower-ship, Shen Mu suddenly felt his brow swell and ache, and hastily covered it with his hand.

"What's wrong?" the First Ancestor Human Sovereign asked with concern.

"Suddenly my brow hurts a little."

Shen Mu felt the pain grow fiercer and fiercer; his palm was shaken so that it trembled without cease. The First Ancestor Human Sovereign said hastily, "Take your hand away, let me see!"

Shen Mu lowered his hand, and the First Ancestor Human Sovereign at once saw that beneath the golden willow leaf pasted on his forehead something seemed to be rolling about, now and then bulging the leaf up, and moreover it was constantly moving.

"Heaven-and-Earth Seal — Heaven and Earth Reversed!"

The First Ancestor Human Sovereign bellowed. A seal pressed lightly upon Shen Mu's brow; the seal art ran through, driving straight into Shen Mu's third eye, its force piercing through, transforming into a great palm-seal that overturned heaven and earth, descending from the sky to strike down the Heavenly Lord's clone as it tried to break through the seal.

The moment this seal art fell, heaven was no longer heaven and earth no longer earth; the Shen-character continent flipped and turned over, and the Heavenly Lord's clone gave a muffled groan, pinned beneath it.

The First Ancestor Human Sovereign withdrew his hand and asked with concern, "How do you feel now?"

Shen Mu said in surprise, "It doesn't hurt anymore — truly, it doesn't hurt!"

The First Ancestor Human Sovereign smiled slightly. "This is the wonder of the Heaven-and-Earth Seal. Cultivate it well; do not fail my teaching."

Shen Mu assented, then ran off to cultivate his primordial spirit together with Ling Yuxiu. The First Ancestor Human Sovereign sighed, his expression bleak.

Within the third eye, Shen Fengqing ran over in high excitement, seized the Heavenly Lord's clone by both legs, and joyfully smashed and flung him this way and that, battering the white-robed old man senseless; then he straightened him out and — crunch — bit down.

"Eh? No taste?"

Shen Fengqing was suspicious. The part he had bitten off was simply a mass of light, with no flavor at all. So he tossed the white-robed old man aside, his interest in him quite gone.

The white-robed old man got up and rubbed his waist, feeling aches in every limb. He was only a mass of light; once bitten, he would soon recover!

"How about we play a game of hide-and-seek?"