Chapter 656 — Heaven Collapses, the Earth's Bonds Severed

The man had three heads and six arms, and his six swords were all divine weapons of the highest order. His way of fighting was savage — close-quarters butchery at unimaginable speed. His strength was far below that of the Great Sun Star Lord and the First Ancestor Human Emperor; only by relying on the might of the Heaven-Suppressing Tower could he hold off the Great Sun Star Lord's attacks.

Three heads and six arms were unquestionably the strongest of fleshly bodies. For an ordinary person, one extra arm would overturn his whole way of fighting and let him master many more techniques.

With each additional arm, one's means of attack doubled and redoubled; and he had three heads and six arms — the arts of fleshly-body combat had been developed in him almost to completion.

Shen Mu walked out of the tower and stood at the stern, gazing at the battlefield, and could not help exclaiming in wonder: "The Chiming Era achieved little in divine powers, but their attainments in the fleshly body were terrifying. Each added arm or head is the equal of adding one move to the fourteen basic sword forms. It seems I underestimated the Flawless Battle-God Art that Ban Gongcuo cultivates!"

In the Desolate Ruins he had seen many statues of gods with multiple heads and arms; the fleshly-body methods those deities cultivated — three heads and six arms, three faces and eight arms, and the like — must all have been imitations of the Chiming Era.

From this one could imagine how high the Chiming Era's achievements in the fleshly body had been.

Yet the Great Sun Star Lord still devoted the greater part of his strength to the First Ancestor Human Emperor. In the first instant of their exchange, he had felt how terrifying the First Ancestor's fighting power was.

The First Ancestor Human Emperor's seal arts could withstand his attacks head-on and made him feel threatened; as for Chixi, though he could cause him a great deal of trouble, his fighting power was far below the First Ancestor's.

The Great Sun Star Lord's manner of fighting also opened Shen Mu's eyes wide.

This god had three legs, all of them bird legs armed with sharp talons; in the starry void those talons were like the keenest of weapons, splitting mountains and shattering stone with ease.

And he had two wings besides. The pair rang with a metallic clang, before him and behind him, left and right; the feathers moved with incredible speed, and when they cut they were like heaven-cleaving divine blades — and they carried endless firepower besides.

The beating of those wings let the Great Sun Star Lord come and go in a flash, so swift that neither Chixi nor the First Ancestor could keep up with him.

Yet he had two arms as well. His hands worked divine powers: with every seal he pressed down, a great sun leapt from his palm; the sun burst, and flame flooded the starry void like so many little suns.

More terrifying still, his beak was a weapon of no small skill; a peck from it could surely punch a great hole through the skulls of the First Ancestor and Chixi.

And more terrible than all were his three holy pupils. Within those three eyes were hidden formation arrays; when activated they shot out divine light just as Shen Mu's Sun Jade Eye did — but their power was greater by an unknowable measure.

Chixi, with his three heads and six arms, fought in an extremely intricate fashion, and the Great Sun Star Lord's way of fighting was no less so: three claws raking this way and that, his body coming and going like lightning, his wings tumbling like blades, his two hands unleashing divine powers like a violent storm, his bird head pecking down without warning and even spewing the divine fire of the sun, his three eyes shooting out beam after beam of divine light — and soon he had beaten the First Ancestor and Chixi black and blue.

"At this rate, both the First Ancestor and Chixi will die at the Great Sun Star Lord's hands."

Shen Mu watched until his eyes blurred. He wanted to open the little box and lend aid with the God-Slaying Mystic Saber, but the three moved too fast — the Great Sun Star Lord faster even than the First Ancestor and Chixi — and if he loosed the divine saber rashly, it might well be the First Ancestor or Chixi it cut down.

Of course, it was even more likely that it would miss all three, and then the God-Slaying Mystic Saber would turn around and finish Shen Mu instead.

Suddenly the Great Sun Star Lord flew to a point above Chixi's head, his three claws clamped onto the thousand-layered Heaven-Suppressing Tower, and he lifted the tower up and hurled it away.

"This is bad!" Shen Mu's heart lurched.

Chixi's face too went pale with shock; the Great Sun Star Lord's wings came slashing at him head-on, and he hurriedly sealed them off with six swords swift as wind. But when he caught those wings, his body was shaken violently, sent tumbling and rolling, knocked down by the Great Sun Star Lord into the dark starry void.

At the same moment, the First Ancestor Human Emperor pressed a seal against the Great Sun Star Lord's back, over his heart. Layer upon layer of feathers suddenly thrust out from the Star Lord's back and blocked the seal — even so, he was struck until he spat blood.

He twisted his head; his neck turned it round to his back, and he opened his mouth and spewed down the divine fire of the sun. The divine fire fell like a waterfall from the heavens, and at the same time the divine light of his three eyes shot out, sharp beyond compare.

The First Ancestor Human Emperor's face darkened, and the melancholy air about him grew ever thicker. The Great Sun Star Lord suddenly sensed an incomparably intense aura of deadly peril; the divine feathers all over his body bristled and burst outward, like a crested fire-pheasant dragon with its hackles up.

He had taken a palm from the First Ancestor Human Emperor on purpose in order to knock Chixi flying, all so that he might face the First Ancestor alone. The First Ancestor was the strongest; only by removing him first could he win a complete victory.

And now, clearly, having seized the initiative, the First Ancestor had without hesitation brought out his final measure.

Shen Mu gazed from afar, his face grave, and murmured: "The first of the Three Forms of Heaven Toppling — the Azure Heaven Overturns, the Earth's Bonds Severed..."

The First Ancestor Human Emperor's Three Forms of Heaven Toppling were three seal arts Shen Mu had still not mastered. It was not that his aptitude or insight fell short, but that these three seal arts demanded the courage and the strength to perish together with heaven and earth.

Shen Mu knew in his heart that he could not do it.

From the tower ship, Shen Mu saw that patch of starry sky suddenly turn incomparably brilliant: a golden, resplendent heavenly court appeared beneath the First Ancestor's feet, sun and moon rising, a myriad stars glittering — and then the azure heaven collapsed, sun and moon were destroyed, the stars fell like rain. The instant in which a whole heaven and earth perished was, incredibly, so magnificent, so beautiful.

Shen Mu's face changed drastically; he turned at once and ran, box in arms, hurtling with a whistle toward the tower. Ling Yuxiu too had plucked up her courage and come out of the tower, meaning to watch the battle; Shen Mu came charging straight at her, hoisted her onto his shoulder without a word, and rushed into the tower.

Boom —

An unspeakably dreadful shockwave rolled over them; the two were flung high and slammed against the ceiling. The whole tower ship spun madly, twisted by the terrible surge, and from its hull came creaking and groaning, and then the crack and snap of breaking timbers.

Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu shuddered with dread: this great treasure of the Chiming Era might come apart at any moment in the violent convulsions.