Chapter 661 — The Floating Realm

In the five or six months that followed, Chixi and Bangongcuo lived in peace with them. Chixi appeared of his own accord and paid his respects to the Primordial Ancestor, the Human Sovereign; and though the Primordial Ancestor was exceedingly weak, he did not avoid the meeting. Chixi could not gauge what lay behind his frailty, and so had no choice but to hold himself in check and devote himself wholly to steering the green boat toward the Floating Realm.

The tower ship was badly damaged, all six of its wings snapped off, its speed greatly reduced; Chixi replaced the original wings with the crow-wings of the Fire Crow divinities, but even so the ship was far slower than before, and though they took a shortcut, the voyage still took far longer than expected. During those months, apart from cultivating his primordial spirit together with Ling Yuxiu, Shen Mu sparred with Bangongcuo, studying the combat techniques of the three heads and six arms. Bangongcuo cultivated the Flawless Battle Divine Art that Chixi had transmitted to him, and was exceedingly skilled in it; Shen Mu had once gravely wounded him with a single palm strike, and so had somewhat looked down on this cultivation art from the Chiming era — but after witnessing Chixi's battle with the Great Sun Star Lord, he found himself taking an interest in the three heads and six arms.

Bangongcuo trembled with fear, dreading him from the bottom of his heart, and so when Shen Mu proposed a sparring match he refused outright without a second thought; only after Shen Mu beat him did he reluctantly nod. As the two sparred, Bangongcuo's understanding of the Flawless Battle Divine Art deepened.

Then one day a foolish thought rose in his heart: "My cultivation and strength have advanced so quickly — if I suddenly strike to kill, I can surely do away with that brat Shen! " He launched a sudden killing move in the midst of the spar, trying to finish Shen Mu off; afterward he lay abed for more than ten days before he recovered. Once Bangongcuo's wounds had healed, he would no longer spar with Shen Mu; even when Shen Mu swore he would not strike hard again, he refused.

Helpless, Shen Mu had Ling Yuxiu spar with Bangongcuo while he watched from the side. Ling Yuxiu cultivated the Ancestral Dragon Grand Mystery Art, a martial art and divine power of the Imperial Throne tier; though she was not of the dragon race, she had practiced the Nine Dragon Emperor Art since childhood, and so her progress was swift as flight.

Moreover, Bashan the Libationer had shown her the path where combat and dharma converge, and on that path Ling Yuxiu advanced with fierce valor, surging like a dragon, cultivating the strength of a feral dragon. Her strength was a match for Bangongcuo's; in raw power and the might of her divine powers she far surpassed him, but in the transformation of the flesh she could not match the three heads and six arms of the Flawless Battle Divine Art.

Then one day Bangongcuo suddenly broke through and opened the Life-and-Death Divine Treasury, and Ling Yuxiu was at once no match for him and was defeated.

Bangongcuo was smug; he glanced at Shen Mu, and all at once a tremendously fierce confidence surged up in his heart: "I have shattered through the Life-and-Death Divine Treasury, and he is still only at the Seven Stars realm — killing him will be all too easy!

I will piece his corpse together into a great big 'submit'.

. .

but the Primordial Ancestor protects him, so it will be hard to make a move. .

. " Just then Chixi suddenly cried out in alarm: "The Floating Realm is almost here!

" Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu at once went to the forest at the bow and looked out, but saw nothing at all; the Primordial Ancestor, the Human Sovereign, came over as well, and he too saw nothing.

These past days Shen Mu had been healing his injuries, and his color had improved greatly, but the toll of the Heaven-Toppling Three Forms was too heavy; his face was still somewhat pale and sickly. Suddenly the broken ship shook violently and pitched hard, and Chixi mustered all his magic power and desperately steered the vessel to keep it from flying apart. Shen Mu looked out; all around was still dim and dark, nothing to be seen, and he could not tell what was causing the tower ship to pitch.

He was puzzling over it when he saw the ship grow longer and longer, thinner and thinner.

Not only the ship — they too grew long and thin, thin as a hair, a thousand li in length! The bow sped faster and faster, while the stern had not yet quickened.

Only then did Shen Mu realize that they and the tower ship were being drawn into a hole in the starry sky! The hole blended perfectly with the surrounding darkness, utterly invisible.

Whoosh — the tower ship, with Shen Mu and the others aboard, was swallowed by the hole; the dark space suddenly quivered twice, like fish soup cooled into aspic, then fell still again, and the broken ship overgrown with trees vanished without a trace.

After passing through that unseen hole, the tower ship returned to normal. Aboard, the scene before everyone's eyes turned bizarre and kaleidoscopic, colors of every hue flying past like a carousel of lanterns; they seemed to be sailing through a labyrinth woven of light of every color, and Chixi was frantically steering the ship's course, not daring the slightest carelessness.

"What is this place?

" Shen Mu was alarmed and uncertain; the light all around gave him a feeling of extreme peril, as though the slightest touch would mean the death of his body and the dissolution of his Dao, his soul scattered and his spirit gone. "This is the place the first Red Emperor found.

After the Red Emperor entered, thousands of years passed and he never appeared again, and of the gods and demons who came in search of him, not one returned alive.

The Chiming era then fell into an age of chaos.

It is said that heroes from all quarters contended for the realm, that gods and demons stole the imperial throne and set up false dynasties, and that gods and demons of every faction carved out their own domains, until the mortal world was thick with miasma. " Chixi said: "In the end, one of the Red Emperor's descendants, a man of peerless talent, crushed the false dynasties and rebuilt the Chiming Divine Dynasty, and was called the Bright Emperor.

The age in which the Red Emperor lived is called the Western Emperor era, while the reign of the Bright Emperor is called the Eastern Emperor era; Eastern Chiming and Western Chiming are both the Chiming era.

The Bright Emperor, offering sacrifice to his ancestors in a grand rite, obtained a wisp of the Red Emperor's consciousness drifting through the cosmos, and thereby learned the path to this place. Only the Bright Emperor knew that path. He later died in battle and gave the path to the Chiming Divine Son; the Divine Son led the remnants of our Chiming era here to take refuge, and it has been three hundred and fifty thousand years.

" Shen Mu, Ling Yuxiu and the others listened spellbound.

The period when Eastern Chiming and Western Chiming gave way to each other must have been one in which heroes rose together and contended for the realm; it must have been a time brilliant with a constellation of stars, of extraordinary splendor.

"What a pity I was not born in that age, to see the heroes and champions of those times," Shen Mu said with feeling. Chixi glanced at him with his six eyes and sneered: "Even if you had been born in that age it would be no use. The Bright Emperor was a Child of Destiny; you would only have been crushed by him! " "A Child of Destiny?