Chapter 732 — Swift as a Flying Star

Shen Mu's qi and blood surged, streaming and drifting like a long rainbow as he followed the man onward. His martial spirit was not a simple matter of entering the Dao through the martial arts. Had it been so, he would have been no different from any other warrior of the Bull-Fighting Realm.

He did not seek to leap straight across the Divine Bridge and soar to the Heavenly Palace while still in the Life-and-Death Realm; his Divine Bridge was whole, and there was no need for it.

What he sought was the transformation of this world, the advancement of the Dao and its divine powers. And so his martial spirit was not confined to the martial arts alone; he had bound the spirit of the Jingping era, the spirit of reform and change, to the spirit of the martial way.

The Jingping era: the old cast off, the new raised up, like a roaring fire fed with oil, like sparks setting the prairie ablaze, blazing and furious!

If such a spirit were transmuted into the martial way, it would surpass the mere pursuit of martial arts by a measure beyond counting!

And now Shen Mu, seizing upon the martial spirit as his pivot, was transmuting the spirit of the Jingping era into his own martial soul!

He came to the second shrine. Before it stood several wounded, who must have been struck down by the god or demon guarding the hall.

Shen Mu walked in. Within the hall was a peasant woman; Hu Bugui and the others were still nowhere to be seen.

"How long did I spend comprehending the martial spirit?" Shen Mu looked at the ground. There were bloodstains on the floor of the great hall, but they had already dried.

"The woodcutter's disciple — you took ten days to pass the first hall?"

The woman, thick-limbed and broad-shouldered, laughed. "My strength is greater than his. So how long do you mean to spend on my gate?"

Shen Mu smiled. "Ten—"

The peasant woman frowned. "That is spirit."

"Nine. Eight. Seven..."

On the God-Slaying Platform, two bloody killing auras intertwined, coiling like twin crimson tornadoes. Hu Bugui had already arrived here. Those who had crossed the Southern Heavenly Gate with him had included Wu Shiyuren, and now only two remained at his side.

The God-Slaying Platform had no god or man to guard it.

The platform itself was a pass of unimaginable difficulty. In the twenty thousand years before, no one knew how many warriors of the Bull-Fighting Realm had come here and been cut down dead.

In truth, this pass had already been suppressed in its power; it was not as terrible as the true God-Slaying Platform. The Martial Heavenly Master had bound the platform's might within the Life-and-Death Realm.

And yet this pass had still become the one with the highest death rate.

"Are you sure of yourselves?"

Hu Bugui regulated his breath and said in a low voice, "Junior brothers, junior sister, if you are not sure, then go back. Go back and you still have five hundred years of life. Living is better than anything."

The woman shook her head. "All my life I have cultivated for the sake of today. Senior Brother Hu, before this trial I was already married and had borne two children. They are well. I have left descendants behind, and that has settled one wish of mine; now I mean to settle another with my life. This time, if I do not succeed, I will give up my body for benevolence!"

The other man smiled. "I too have married and had children of my own. My surname, the blood of my forebears, will carry on. Now I have nothing to hold me back. I am ready to stake my life, to seek a future for my race! My Wuluo clan needs hope. My descendants shall one day stand tall in the forest of the gods!"

"You... first heal your wounds, and restore your qi and blood to their peak. The God-Slaying Platform cannot stop me, but I have no means to shield you."

Hu Bugui sighed and turned to look back at the Jade Pool behind them, where hall after hall stood in ranks and the road ran through them — the places they had passed on their way.

"I wonder how Brother Shen is faring."

He said softly, "Ten days now, and he has been practicing his martial arts the whole time. His martial divine powers have clearly grown rusty. I wonder whether he has awakened his martial soul yet, and brought it upon his body."

"How easy is it to bring the martial soul upon the body?"

The woman said, "Back then, to bring my martial soul upon my body, I entered the Forest of Ten Thousand Beasts at eleven. I met a desolate wolf — not one alone, but a whole pack. I fought and killed among the pack for more than ten days and nights, fighting without pause, holding them off without pause, until my flesh was nearly torn to pieces by the wolves. In the end I could no longer feel pain, could no longer feel that I was alive. And then, all at once, I sensed my martial soul, slew the king of the desolate wolves with a single blow, and so escaped with my life."

The other man said, "For me it was in my thirteenth year, when the clan held the Grand Rite of the Dancing Spoon. More than a hundred of us, boys and girls of thirteen, were sent into the Nether Demon Realm. Of that hundred-odd, three survived. I was one of them. That year, I awakened my martial soul. Brother Shen's time is too short. He looks young to me; I doubt he can awaken his martial soul. Let us mount the platform and take the divine blade's stroke."

Hu Bugui nodded.

The woman regulated her qi and blood, restored herself to her peak, and was first to step onto the God-Slaying Platform. She smiled. "Wait a moment, both of you. I will test the blade first, and see whether my martial primordial spirit can withstand one stroke of the God-Slaying Blade!"

Scarcely had she taken her stand on the platform when the two bloody auras crossed; they shrank with astonishing speed, like two streaks of blood-light, and circled her neck. However she blocked, however she dodged and shifted, she could not evade those two streaks of blood-light, nor drive them back!

And just then, all at once, a great hall before the Jade Pool shook with a thunderous roar, and dust rose in all directions!

Hu Bugui was watching the battle on the God-Slaying Platform; sensing something, he hurriedly turned to look. The rear door of that hall had been flung up into the air, and a stream of qi and blood ran across the vault of heaven, drifting and fluttering, straight toward the next palace!

"Can that be Brother Shen?"

Startled, Hu Bugui had not yet had time to turn back to the God-Slaying Platform when the rear door of the second hall also burst into fragments, and that rainbow of qi and blood drifted on, racing onward, rushing toward the third hall!

"So fast!"

Hu Bugui was shaken to the core. The rear door of the third hall had blown open as well. The third eye at the center of Hu Bugui's brow opened, and at once he took in the scene of the shattered rear door.

He was of the Three-Eyed God Clan, and the third eye of the Three-Eyed God Clan was an inborn sacred pupil, a pupil of extraordinary power, piercing the netherworld, gazing up to the Xuandu.

At once he saw, where the door had burst open, the figure of Shen Mu leaping up.

In midair Shen Mu crouched, arms spread wide, one foot planted on the chest of a sturdy peasant man, like a starving eagle stooping on its prey.

Boom!

Shen Mu stamped that sturdy peasant man down into the ground, and a savage current of air swept out in every direction.

"The one under his foot is Senior Uncle Gu."

Hu Bugui's face turned strange. He thought, "This Senior Uncle Gu does not care to fight with fist-intent and spirit; he likes to take the field himself. When he fought us he sealed his own cultivation, sealing his Heavenly Palace and his Divine Bridge and divine treasury together. But it seems he has run into a tough one..."

At the thought of this Senior Uncle Gu, the bones in his body began to ache. The pass of Senior Uncle Gu had been the hardest to endure; Hu Bugui had won it only with great difficulty.