Chapter 782 — Forty Thousand Years of Fleeting Time

Shen Mu circulated his primordial qi; a surge of mana lifted Yutian Tianzun, and they sped up.

His cultivation was deep now, so carrying Yutian Tianzun was not too taxing.

Shen Mu raced along the whole way, as though he had entered a wholly unfamiliar primeval forest. The mountains around him were tall and towering; even the trees were extraordinarily tall, far taller than the trees of the Desolate Ruins. The Yuan Realm hid many baffling mysteries; to him it was still an entirely strange world.

Yet perilous as it was, he had to press into it. The Desolate Ruins were where he had grown up, and the people of the Desolate Ruins were his kin. He walked on, he knew not how many li, then slowed his steps and raised his head to gaze at the mountains ahead.

From the ridges, clouds of radiance rose swirling.

He looked with his Jade Empyrean Sacred Eyes and saw that those radiances were exceedingly dangerous divine arts. "Go around! " Shen Mu decided at once.

He skirted the foot of the great mountain, and when he came to its shaded side, he could not help but freeze: a vast, boundless ancient battlefield lay before him, countless rays of radiance like the smoke of war strewn across it, lurking among broken walls and ruined ramparts, gorgeous, dazzling, utterly bewitching.

Shen Mu steadied himself and flew upward. After flying more than ten li, he looked down again. The ancient battlefield was very long, but not as wide as he had imagined, only a thousand li across. "Fly over it from the air? " He studied the sky above the battlefield.

The sky was quite clear. He was just about to fly across when suddenly a great golden eagle swept over his head, beating its wings onward. The golden eagle flew more than ten li, then suddenly split into pieces, falling from the sky as a heap of flesh.

Then, as the chunks fell, they kept splitting apart, becoming ever smaller morsels.

The morsels fell, growing smaller and smaller, until by the time they reached the ground they were too small to see. Shen Mu was startled. The third eye at the center of his brow opened, and the three sacred pupils looked up at the sky together.

Only then did he see that in the sky above this ancient battlefield there were black lines, crisscrossing every which way, like spider silk almost impossible to perceive, woven into a chaotic, tangled net across the heavens. "Space fissures!

" Shen Mu's scalp went numb. Flying over from above, one could hardly detect these space fissures that had almost no thickness.

To fly through would be to end up like that golden eagle.

"A thousand li. Walking it would not take long. But going around would waste far too much time. " He landed and said to Yutian Tianzun, "Follow me.

Do not wander off.

" Yutian Tianzun had seen the danger too, and nodded again and again. The two pressed deep into the ancient battlefield. Ghostly will-o'-the-wisps rose from the heaps of fallen white bones and drifted about.

Shen Mu avoided the radiances and the ghost fires, urging his sword pellet on with primordial qi; it rolled ahead of them, testing for danger. The way was peaceful.

After a hundred or so li, a ruined city appeared ahead.

They came before the city and faintly heard the sound of a qin drifting from within.

The qin music was plaintive, like a young girl weeping softly, lamenting the sorrow of times past. Shen Mu's scalp prickled. This ancient battlefield was strewn everywhere with heaped bones. How could there be qin music?

At the collapsed city gate lay several broken stone steles.

The breaks in the steles were very fresh. Shen Mu signaled Yutian Tianzun to be silent and carefully brushed the rubble from the steles. The writing on them recorded a battle.

"The Seventy-Two Halls of the Supreme Emperor, the Phoenix Hall. Its hall master, Qi Xiayu, slew Yan Qianchong, Vermilion Emperor of the Southern Heaven of the Heavenly Court beyond the realm, here!

" Beside this stele was another broken one, recording a different battle. Shen Mu read on: it said that the Crown Prince had captured Qi Xiayu here, that Qi Xiayu had been defeated and surrendered, and that the Crown Prince had promised her the post of the new Vermilion Emperor of the Southern Heaven, and so had erected this stele to commemorate his own achievement. "This qin music.

. .

" Shen Mu was slightly taken aback, then blurted out, "Could it be the qin music of the Vermilion Emperor Qi Xiayu? No wonder it sounded a little familiar! Did she not go to track down Indra the King Buddha? Could Indra the King Buddha have come to the Desolate Ruins as well?

" He had barely thought this when suddenly a woman's voice rang out: "Qi Xiayu, hall master of the Phoenix Hall!

" Shen Mu was stunned. "That voice sounds a little familiar. .

. " He had just thought this when the qin music in the city abruptly stopped.

Radiance surged up, and countless rays of light bore a magnificent phoenix ship aloft.

The phoenix wings on either side of the great ship quivered, stirring up a terrifying gale, sending sand and stones flying. "Hall Master of the Phoenix Hall, do not flee! Bai Qu'er of Bailong City requests an audience!

" Another voice rose from the city. Shen Mu's mind roared.

He stood there gaping, dumbstruck, and saw the phoenix ship cleave the air and depart; and behind the phoenix ship, a girl soared into the sky, a divine sword in hand, ringing as it split the space fissures in the heavens. Suddenly her body shook, and she transformed into a white dragon, swaying her head and tail, darting to and fro as she gave chase to the phoenix ship! "Bai Qu'er of Bailong City. . .

" Shen Mu watched the white dragon recede into the distance and murmured, "She is alive, she is alive.

. .

She has come to the Desolate Ruins too! " He could not help but recall that night forty thousand years ago, when he, Long Qilin, Xiangzi, and Ban Gongcuo had escorted the people of Bailong City eastward. Bai Qu'er had been somewhat timid, somewhat stubborn, leading the last people of the Supreme Emperor's era in their hard search for a way to live.

When the sun rose, Shen Mu and the others, like travelers in a dream, turned to black sand and receded with the darkness, leaving only that young girl to protect the common folk who had not the strength to truss a chicken. How had she lived through these forty thousand years?

"Debts of love are bitter to taste; how could one renounce the world? " Another faint voice came from the city, as if murmuring in self-pity: "The years are like a song, and no words can exhaust the tender longings of men and women. " Browse the reading address: