Chapter 1649: The Master of Tiantu
"Seventh Brother, you have always loved to dream in the past, but why are you not dreaming now?"
The Fourth Young Master of Miluo Palace stopped playing the zither, raised his head, and looked at the figure beneath the World Tree. He said indifferently, "The teacher is not here, but that does not mean you can act recklessly in Miluo Palace. In this Miluo Palace, you rank seventh, not first."
The figure beneath the World Tree drew closer, gradually becoming clear. Even the Great Calamity of Annihilation, which destroyed everything, could not shake the figure beneath the tree, nor even disturb his aura.
He walked through the chaos, and the Great Calamity of Annihilation felt to him like a fish in water—effortless and comfortable.
He was tall and well-built, but his temples were streaked with white, and his face bore the marks of time and hardship.
He looked exactly like Qin Mu, only more mature and steady, clearly having experienced many things in the past universe.
"The teacher passed down his teachings in seven ways, and each of us understood something different."
Qin Mu from the past universe swept his gaze around, looking at the faces of the various cultivators who had achieved the Dao, examining their Dao fruits. He said, "Each of us has our own achievements. The ranking is merely based on the order in which we joined the teacher's tutelage, not on strength. The teacher leads you through the door, but cultivation is a personal matter. In fact, I transcended the teacher's teachings long ago. Third Brother, Fourth Brother, I have cultivated something better."
The Fourth Young Master of Miluo Palace lowered his head and continued playing the zither, a faint smile curling at the corner of his mouth. A precious hall sped out from the depths of Miluo Palace, breaking through layers of chaos, crossing the Annihilation Calamities of fifteen cosmic epochs, and arriving behind him.
The Zixiao Hall.
He was called Zixiao by the master of Miluo Palace, but outside Yujing City, he was known as Zixiao Daojun.
The Third Young Master smiled faintly, and the Lingxiao Hall also crossed the vast chaotic river at the same time, appearing behind him.
He was called Lingxiao by the master of Miluo Palace, and outside Yujing City, he was known as Lingxiao Daojun.
Not only that, but the Heavenly Court of the Seventeenth Cosmic Era was closely connected to him. Back then, when Taidi and Taichu first entered the ancestral land of Yujing City, he showed them his Lingxiao Hall, leaving an indelible impression on them.
Later, Taichu became the Heavenly Emperor, built the Heavenly Court, and reconstructed the Lingxiao Hall. The Lingxiao Hall of the Heavenly Court became the symbol of power and status throughout the entire universe. When Yutianzun pioneered the Heavenly Palace realm, and Yuntianzun perfected the last two realms of the Heavenly Palace—Lingxiao and Dizuo—they were modeled after the Lingxiao Hall of the Heavenly Court.
And the origin of all this was the Lingxiao Hall of the Third Young Master!
Moreover, anyone in the Seventeenth Cosmic Era who cultivated to the Lingxiao or Dizuo realms was effectively helping the Third Young Master cultivate. As their cultivation improved, so did his!
"Seventh Brother, your accumulation is too shallow."
The Fourth Young Master of Miluo Palace lowered his head and continued playing the zither, the notes intermittent. He said calmly, "If you had come earlier to join us, we could have gone sooner to find a better way to resolve the Great Calamity of Annihilation. Our goals are the same, so why must we harm our fellow disciples?"
The Third Young Master clasped his hands behind his back and said leisurely, "Seventh Brother, for the teacher's sake, we will not make things difficult for you. Now that Taishang is absent, Wuji is suppressed, and Wuzong and Zhanji are missing, all the cultivators who have achieved the Dao in Miluo Palace will follow our orders. You have no chance of winning."
Qin Mu sighed, sat down, and the Chaos Hall emerged from the chaotic river. "Talking to you stubborn people is truly exhausting. I sit here. Whoever dares to lend power to Hao Tianzun will be my mortal enemy."
The cultivators of Yujing City fell silent, none of them moving.
The Third Young Master raised an eyebrow. The Dao tree behind him appeared, bearing nine Dao fruits. He stepped forward, walking toward Qin Mu, who sat motionless.
Qin Mu kept his three eyes tightly shut, not opening them.
The Third Young Master walked up to Qin Mu, stopping about four zhang away. He lifted his foot but hesitated to set it down.
The Fourth Young Master looked up in surprise. The notes of his zither suddenly changed, no longer intermittent but becoming impassioned and filled with the aura of slaughter!
The Dao tree and Dao fruits behind him burst forth with dazzling Dao light, pulsing with the rhythm of the zither. The shimmering light grew brilliant and surged toward Qin Mu!
The Third Young Master's foot finally landed, and he stepped closer step by step, saying calmly, "Even the teacher would not dare to be so arrogant in front of us! Get up!"
Qin Mu remained seated, not rising.
The Third Young Master raised his hand, and a single palm overturned the heavens, causing the entire chaotic river to churn violently!
He took another step forward, and his palm came down!
The zither's notes grew intensely murderous!
Qin Mu still kept his three eyes shut, not opening them. As the Third Young Master's palm descended, the World Tree behind Qin Mu swayed, its leaves rustling. A Dao fruit emerged, spinning with a hum, and its Dao power surged intensely to meet the Third Young Master's palm.
Boom!
The chaotic river trembled, then calmed, and the wind of heat death howled.
Qin Mu's vertical eye on his forehead slowly opened. From the crack, chaotic vastness swirled, and a faint purple light flickered within the chaos, about to emerge but not yet fully revealed.
The Third Young Master's robes fluttered. He withdrew his hand, turned around, and said solemnly, "Seventh Brother, for the teacher's sake, I will spare you this once. Don't let it happen again! Let's go!"
He flicked his sleeves and strode away. Many of the cultivators from Yujing City hesitated for a moment before turning to follow him.
However, only a portion of the seventy-two hall masters left. Some remained, standing behind the Fourth Young Master.
The Fourth Young Master frowned slightly, his gaze falling on the vertical eye on Qin Mu's forehead. The Third Young Master had not withdrawn out of respect for the master of Miluo Palace; he had sensed danger and retreated voluntarily to avoid losing face.
Something that could make even him feel danger was certainly no small matter.
"My only goal is to break the Great Calamity of Annihilation and find my lost wife."
The Fourth Young Master placed his hand on the zither strings and said indifferently, "I am different from Lingxiao. He seeks eternal power and authority, wanting to create a universe that will never be destroyed. I have only this modest wish. Whoever stands in my way, I will kill."
Qin Mu's vertical eye slowly opened, and a beam of light shot out. The Fourth Young Master exerted all his strength to pluck the zither strings, and the notes rang out loudly.
Suddenly, the notes turned hoarse, and one of the strings snapped.
The Fourth Young Master snorted coldly, stood up, put away the zither, and turned to leave.
The remaining hall masters quickly followed him, disappearing without a trace.
Beneath the World Tree, Qin Mu slowly opened his other two eyes and let out a breath. "For you, it may be about power or your loved ones. For me, it is about the right to survive for those who will come in the future."
He stood up. On the World Tree, that Dao fruit suddenly cracked, fell off, and sank into the chaotic river.
The roots of the World Tree plunged into the chaotic river, absorbing chaotic energy. After a moment, a new Dao flower slowly bloomed, and a Dao fruit formed.
"Yankang, are you all right?" Qin Mu whispered under the World Tree.
In the Seventeenth Era, the Ultimate Void.
Emperor Hao Tian looked grim. He waited for a moment, but the thirty-two halls remained still, with no cultivators descending.
Suddenly, a muffled groan came. Emperor Hao Tian quickly looked over and saw Taichu also activating the twenty-four halls, preparing to suppress Yuntianzun and the Divine Consciousness Great Luo Heaven, seizing the One Qi Great Luo Heaven to refine the Taichu Dao!
However, to his surprise, those twenty-four halls also showed no movement. The connection of power between the halls and the cultivators of Yujing City was completely severed!
Yuntianzun saw the opportunity. With a single sword strike, he pierced through thirteen points of Taichu's body. The final thrust entered Taichu's brow, and the tip of the sword flicked off the Taichu primordial stone embedded there.
Taichu winced in pain and immediately retreated, his divine power surging as he forcibly separated the One Qi Great Luo Heaven from the Divine Consciousness Great Luo Heaven.
Yuntianzun caught the Taichu primordial stone and immediately pressed it into his own brow. He also had a primordial stone there, and the two stones collided, merging into a complete one!
Yuntianzun's divine consciousness surged, and Taidi's Dao tree and Dao fruits erupted with boundless Dao might!
Emperor Hao Tian turned around, flicked his sleeve, and withdrew the thirty-two halls. He said calmly, "Mu Tianzun, you are lucky. We will see each other again in real combat!"
He flicked his sleeve again, repelling Yuntianzun, and left with Taichu.
Behind him, the Dao tree that Qin Mu had cut down rose with a roar, its Dao chains reconnecting, quickly restoring itself.
However, the power of this Dao tree was clearly far less than before.
Qin Mu did not pursue. In the Ultimate Void, the World Tree that Hao Tianzun had cut down also reconnected its roots and trunk. Qin Mu nourished it with his own Dao, but it would take some time for the World Tree to return to its peak state.
The Divine Consciousness Great Luo Heaven carried Yuntianzun as it flew over. He said solemnly, "Hao Tianzun and Taichu have retreated. In terms of Tianzun-level power, we should not be inferior to them."
Qin Mu nodded, looking down. "Xu Tianzun and Zushen Wang should also retreat soon. This was just a probe. Hao Tianzun wanted to test our strength. In a little over ten years, when the Heavenly Court's army arrives, that will be the real decisive battle."
"Your World Tree?"
Yuntianzun glanced behind him and hesitated. "I saw Hao Tianzun cut down your World Tree. How much does it affect you?"
"It should recover in a little over ten years."
Qin Mu let out a breath and looked toward the deepest part of the Ultimate Void. He said softly, "What about you? When the decisive battle comes, can you handle Taichu?"
Yuntianzun smiled faintly. "I had no confidence before, but now I have seventy percent."
"Seventy percent is not enough. It must be one hundred percent."
Qin Mu turned his head and said, "I am always worried that Hao Tianzun, seeing that he cannot defeat me, might resort to other means—like summoning some prehistoric cultivators who have achieved the Dao... No! I must go to that abandoned place!"
Yuntianzun was startled, but Qin Mu was already standing on the door plank, speeding away with a roar. "Yun, go and scare off Yuanmu Furen! She is in a duel with Ling Tianzun, and I am worried about her!"
Yuntianzun frowned. "Yuanmu Furen..."
At the deepest part of the Guixu Abyss, the chaotic sea surged. The face of the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace, Wuji, floated up from beneath the surface, dragging thick Dao chains as she swam slowly and leisurely around the lotus leaf.
"I see, I see..."
She suddenly giggled. "So you are the same as Seventh Brother, both from the future Seventeenth Era. No wonder the teacher always speaks highly of you."
Yuanmu Furen's face flickered with uncertainty. She looked at Ling Tianzun, then at the Second Young Master, not understanding what she was talking about.
"You have caused Miluo Palace a lot of trouble. Logically, as the Second Young Master, I should attack you and erase you."
The Second Young Master Wuji blinked her enormous eyes, her gaze filled with excitement and chaos. Yuanmu Furen was very familiar with this look—it was the look of someone who delights in chaos!
She and this Second Young Master were cut from the same cloth!
"But I won't do that. Since the teacher has suppressed me here, why would I help Miluo Palace?"
The Second Young Master of Miluo Palace suddenly burst into laughter. A strand of white hair coiled around Ling Tianzun and, with a whoosh, sent her flying toward one of the twin lotuses on the chaotic sea!
"I will only help you, help you achieve your unparalleled fame, help you become a legend—"
That strand of white hair carried Ling Tianzun straight upward, hurtling toward the Annihilation Calamity of another universe. The voice of the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace came through, laughing madly: "Go to the Sixth Era and become the shadow of Miluo Palace!"
Boom!
Ling Tianzun was swept uncontrollably through the intense Guixu tides, witnessing the magnificent and vast history of the Sixth Cosmic Era. The next moment, she was thrown into the Annihilation Calamity of the Sixth Era.
Ling Tianzun looked around and saw the chaos vast and swirling, destroying everything. Many cultivators who had achieved the Dao struggled in agony, their Dao trees burning and breaking.
Yet, even such a terrifying scene could not destroy her. She had mastered the principle of mass-energy invariance, making it extremely difficult to kill her.
But she could not escape the scouring of the chaotic river, drifting like duckweed along its current.
At that moment, an ancient hall floated past her.
The hall stopped. A young man reached out, grabbed Ling Tianzun's hand, and said warmly, "Who are you? You haven't achieved the Dao, so how can you remain undestroyed in this Annihilation Calamity?"
Ling Tianzun boarded the hall and said, "My name is Ling. Where is this?"
The young man smiled gently. "This is Tiantu. I am the Master of Tiantu, preparing to open the heavens anew, reenact the universe's vastness, and create another world!"