Chapter 1751: Taiyi Crosses the River
The crowd in the Miluo Palace watched the chaotic sea, observing the Guixu Lotus expand and contract unpredictably, its leaves constantly swaying and shifting positions.
Clearly, Qin Mu’s battle against Wuyan the Elder was fierce and intense.
However, as time passed, the onlookers gradually noticed Qin Mu’s decline. Even with the Guixu Lotus connecting to the Annihilation Calamity and siphoning its energy, he could barely hold his ground.
The Guixu Lotus grew smaller, and the chaos it stirred began to subside significantly.
“Why hasn’t Taiyi made a move yet?”
The crowd grew puzzled. “Is he just going to sit back and watch Seventh Young Master be beaten back into the past by Wuyan the Elder?”
By now, two months had passed since Xing Han agreed to unlock the Burial Dao Divine Coffin.
On this day, Xing Han prepared everything, storing half of Chu Ge’s body in a box before carefully studying the Burial Dao Divine Coffin.
“What a fine coffin!”
He couldn’t help but admire it. “What a pity that one of the Miluo Palace’s young masters shaved off a piece. Still, it’s fortunate that happened—otherwise, cracking it would truly take half a year.”
He remained unhurried. He knew how to forge the Burial Dao Divine Coffin and understood all its divine mysteries. Even so, he needed to find a flaw in its sealing method to open it.
The Burial Dao Divine Coffin could be seen as an incredibly complex lock, with interlocking mechanisms and immense power to counterattack anyone who tried to force it open.
Xing Han didn’t possess Qin Mu’s formidable strength—Qin Mu could withstand the coffin’s backlash and survive, but Xing Han couldn’t.
However, if he could find the first mechanism to unlock, the rest would fall into place.
His countless minds worked furiously, calculating to locate that first mechanism.
Days passed, and soon another two months went by. Xing Han still hadn’t found the first mechanism.
The Burial Dao Divine Coffin contained countless runes, interlocking with the runes of the Execution Dao Divine Nails, and these runes were in constant flux.
This change was akin to a mortise and tenon joint. Each rune on the divine nails acted as a tenon, while each rune on the coffin acted as a mortise. The tenon would insert into the mortise, locking together to form a mechanism.
Once a mechanism formed, the tenon and mortise would exchange part of their runic information.
The tenons on the divine nails moved continuously, swapping information with the mortises and altering their own structures. The mortises in the coffin also moved constantly, exchanging information with the tenons and changing their forms.
When the first tenon detached from its mortise, it would change shape, move to the next mortise, combine with it, exchange information, and then change form again before linking with the next tenon and mortise.
This process of tenon-mortise combination and information exchange occurred billions of times every instant, creating an incredibly complex lock!
For Xing Han to find the original tenon-mortise structure amid billions of changes per moment was indeed immensely difficult.
But it was possible.
He was originally the most powerful computational prodigy of the Eternal Peace Era, and he had already calculated that the original tenon-mortise structure would appear roughly every two months. That would be the optimal time to crack it.
Breaking the original structure would cause information deviations in all other tenon-mortise structures.
A slight error would lead to a vast divergence, ultimately causing the entire sealing system of the Burial Dao Divine Coffin to fall into chaos and collapse!
He had promised Qin Mu he could perfectly unlock the coffin in six months because he needed time to calculate the changes in the tenon-mortise structures, deduce the form of the original structure, and observe and record the exact moment it appeared.
Time slipped by.
The box paced around Xing Han and the coffin, occasionally stopping to observe its own shadow.
The six-month deadline was approaching. The sun was rising, and when it reached its zenith, it would be the appointed time with Qin Mu.
Xing Han was always punctual and trustworthy, and the box had developed the same habit.
Yet Xing Han remained motionless, staring fixedly at the Burial Dao Divine Coffin.
Around the coffin, divine eyes of various sizes floated in the air, also locked onto it.
He had stopped calculating long ago. For the past two months, he had simply stared at the coffin, observing the changes in its runes.
His eyes were wide open, unblinking for two whole months, bloodshot and strained.
The sun climbed higher.
The box took out a straight thigh bone, stuck it into the ground, and watched its shadow.
The shadow slowly shifted as the sun approached its peak.
Just then, Xing Han suddenly channeled his primordial energy, forming an incredibly tiny rune. He flicked his finger, and the rune imprinted itself on one of the Execution Dao Divine Nails on the coffin.
He let out a breath, stood up, and began packing his things, gathering the divine eyes into the box.
The box’s lid opened, but it still watched the bone’s shadow, very serious.
The shadow crept onward until, just as Xing Han finished packing, the sun reached noon.
Snap.
The box closed its lid and looked at the Burial Dao Divine Coffin. There was no movement from within.
The box hesitated, about to step forward, when suddenly a creaking sound came from the coffin. The Execution Dao Divine Nails began to rotate on their own, slowly loosening and falling out!
The nails spun faster and faster!
This was because the original tenon-mortise structure had been broken, causing every subsequent tenon-mortise pair to exchange incorrect information.
As a result, no tenon could perfectly lock with its mortise!
It spread like a contagion, infecting all tenon-mortise structures until the nails could no longer stay in the coffin. Instead, they repelled each other, spinning rapidly and ejecting themselves!
Clang, clang, clang.
One by one, the Execution Dao Divine Nails fell to the ground. Xing Han raised an eyebrow, a hint of joy flashing across his face.
He had studied for months, and success required only a single tiny rune to break the coffin that had suppressed Taiyi!
This was a great achievement for him.
Suddenly, the coffin’s lid burst open with a bang. Chaotic mist swirled within, then dissipated. A young man sat bolt upright, twisted his neck, and faced Xing Han.
It was a youthful Taiyi.
Xing Han glanced at him, then bent down to pick up the nails.
The youthful Taiyi lay back down, then rose again as a giant stepped out of the coffin, his voice booming: “Where is Mu Tianzun?”
Xing Han shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The giant Taiyi reached out and grabbed the coffin. Xing Han’s expression shifted slightly, and he said earnestly, “It’s mine.”
The giant Taiyi was surprised. “This is the coffin forged for me by the Miluo Palace’s eldest young master, Tai Shang. Mu Tianzun followed the map to rescue me but used my coffin to fight, causing me to suffer terribly inside. I must lock him in it for a few days to let him taste the same. When I catch Tai Shang, I’ll lock him in too, to avenge my shame.”
Xing Han shook his head. “Chief Qin asked me to unlock the coffin, and one of the conditions was that this coffin be given to me.”
The giant Taiyi looked down at the Burial Dao Divine Coffin, then at Xing Han.
Xing Han’s abilities were far inferior to his. If he wanted to take it by force, Xing Han could do nothing. But he set the coffin down and said, “Seventh Young Master is indeed cunning, giving the coffin to you. I won’t take what another treasures.”
He looked up, gazing toward the direction of the World Tree, and his expression changed slightly.
Xing Han said, “Dao Brother, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to lock Chief Qin in the coffin for a few days?”
The giant Taiyi nodded.
Xing Han smiled. “Then when you capture him, I can lend it to you for a few days. I can even personally help you drive in the coffin nails.”
The giant Taiyi laughed heartily, his voice bold and mighty, and strode away: “Good! Wait for me a few days—I’ll go capture him!”
Xing Han sat down with a smile, laying out the hundred Execution Dao Divine Nails he had just collected, and waited quietly.
“Chief Qin, though I can’t have your mind, locking you in the Burial Dao Divine Coffin will fulfill one of my wishes and bring my Dao heart one step closer to perfection.”
The sun hung high in the sky, blazing overhead, but beneath the World Tree, all was dark. In the darkness, faint flashes of lightning and thunder rumbled, and the muffled sounds of divine abilities clashing echoed like drums beating on people’s hearts, unsettling their qi and blood.
The giant Taiyi strode toward the World Tree. Suddenly, a beam of radiant Dao light fell from the sky, clearing a path through the darkness beneath the tree.
The source of that light was a Da Luo Heaven.
Taiyi’s Da Luo Heaven.
Within it stood an ancient Dao tree.
Taiyi’s Dao tree.
A flash of axe light rose from beneath the tree, whistling toward him. The giant Taiyi raised his hand, and the axe light landed in his palm, becoming the Taiyi Divine Axe.
The giant hoisted the axe on his shoulder and strode into the World Tree’s shadow, following the path illuminated by the Dao light.
Ahead, a vast expanse of chaos appeared—a turbulent Chaos River blocked his way.
On the far bank of the Chaos River, two lotus leaves could faintly be seen floating on a chaotic sea, with a lotus flower rising from the surface.
The lotus was shaking violently, red threads swirling around it.
There, the cold and hot winds of annihilation clashed fiercely, a perilous scene.
The giant Taiyi chuckled, raised his left hand to shield himself, and swung his right arm, spinning the axe with a whoosh.
Suddenly, the axe fell!
With one stroke, he split the Chaos River in two. The river parted, and he walked along the riverbed, his enormous shadow cast against the walls of chaos rising on either side.
He reached the far bank, only to find another Chaos River ahead.
“Wuyan, your tricks are too many!”
The giant Taiyi pressed on without hesitation, swinging his axe repeatedly, splitting one Chaos River after another. He cleaved through fifteen rivers in a row, pausing to catch his breath. When he looked ahead, his expression grew serious.
“A three-way struggle. Aside from Mu Tianzun, everyone else seems to be waiting for a chance to ambush me.”
The giant Taiyi assessed the situation, hesitating. Just then, a cracking sound rang out—the lotus flower snapped!
He wasted no more time. With another swing of his axe, he split the final Chaos River before him and charged toward the opposite shore!
At the same time, the Miluo Palace’s Third Young Master Ling Xiao, Fourth Young Master Zi Xiao, and the assembled hall masters and Dao achievers looked up to see a giant walking on the river’s surface!
“He’s here!” Their spirits lifted, and they thought to themselves.
—Happy birthday to Old Daoist, Su Ran!