Chapter 950: An Old Friend in the Eyes
"Great Emperor?"
Qin Mu's heart stirred as he looked ahead. There, in a vast, desolate expanse of spacetime, stood numerous colossal creators clad in pure white robes.
They occupied a landmass shaped like a giant lotus flower, incredibly vast, separated from Qin Mu and the others by an unfathomably deep abyss—a void with no visible bottom. Many creators stood in the void without touching the ground. Some had giant lotuses beneath their feet, blooming with light that illuminated their white robes, making them appear supremely holy. Others had golden, shimmering wings on their backs; through divine thought visualization, they appeared bird-headed with human bodies, their feet sharp bird talons. Some stood on twin dragons, their bodies wreathed in flowing fire. Others were entwined with rivers that coiled around them like snakes, yet more changeable. Some had long chains emerging from their foreheads, spiraling and coiling through the sky. Others had a river of stars gushing from their brows, with celestial bodies flowing out.
Yet all of this was frozen. Every creator was stiff, locked in the posture they held in life.
These creators were in attacking stances. Embedded in their foreheads were Primal Chaos Source Stones, visualizing their most powerful offensive techniques. Their target was an immensely vast and terrifying creator—the one Shujun called the Great Emperor!
If these creators were as massive as stars, then the Great Emperor was like the brightest sun, with countless stars revolving and dancing around him.
The Great Emperor was also frozen in stillness.
He stood within the lotus-shaped landmass. His legs had transformed into thick, gnarled roots that plunged deep into the lotus land. The roots on his legs were like his sinews, tearing through flesh and blood from within his legs, connecting him to the ground. The folds of his robe were like mountain ranges across the lotus continent, and the blood flowing from the wounds on his legs had turned into long, crimson rivers.
Clearly, the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan had not willingly merged with the lotus continent. These creators had trapped him with their divine abilities, fusing him with this landmass so he could not escape. Unless he could lift the entire boundless lotus continent and fly away with it.
This was a trap—a trap set for the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan!
"It was the divine abilities of these creators and the Great Emperor that caused the strangeness of this place!"
Qin Mu's heart leaped. The creators of the Great Void must have lured the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan here, trapped him, and then both sides perished together!
But what puzzled him was that, according to Shujun, the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan was immensely powerful—the strongest being of the primordial era. Could these creators, numerous and mighty as they were, truly contend with him?
Then he noticed the Great Emperor's forehead. There was no Primal Chaos Origin Stone—the symbol of the Great Emperor's power and authority!
The Great Emperor's forehead was empty, with no third eye, only a diamond-shaped wound!
Qin Mu recalled the Primal Chaos Origin Stone in his own third eye. His heart stirred. This stone was a fragment of the one that had once been in the Great Emperor's forehead. Clearly, during the battle in the Blood Rust Zone, the Great Emperor's Primal Chaos Origin Stone had been shattered.
At that time, Shujun had also been on the battlefield in the Blood Rust Zone. He had taken the opportunity to hide his divine consciousness within one of the fragments. That fragment was later found by Wei Suifeng, who didn't notice Shujun hiding inside and left the stone for Qin Mu.
"Without the Primal Chaos Origin Stone, the Great Emperor's strength was no longer as formidable, so he was trapped and couldn't escape. But that still doesn't add up. Even without the stone, his power was immense. Shujun said he had the most powerful physical body in history. Just that alone should have made him unassailable by these creators."
Qin Mu thought to himself, "That means someone must have helped these creators deal with the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan! Who was that person? And what was their goal?"
He couldn't figure it out. "Shujun must know the secrets of the primordial era and the battle in the Blood Rust Zone—why the Primal Chaos Origin Stone shattered. But it seems Shujun doesn't want to talk about it."
Shujun was dejected. The Great Emperor and these creators had all perished here. It looked like the creators of the Great Void had besieged the Great Emperor, wearing him down until he died here.
Because the creators' divine abilities were so bizarre, Qin Mu and the others had encountered so many strange phenomena upon arriving here.
But what they couldn't understand was why the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan had fought with these creators in the first place.
"This is the place."
The little light point that was Yueting Ge chuckled slyly. "I lured Fire Heavenly Venerable and Void Heavenly Venerable here and got them killed..."
"How could Fire Heavenly Venerable and Void Heavenly Venerable die here?"
Qin Mu laughed in disbelief, but as he looked around, his heart suddenly trembled. He actually saw Fire Heavenly Venerable!
Fire Heavenly Venerable was in that eerie battlefield ahead, not far from the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan's forehead. Qin Mu couldn't mistake him.
He was an old acquaintance of Qin Mu's, always wearing clothes covered in flame patterns. Most notably, Fire Heavenly Venerable had a ring of fire behind his head—extremely conspicuous!
Now, Fire Heavenly Venerable, like the creators and the Great Emperor, seemed frozen in that strange spacetime, unable to move, as if dead.
He was, after all, a Heavenly Venerable at the Heavenly Court realm. He hadn't been reduced to a light point; his body remained in a forward-stride posture.
"Can a Heavenly Venerable at the Heavenly Court realm be killed by this place?"
Qin Mu's heart raced. He steadied himself and looked around for Void Heavenly Venerable, but he couldn't find him.
He was momentarily stunned. Yueting Ge had just said he lured both Heavenly Venerables here to die, so why was only Fire Heavenly Venerable visible, not Void Heavenly Venerable?
Then he noticed something strange: Fire Heavenly Venerable was actually moving!
But relative to Qin Mu and the others, his movement was incredibly slow—agonizingly slow!
Yueting Ge and the others had been reduced to tiny light points by the strangeness here, but Qin Mu still had his third eye, which hadn't been assimilated. This divine eye had immense insight, allowing him to perceive even the subtlest changes!
He noticed that the flame patterns around Fire Heavenly Venerable contained extremely tiny flame runes that were undergoing imperceptible replacements, though at an excruciatingly slow pace.
This meant Fire Heavenly Venerable was altering his protective runes!
In other words, Fire Heavenly Venerable wasn't dead here.
Qin Mu calculated. Based on the speed of rune replacement and flow, if Fire Heavenly Venerable wanted to complete a single divine ability, it would take at least two hundred and fifty-six years!
"Fire Heavenly Venerable is flying toward the Great Emperor's forehead. Is there something there attracting him?"
With this thought, Qin Mu mustered all his divine consciousness, activated the Primal Chaos Origin Stone, and channeled all his primal energy and consciousness into the Three Enclosures Upper Consciousness.
Boom!
His third eye grew brighter, his divine vision nearly seeing everything, even all the flame runes on Fire Heavenly Venerable's body!
He looked into the hole in the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan's forehead. There was no Primal Chaos Origin Stone, only a diamond-shaped wound emitting blazing light and flames.
The light and flames were intensely thick, and within them, Qin Mu could vaguely see a figure sitting in the Great Emperor's forehead!
Qin Mu's heart stirred. Suddenly, his primal energy swept up the light point that was Shujun. Shujun was startled, and the next moment, he was stuffed into Qin Mu's third eye, back on the altar within the Primal Chaos Origin Stone.
"Shujun, lend me all your divine consciousness! Let me see who is in the Great Emperor's forehead!"
Qin Mu's voice came through. Shujun's heart shook violently. "There's someone in the Great Emperor's forehead?"
Without hesitation, he mobilized his divine consciousness and lent it to Qin Mu. Qin Mu's divine consciousness surged, and the power of his third eye increased further. His vision shot out as a beam of light, traveling ten thousand miles to illuminate the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan's forehead.
This gaze pierced through layers of blazing light and flames, going deeper and deeper until it reached the figure ahead.
"Shujun, lend me more divine consciousness!" Qin Mu felt himself reaching his limit and shouted.
Shujun hesitated. He hadn't lent Qin Mu his full power earlier because he didn't trust him and had held back.
"Lend it to me, and I'll help you restore one ear!" Qin Mu's voice came.
Shujun snorted coldly. "I want both ears!"
"Fine!" Qin Mu agreed decisively.
Seeing him agree so readily, Shujun regretted it. "If I'd asked for a tongue too, this kid probably would have agreed..."
Still, he mustered the rest of his divine consciousness and lent it to Qin Mu.
The light from Qin Mu's third eye grew even more intense, breaking through the final layer of blazing flames and illuminating the figure sitting motionless in the Great Emperor's forehead.
Suddenly, Qin Mu's mind was shaken violently. His gaze scattered, and he involuntarily withdrew.
A torrent of divine consciousness and primal energy surged into his brain, leaving him dazed and disoriented, his blood and energy churning.
Shujun quickly withdrew his own divine consciousness. "Kid, you promised to restore both my ears—don't go back on it! By the way, what did you see?"
Qin Mu steadied himself and murmured, "Cloud Heavenly Venerable... I saw Cloud Heavenly Venerable!"
Shujun didn't know who Cloud Heavenly Venerable was, but Qin Mu's heart was in turmoil. The figure sitting motionless in the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan's forehead was unmistakably Cloud Heavenly Venerable!
He had seen Cloud Heavenly Venerable at the Jade Pool Grand Assembly—a very handsome youth. Though the person in the Great Emperor's forehead was now a middle-aged man with a kingly bearing and a dignified face, Qin Mu could still see the elegance of his younger years!
It was definitely Cloud Heavenly Venerable!
His mind was still in chaos. "Why is Cloud Heavenly Venerable's physical body there? Wait—he left me an altar, and on that altar was the Great Emperor's Seal, the seal of the Great Emperor of the Juyu Clan!"
He immediately took out the Great Emperor's Seal. As it flew out of his third eye and appeared here, the seal seemed to resonate with the power of this place, erupting with terrifying might!
Boom!
Countless divine lights surged from the lotus continent, madly pouring into the Great Emperor's Seal. The distorted energy shook spacetime, instantly freeing Qin Mu from his light-point state!
He regained his physical form, and soon the others also recovered their bodies, staring in shock and confusion at the seal floating in the air.