Chapter 1522 — The Intruder Descends

The gaunt stranger walked on. With every stride, the Black Mountains on either side shuddered and loosened.

The mountains were petrified World Trees, harder than anything, and yet now their rock split apart and came spattering down.

But before those black stones could reach the ground, an inexplicable force lifted them up and left them floating in the air. At last the gaunt stranger's face emerged first from the mountain, revealing the upright eye at the center of his brow.

Though he had to endure the strangling of the Great Calamity of Destruction, his strength was still immeasurably great. Hum. The arrow left Shen Mu's string and flew; the next instant it arrived at the gaunt stranger's brow. The mockery on the gaunt stranger's face deepened.

The moment Shen Mu's terrifying arrow reached his brow, a flicker of dao-light shone in his eye and froze the arrow in place. Twang, twang, twang.

Again and again the bowstring thrummed as Shen Mu drew and loosed; shaft after shaft of arrow-light flew at the gaunt stranger's brow, almost all at once. In a single instant he drew the divine bow countless times.

The string grew scorching hot; the spirit power and spirit energy of the Ancestral Court that had gathered in the sky was more than half consumed in that brief flash, and the thousand-li vortex of spirit power suddenly turned impossibly thin. Still Shen Mu kept madly drawing and loosing.

The vortex of spirit power shrank rapidly, until at last, with his final arrow, the gathered spirit power and spirit energy was utterly spent. In the very instant the spirit power and spirit energy ran dry, Shen Mu cast aside the divine bow, reached back with his hand, caught up the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner, and sprang into the air. In the instant of his leap his body arched backward, not stretched straight, but bent back at a fearsome angle. Both his hands gripped the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner.

Within its twenty-eight heavens countless treasures flared with light, like stars in those twenty-eight heavens; the rune-formations branded upon those treasures all sprang to life, and in an instant their power was raised to the utmost. Behind Shen Mu, primal spirit after primal spirit roused its mana; the heavenly palaces arrayed themselves, the Great Dao of the Heavenly Court thundered, raising the might of the treasures of the twenty-eight heavens yet again, so far that it seemed about to exceed what those treasures could bear. Shen Mu swung up the Azure Heaven Banner, using its twenty-eight heavens as a hammer, and smashed it ferociously down upon those arrow shafts.

Those arrows had been frozen before him by the dao-light of the gaunt stranger's brow-eye; even though Shen Mu had loosed so many arrows in a single instant, they had not broken through the limit of his defense. And at that moment, the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner came smashing down.

"Get. .

.

"

Shen Mu roared; as he swung the hammer down, arm after arm burst from beneath his armpits and gripped the shaft of the Azure Heaven Banner, raising his strength to its ultimate limit.

"Get back! "

Under that blow, arrow after arrow finally broke through the gaunt stranger's single-eye defense and stabbed into his eye.

Boom.

All the power within the arrows erupted. The gaunt stranger's head snapped back, and he fell back toward his own era, about to fall back into that universe of great destruction.

So long as he was struck back down, even if he could crawl over again, his vital essence would be gravely damaged.

A trace of joy showed on Shen Mu's face. "Did it work?

"

But at that moment, a palm thrust through the mountain and seized the loosening, crumbling Black Mountain.

Shen Mu's expression changed drastically.

He hastily swung the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner and smashed it ferociously at that gaunt, enormous palm.

At the same time, another gaunt, enormous palm pierced out of the mountain and seized the other half of the Black Mountain. The huge monstrous eye between the two halves of the mountain suddenly blazed unbearably hot, like a fire leaping to the sky.

Just as the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner was about to strike a palm, a vast face abruptly broke through the mountain and burst into being right before Shen Mu. The face opened its great mouth. The moment the roar came out, surging dao-sound blasted straight into Shen Mu, sending him flying backward; the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner could not strike home at all.

Shen Mu suddenly flipped in midair and drove the Azure Heaven Banner into the ground. With a slight twist, the twenty-eight heavens emerged, layer upon layer of heavens blocking that terrifying dao-sound.

He reached out and seized Tai Yi's staff, then looked up. The gaunt stranger had already stepped one leg out of the mountain, squeezing half his body through.