Chapter 1573: That Sword's Charm

The Guixu Grand Abyss is now even more dangerous than when Qin Mu last visited, with light tides erupting more intensely and powerfully than ever before. Even as Heavenly Venerates, they felt a tremor of fear facing the current Guixu. Ever since the Heavenly Court established itself in the Ancestral Court and the Heavenly River reverted to its original course, the power of Guixu has multiplied many times over. Additionally, the Empress and her sister merging into one seemed to have invisibly amplified Guixu's might.

Qin Mu and Heavenly Venerate Gong stood silently facing each other. They didn't engage immediately, both busy calculating myriad possibilities in their minds. They possessed the most potent divine sense in the current world. Divine sense is essentially thought and consciousness, but vastly more powerful and refined than that of ordinary individuals. Only by elevating one's thought and consciousness to the divine realm can it be truly termed divine sense.

Divine sense serves various purposes. Beyond boosting the power of divine abilities, it can forcibly obliterate an opponent's consciousness, or even possess them. However, divine sense possesses a significant advantage: the ability to deduce countless possibilities within an extremely short time, allowing one to anticipate and act before an opponent. It can even predict all future actions of an opponent, incorporating them into one's own calculations. Some might label this foresight, but to masters of divine sense, it is merely a probability algorithm, allowing them to calculate all your movements in advance.

For experts like Qin Mu and Heavenly Venerate Gong, whose divine sense stood at the pinnacle of this world, they could deduce an opponent's subsequent moves by analyzing their arts and divine abilities. However, when two beings of nearly equal divine sense clash, the variables become numerous.

Throughout their cultivation of divine sense, neither Qin Mu nor Heavenly Venerate Gong had ever refined or absorbed the divine sense of others, nor had they accepted sacrifices from anyone. Even when Qin Mu acquired the Grand Emperor's divine sense, he refrained from refining it to enhance his own cultivation. Had he resorted to such shortcuts, his probability calculations would have been corrupted by chaotic divine sense. The Grand Emperor's incomplete Dao realm was a direct consequence of this very flaw. The Master of the Beast Realm, Long Xiao, also suffered from a lack of wisdom due to this very issue. Both Qin Mu and Heavenly Venerate Gong meticulously preserved the purity of their divine sense, guarding against any temptation that might corrupt it.

While Heavenly Venerate Gong's reliance on men was undeniably disreputable, her will was remarkably tenacious and resolute, displaying a decisive and unyielding character that commanded admiration.

Their divine senses whirred at an astonishing speed, their respective auras growing progressively stronger, ready to unleash a devastating strike at any moment. Drops of cold sweat appeared on Heavenly Venerate Gong's forehead. She encountered extreme difficulty in calculating Qin Mu's potential moves. Only now did she realize the astonishing complexity of Qin Mu's knowledge, insights, and cultivation, along with his mastery of various unknown arts and divine abilities. In contrast, her own arts and divine abilities had been thoroughly probed by Qin Mu during the Heavenly Court's attempt to refine him, repeatedly exposed during their struggle within the Myriad Dao Heavenly Wheel. In essence, Qin Mu knew her intimately, while she knew relatively little about him.

"If our cultivation levels were comparable," she thought, "I would undoubtedly be defeated! However, my strength lies in my more profound cultivation! He hasn't reached the Jade Capital realm, but I am already halfway to the Heavenly Court realm! I will activate the Horn of War to amplify my vital energy, boosting my explosive power severalfold for a decisive strike! I might sustain injuries, but none will be fatal. As for him, though he might preserve his life, I will send him plummeting into Guixu!"

"I must act swiftly and decisively!""I have to end this quickly!""The longer I delay, the more possibilities he can calculate against me!"

As this thought crossed her mind, she raised an eyebrow. At that very moment, the Empress's voice suddenly shrieked, "No, no! This reincarnation divine ability is off! It won't refine that little hussy! Heavenly Venerate Mu! Heavenly Venerate Mu—"

As the Empress's cries echoed, Qin Mu's aura suddenly wavered. Heavenly Venerate Gong instantly seized the opportunity, unleashing the full power of her Grand Heavenly Court! Her Heavenly Court's configuration resembled a war horn, and as she activated her cultivation art, a prolonged blare echoed, causing her vital energy to surge instantaneously. In that instant, the entire Guixu Twin Lotus Holy Land was saturated with an incredibly terrifying tide of vital energy.

Heavenly Venerate Gong's physical strength and magical power also surged linearly. With a single step, she seemed to transcend the limits of space and time, piercing through Qin Mu's Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure domain to appear directly before him! The dragon whip in her hand transformed into a dragon spear, which violently vibrated, spun, and then hissed as it thrust towards Qin Mu!

The moment she moved, a faint smile appeared on Qin Mu's face—a smile that, to Heavenly Venerate Gong, appeared sinister and subtly triumphant.

*Clink—*

Qin Mu disregarded her overwhelming strike. Instead, he simply raised his hand and flicked his sword. Heavenly Venerate Gong's heart instantly leaped. The sword wound on her chest, a remnant from Qin Mu's previous attack, immediately flared up! Countless sword lights erupted from the wound, bursting outwards like mercury splashing from a silver vase shattered upon the ground. It was as if a silver flask had suddenly shattered, its contents gushing forth.

"The Sword Dao of Emperor Kai?"

Heavenly Venerate Gong was horrified. Even as she thrust her spear, she frantically mobilized her vital energy and magical power to suppress the wound in her chest! She had once been defeated by Emperor Kai's sword, and his Sword Dao had left an indelible shadow on her, inflicting not only physical wounds but also profound damage to her Dao heart! Qin Mu's sword flick involuntarily reawakened her deep-seated fear of Emperor Kai. As this terror resurfaced, instinct immediately triumphed over reason. Her magical power was diverted to the wound, instantly diminishing the spear's potency. She then quickly realized that the sword light and Sword Dao erupting from the wound Qin Mu had inflicted were not as terrifying as Emperor Kai's. Emperor Kai merely needed to flick his sword for the sword wound in her Dao heart to transform into Sword Dao, which would then be amplified by her own magical power and strength, ultimately tearing her to shreds. Qin Mu's sword, by contrast, merely activated the residual power of the Sword Dao within the wound.

"This is bad!"

The thought had barely registered when, just as she was about to boost the spear's power again, Qin Mu's sword thrust forward to meet her dragon spear. In a single instant, twenty basic sword forms danced within the sword light, striking the spear successively. Twenty crisp sounds echoed in quick succession, accompanied by twenty tremors vibrating through the spear's shaft. With the first strike, Heavenly Venerate Gong felt as if her dragon spear were a great snake struck at its vulnerable seven-inch point: the power coursing through the entire spear vanished instantly from a seven-inch section, and she lost all sensation of that portion's strength. With the second strike, another tremor ran through it, and the remaining spear shortened by another seven inches. Qin Mu's sword techniques were incredibly swift. By the time the twentieth sword form struck the long spear, the power of her attack was reduced to only the short segment of the spear shaft she clutched! Sword light sprang from the spear's shaft, flicking into Heavenly Venerate Gong's glabella!

One misstep led to a cascade of errors.

Before engaging Qin Mu, Heavenly Venerate Gong had used her formidable divine sense to deduce his various attack methods. However, due to her limited understanding of Qin Mu and his thorough grasp of her abilities, she had decided to subdue him with sheer power. But her very first move landed her squarely in her opponent's trap, leading to a catastrophic series of blunders and utter defeat!

She was a Heavenly Venerate, after all. The instant Qin Mu's flicked sword light pierced her glabella, her vast and boundless primordial spirit soared from her Heavenly Court, and her left hand rose, slapping the back of her own head. Her primordial spirit's left hand somehow passed through the back of her own head, and as Qin Mu's Calamity Sword pierced her glabella, her left index finger pressed directly against the sword tip! A crisp sound rang out, and the Calamity Sword's momentum was instantly halted. A drop of cold sweat rolled down Heavenly Venerate Gong's forehead, striking the gleaming tip of the Calamity Sword, where it was cleaved in two by the sharp edge. A single bead of blood from her glabella also slid down the sword's tip.

Opposite her, Qin Mu stood, sword in hand, a mere two steps away. Their proximity was so extreme that no divine ability could be deployed as swiftly as close-quarters combat techniques. And in such melee, sword Dao divine abilities proved exceptionally formidable. Yet, the most terrifying of all was the blade.

Qin Mu's smile faded. He shifted his stance, and the next moment, Heavenly Venerate Gong felt him behind her. A colossal blade intent instantly surged from her back, threatening to cleave into her very flesh! This sensation was deeply unsettling. She felt her back exposed to Qin Mu, but their positions were not the classic back-to-back setup of close-quarters combat. Instead, her back was directly facing Qin Mu's front. This was a bizarre phenomenon created by the Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure domain!

She immediately leaped up and forward, her form landing on one of the gigantic stamens within the Twin Lotuses. Simultaneously, her primordial spirit, located in the Heavenly Court behind her head, launched a fierce attack toward Qin Mu, who was seemingly behind her. However, the moment her primordial spirit moved, it froze, for Qin Mu's primordial spirit was currently positioned directly behind hers, creating the same bizarre configuration where its back faced Qin Mu's front!

Heavenly Venerate Gong was aghast. Even after leaping onto the stamen, she still felt Qin Mu directly behind her as a great blade Dao divine ability erupted from that direction! Within the Twin Lotuses, stamens of myriad colors, each thousands of zhang long, stood like towering tentacles in that beautiful place, swaying with the tides. Heavenly Venerate Gong darted rapidly, leaping back and forth among the stamens, doing her utmost to evade the blade light that relentlessly pursued her from behind. Blade light surged from behind her, *swish, swish, swish*, streaks of intensely bright light ripped through the air, only to transform into dark lines the very next instant. She had to be meticulous, evading the black lines left in the wake of the bright flashes, as those lines were equally perilous; even a slight misstep would leave new blade marks on her body. Even so, there were moments she couldn't evade. Blade marks accumulated on her body, quickly leaving her covered in wounds. Simultaneously, her primordial spirit also raced to dodge the attacks launched by Qin Mu's primordial spirit. Her primordial spirit was also riddled with blade wounds. If this continued, she would inevitably succumb to Qin Mu's assault.

A thunderous crash echoed, causing the Twin Lotuses to shake violently. Heavenly Venerate Gong quickly glanced over to see the Empress half-crouching, half-kneeling in the center of the Twin Lotuses. The woman, having regained her ancient god physique, whose power was immense, slowly rose in the center of the half-red, half-black Twin Lotuses.

"Heavenly Venerate Mu—" shrieked the Empress.

Heavenly Venerate Gong suddenly felt the blade light behind her vanish and let out a sigh of relief. "Heavenly Venerate Mu must have been startled away by the Empress!" she thought.

She turned around, only to see a sword light piercing through her glabella. Simultaneously, her primordial spirit within her Heavenly Court was also pierced by a streak of sword light.

Qin Mu retracted his sword, bowed deeply, and said, "Dao Friend Gong, farewell."

Sword light then erupted from within Heavenly Venerate Gong's mind!