From it one could tell that this nameless existence of Youdu had a plump, squat body, yet was savage beyond measure, its physical body so mighty as to beggar the imagination. The little boat sailed in through that breach, into the abandoned fortress. Within, everything had been wrecked past any trace of its former glory; all had been smashed to bits.

Suddenly Shen Mu came to the center of the fortress, and there he saw the bleached bones of tens of thousands of gods and demons standing upright, arrayed in great circles, one within another. These white bones of gods and demons all leaned toward the center, as though some tremendous force of attraction at the center were drawing their bodies, and they were struggling against it. Shen Mu urged the boat to the center of the circles, and there, at the very middle, were two enormous footprints. His little boat halted above those footprints.

Shen Mu stood aboard, gazing at the skeletons of gods and demons on every side. These white bones must have come charging from all directions after the nameless existence had broken the fortress; and then, at that moment, that nameless existence suddenly erupted.

"Aaaah! "

Shen Mu opened his mouth, turned his head, and let out a shout at the surrounding skeletons of gods and demons. Then he shook his head. "No, they were not blasted to death by sound waves.

It must have been.

. . "

He turned his head and drew a long breath, sucking in the air all around.

Then he nodded.

"Yes, that's it. That nameless existence suddenly drew out the primordial spirits of these gods and demons and devoured them clean, not a scrap left!

To swallow tens of thousands of gods and demons in a single breath. Savage. Truly savage!

"

The little boat leapt over the fortress and went on until it reached the bend of the Lord of Earth's leg, where there were chain cities: thick, massive chains strung together to form cities one after another. Shen Mu steered the boat through a towering gateway, only to find another world within.

Here palaces rose high and stretched on without end, cities within cities, but all had been beaten into ruins, heavy with demonic aura. Only a few green-skinned imps lived here, and they were terrified of people: when they saw his boat fly in, they turned into wisps of black smoke and slipped away, no one knew where. A strange look came over Shen Mu's face. He hastily backed out of the gateway and looked up, and saw that this towering portal too had been struck and broken off. He lowered his head and searched, and after a moment saw the characters upon the broken gateway.

He drew in a sharp breath. "The Southern Heavenly Gate!

This is a Heavenly Palace!

"

His mind reeled.

He steadied himself, then entered the Heavenly Palace again. He flew past the Jade Terrace and the Jade Pool; the Jade Pool was dry, as though someone had drained it in a single gulp. The God-Slaying Terrace had been smashed to powder, the Jade Capital City battered down, and great holes punched through the Lingxiao Hall. The Imperial Throne had been dragged out and seemed to have been crushed by a great backside, pressed into the ground of the Jade Capital City, smashed to bits. "The souls qualified to dwell in a Heavenly Palace were, in life, either mighty ones of the Imperial Throne realm or beings of the Lingxiao realm.

And yet the nameless existence wrecked their palace. I fear the master of this place was eaten too, by that existence savage by nature! "

He left that Heavenly Palace, and the more he saw, the more his heart quailed.

Youdu twenty-two years ago had clearly suffered a catastrophe beyond measure; the souls who lived here had met with a massacre at the hands of that nameless existence, with grievous losses. "And the Lord of Earth and Heavenly Venerable Yu keep a little tally-book of my faults every day. It is this nameless existence who is the truly wicked one, and they never breathe a word of it.

"

Shen Mu was rather indignant at heart. He came to the soles of the Lord of Earth's feet, which had become the remains of a battlefield.

He looked out, and his heart pounded with dread. The battlefield was vast beyond measure; even with his Sacred Eye he could not see its edge, and everywhere there was radiant light, the residue of divine powers left behind by great masters of the arts.

Each streak of radiance stretched ten thousand li, giving off a beauty that made the heart quail. The ground was utterly flat, with no hills or rivers to be seen; and in the sky were palm prints and fist prints everywhere, marks struck into space itself that even after more than twenty years had not healed. Clearly, the fighting here had been more terrible, more dreadful, than anywhere else.

"Could it be that the souls of Imperial Throne power laid siege to that nameless existence here?

"

His heart pounding, Shen Mu carefully threaded the little boat through the battlefield, avoiding those brilliant divine powers; the more he saw, the more his heart quailed. The ferocity of this great battle surpassed imagination; the number of gods and demons sent into it must have been a terrifying figure indeed. And yet, at the edge of the battlefield, he saw once more the footprints of that nameless existence: deep footprints, plump footprints.

Plainly this battle had not slain it; rather, it had fought its way out.

That nameless existence was the final victor.

"Youdu holds a being as terrifying as this? "

Shen Mu drew a long breath.

He thought: "I must be careful in word and deed, lest I offend some terrible power in Youdu.

Mm, as the village headman used to say, one can never be too polite. "

He now came to the place where the Lord of Earth planted his feet. The demonic nature here was dreadful in its depth, demonic aura and demonic nature having settled and congealed into the land beneath the Lord of Earth's feet.

As the little boat flew from the sole of the Lord of Earth's foot, he saw a vast and magnificent black city, as though cast from black jade, whole and seamless, with no joint to be found anywhere.

"This must be the Jade Lock Pass of Youdu.

"

Shen Mu urged the boat upward, trying to leap the wall and enter the pass; but as the boat rose, the black jade wall of the Jade Lock Pass grew upward too. However fast the boat flew, it could never get above the wall and into the pass.

After testing this for a long while, Shen Mu dutifully followed the wall in search of a gate. After who knows how much longer, he finally found the gate of the Jade Lock Pass.

Outside it stood two demon gods on guard, axes and halberds in hand. Seeing the paper boat fly up, they were about to bow in greeting, only to see that the one aboard was not the old netherworld envoy but a youth, and they could not help but be astonished.

One of the demon gods leveled his axe and said: "Whose boy are you, and why have you come to the Jade Lock Pass?

Why do you have the Heavenly Benevolent Sage King's paper boat? "

Shen Mu said hastily: "You two exalted gods, I am Shen Mu, styled Fengqing, come to visit my mother. "