Granny Zhu watched dream after dream contract, the tiny Shen Mus within them vanishing one after another, and then Shen Mu opened his eyes; her heart leaped with joy. As Shen Mu's final dream was about to scatter, Lord Huo and Zhankong Tathagata woke in the nick of time and strode out of his dream.

The dream vanished utterly, and Shen Mu's primordial spirit, standing behind him, bowed to the two in thanks. Zhankong Tathagata hastily returned the courtesy, pointed at himself, and said, "Elder brother.

" Then he pointed at Shen Mu: "Younger brother.

What need for thanks?

" Shen Mu laughed heartily.

Seeing how utterly spent the two of them were, he at once asked them to go down and rest. Granny Zhu came forward, returned the divine bow to him, and asked, "Mu'er, is the danger past? " Shen Mu nodded and smiled.

"The nine Heavenly Lords of the Heavenly Court are of honor that spans the heavens; they lent their aid in righteousness and slew the Primordial Sage of the Miluo Palace, and at last my peril is resolved. " Granny Zhu breathed a sigh of relief and praised him: "Those nine Heavenly Lords are indeed of honor that spans the heavens.

One day you must thank them properly. " Shen Mu said hurriedly, "I will do my best to let them die without pain.

" "Then I am relieved," Granny Zhu said, letting out a breath.

Shen Mu's spirits soared; he felt as though the clouds had parted to reveal the sun, and he too let out a long breath.

"Eldest Senior Brother and Shu Jun handle matters briskly indeed," he laughed. "I was afraid the two of them would drop the Pixiang Hall in the Jade Capital, trigger the seal, and simply walk away. If the nine Heavenly Lords had not entered the Pixiang Hall and had to fight the Primordial Sage of the Miluo Palace head-on, I would have been finished. " He said joyfully, "I never expected them to do so well, and the nine Heavenly Lords entered the Pixiang Hall smoothly and did away with the Primordial Sage! Have Eldest Senior Brother and Shu Jun come back yet?

" Granny Zhu shook her head. "Not yet.

The Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court is a long way from here; they are most likely on the road back. When the two of them reached the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court, the commotion they raised was no small thing — they blew a huge hole in the sky. Frightful! " Shen Mu paced to and fro, smiling.

"I wonder whether the nine Heavenly Lords found anything good inside the Jade Capital — the mysteries of that Jade Capital. .

. " Granny Zhu glared at him. "You fell to a sneak attack, you have barely recovered, and already you want to run off? Habits like a roe deer, and no idea how the word 'death' is written!

What you do not know is that after the Jade Capital opened, something else great happened. Yan'er says your sacred ground has sprouted.

You had best go and look.

" Shen Mu at once set aside the matter of Wei Suifeng and Shu Jun.

"The sacred ground has sprouted?

" he said in astonishment. "What does that mean?

" "I do not know either.

I have been keeping watch here all along, and I have no idea how these Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains came to sprout. " Talking as they went, the two made their way toward the center of the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains. They had not gone far when they saw the youth Tai Yi repairing the Great Black Mountain, which had been split by the shock.

The youth Tai Yi set down his water bucket, pointed toward the center of the Great Black Mountain sacred ground, and said to Shen Mu, "I have been waiting for you there a long while. Hurry over. " Shen Mu was puzzled and wanted to ask, but the youth Tai Yi had already gone back to his work.

The two came all the way to the center of the Great Black Mountain, and from afar they saw a tender green sapling towering aloft. The sapling stood several hundred thousand zhang tall, yet bore only five or six leaves, and upon one of those leaves rested a palace — none other than the sacred hall where Shen Mu guarded this sacred ground!

Shen Mu and Granny Zhu were struck dumb; they quickened their pace, and the closer they came, the larger the sapling seemed. Its branches and leaves rose as high as the clouds, and all around were thunderbolts, crackling as they struck at the leaves. Yet even the heavenly thunder of the Ancestral Court seemed insignificant before this sapling, thin as needles, utterly unable to harm it in the least. Shen Mu came beneath the tree and saw Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua sitting there comprehending the Dao, while the Blind Elder and the Silent Artisan were closely examining a great axe.

The others bustled to and fro, mapping and measuring the Dao patterns on the branches and leaves of this strange sapling, trying to unlock its mysteries. Ming Huang stood not far off, staring fixedly at a burly man beneath the tree; the man, eyes on his nose and nose on his heart, paid him no heed.

Shen Mu stepped forward and ventured, "Brother Tai Yi.

" Tai Yi rose and said, "Lord Mu, this land is yours, and the tree that grew from this land is yours as well. So I waited for you to come and ask you: should this tree be felled?

" Shen Mu hesitated and ventured, "This sapling is.

. . " "This tree is the World Tree.

From one cosmic destruction to the next down to this day, the divine tree has neither died nor been extinguished. Through calamity after calamity of cosmic destruction, countless living beings — even divinities who attained the Dao — could not escape death, yet this tree alone survived. " Tai Yi said, "I felled it once before and burned it with fire, yet to my surprise it still would not die.

This is your domain now; I am but a guest lodging here, and to fell your tree I must ask your opinion.

" "The World Tree? " Shen Mu's heart pounded.

He looked up at the inconceivably vast sapling and murmured, "This is the divine thing that can survive the great cosmic destruction? " His eyes shone bright.

He had always minded that he had never seen such a divine tree with his own eyes, and had always dreamed of beholding this great tree. Yet that great tree had been cut down by Tai Yi and set ablaze, burned until only blackened roots and stems remained — and now, unexpectedly, it had come back to life!

"Lord Mu, if you keep this tree, the undying parasites of the sixteen universes before will crawl into this universe, and even I cannot hold them back. " Tai Yi said, "But even if the tree is felled, the passage cannot be wholly severed.

They will still come, only it will be delayed a while. Keep the tree, and they will come that much sooner. Whether to keep it or cut it rests entirely with you, the master of this land. " Shen Mu hesitated, gazing up at the World Tree's young shoot.

The Azure Emperor of the Eastern Heaven and the Earth Mother Yuanjun had both cultivated divine trees to great attainment; the Earth Mother was herself a primordial tree that upheld the heavens and all worlds.

Yet beside the divine tree before him, the Earth Mother was inferior by no small measure! This divine tree was almost a divine thing in a natural state of immutability! A divine thing that could run through one universe after another!

Yet it was precisely because of this divine tree that prehistoric beings crawled along its roots into the next universe, evading the great calamity of destruction and parasitizing the new universe.

And this in turn led to another evil consequence: the lifespan of the new universe was greatly diminished!

"Mass and energy are conserved; the total quantity of energy and matter in a universe is fixed. And beings who have cultivated to attainment are, in effect, gathering the universe's energy together.

" Tai Yi seemed able to see through Shen Mu's thoughts, and said at his side, "The more the powerful multiply, the more the energy concentrates.