That gaunt, towering stranger was straining to squeeze his way over. His power was too immense, and forcing his way in was no easy matter. The conversion of mass and energy obeyed certain laws, and a being like him — one who had already attained the Dao — was all but pure rule of the Great Dao; to squeeze out of the previous universe into this one demanded the displacement of an amount of mass and energy too appalling to reckon. This was akin to the Bridge of Spirit-Energy Transposition, yet not the same, and far more intricate. The Bridge of Spirit-Energy Transposition pierced a breach in the wall between two worlds, forming a span across which spirit energy flowed in exchange, so that when a living being crossed over, its own energy set the spirit energy of both worlds moving to and fro and kept the two in balance. To cross from a past universe into the present one, however, likewise required keeping the balance of mass and energy — and the greater trouble was that the old universe and the new could not be joined by a bridge like the Bridge of Spirit-Energy Transposition, one capable of actively transporting mass and energy on its own. That was why they had needed to array an enormous sacrificial formation in the Ancestral Court, and make the Ancestral Court itself into an altar. The total mass and energy of the universe never changed; and with the total unchanged, for a man of the past to enter the present universe, a portion of the present universe's mass and energy had to be cast off into the past universe to preserve the balance. Over the years, though heaven knows how many living beings had been offered up in sacrifice, every Dao-attainer of every past universe tried to transfer into the present universe before his own perished, and so matters had come to this pass: everyone wanted to squeeze in, and none of them could. The gaunt stranger was no different. Half his body had already come through, and now a portion of the Ancestral Court's matter and energy had to be sacrificed into the past universe, to speed his escape from the perishing universe he had left behind. Black Mountain shook violently; its rock crumbled and flaked away without cease, drifting up into the air. Like a flood tide those stones streamed behind the gaunt stranger, vanishing one after another into that enormous eye. Around Shen Mu the earth too kept splitting apart, patch after patch of ground breaking down and floating toward the monstrous eye. That eye grew ever more enormous, standing upright behind the stranger like a fire that would annihilate the world; its flames lit the hundred thousand great mountains, and set the shadows of those ranges swaying and flickering. It was like an immense furnace, and like an immense mouth, greedily devouring all things of the Ancestral Court, grinding heaven and earth and every creature to fragments, melting them down, and sending them as purest energy into the ruined universe behind it, in exchange for the gaunt stranger's life. Shen Mu checked his advance, swung up Taiyi's staff, and went to meet the gaunt stranger. The stranger's vertical eye, set in his forehead, bristled with arrows; Shen Mu's earlier blow had driven shaft after shaft bodily into that eye, and yet even the bursting power of a divine bow and divine arrows had failed to wound him gravely. The stranger was thin and tall, of some uncanny race beyond knowing; he lifted a hand to the arrows in his vertical eye and tried to pluck them out, while his other palm reached for Shen Mu. He had but one eye, the one at the center of his brow, and that eye occupied his whole forehead; with so many arrows struck into it, his sight was spoiled. He had first to draw them out before he could deal with Shen Mu. Shen Mu swung up his staff, and its power rippled far weaker than before — which was why the stranger reached for him — yet it was this blow, seemingly so devoid of force, that cost him so dearly. His palm was slender and long, each finger many times the length of Shen Mu's body; as the hand seized at him, divine arts gathered in the palm, and in an instant the palm was filled with razor-sharp threads flying wild in every direction, threading and crisscrossing. Shen Mu had scarce charged into that palm when his flesh was pierced through by countless threads — yet still he swung his staff up to meet the stranger's fingers. Crack! One finger of the gaunt stranger was struck by the staff and snapped backward on the spot, bending into a horrifying arc. Crack, crack — one finger after another was broken by Shen Mu until all five folded back, and Shen Mu, reversing his grip on the staff, wielded it as a sword and drove it with all his strength into the stranger's palm. At that instant the thousand threads piercing Shen Mu's body suddenly yanked in every direction, and with a rip Shen Mu was torn into countless pieces in the blink of an eye. The shattered flesh and blood were drawn by the monstrous eye behind the stranger and fell into it. Then of a sudden a strange ripple of divine art spread out, as though time were flowing backward; Shen Mu's body swiftly reassembled, still in that palm, staff in hand, wielding it as a sword to unleash a world-shaking blow. The third stance of the Tribulation Sword: Answering the Tribulation. The wooden staff had no blade, yet it pierced into the gaunt stranger's palm and, together with Shen Mu's body, drove into his arm. The Sword of Answering the Tribulation was the sword that hewed the Heavenly Palace and leveled the Divine Treasury; it was the sword Shen Mu used to behead himself, and the sword he used to behead others. It had been long since he last brought out his own sword arts and sword dao. For ever since he had comprehended divine arts of deeper mystery, the power of his sword arts and sword dao could no longer keep pace with his divine arts; and the foes he faced were mightier by far than before, so that his sword arts and sword dao had fallen behind his cultivation and could scarce wound an opponent. But now, with Taiyi's staff in hand, it was as though he held an invincible weapon, raising the power of this one stance, Answering the Tribulation, to a height undreamed of in ordinary times. Astonishment showed on the gaunt stranger's face, and he uttered a question whose meaning none could tell, as though speaking of Shen Mu's divine art. By now he had plucked the arrows from the vertical eye in his brow; his other hand rose, its fingers leaping with extreme nimbleness, tapping again and again upon his other arm. Beneath the skin of that arm a sword light rolled like a mighty flood, and wherever it passed it swept all before it, shearing through the bones of hand and arm and severing the great sinews. Under his skin, sinew after sinew stabbed through and stood out, and broken bone pierced flesh — a sight to make the heart quail. More dreadful still, the sword intent came first; before the wooden staff reached his upper arm the sword intent had already arrived there, so that his whole arm felt the blade radiance beyond all keenness and lost every shred of strength. Yet the fingers of his other hand tapped one after another upon that arm, each blow landing with unfailing precision upon Shen Mu as he traveled through it, and each blow so powerful it ground Shen Mu to powder. But Shen Mu seemed to possess a body neither dying nor destroyed; each time he was slain he at once came back to life within that arm, restored as before. The gaunt stranger spoke again a phrase whose meaning none could tell, then of a sudden struck with his hand and hacked off his own arm; Shen Mu flew out of the severed limb, his sword light aimed straight at the stranger's brow. The gaunt stranger smiled, repeated that phrase whose meaning none could tell, and a ray of light shot from the vertical eye in his brow. Boom! The blow shattered Shen Mu outright; flesh and primordial spirit alike, and his Divine Treasury domain with them, were all ground to finest dust.