Chapter 1515 — Divine Retribution

The great axe spun half a circle in midair, cleaved through layer upon layer of the void, then flew into the deepest reaches of the void and vanished without a trace. Clearly, the time had come, and Tai Yi had called his axe back. The crowd gathered around the World Tree's stump. Upon the incomparably thick stump were still the marks of the great axe's blows.

This precious tree had once possessed a lingering Dao resonance and a wreathing Dao sound; now all of it had vanished. Shen Mu brought out the trunk and canopy and set them upon the stump, attempting to use the divine ability of Immutability to restore the precious tree.

Yet the divine ability of Immutability was utterly without effect.

The divine ability of Immutability was not omnipotent; there were places it could not reach. The great tree lay fallen to one side. Shen Mu sat on the stump, chin in hand, staring blankly into space.

"Disperse, all of you, disperse! "

The Blind Elder shooed the crowd away.

"Go do what you ought to be doing.

Do not keep gathering here.

"

He knew Shen Mu was deeply distressed at having cut down the precious tree, so he sent everyone away to give Shen Mu a chance to be alone and compose himself.

Before long, the sky gradually darkened. Around the Great Black Wood came again an incomparably terrifying tremor, a vision of cosmic destruction and doomsday.

It was the roar and struggle of the previous universe in its destruction. Shen Mu sat on the World Tree's stump and muttered, "Tai Yi set it on fire, and I did not set it on fire, so how did it die.

.

. "

Sitting there, he could faintly see beyond the Great Black Wood the Dao-attained existences of the previous cosmic epoch, roaring again and again, struggling with all their might to climb toward the World Tree.

Facing the great calamity of cosmic destruction, these Dao-attained existences were like so many ants, striving to climb the tree in an attempt to escape the great annihilation. Yet the World Tree had been cut down, and they could not climb from the previous cosmic epoch to this one.

Shen Mu saw them pointing at the sky and cursing without end, reviling the wretch who had felled the World Tree, using their own cultivation of the Dao as a curse, cursing the one who had cut the tree. "Hmph, only the weak curse others.

. . "

Shen Mu shrank his neck and muttered again, "I did not do it on purpose, and besides, Tai Yi cut the tree first.

If Tai Yi could do it, why could I not. .

.

"

He sat there as if on needles, sitting until the sky slowly brightened and the terrifying scene beyond the Great Black Wood disappeared. Then, from beneath the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains came the familiar tremor once more, rumble upon rumble, as if countless monsters were stretching their limbs underground at the break of day!

Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly, and suddenly the stump beneath him split apart with a bang. Two great tender-green leaves whooshed up and lifted him, carrying him into the air in an instant!

He still had his chin in his hand, and he looked down curiously. He was rising higher and higher, and beneath the two great leaves was a tender-green sapling stem!

Shen Mu looked up and blinked. Hum—

His God Treasury domain spread out, his Primordial Spirit emerged, and in one heavenly palace after another, Primordial Spirits began to refine and temper the newly grown World Tree sapling!

By the time the crowd hurried over at the news, they saw him controlling his Spirit Embryo, attempting to merge it into the newly born sapling! "Shen'er, withdraw your divine ability!

" Beneath the tree, Granny Zhu, the Silent Artisan, and the others called out in loud persuasion.

Shen Mu turned a deaf ear and went on forcibly refining the sapling.

Yet the sapling was utterly impervious, and no mark of his could be branded upon it. More than ten days passed, and the World Tree sapling had grown to the point of forcibly bursting through his Primal Embryo God Treasury, growing beyond the heavens.

Only then did Shen Mu leap down from the tree. The crowd watched him leave in dejection, their scalps going numb: "Is Heavenly Lord Mu going to find Tai Yi to borrow the axe again?

He still has not given up.

. .

"

Shen Mu found Tai Yi. This time Tai Yi was a little girl with two pigtails sticking straight up from her head and a trail of snot at her lips, mending the mountain.

"Daoist brother! "

Shen Mu snatched the little iron bucket and eagerly helped her repair the cracked Black Mountain. The little girl with the pigtails sniffed hard, drawing the two streams of snot back into her nostrils, and then they flowed out again.

Shen Mu's face was wreathed in smiles. As he busied himself, he said with a placating smile, "Daoist brother, the water in your bucket can repair the cracked Black Mountain.

The Black Mountain is the scorched World Tree, is it not?

"

The little girl sniffed hard once more at the snot running to her lips and said, with the air of an old veteran, "What do you want? "

Shen Mu stopped repairing the Black Mountain and stared at the water in the bucket, which mirrored his face. "Then if it were a World Tree without roots, could the water in your bucket bring it back to life?

In my God Treasury domain, I have just such a rootless World Tree. . .

"