Chapter 396 — The Cage of Heaven and Earth

r great spirit bodies," said the old clan chief. "Yet within the Ruins more kinds of spirit bodies can be found. Therefore it is the people outside the Ruins who are sealed. They dwell in a cage without knowing it, living beneath a false firmament, bred by the gods—a pack of pitiful wretches, nothing more." Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang gave a stifled hum. The people of Jingping looked upon the cast-offs of the Ruins as a pack of pitiful wretches; little did they expect that in the eyes of the people of the Ruins, it was those outside who were the pitiful wretches—that the Ruins alone were free, that the Ruins alone held the true sky! The old clan chief's words struck their souls like annihilation. Shen Mu, however, thought back to that divination by the Heaven Alliance, which had revealed that the sun, moon, and stars were all illusions, and he found the Sunherd chief's words quite reasonable. Perhaps it was not the Ruins that had been sealed, but the world outside! "Clan Chief, there should be Overlord Bodies in this world too, shouldn't there?" Shen Mu asked, full of confidence. The old clan chief shook his head. "Your Highness, this old one has never heard of an Overlord Body, and there is no record of an Overlord Body in the clan's archives." Shen Mu waved a hand and laughed. "That you have not heard of it does not mean it does not exist. Your knowledge is too shallow—not so broad as our headman's. Clan Chief, if I am your highness, of the imperial clan, then can I kindle the Sun Furnace?" The old clan chief laughed. "Though Your Highness is of the imperial clan, to kindle the Sun Furnace is, I fear, impossible. The Sun Furnace can only be kindled with true fire, using the blood of a pure-yang constitution as the catalyst; one who is not of pure-yang constitution cannot possibly kindle it. In those years our Sunherd clan was famed for the pure-yang constitution; only we Sunherds can kindle the Sun Furnace. Even the imperial clan could not do it." Shen Mu leapt down and walked toward the Sun Furnace. "And yet the blood of an Overlord Body can kindle the Sun Furnace!" He came before the Sun Furnace, cut his wrist, and let his blood fall into it. With a slight stir of his mind, Shen Mu urged true fire to surge into the furnace. Boom—the Sun Furnace blazed up at once, like a sun rising slowly, pouring forth rolling waves of heat and fire, and in an instant its light illumined the whole Sun Temple! And within the Sun Furnace there appeared no apparition of fire dragons or fire qilin; instead a human figure emerged. The figure grew larger and larger until it filled the whole furnace, then stepped out from it, both hands clasping the Sun Furnace as though holding a sun against its chest! Shen Mu dispersed the true fire; the Sun Furnace went out at once, and the figure vanished. The furnace settled once more upon the backs of the three statues. Shen Mu's confidence rekindled. He returned to the platform and said with a smile to the dumbstruck Sunherd clan chief, "Now can it be proved that I am an Overlord Body?" The old clan chief's face was blank, and he seemed perplexed. He murmured, "The imperial clan can also be of pure-yang constitution... it must be so!" Shen Mu shook his head and laughed. "This is precisely the power of the Overlord Body!" Full of confidence, he thought: "The headman truly did not deceive me! There really are Overlord Bodies in this world!" He did not know, however, that his was merely the most ordinary of bodies, that of a common man, with no spirit-body attribute at all. Precisely because he was a blank sheet, he could freely transform the attribute of his vital qi: he could become any of the four great spirit bodies, mastering the vital qi of the Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, and White Tiger, and he could also become a pure-yang constitution, mastering pure-yang vital qi. It was not, in truth, a matter of any so-called Overlord Body. Ever since the headman spoke that one word, "Overlord Body," Shen Mu had trained and toiled with all his might, and even a common man's constitution had undergone an inconceivable transformation. With a thousand times the effort of others, he made his constitution transform again and again, gradually moving toward something unknown; his future came to hold many possibilities that could not be foretold. Shen Mu attributed it all to his being an Overlord Body, overlooking his own strenuous cultivation. "Clan Chief, it will soon be dark!" Suddenly a Sunherd elder spoke, his face grave. The old clan chief's heart tightened. He looked at Shen Mu and said, "Your Highness, the otherworldly demons are invading. We beg Your Highness to lend us aid!" Shen Mu nodded. But at that very moment, the sky over Dawnspring was suddenly shrouded in darkness; all around Dawnspring blazed with light, while beyond it lay a darkness of incomparable density!