After this transmission of the Dao, Shen Mu still strove relentlessly to refine the World Tree. His cultivation had advanced greatly, his mana grown mighty and profound. He shrouded the World Tree within his own domain, yet refining it remained fraught with difficulty.

Two more days passed, and the World Tree once again punched a great hole through his Primal Embryo God Treasury domain.

Shen Mu was stunned for a moment. Everyone else stole glances his way, yet no one spoke.

Shen Mu dispersed his domain and turned to leave.

"Heavenly Lord Mu has likely given up in despair," people said, one after another.

Not long after, Shen Mu found Tai Yi, who was mending the Black Mountain. This Tai Yi was an elderly Tai Yi, doddering with age, hauling a water bucket on trembling legs.

Shen Mu bowed, snatched the bucket from Tai Yi, and volunteered to help him repair the Black Mountain, cracked open by the tremors the night before.

Tai Yi was glad to take his ease, and stood by watching him work.

When Shen Mu had finished mending the cracked Black Mountain, he set down the bucket and looked at Tai Yi with a smile.

Tai Yi stowed away the bucket and made to leave. Shen Mu hastily barred his way and said with a placating smile, "Daoist brother, that great axe of yours, I have always thought it rather fine. How was it forged?"

"That is my Dao weapon, a companion supreme treasure, a thing born of chaos."

Tai Yi said imperturbably, "When I came into being in that age, it was by this treasure that I severed the World Tree. Any other treasure would have been powerless to harm this precious tree in the slightest."

Shen Mu opened his mouth, and before he could speak, Tai Yi's beard quivered and he said decisively, "This treasure cannot be given to you."

Shen Mu said hastily, "I do not mean to take it from you, but to borrow it. Lend it to me for a while, and I will return it."

The elderly Tai Yi looked him up and down and asked suspiciously, "What do you mean to do?"

Shen Mu said nothing.

"Lending it to you for a while is no great matter."

Tai Yi produced an axe. In his hand it was exceedingly small, but before Shen Mu it appeared incomparably vast. "You may use it for only half a day. After half a day this axe of mine will fly back to my side."

Shen Mu thanked him hurriedly, then dragged the great axe away. At first the axe was not too heavy, but the farther he went, the heavier it grew, until even Shen Mu was left panting for breath and had to stop and rest.

"This axe is too heavy. I fear half a day will have passed before I even reach the edge of the World Tree."

He wiped the sweat from his brow and thought, "Tai Yi said he would lend it to me for half a day. Is he playing a trick on me? Could it not be a little lighter?"

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the axe grew a little lighter. Shen Mu was overjoyed. Hefting the great axe onto his shoulder, he bounded off like the wind straight for the World Tree, thinking, "The moment I thought of lightness, it became lighter. Could this be a treasure that grants every wish?"

Sure enough, as he was thinking this, the great axe became lighter still.

Shen Mu was both startled and delighted. He stood the axe upright before him and thought, "Suppose it were a long saber..."

The great axe showed no change at all. From within it came Tai Yi's voice: "Do not bother. It is an axe, and it does not grant wishes. I am the one lightening its weight for you."

Shen Mu was left thoroughly disgruntled.

Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, Ming Huang, and the others were still beneath the World Tree, pondering its mysteries and exchanging what each had gleaned, when they saw Shen Mu come charging over with great strides like a falling star, dragging a great axe straight toward the World Tree.

Everyone hurried to their feet, only to see Shen Mu haul the axe to the foot of the tree. His flesh swelled without cease, his body surging larger and larger, every muscle and sinew savage, and with a furious shout he brought the axe down upon the tree!

The crowd's faces went slack. The giant raised and lowered the axe again and again, dozens of blows, until nearly half the trunk of the World Tree had been cut through!

Granny Zhu said in a trembling voice, "Shen'er, stop chopping! You will be struck down by heavenly thunder!"

Hua Xuanxiu, at her side, cried out, "Old Cult Master, if you fell this tree, you will suffer divine retribution!"

The others too were frightened pale, at a loss for what to do.

Shen Mu kept swinging the great axe down without pause, and with a mighty crack, the sapling of the World Tree was hewn clean through at the waist!

The immense trunk toppled from the clouds, and a long while passed before it crashed down upon the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, raising a commotion that might well be called the rending of heaven and earth!

Fortunately, the people Jing Ping had migrated into the Ancestral Court all dwelled on the outskirts of the Sacred Mountains, and none were crushed by the falling World Tree. Yet the wind and waves stirred up by its collapse still swept over their settlements; the wild gale howled for a day and a night before it finally subsided.

Beside the World Tree, Shen Mu dropped the great axe and at once used the divine ability of Creation upon the stump, attempting by the Dao of Creation to make the stump sprout and grow a new World Tree.

Yet no matter how he drove the divine ability of Creation, the stump put forth no new sprout.

Shen Mu stood wooden as a statue, not stirring for a long while.

No one else stirred for a long while either. The one who had felled the World Tree before was none other than Tai Yi, who had swung the Chaos Axe and cut the World Tree down, severing the path by which the existences of the previous cosmic epoch might enter this universe.

The World Tree had revived because the seal on the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court was broken. Tai Yi had again come to fell the tree, and it was Shen Mu who had talked him out of it. Who would have thought that, unable to refine the World Tree, Shen Mu would fly into a rage of shame and borrow Tai Yi's Chaos Axe to cut the World Tree down!

"I did not mean to cut down the tree."

Shen Mu suddenly came to his senses and turned to stammer an explanation to the crowd: "I am not in a rage of shame. I only meant to cut the tree down and plant it in my Ancestral Court God Treasury. I thought this tree could regenerate, that after being cut through it would surely grow another..."

No one spoke.

"I truly am not in a rage of shame! You know of cuttings, do you not? Cut off a branch and plant it in the ground, and a new tree will grow. I intended to split the World Tree in two..."

Shen Mu looked imploringly at Granny Zhu. Granny Zhu coughed once and said, "Shen'er, there is no need to force an explanation. We all understand."

Shen Mu's face took on a bitter look, and he turned to the Lame Old Man. The Lame Old Man tugged at the goatee on his chin, looked aside, and snorted coldly: "Even robbers have their code, but one must not fly into a rage of shame simply because one cannot get what one wants, and forcibly cut the tree down."

Shen Mu fell silent, then turned and walked to the fallen World Tree sapling. The sapling had no roots or stem left; its branches and leaves were beginning to wither.

He took the sapling into his God Treasury domain, trying to plant it in the Ancestral Court. Yet though he dug a great pit and ringed the sapling with four great mineral lodes, the tree still did not come back to life; its branches and leaves were all parched dry.

Suddenly the Chaos Axe shrieked as it flew up. 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.