Chapter 192 — The Most Hopeless Batch
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Everyone's eyes lit up at once. Yun Que chuckled. "Into the southern wilds, to see whether the rebels have any true masters among them? Of course we must go! We cannot let those rebellious bumpkins look down on our Taixue Academy. This poor monk will make them awaken to the Buddhist Dharma, take refuge in the Buddha, and set their hearts on goodness!"
Shen Mu shook his head inwardly. These fellows were still underestimating the danger of this journey.
This road would be hard going indeed—a road one might not finish even with one's head lashed to one's belt.
"Life and death are fated. Now we shall see whether Imperial Preceptor Jingping, this man hailed as the foremost under the gods, truly deserves his name!"
Imperial Preceptor Jingping, lightly equipped, strode southward. Shen Mu led the others after him and questioned Si Yunxiang and the rest about what they had encountered on the battlefield, sighing again and again.
Si Yunxiang, Shen Wanyun, and the others had far better luck than Shen Mu. Though they too had been blasted away by the Dutian Demon King, they had not run into a monstrous expert like Long Jiaonan.
The dragon qilin had landed not far from them. It was huge and an obvious target, so they had rushed straight toward it. When the horde of heavenly demons descended, they fought their way through, circling around the dragon qilin.
And when faced with the surging heavenly demon horde, this dragon qilin had fought with terrifying power, and Si Yunxiang and the others had relied on its strength to survive this tribulation.
Shen Mu was surprised and glanced at the dragon qilin. Xue Hu'er whispered in his ear, "Young Master, Big Fellow eats our food and drinks our drink, yet on the road he neither works nor exerts himself. And now, of all things, he protects others but not us. I think that besides squeezing dragon saliva out of him, we could squeeze something else out of him too."
"I was thinking the same thing," Shen Mu nodded.
He looked back at Tianbo City, growing ever more distant, and thought: "Now that Jingping's great army has entered the city, Long Jiaonan should die amid the chaos of soldiers, no? And the Dragon King of the Yulong School is most likely dead too. A pity about the Yulong School's unique arts. The Hongshan Sect has probably been wiped out root and branch. What a pity I never learned a spell like the Demon-Repelling Decree..."
When he had summoned the Dutian Demon King, the Daoists of the Hongshan Sect had arrived, attempting to use the Demon-Repelling Decree to drive the Dutian Demon King back to Dutian. Unfortunately, the Dutian Demon King was too powerful and destroyed them with a single move.
But the Demon-Repelling Decree was a spell specifically meant for dealing with summoned ghosts and gods, exceedingly subtle and ingenious; if performed by a stronger person, it could indeed drive the Dutian Demon King back.
Unfortunately, with the death of the Hongshan Sect's followers, this art had been lost.
Tianbo City was a scene of utter chaos. Soldiers were still repairing the city walls, clearing the rubble of collapsed houses, and hauling debris out of the city.
On the river, thousands of ships and tens of thousands of vessels raced forth, carrying great armies across the river. The troops did not stop in Tianbo City but headed straight south.
Some soldiers in Tianbo City were hunting down remnants of the rebel army and mopping up the heavenly demon horde from Dutian. They discovered that some common folk had survived. A soldier carrying a picture book of the rebel leaders walked among the surviving commoners, comparing them one by one against the portraits.
"That girl is beautifully born."