Chapter 227 — The Tree Roots of the Barren Ridge Become Spirits
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
"It is one and the same blood, only this blood carries both the divine and the demonic nature at once. Your eyes are still too shallow to see the trick of it. God blood governs life, demon blood governs death; the blood that fell on Withered Silence Ridge held both natures, its divinity hidden in the soil, its demonic nature destroying the grass and trees here, killing everything that grew from the earth. These trees are dead, but the roots did not die; on the contrary, they are unnaturally strong and thriving. It may have used the vigor of the god blood to come to life as a spirit. " Xue Hu'er said in alarm, "Can tree roots become demons?
" "They can.
" The Dutian Demon King said, "It should have become a very peculiar creature, covered in tentacles.
" Though the Withered Silence Ridge Canyon bore the name of a canyon, the land there lay high, sinking low only by comparison with the mountain ranges on either side.
This dark canyon wound in twists and turns, the mountain path very hard going; when the Nether Demon Cult smuggled goods through here in years past, they must have suffered no small hardship. Every so often along the way stood a black stone stele, three or four zhang tall, painted with rune marks.
Shen Mu examined them and said, "These are the cult's demon-suppressing runes. Ling'er, do not touch them; trigger the demon-suppressing rune and you will be drawn into the stele.
" Xue Hu'er gave a start. "There are many demon-suppressing steles in Withered Silence Ridge. It seems the Heavenly Sage Cult spent a great deal of thought opening this passage in those years.
It also means the demons of Withered Silence Ridge are many, and fearsome.
" Shen Mu counted the demon-suppressing black steles he met along the way: forty-six of them, and he had covered less than half the distance. If each stele held down but a single demon, that was already forty-six demons.
But a black stele three or four zhang tall could not be suppressing only one demon; then the demons imprisoned here must be considerable in number indeed. They came to the middle of the valley and saw before them a pond, ringed all about by snow mountains in bitter cold, yet here there was a lake besides, which made them marvel.
Beside the lake stood an old tree, withered and shrunken yet casting a wide canopy, and around the ancient tree and the lake were densely packed black steles, several hundred of them, encircling tree and lake completely. Shen Mu and the others were startled.
With so many demon-suppressing black steles here, could this place hold several hundred demons? Though he was the Demon Hierarch of the Nether Demon Cult, he knew little of this Withered Silence passage and had no notion of what the Nether Demon Cult had met with here in those years.
"Can there be a demon kingdom here? " Shen Mu murmured, "But why are there so many steles around this ancient tree?
It does not look like they are meant to suppress many demons, but rather to suppress this tree and this lake. " He had barely spoken when a cry for help came suddenly from across the lake.
The dragon qilin, being tall of frame, lifted its head and glanced over the black steles, then said slowly, "There's a woman bathing in the lake. " "Help, help!
" cried the woman in the lake.
Xue Hu'er hastily jumped onto his head and peered into the lake, then said angrily, "Long Pang, is that bathing? She is drowning!
" "She is bathing. " The dragon qilin said slowly, "She has no clothes on, so naturally she is bathing. Have you ever seen anyone drowning stark naked?
" "Stark naked?
" The Dutian Demon King, delighted and astonished, scrambled up onto the dragon qilin's head to look into the lake, and there indeed was a drowning woman, bare as the day she was born, her figure alluring, struggling in the water, the parts that jutted and the parts that curved holding this Demon King's eyes fast, so that he praised her: "This demon's a beauty! Brat, come take a look!
" Shen Mu laughed.