Chapter 262 — The Madman and the Sovereign
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu studied Emperor Yanfeng and saw that the emperor was like a torn sack stuffed full of rice grain: the sack leaked grain, but he leaked blood on every side, and his state was far from good. His vital essence and blood were withering at a furious rate; as they drained away, his spirit treasury gave off one tremor after another, like the rumbling of sky and earth collapsing again and again.
With his primal vitality and blood streaming off and his spirit treasury caving in, if he were not treated in time, the emperor would not last the hour before he breathed his last. "So it is the Court Counselor.
" Emperor Yanfeng forced his eyes open and said, his voice barely a breath, "Can We still be saved? " Shen Mu examined his wounds in close detail, his ten fingers flying as he swiftly sealed the emperor's spirit-soul with the Heaven-Demon Art of Creation, locking his soul within his body.
At once Emperor Yanfeng could not even speak; his eyeballs could not stir.
Shen Mu fetched some dragon saliva and smeared it over his wounds; looking up, he saw that the Blind Elder and Old Master Huo had not lingered but had simply gone.
"Have they drawn off the pursuers? " Shen Mu wondered, and said to the dragon-qilin, "Back to Granny's courtyard. " The dragon-qilin turned about.
Seated on its back, Shen Mu made Emperor Yanfeng swallow more dragon saliva, massaged his body to squeeze out the congested blood, and after reckoning a moment in his heart, brought out a few spirit pills. When he had first comprehended the Grand Unification Art, its grave flaws had left his body depleted of both vital essence and blood and his spirit in decline; at that time he had refined two kinds of spirit pills to save his life -- the Spirit Buddha Pill to replenish the spirit, and the Blood-Glory Pill to replenish vital essence and blood -- and in the end, by the great tonic power of the Spirit-Return Pill, he had devoured a Red Dragon Carp King, and only then made good the deficits of his body.
The spirit pill in his hand was the Blood-Glory Pill.
Shen Mu hesitated.
As things stood, with Emperor Yanfeng's vital essence and blood withered and ruined, there was still hope of saving him; but if he took the Blood-Glory Pill and his vital essence and blood suddenly blazed up, it would likely shatter in an instant the spirit treasury already so precarious and crumbling. Emperor Yanfeng's cultivation reached to heaven and earth; if the energy in his spirit treasury burst out all at once with nowhere to pour, the emperor's whole body would explode in a single instant, and even Shen Mu and the dragon-qilin would be blasted to powder by the runaway energy. Yet if he did not replenish the emperor's vital essence and blood, his present condition would turn perilous indeed.
"I must draw the energy out of his spirit treasury, and then replenish his vital essence and blood. " Shen Mu pondered for a while. The best method should be to draw off that violent energy with silver needles, but the needles, thrust into his spirit treasury, would likely melt away at once, too swiftly to draw off the energy dispersing within. Next would be sealing -- keeping the energy in Emperor Yanfeng's spirit treasury sealed within his body. But Shen Mu had no such mighty power of dharma as to seal Emperor Yanfeng's cultivation.
Third would be a "spirit pill," or rather a poison to dissolve cultivation, to melt away Emperor Yanfeng's power.
But such pills were generally refined from deadly poisons; one careless slip, and even the emperor's body would be dissolved away. Shen Mu decided on the second. He had not the strength to seal Emperor Yanfeng, but Granny Zhu should.