Chapter 262 — The Madman and the Sovereign
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
" At once the voice turned aged, and laughed aloud: "I have already died. I am no longer one of the Heavenly Sage Sect; I have passed the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture on to you.
Now I do whatever I please -- what business is it of yours? Give me the emperor.
I mean to go and be emperor, then abdicate and pass the throne to myself -- I mean to be a female emperor! " Shen Mu did not answer. Suddenly the door flew wide open and Granny Zhu burst in, sneering, "If you will not give me the emperor, I will take him myself!
" She peered at them and started slightly: Shen Mu had planted the emperor in the soil, and Emperor Yanfeng stood bolt upright like a pine tree.
Shen Mu was pacing around Emperor Yanfeng, driving his art, striking palm after palm at him. "The Earth-Origin Art of Creation? The Spirit Art of Creation?
Eh -- and the Ghost-Spirit Art of Creation too! " Granny Zhu watched it through.
Shen Mu's techniques shifted through a thousand transformations, every move and every stance exceeding clear, as he drove the Creation Chapter of the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture and healed Emperor Yanfeng's wounds. It was a choice forced by circumstance: with no sufficient store of wonder-working pills at hand, Shen Mu could only use the arts of Creation to reverse creation itself, to seize the hidden workings of fate, and so heal Emperor Yanfeng. "Sect Master Shen, your Earth-Origin Art of Creation is wrong! " From Granny Zhu's mouth came Fan Xuanshu's rough, gruff voice, sneering.
"That is not how it is performed!
A perfectly good demonic art, and you perform it in a mess, like some righteous-path art -- you shame my Heavenly Sage Sect! " After a moment she could not help adding, "The Spirit Art of Creation is wrong too.
Is the Spirit Art of Creation meant for saving people? You use it to alter his fleshly constitution.
.
.
Absurd! Is that any way to perform the Ghost-Spirit Art of Creation? A perfectly good art, and you use it to steady his soul.
. .
Eh -- wait!
Interesting. Interesting. .
. " The more she watched, the more absorbed she became. Shen Mu's arts of Creation walked a road utterly different from her own: plainly demonic arts, yet majestic and grand; plainly meant to harm, yet used to save. Shen Mu used the Earth-Origin Art of Creation to gather the mother-breath of the earth and the spirit-power of heaven and earth, nourishing Emperor Yanfeng's primal spirit; used the Spirit Art of Creation to burn away the hidden ailments in his body; used the Ghost-Spirit Art of Creation to firm up his soul.
Fan Xuanshu, as a former sect master, had practiced these arts too, but along the demonic path -- plundering the creation of heaven and earth, plundering the creation of others. That Granny Zhu's arts had been cultivated into the demonic path was his doing alone.
Her eye was keen as an old hand's, and she could see that the road Shen Mu walked was the exact opposite of hers: hers was plunder from without, his was taking from within. If one cultivated by Shen Mu's method, the pace might be slower, but one's own soul, primal spirit and body would become immeasurably firm -- body steadfast, will strong! Most wondrous of all, the two words "Creation" in the Seven Chapters of Creation would raise his soul, body, primal spirit and spirit treasury in quality.
Take natural endowment: a man's endowment is his from birth, hard to change; but cultivating as Shen Mu did, one could use the arts of Creation to change one's own endowment and make it better and better. Fan Xuanshu was a master -- otherwise he would never have become the Holy Sect Master of the Nether Demon Sect -- and seeing one and the same art take a different road, he could not help but sink into it, drunk and dazed with fascination. Every variation of Shen Mu's moves held an immense fascination for her.