Chapter 263 — The Sovereign Lord's Secret Treasury
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Once again she was drawn toward the Gate of Heaven's Mandate and toward that book—though the writing in the book meant nothing to Shen Mu either; the only characters he could read were those upon the gate.
Of the Nether Capital's tongue he knew but one phrase, forward and back, and that phrase was the Gate of Heaven's Mandate. For those few words he had nearly been killed by the Dutian Demon King.
"You want to learn it? I'll teach you." Shen Mu said it without so much as a blush.
From Granny Zhu's mouth came Fan Xuanshu's voice, sneering: "As if I need teaching from you. You are a Holy Preceptor of the Cult, and so am I—and your senior besides. If you were to teach me, where would I put my face?"
Shen Mu smiled faintly. "But you do not know the true art of the Star-Suppressing Lord and the Earth Marquis."
Fan Xuanshu choked with fury and shot him a bewitching glare. "I am a Holy Preceptor of the Cult—how could I not know it?"
Shen Mu paid her no heed and steadied his heart; that glance of hers was formidable indeed and had nearly sent his soul spinning. He roused the Ninefold Heaven Gazing Eye Art, and layer upon layer of heavens opened within his pupils. He looked toward the emperor, and saw only one ruined divine treasury after another inside the emperor's body, like so many shattered worlds.
Shen Mu gave a low shout, and the space between his brows split open, revealing a third eye. It seemed no mortal eye of this world, but one that came from some dark and shadowed realm, exuding a heavy, gloom-laden yin aura that made the candlelight in the room dim and uncertain.
The moment that eye opened, the whole room seemed to have entered another world—no longer like the world of men at all!
Shen Mu gazed with that eye, and at once beheld Emperor Yanfeng's soul and Primordial Spirit, and found where the malady lay.
In the Heaven-Man Realm one refines the Primordial Spirit: vital essence and soul combine and transform into the Primordial Spirit—that deity which stands behind every expert of the Heaven-Man Realm. That is the Primordial Spirit, the vital essence and the divine soul.
Emperor Yanfeng's Primordial Spirit stood upon the divine bridge, as though about to step across it straight into the divine realm. But his secret realm had collapsed, gravely wounding that Primordial Spirit; his soul too had taken a grievous blow, its fragments scattered, the Primordial Spirit left unguarded, so that the three souls and seven spirits were no longer a whole. And wave upon wave of terrifying force hammered at his mortal body, leaving his soul unable to keep to its house.
And so, even if Shen Mu revived his body, his soul could not remain within it.
Fan Xuanshu's manner abruptly sank, and she said sullenly: "That eye, now—that one I never learned... Is this truly the Earth Marquis true art of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra?"
The eye at Shen Mu's brow closed, and he dispersed the form of the Star-Suppressing Lord. Frowning, he paced back and forth. For a while he pondered, while Fan Xuanshu held down her anger and waited in silence.
Shen Mu suddenly clapped his hands and laughed. "What can I see by looking from out here? Better to go inside the emperor's body and examine it properly! Cult Master Li, come with me!"
Fan Xuanshu started, then asked suspiciously: "And how do you propose to get inside him?"
"Simple. In the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra there is an art called the Shadow-Transforming Demon Art, which hides a person within a shadow and conceals the form of the flesh. There is another called the Heaven-Mustard Seed Art, which lets the body grow large or small. Rouse both at once, shrink yourself down, then turn into a shadow and slip into Emperor Yanfeng's body to examine his Primordial Spirit and his divine treasuries."
Shen Mu glanced at her. "You don't know them?"
Fan Xuanshu laughed in sheer exasperation. "How could I not know them?"