Chapter 263 — The Sovereign Lord's Secret Treasury
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu stepped back, seized her hand, and dragged her toward Emperor Yanfeng. The two of them roused the Shadow-Transforming Demon Art and the Heaven-Mustard Seed Art almost in the same breath; as they ran toward the emperor their bodies grew smaller and smaller, until they clung to the floor as two black shadows and bored into Emperor Yanfeng's brow.
Emperor Yanfeng stood frozen, unable to move. All five of his senses had been sealed by Shen Mu, yet he could still feel the two black shadows burrowing this way and that inside his body.
Abruptly Shen Mu and Fan Xuanshu halted: they had arrived at the Primal Fetus divine treasury. Standing at its edge and looking ahead, they saw that Emperor Yanfeng's Primal Fetus divine treasury was already in a state of dissolution. The spirit fetus and the spirit platform had both been destroyed; the sky was riddled with holes, and horrifying cracks split sky and ground alike, exposing the snow-white bone beyond.
Blood was pouring back in, flooding into the Primal Fetus divine treasury like so many great waterfalls.
Beyond that, Shen Mu saw a streak of sword light flying to and fro within the Primal Fetus divine treasury, wantonly wrecking it.
"The Dao Lord's Dao sword!"
Fan Xuanshu was astonished. "That old Daoist is no small matter—he has driven his sword intent in here!"
"Can you take in this sword intent?" Shen Mu asked.
Fan Xuanshu giggled. "And why should I help you?"
Shen Mu laughed. "You have watched me perform so much of the true transmission of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra; some repayment is surely due. And even if you won't help me, tomorrow I can ask Granny to lend a hand, and it will be done just the same."
Fan Xuanshu gave a snort, then leaped forward. She pressed the ten fingers of her hands together, then flung them suddenly wide; at once threads of vital essence linked her fingers, weaving and interlacing until they formed a spatial-seal cage. The corners of that cage joined one another, and within the cage a second spatial-seal cage appeared; within that one a third, and so on again and again, until they were all but endless.
Fan Xuanshu tossed out the sharply angled sphere. It brushed lightly against the sword intent, and the sword intent vanished at once, drawn into the sphere.
Fan Xuanshu reached out and snatched up the cube, tossed it a couple of times in her hand, and looked at Shen Mu, rather pleased with herself.
"The Multi-Faceted Spatial Seal Art."
Shen Mu said in praise: "Clever indeed."
"You recognize it, but that does not mean you can use it," Fan Xuanshu said with a smile.
Shen Mu smiled faintly and casually performed the spatial seal art once through. "My cultivation is weak; I cannot seal away the Dao Lord's sword intent. But I have dabbled somewhat in the arts of calculation, and I too understand how to set a spatial seal—it is only that my cultivation is inferior to yours. You and I are both Holy Preceptors of the Cult; what I know cannot be less than what you know. It can only be more."
Fan Xuanshu gave a snort, utterly feminine—and yet it did not repel; rather, it struck one as charming.
Shen Mu cried out inwardly at how formidable she was, and together they became two slender shadows and left the Primal Fetus divine treasury for the Five Elements divine treasury.
In the Five Elements divine treasury, five great Buddhas sat amid a shattered sky in place of the five luminary stars. Fan Xuanshu flicked her fingers, and five strands of demonic qi flew out as five lotuses, settling beneath the five great Buddhas. In an instant the five great Buddhas suffered the Five Signs of Heavenly Decay; their flesh withered, blazing demon fire broke out, and the five great Buddhas dissolved at once into wisps of flying ash. Fan Xuanshu sneered. "Do you know this one too?"