Chapter 274 — Three Fists and Two Blades
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Impressive!" Shen Mu circulated the Creation Heaven-Devil Art and sealed off his own soul, his heart turning cold.
The arts of Loulan's Golden Palace were deeply sinister: they cultivated through souls, and the souls of men, of monsters, of divine beasts — all could be used for cultivation.
That glance of Ban Gongcuo's was no ordinary look. Hidden in his eyes was a divine ability aimed at the soul, and the instant he looked, that ability had already taken hold of the other's soul. Caught off guard, a man could truly be stared to death.
The Creation Heaven-Devil Art happened to be exactly suited to counter this kind of soul-targeting divine ability — though of course, that was also because the power in Ban Gongcuo's eyes was not so great that the Creation Heaven-Devil Art could not defend against it.
Had his eye-ability been aimed not at the soul but at the body or the Dao-heart, the Creation Heaven-Devil Art would not have held.
"The Heaven Blade's blade art?"
Ban Gongcuo's raised brows smoothed out again. "Does the Heaven-Record Tower hold such a technique?"
"The Heaven-Record Tower does not. I do," Shen Mu said with a smile, and lifted his hand to grip the hilt of the Butcher Knife.
The moment his palm closed on the hilt, the books and papers throughout Six Harmonies Hall began to rustle and flap, as though an invisible giant had cleaved out with a blade and stirred up a gale.
Across from him, the skin of Ban Gongcuo's face was blown into wrinkles, and several strands of his hair parted without a sound.
Shen Wanyun, Yue Qinghong and the others felt their hearts quiver. "Hierarch Shen's skill has risen again," they thought. "His blade has already been refined into blade intent! He only went home for the New Year — how could his blade art improve so much over a single New Year?"
They had all followed Shen Mu to the Southern Wilds to put down the rebellion and temper themselves, had gone through life and death with him, and they knew his abilities. Back then his blade art had been fierce enough, but nothing like this.
To refine blade art into blade intent was a qualitative leap; it was not something a few days of hard practice could achieve.
What they did not know was how hard Shen Mu's journey home for the New Year had been — nine chances of death to one of life, ambushes on ten sides, layer upon layer of pursuit and interception, battles of blood beneath a sky of slaughter; only after a thousand hardships had he reached Hidden Remnants Village in the Wilderness Ruins.
And even in Hidden Remnants Village he had not passed a peaceful New Year. After the festival he fought the village elders every day; Zai Fu, Old Master Huo, the Lame Elder and the Blind Elder fed him moves daily and expounded their own insights, and there was the village headman, a man of great strength, to spar with him.
That one trip home for the New Year had advanced Shen Mu as much as two or three years of bitter cultivation.
Not only his blade art had leapt in quality — his sword art, his movement arts, his Buddhist arts, his hand techniques, his eyesight, his Dao-heart, all had leapt as well.
Ban Gongcuo's brow twitched. The blade intent pressed upon the space between his eyebrows, as though Shen Mu's blade might leave its sheath at any moment — and once out of the sheath, it would cut into his brow.
He was about to respond when Reverend Hongfa suddenly threw herself bodily between the two, and Shen Mu's blade intent was cut off in midair by the reverend.
"This is Six Harmonies Hall, a place for cultivating the Six Harmonies and opening the Spirit Treasury — not a place for you to brawl."