Chapter 304 — The Giant's Body Lies Athwart
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Before them the subterranean space opened vast, and a mountain mass lay athwart their path, shaped like the upper half of a giant carved in stone -- a colossus beyond measure, its whole body of dark, sunken rock, yet wrought with nose and eyes and mouth and ears. Only the upper body, down to the chest, showed above; the rest must lie buried in the earth, or had never been carved at all.
Behind the colossus an ancient tower ship hung motionless in midair.
One end of it lay within the earth, while the other passed through an enormous gateway, and within that gateway was a seal like a honeycomb; the ship's prow had pierced the seal and entered another world. That seal must be the Nether Capital seal the white bats had spoken of. In ancient times the gods had opened a passage here between the world of the living and the Nether Capital, and the creatures of the Nether Capital had poured through; there had been no choice but to seal it.
The divine race of the white bats had been charged with guarding this place, and all had been peaceful until the coming of this ship, which had smashed the seal.
By now the seal had grown somewhat loose, especially where the ship joined it; there the seal was seamed with cracks. Nor was that all. There was another problem: the creatures of the Nether Capital could pass through this ship into the Wasteland!
Now and again grotesque creatures crawled down from the ship -- some spreading wings and taking flight, others leaping down -- but before they had gone far the honeycomb seal flickered with light, and in an instant their heads were struck from their bodies without a sound.
The colossal statue of the god-man, the gateway, the great ship, the honeycomb seal, the creatures of the Nether Capital -- this subterranean world was a phantasmagoria.
"This gateway looks familiar. . .
" Shen Mu studied the giant gateway from top to bottom, with a vague sense that he had seen it somewhere before, though he could not recall where.
"How did those two eminent monks die?
" He frowned slightly.
The two white-browed monks had been far more capable than the two white bats; they had been charged by the Tathagata to guard this place, and all had been peaceful for so long -- how had they died so suddenly?
The two white bats said they had died of exhaustion. Yet judging by what he saw now, even after death the monks' bodies could still hold back the invading demonic qi of the Nether Capital with their own Buddhist dharma -- plainly their strength had reached an exceedingly high plane, no less than that of a sect master of the Spirit Bridge realm, or near to it.
Such beings could hardly be worn to death by an invasion of demonic qi. Could some dreadful creature of the Nether Capital have come through this ship into the world of the living and done the two monks to death? Or had something battered at the seal, and the two monks, straining to hold it back, worn themselves out?
Whichever it was, this was no kindly place; to approach the ship rashly would surely be to walk into mortal danger.
"The Nether Capital, the world of the Earth Lord, the place to which souls return. The Earth Lord's envoys draw the souls of the dead of this world into the Nether Capital, and those envoys are the soul couriers.
I have seen a soul courier before -- that strange old man in the dark Wasteland who folded paper boats.
Uncanny, yes, but civil enough; so long as you do not hinder a soul courier in his work, they will not trouble the living. " Shen Mu looked around him. The Earth Lord's Nether Capital plainly had its own peculiar laws and rules; so long as matters were conducted according to those rules, the Earth Lord did not interfere with the world of the living. Then what was the meaning of these creatures of the Nether Capital in the Nether Valley?