Chapter 311 — The Eerie Corridor
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu looked around and saw that the old man in the painting was in this room too, carefully skirting the slime, moving only where there was none.
He was a man out of a painting; the slime could do him harm, could glue him fast. He had to avoid it.
Ban Gongcuo saw the old man as well, and his heart jumped. He hastily swung the Myriad Locust Banner in his hand. Zheng, zheng, zheng—a violent clatter of impacts rang out: Shen Mu had loosed his flying sword and blocked the locusts.
Angered, Ban Gongcuo looked at Shen Mu and said in a low voice, "Should Sect Master Shen not give me an explanation?"
Shen Mu said calmly, "My surname is Shen. That is the best explanation there is."
Ban Gongcuo was shaken to the core, and in an instant he grasped the crux of it.
That dreadful being whose two eyes stood more than two hundred and sixty zhang apart was waiting for someone surnamed Shen; and the reason it had fastened on him and Shen Mu alike was that they were both surnamed Shen!
He was clever beyond measure—otherwise he would not have lived so long—and he thought: "Can it be that the master of this ship is surnamed Shen? That this brat belongs to the clan that owned the treasure ship? If so, then he too comes from Carefree Land! No wonder the wretch came running to this place... Wait! Sixteen years old. That terrible being is waiting for a sixteen-year-old boy surnamed Shen! And this brat is sixteen as well! Sixteen years ago this ship fell here. What is the connection between them?"
He forced down his shock, waved the Myriad Locust Banner and recalled his locusts; Shen Mu recalled his flying sword as well.
The old man in the painting found a path and slipped through another doorway.
The two hurried after him. They pushed the door open and saw a long corridor. Ban Gongcuo was briefly taken aback. He had calculated the art of spatial alignment governing these rooms, and by that means had been able to find the ship's bridge—but this corridor he had never seen.
"By all rights, the total number of rooms here should be the number I calculated. Why, then, is there a place I know nothing of?" he wondered, at a loss.
If he had not seen through this place's art of spatial alignment, how had he found the bridge?
And if he had seen through it, why had he not calculated this corridor?
By his reckoning, this corridor should not exist at all!
Then there was only one possibility: the art of spatial alignment he had deduced was merely an outer structure, a blind to deceive the eye—there to make whoever found this place believe he had already searched the whole treasure ship, and so overlook its true secret!
It was even possible that the silver helm Shen Mu had obtained was itself a decoy, a treasure that could not truly command the ship!
"Even I was fooled. The gods of Carefree Land are truly extraordinary. Lucky for me the brat surnamed Shen is at my side—otherwise I would never have discovered this secret."
Ban Gongcuo's gaze flickered. The last room had been full of green slime, which meant the being that hunted this ship had clearly found this place too and forced its way in.
The old man in the painting raced along the corridor wall, now high, now low, as though dodging something.
Shen Mu and Ban Gongcuo looked, and saw that the walls bore many traces of battle. Deep palm prints had been left in the wall, and besides the palm prints there were strange weapon marks, dreadful beyond measure—it seemed that the slightest touch would trigger the world-annihilating power stored within, sweeping away all things, destroying all things!
These were the marks left by divine weapons!
Beyond the marks of divine weapons were imprints left by divine abilities. These imprints were not large, but each still harbored a fearsome power, contained and unspent, giving off a heart-stopping pulse and glow from the wall.
The light within the imprints was runes—bright, dim, flickering without pattern. The runes were intricate and profound, very hard to make out.