Chapter 317 — The Return of the Soul
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The treasure ship flung those Youdu creatures far behind, and its speed only increased — such a thing had never happened before!
On the deck, Ban Gongcuo and the others hurriedly seized the railings lest they be flung overboard: "Could it be that little wretch Shen Mu is driving the ship with the silver helm? " Ban Gongcuo looked at Shen Mu, and saw that Shen Mu too was gripping the railing, wearing no silver helm — clearly it was not he who steered this treasure ship.
Ban Gongcuo was briefly startled. If it was not Shen Mu sailing the ship, then who was piloting it?
Could some dreadful being be hidden aboard, or was there a ghost on this ship?
Ever since they had come aboard this strange vessel, uncanny things had happened again and again; to this day they had never explored it fully, and instead had met with one eerie event after another — on reflection, it sent chills down the spine.
The treasure ship raced through the world of Youdu, a realm of darkness, without sky and without earth; sailing on through that vast blackness was enough to make the heart quail. How long it sailed thus, no one knew.
Suddenly came a crash that nearly pitched them all over; several soldiers and great shamans, unable to keep their footing or their grip, were flung out of the ship at once, and the instant they fell into the darkness beyond, their flesh and bones dissolved and they became heaps of white bones that clattered down. "There is land below!
" someone cried. Shen Mu looked down. The treasure ship had struck the summit of a mountain, punching a great hole through the peak, and it was that impact which had thrown those soldiers and shamans clear.
The peak receded swiftly into the distance, and faintly beneath it one could make out stretch upon stretch of land — but oddly, the landmasses were not joined together; they floated like islands in the dark.
Boom— Two enormous landmasses collided, a scene of extraordinary violence; the plates of land crushed against each other, and at once thousands of great volcanoes erupted together across them, magma rushing skyward with rolling black smoke, three hundred li high, a spectacle beyond compare. Countless thunderbolts flashed among the dense clouds and the magma, tearing the sky apart; cooled rock fell like rain, a dreadful rain of stone, and the boulders struck with terrifying force, like comets crashing down, dragging long tails of fire.
The earth shook and the mountains trembled; magma rain, rock rain, and acid rain fell together — nothing less than the end of the world. The treasure ship passed through that deluge, and everyone aboard immediately loosed their essence qi, raising great shields one after another to hold off this uncanny rain and keep from being smashed to death.
Suddenly came a ringing, clattering hail of blows: this time it was not magma rain that fell but diamonds — adamant, as the ancients called them — fist-sized diamonds raining down from the heavens, the product of thunderbolt strikes, strewing the whole ship.
The ship tilted and swept its cargo of molten lava and diamonds overboard, then rounded a great volcano and steered off into the distance. Lava ran everywhere on the volcano, like fiery dragons flowing from the crater down the slopes. Shen Mu glanced hastily and was startled: amid that earth-shaking, world-annihilating scene, millions upon millions of people were walking, climbing the mountain.