Chapter 353 — Soft-Hearted
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu tried to struggle to his feet, and at once a crunch came from his legs: both bones, already webbed with cracks from the fall, snapped the instant he put weight on them.
The pain threw his whole body into spasm — and then his arms broke as well. Shen Mu did not dare move a muscle, did not dare so much as twitch, did not dare draw a breath.
He dared not exert the least strength now, for fear that one heavy breath would shatter every rib in his chest.
His dharma power was spent as well; he could not draw the dragon's saliva from the Taotie Pouch to heal himself.
Pain drowned him; sweat poured from him without cease.
Every sword wound on his body burst open at once and blood ran out. Shen Mu felt his flesh burning, hot as magma — yet he understood that this was an illusion, a trick his brain played on him as his blood drained away and his body began to cool.
He had learned such things from the alchemist he once followed.
If he lost any more blood, he would die beyond all doubt.
From the great pit nearby came a thumping sound. Shen Mu's heart sank. "Can it be that I am the false Tyrant Body... No. I simply did not try hard enough, did not draw out the full power of the Tyrant Body..."
He had nearly traded his life to take his enemy's, and even so had won by only half a move — and had lost every scrap of his fighting strength in the doing.
Suddenly three streams of qi split away from the pit beside him, arcing down like three rainbows to where Shen Mu lay, and bored into his body.
At once Shen Mu felt the bones inside him shifting, the broken ends rejoining; the cracks along them healed themselves, and the wounds on his flesh began closing with astonishing speed.
Teeth he had lost to a blow a moment ago were growing back!
Shen Mu was stunned. Then he heard a sound like the tide, a sound rising from within his own body — the roar of his vital essence surging. His cultivation was recovering at a furious rate!
His strength was returning as well, the torn muscle knitting itself back together, and soon Shen Mu could feel that his injuries were seven or eight parts healed.
More than that, he felt a strange power flowing in along those three rainbows, driving a violent change in the divine storehouse of his primal fetus. And then Shen Mu saw that his vital essence seemed to have liquefied; it embraced his spirit fetus and wheeled about it, so that the fetus seemed to float in a warm sea, filled with an indescribable comfort.
"The last time I felt comfort like this, I was about three. I'd fallen asleep in Granny's bed, and in my dream I went looking for a latrine. After a great deal of trouble I found one — and wet the whole bed. Then Granny picked me up by the legs and threw me into the snow pit."
Shen Mu blinked. This must be what they called the Three Primes: the Heaven Prime, the Earth Prime and the Water Prime.
The power of the Three Primes poured in, and the divine storehouse of his primal fetus went on transforming violently. His spirit fetus was growing at tremendous speed, and the spirit platform beneath his feet kept swelling, until it was like a little island of land.
And the vital essence breathed out from the mouth and nostrils of the spirit fetus rose upward; the rolling essence gathered together, glowing red, and hung in midair.
It did not look like a sun.
And the liquefied essence gathered into something like a ball of water — nor did that look like a moon. The divine storehouse of his primal fetus still could not compare with that of a god.
Shen Mu tried to circulate the Three-Elixir Mystic Body Art, and felt the technique still run rough and sluggish; some hidden injury must remain unhealed.
"Congratulations to the Human Sovereign on the Three Primes breakthrough."
In an instant the mountains vanished, and the sun and moon in the sky disappeared without a trace. Shen Mu was lying in a great hall, cold flagstones beneath him.