Chapter 437 — A Cosmic Spectacle
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Before them, sky and earth presented a wonder of sky joined to earth and earth joined to sky, and what wrought that wonder was a single vast hole blasted through both. The hole defied description — the sky was empty to begin with, so how could a hole be blasted through emptiness?
The earth was immeasurably thick; dig a great pit in it and still you would not pierce through.
Yet the hole before them presented another kind of inconceivable, resplendent spectacle. The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping must have brought out the Quaking Cauldron at the crisis's height and unleashed its might, and by the divine power of that celestial-phenomenon weapon blasted through the sky and earth of this world and of another at once, forming this magnificent scene that links the two realms!
And the Quaking Cauldron's power was so great that the two pierced realms have still not recovered, and the barrier between them cannot heal. Before this great hole, on the side of the Wasteland and Jingping, it was night; but behind the hole a sun was rising, shining upon one dark, towering demon fortress after another.
The sky of that other world lay below the horizon of the Divine Severance Mountains, while its continent hung in the sky above them.
Looking up from where Shen Mu and the others stood, one could see the land of that world, its sharp and pointed structures standing a thousand zhang on end like long sabers, long swords, and spears — grim and terrifying. That was an architectural style wholly unlike Jingping's: majestic yet sinister demon fortresses seated upon rolling mountains, some of them floating in the air, while the sunlight of that other world poured down and cast their shadows into the darkness of the Divine Severance Mountains.
The trees and rocks of that world took abnormal shapes — twisted, dreadful. The sunlight of that other world shone up from below, falling upon Shen Mu and the others; standing before that immeasurably vast circular opening, they were as tiny as a few ants. The sunlight of the alien world stretched their shadows long, yet beside that opening they seemed utterly insignificant.
Beneath their feet was the sun, above their heads the land, as though they stood before a giant mirror in which lay another, inverted world. And that mirror-like opening trembled faintly without cease, shaking the rocks around the Divine Severance Mountains into the air, where they drifted and swayed. Shen Mu and the others too were shaken numb, their primordial spirits unsteady.
One could well imagine how terrible the energy had been that the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping drew from the Quaking Cauldron then!
"The quaking here comes from this opening, not from the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping wielding the Quaking Cauldron. " Shen Mu's heart sank.
Ever since entering the Divine Severance Mountains he had sensed tremors come and go, and had taken them for the Imperial Preceptor wielding the Quaking Cauldron; he had never expected the quaking to come from this opening that joins the two realms.
The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping and the others were not here; whether they lived or died could not be known.
He raised his head and looked up, and saw upon that continent floating in the heavens a mighty, majestic demon god whose primordial spirit was leaving his body, turning his own flesh to stone.
Many strangely shaped demons, like diligent ants, were building a grand altar around the demon god's petrified body; tens of thousands of demon slaves were dragged onto the altar and beheaded, and through blood sacrifice they sought to send that demon god's stone statue over.
One after another, sacrificial priests and sorcerers crowned with white bone and feathers worked their rites upon the grand altar, and the sight of blood surging around it filled the eyes of Shen Mu and the others with a cruel beauty.
The scene was awe-inspiring, and at once cruel and horrifying.