Chapter 441 — Entangled in Karmic Debt
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The teleportation art Shen Mu cultivated belonged to the Netherfiend Sect, and it differed greatly from the blood-sacrifice teleportation those otherworldly demon gods employed. The demon gods' blood-sacrifice teleportation was cruder, more ancient; the Netherfiend Sect's art, by contrast, was founded upon the arts of spatial calculation, and anyone with sufficiently profound mastery of those arts could bring it off. The greatest difference between the two lay here: the Netherfiend Sect's teleportation knew both the what and the why, sought to understand and so understood, whereas blood-sacrifice teleportation knew the what but not the why, seeking no understanding, only usefulness. This was what gave Shen Mu his chance to interfere with their teleportation formation.
"Grey Immortal, take me and Grandpa Deaf down underground. I need to see the runes arranged on their altar, and then I will perform the teleportation art.
Grandpa Deaf, you will draw out the runes of the teleportation art I perform.
Dragon King God, you come as well. I will need your mana. " Shen Mu spoke with great speed: "Grandpa Alchemist, the rest of you stay here and guard the bodies of Grandma Zhu and the Imperial Preceptor Jingping.
" His plan settled, Grey Immortal at once carried the three of them flying down from the Dawn Ark.
"Do not move," he said. "I will carry you through the underground. " With that he shook himself, transformed into a great rat, wrapped Shen Mu, the Deaf Elder and the Dragon King God in a gust of demon wind, and burrowed away into the earth.
Shen Mu felt himself hurtling through the ground at furious speed; before long his body came to an abrupt halt, and all at once the space before his eyes opened into vast emptiness. Looking about, he saw indeed the magnificent scene Grey Immortal had described.
A colossal divine statue bulged up out of the ground, only to be bound fast by chain after chain; where the thick, enormous chains converged, palace after palace pressed down upon them, and from beneath those palaces more chains stretched out to lock down a long saber that ran north to south. The saber blazed with a brilliance beyond compare; it was chained as though someone feared the blade might fly away. The saber was so long that Shen Mu could not imagine who could wield a weapon of such size.
That hapless divine statue, as it rose, had struck precisely upon the blade's edge, and the head of the statue, hard beyond measure, had been sliced through to the brow.
And upon the palm of the statue's raised hand, a dozen or more towering stone figures were busily at work, building an enormous altar.
Those stone figures and that altar were immense, yet beside the divine statue they seemed utterly tiny.
And Shen Mu and the Deaf Elder, of course, were more insignificant still. Shen Mu roused the Nine Heavens Gazing Art and examined the runes and sigils on the altar in fine detail, committing them to memory. Grey Immortal carried him weaving this way and that, and after a long while they had at last surveyed all the runes and sigils surrounding the altar.
"Grey Immortal, stop.
" Shen Mu mused a moment. "Let us go to one of those palaces. I will take up position there and run the calculations.
" Grey Immortal brought them to one of the palaces, which was joined to the underground cliff by a long floating bridge; it seemed people had once come here, had lived here, and kept watch over this subterranean space.
Shen Mu set his feet on solid ground and looked around, seeing that the doors of this vermilion hall were tightly locked, and viewed through the Holy Pupil they bore seal upon seal of the most intricate kind, making entry difficult.
"Here will do. " Shen Mu took out a Taotie Bag and rummaged through it, producing a vast array of calculating instruments: Wuji Disks, Taiji Disks, Five Elements Beads, Bagua Disks, and more, a dazzling profusion of them, hundreds in all.