Chapter 446 — The Uncanny Western Frontier
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
It was a ruin in the desert: palace after palace of earthen yellow, more than half of them fallen, leaving only broken walls and toppled pillars, and there the flames burned fierce and roaring, more blazing than anywhere else. The ruin covered a vast tract, several thousand mu in extent.
The dune giant burned from head to foot, its whole body crimson, fire wrapped around it; it had no legs and no feet, yet it raced through the ruin's great avenues and narrow lanes as though flying, passing through one street after another. Beneath the giant's body whirled and flew a mad, spinning sandstorm, and so legless though it was, its speed was great.
The one it hunted now was Shen Mu and Ban Gongcuo both, for both were pursued by this dune giant; boom, boom, boom came the tremendous crashes without cease, and each blow of the dune giant was immeasurably heavy, smashing down upon the desert so that sand and stone shot out like swords!
Yet this dune giant did the ruin no harm at all; meeting broken walls it simply submerged them, and the red sand flowed over them, and the ruin remained whole and untouched. The divine arts of the Western Lands were utterly unlike those of Jingping; theirs was the road of all things having spirits, so that even sand and stone could turn into a giant and do battle, and one blow of the dune giant split mountains and shivered rock, irresistible in its might. If that dune giant ever landed a blow on either of them, the terrible force alone would be enough to wound them grievously!
Yet even so, Shen Mu and Ban Gongcuo still strove to kill each other, only doing their utmost to dodge the dune giant's attacks. Ban Gongcuo had lost an arm and moved awkwardly; Shen Mu, though he commanded eight thousand swords, could not wound the dune giant, however exquisite his swordcraft.
Even if he cut the giant to pieces, it would at once recover as before, its strength in no way diminished. The two men's body arts were outstanding, and the dune giant's attacks were tyrannical beyond measure, but it struck only with its fists, with no spells or divine arts, and so was not too great a threat to them.
But the strange thing was that this dune giant seemed to attack only Shen Mu, and took no notice of Ban Gongcuo at all.
"A spell of the True Heaven Palace!
" Dragon Qilin looked this way and that. "But where is the caster hiding? " "That is a guardian of the desert, not a divine art.
" Xiong Qi'er clambered by his mane up onto his great head, cast a glance around her, and said, "My mother said there are many ancient ruins in the desert; long ago they were the dwelling places of the gods who guarded the desert. Later those gods left, but they left guardians behind to watch over this desert, and anyone from the Wasteland who comes here will be attacked by those guardians.
" Suddenly the red sand in the ruin flew up, and another dune giant rose to its feet and rushed at Shen Mu with terrible speed.
Shen Mu waved a hand, and several dozen crimson sand dragons roared and galloped, charging the dune giant.
All this way, as he chased Ban Gongcuo, his qi had run faster and faster and the power of his divine arts had grown greater and greater; this was the moment when his fighting strength stood at its peak!
Those several dozen crimson sand dragons tore through the dune giant with a roar, passing through the bodies of both giants.
"Hm? " Shen Mu's heart jumped; he felt the power of law hidden within this art of his being devoured, for the sand dragons had passed through the dune giant's body, and all the power of law within them had vanished! Ban Gongcuo saw his opening, and charged in with the great cauldron above his head, while behind him the two dune giants, having absorbed the power of law from Shen Mu's art and swallowed down the dozens of sand dragons along with it, swelled enormously and came killing toward Shen Mu. Shen Mu clenched his fist, thumb upraised, and traded a hard blow with Ban Gongcuo.