Chapter 449 — The Girl on the Wooden Chest
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The woman wore black robes and a black skirt, silver ornaments in her hair, and more than a dozen silver bracelets hung at her wrists, each strung with little bells; her bearing was uncommon, and in a moment someone had taken the portrait from her hand and hung it on the notice board. The woman from the True Heaven Palace looked down upon the crowd from on high and said, "The fugitive from the Desolate Ruins is of the utmost importance.
In a few days he will come through the Flame Desert. You must all be on your guard these next days. If you see the man in the portrait, do not raise a cry, lest you frighten him off.
" Xiong Qi'er ran over to look, and Shen Mu hurriedly caught her little hand lest she be lost in the crowd.
Before the notice board the people were a mountain and a sea, packed so tight no water could have passed; Xiong Qi'er tugged at his hand and squeezed to the very front, and Shen Mu looked up and saw that the man in the portrait was himself, and written upon it were the words: Shen Mu, fugitive of the Desolate Ruins. Xiong Qi'er was startled and delighted.
"Fat Dragon," she said, "there's you beside big brother too — only me they've left out!
" The clamor around them had been like a boiling cauldron; now of a sudden it fell to utter silence, and every head turned as one to look at Shen Mu.
Shen Mu seemed not to notice. He looked at the notice board and laughed.
"This is Ban Gongcuo's work — he painted it himself.
Xing An has a portrait of me in his hand as well, also painted by him.
I know his brush.
" Crash — all at once a great space opened around him; the crowd scattered, and the farther from him they got the better.
Shen Mu did not mind. He laughed and said, "The Venerable One still has wide acquaintance, and knows a great many people. A pity he ran too fast; I never got to kill him.
" "Fugitive of the Desolate Ruins, die! " A shout of fury came from behind him, and with a whoosh the tree-man raised its vast foot and stamped down at Shen Mu.
Tree-men are heavy beyond measure and possessed of enormous strength, and since trees are plentiful and cheap, the divine-arts practitioners of the Western Lands often choose a tree-man as their mount and their weapon both. The tree-man this True Heaven Palace woman disciple had chosen was surely a rare breed among trees: branches, trunk, and leaves all crimson as blood, and to judge by its stance it had been tempered by long years of battle, its form strict and disciplined. Shen Mu reached out and seized; a ball of blue light flew from within the tree-man's body, and it froze where it stood — its soul had been snatched away by Shen Mu's hand.
Xiong Xiyu had taught him the Myriad Gods Natural Art, and though he thought it less suited to men than to women, he had still put in hard labor at it. The True Heaven Palace woman was startled.
The silver ornaments in her hair flew up of a sudden and became a silver phoenix that charged at Shen Mu, and the silver bracelets at her wrists came clattering off to slip over his head.
Flame surged around Shen Mu's body; before the silver phoenix and the silver bracelets could reach him they melted, and became a pool of silver on the ground. Seeing the ill turn of things, the True Heaven Palace woman took flight at once, rising and falling several times, and her robes of themselves snapped and flapped in the wind, carrying her aloft — she had no need to learn any spell of flight.
"The Myriad Gods Natural Art is truly marvelous," Shen Mu said, flicking his fingers several times in admiration, "letting one's clothes carry one through the air.
It seems I have underestimated this art after all.
" The woman gave a muffled groan and fell from the sky.
"Calamity!
" The crowd around them fled pell-mell, crying, "A base man is going to kill the Lady!