Chapter 457 — Blossoms Dazzle the Eyes
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Whether ramparts a thousand fathoms high or killing arrays grim and dense, all of it was calculation.
Ring upon ring of array patterns surfaced in Shen Mu's eyes; his steps now flew swift, now halted abruptly; now he lifted his brush to alter an array pattern; now he staggered like a drunkard, one step forward and three back; and sometimes, as though springs were fitted to his soles, he leapt back and forth among the great floating stones.
Again he was like a startled swan taking flight, flickering through the ramparts just as they were about to close; again like a wild elephant charging headlong, seeming to hurl himself at the wall ahead in the spirit of certain death—yet just as he was about to strike the stone wall, the wall suddenly split apart and let him pass.
He wandered through the exquisite solutions of calculation, unraveling puzzle of numbers after puzzle of numbers, drawing ever nearer to the heart of Juncheng.
Everything in the city was changing; even the main hall where they had lately stood had now dissolved and vanished. The one thing unchanged was the place where He Yiyi stood.
The girl still stood quietly upon a stone pillar, unmoving, driving Juncheng's alterations, changing array after array to bar Shen Mu's way.
This time differed from the last; last time Shen Mu had walked into the ambush and been trapped in the city, which could hardly be called a fair contest.
Now Shen Mu was storming the arrays, and this would test whose attainments in the array arts were the higher.
After a long while, He Yiyi caught sight of Shen Mu's figure, and her face turned anxious; she frantically marshaled boulder after boulder to lay her arrays, yet Shen Mu's figure still drew nearer, unhurried.
The place where He Yiyi stood was the center of Juncheng and the eye of Juncheng's arrays. Shen Mu was now only some ten zhang from that array eye, and the final layer of arrays had failed to halt his steps.
Suddenly He Yiyi clenched her silver teeth; Juncheng shook with a thunderous roar, and all the arrays laid before were loosed at once, becoming a formation of utter annihilation. Array upon killing array joined in perfect concert, their power surging savagely upward, grinding toward the place where He Yiyi stood!
She had triggered the killing formation, and this killing formation made no distinction between enemy and self: Shen Mu and she alike would be devoured and destroyed by those killing arrays!
As the Western Lands' Array Master, heir to the glory of the He family, she could never suffer the He family's name to be tarnished or the title of first in arrays to pass to another; even at the cost of perishing together, she would guard the He family's dignity!
Shen Mu's face changed slightly. At the instant the annihilating arrays were triggered, he flashed to He Yiyi's side, caught the girl about the waist with one hand, and with the other lifted his brush to paint in the air.
He Yiyi closed her eyes. The killing arrays rolled grinding toward them and swallowed the two of them whole!
She opened her eyes and saw that they were no longer within Juncheng, but seemed hidden deep in Juncheng's space. Juncheng's annihilating arrays roared, broke open the painted world, and came grinding toward them still.
The painted world they were in was about to collapse and be destroyed!
Shen Mu's face was stern; his brush moved like a dragon or a serpent, strokes changing through a thousand forms, painting within the painting. Suddenly He Yiyi felt her waist taken; he swept her up and plunged into the painting.
They plunged into another painted world—here mountains and waters were beautiful, the flowers blooming in a riot of color, the scenery delightful.
Yet the very next moment, Juncheng's killing arrays crushed through this world of picture-within-picture and pressed down with the momentum of destroying all things.
"You are not using arrays to break my arrays."