Chapter 459 — The Sinister Old Ghost
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Now, though, curiosity stirred in him about that little pack. "Qi'er, what is in your pack? " Shen Mu asked. Xiong Qi'er took off the pack and opened it, and a wash of azure light spilled across Shen Mu's face. Shen Mu sighed: "So that is it.
That old schemer Jingping.
. . " The Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl lay quietly in the pack.
The pearl was azure as jade, crystalline and translucent, and within it a dragon soul swam gently. When Shen Mu's palm closed around the Water Dragon Pearl, the azure dragon soul wore a look of disdain; yet when Shen Mu had Xiong Qi'er press her palm to the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl, the azure dragon soul seemed quite at ease, gently touching Xiong Qi'er's hand through the pearl. "A child, pure and flawless — that is the finest material for cultivating the Myriad Gods Natural Art.
" Shen Mu sighed with feeling. The chief reason Zhentian Palace needed a little princess was precisely that a little princess was pure and flawless, free of any other stray thought, able to control a treasure like the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl and draw out its power to the utmost.
In Zhentian Palace, besides the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl, there were three other treasures, standing for the Azure Dragon, the Black Tortoise, the Vermilion Bird, and the White Tiger. The only one who could unleash the full power of these treasures was the little princess of Zhentian Palace!
Zhentian Palace's strongest fighting force had never been the Palace Master, or the Naikui, or any other expert — it was the little princess who had not the strength to truss a chicken. Imperial Preceptor Jingping and Xiong Xiyu had entered the Western Lands a step ahead of them, and leaving the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl with Xiong Qi'er was certainly not Xiong Xiyu's idea, but Jingping's. Xiong Xiyu had thought Jingping unreliable and had Shen Mu bring Xiong Qi'er into the Western Lands, never guessing that this played right into Jingping's scheme: it made Shen Mu and Xiong Qi'er and their party the target of Zhentian Palace, while Jingping and she could use them as cover to act in secret. "Imperial Preceptor Jingping deserves a good spanking.
He is a Heavenly King of my Tiansheng Sect, after all, and he dares to plot against his own Sect Master. " Shen Mu sighed and pulled himself together.
Just then the Dragon Qilin suddenly halted and said, "Sect Master, there is something. " Shen Mu looked ahead.
Range upon range of mountains stretched before them, and black coffins hung from the cliffs and precipices. The Dragon Qilin was flying between two mountains, and the black coffins hanging on the cliffs to either side all but covered them, making the mountain faces black. He counted swiftly.
There must be three to five thousand coffins here.
"This is.
.
.
a corpse-nurturing ground! " He opened his Danxiao Heaven Eye and looked, and at once saw gusts of baleful wind and a pall of mournful cloud shrouding the mountains.
This place was indeed suited to nurturing corpses.
According to the geography of the Western Lands, this should be Xiajun, some eight hundred li east of Leishan City, and Xiajun was precisely the territory of the Liu family of the Western Lands. "A corpse-nurturing ground is the Liu family's domain? These corpses — are they nurtured by the Liu family of the Western Lands? " It struck him suddenly: corpses had no spirit and no god — were they not the finest material for the divine-power wielders of the Western Lands to summon spirits and summon gods?
A divine-power wielder's body, tempered a thousand times over, was better even than a primal soldier; and it had four limbs, and in battle might even be able to use divine powers — more useful still than a primal soldier.