Chapter 476 — A Floating Life in the Mirror
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Suddenly the jagged stones burst apart. Ban Gongcuo blasted his way out of the rubble and shot skyward, ashamed and enraged, and flung up a great cauldron.
The cauldron hung in midair, its mouth turned downward, and at once sand flew and stones rolled. Scattered boulders, broken pillars, crumbling walls—all were sucked up and drawn into the cauldron's mouth.
That cauldron was like a pot of boiling soup, and what boiled was true fire. The cauldron did not look large, yet the true fire within it churned like a seething ocean, utterly terrifying. Anything that fell in was burned to ash and ceased to exist. Clearly this was not a primal weapon the present Ban Gongcuo could have forged. It must have been forged in one of his former lives—immensely powerful, a sect-guarding treasure forged by a warrior at the near-god realm. It was only that his current cultivation was too poor to unleash the cauldron's full might.
Primal weapons also differed in strength and in realm. Obtaining a superior primal weapon did not always bring about a world-shaking leap in power; it also depended on how much of that might one could draw out.
Take Shen Mu's Carefree Sword—a divine sword of extraordinary power. Yet to this day Shen Mu could not rouse the divine sword's true might, and could only rely on its sharpness. So it was with Ban Gongcuo. His current realm could not unleash the full power of his former life's primal weapon, yet even so, at the peak of the Seven Stars realm he could draw out about ten percent of the cauldron's might.
Countless grains of sand rose from the ruins. Wall after wall, pillar after pillar, ruined palace after ruined palace were torn loose and sucked in, tumbling into the cauldron. The entire ruins were dissolving, rising in a swirling cloud into the sky.
"Shen, now you see what I'm capable of? Strength doesn't rest on cultivation alone!"
Ban Gongcuo flipped in the air and landed atop the cauldron, sneering. "So what if your cultivation runs deeper than mine? My treasure is mightier than you—I'll pin you down and beat you, and make your death too ghastly to behold!"
He looked down and started. Shen Mu stood beneath the cauldron, utterly motionless; no matter how fierce the cauldron's suction, it could not lift him.
"How is that possible?"
Ban Gongcuo's eyes went wide. In Shen Mu's palm rested a metal sphere the size of an orange. The sphere suddenly stirred, flowing like water, like sand.
"A sword core!"
Ban Gongcuo understood at once why the cauldron could not draw Shen Mu in. The sword core must weigh a terrifying amount, pinning his body down—even a cauldron forged in a former life could not lift such weight!
"Wasn't his sword core two feet across? If it can't draw you in, then I'll refine you to death!"
Ban Gongcuo suddenly leaped up, head down and feet up, both palms striking the cauldron. With a great clang, a sea of fire surged from the cauldron's mouth. Wherever it passed, all things dissolved; sand and stone melted into rolling magma, and in the blink of an eye the entire ruins became a sea of magma and flame.
Shen Mu seized the sword core and clenched it hard. Countless tiny flying swords flew out, merging together with the Carefree Sword at their head. Shen Mu raised the sword in both hands and, with a single strike into the wind, cleaved apart the sea of fire rushing at him.
Where that strike passed, the flames were instantly snuffed out. The desert to either side was burned molten, yet where the blade's power reached, red sand still lay everywhere. The corner of Shen Mu's eye twitched. This true fire was fierce beyond measure, its power immense—he did not know what manner of evil flame it was.