Chapter 479 — In the Barren Desert, a Crimson Sea and Rising Radiance
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
After the storm, Shen Mu crawled out from under the heavy dunes. He looked around: desolation and bleakness met his eyes, and everywhere lay the scale-like dunes left behind by the hurricane.
The massive Xizhou had split apart, the great ship almost wholly disintegrated — plainly the Old Mother of True Heaven's final strike had been too powerful. She had meant that blow to destroy Imperial Preceptor Jingping and herself together, and in the end it had shattered even the Xizhou.
The flames in the desert were gone. The sand was still red, but it no longer held that fire which had scorched the Forsaken of the Wasteland.
Shen Mu looked farther off, and saw no flames there either.
The Flame Desert had gone out.
He was stunned for a moment, then hastily raised his hands. The flame patterns on them had vanished too.
He took out several mirrors and examined himself again and again, up and down, but still found no trace of flame patterns.
"The Old Mother of True Heaven is dead!"
Shen Mu's heart gave two wild leaps. The Old Mother of True Heaven had laid down in the Flame Desert a fire aimed specifically at the Forsaken of the Wasteland: any Forsaken who set foot here would have flame patterns rise upon his face, and the higher his bloodline, the more patterns appeared.
Shen Mu, for instance, had been covered head to toe in them.
The Old Mother of True Heaven was dead; the flames of the Flame Desert had gone out; and with them the flame patterns on the Forsaken would vanish as well!
"Pff! Pff!"
A dune in the distance split open and Long Qilin crawled out, spitting sand. Shen Mu called to him from afar and limped toward the Xizhou.
His wounds were grave — not from his clash with Ban Gongcuo, but from the terrible shock of the Old Mother of True Heaven's final blow, which had left him badly broken.
Long Qilin joined him and bounded to a stop in front of him, laying his tail flat. Shen Mu stepped onto the tip of his tail; Long Qilin lifted it, and Shen Mu slid onto his back.
Long Qilin raced off with him and came to a halt beside the Xizhou.
Shen Mu sat down and called out loudly, "Imperial Preceptor Jingping, are you still alive?"
"I am here."
Imperial Preceptor Jingping's voice came to him. Shen Mu looked toward it and saw the Imperial Preceptor leaning in the shade of a great boulder. Shen Mu slid down from Long Qilin's back and said with a smile, "Hurt again?"
"Not too badly. Much lighter than last time."
Imperial Preceptor Jingping squinted, feigning sleep, then opened one eye and glanced behind him. Weakly he said, "The Old Mother of True Heaven was truly formidable. With the Xizhou's power to draw on, her strength surpassed the gods of Heaven Above."
Shen Mu looked where his gaze had gone, but saw nothing. Puzzled, he first healed his own wounds a little, then tried to lift the Imperial Preceptor up — and could not move him.
Imperial Preceptor Jingping said, half-smiling, "Cult Master, you cannot lift a god."
Shen Mu understood, and healed him where he lay, saying with a laugh, "Does the Imperial Preceptor still mean to go to Heaven Above?"
Imperial Preceptor Jingping shook his head. "In this fight with the Old Mother of True Heaven, she held the advantage of terrain, and I nearly failed to overcome her. If we go up into Heaven Above, where there are more gods and where the ground is all theirs, it will be far more dangerous still. I must wait — wait for the Emperor to mend the divine bridge, and for the other Cult Master-level beings of Jingping to ascend."
There were many powerhouses of the divine-bridge realm in Jingping, men trapped at that stage for many years. Shen Mu's dissemination of the spatial-art model for repairing the divine bridge had given them hope of godhood as well.
"You let the Great Venerable go?" asked Imperial Preceptor Jingping.