Chapter 506 — Blow After Blow Against the Ancestral Masters
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
Arrogant as the brat's words were modest, every sentence of his could anger the living to death and anger the dead back to life, making a person long to pin him to the ground and gang up on him with fists and feet!
"Shen the Overlord Body, you have only beaten that boy Qi Kang, and already you say our dao arts are out of date? That is a bit of a boast, is it not?"
Human Emperor Yishan's tone was stiff, his face kindly. "Come, come. Let me teach you what a divine ability is!"
Shen Mu looked troubled. He turned his head to regard this grand ancestral master who stood barely five chi tall. "Ancestral Master, you walk the path of divine abilities. Your divine abilities are very strong—but this close to me, you have already died one, two, three, four... sixteen or seventeen times."
Yishan was beside himself with rage, a ball of thunder-light clutched in his hand, fighting the urge to slap the boy dead.
"At this distance, even an expert of the Heaven-Man realm would not last a single move against me."
Shen Mu seemed not to notice, and went on. "Ancestral Master, what you cultivate is divine ability. You entered the Dao through divine ability—but to cultivate divine ability is to neglect the slaughter of flesh against flesh. We are this close. In the time it takes you to say one sentence, I could kill you twenty or thirty times over."
Yishan nearly spat blood, his face livid. He turned and leaped off the bridge; a wisp of cloud qi rose beneath his feet to bear up his short, stout frame. "Cocky little brat!" he roared. "I will open the distance first, and then we fight!"
The cloud qi beneath his feet carried him skimming over the river surface, racing upstream. After five or six li, Yishan judged the distance about right.
But then he suddenly recalled how swift Shen Mu's swordsmanship was, and that this distance was not safe either. So he went another three li or so. Then he thought of how fast Shen Mu was—how easily he had caught up with Qi Kang on the river just now—and so he went another two li.
"I cannot retreat any further. Any further and they will see that I am afraid—afraid of losing to my own grand-disciple..."
Yishan looked back. The distance was so great that the bridge had become a thin line, and Shen Mu and the others were dots upon that line.
Yishan's face reddened slightly. To run this far all at once had indeed betrayed his fear.
"Come down here!" Yishan shouted, face red but heart calm, voice full of vigor—exactly like Qi Kang.
On the bridge, the Second Ancestor called out loudly, "Yishan, you have forgotten to seal your own divine treasuries!"
Yishan's face reddened again. He had been so flustered that he forgot he needed to seal the Heaven-Man Life-and-Death, the Divine Bridge, and the Divine Treasury. He hurriedly sealed these three great divine treasuries, then shouted again, spirited as ever, "Come down here!"
Thud.
Shen Mu leaped onto the river surface.
"Linked Cliffs Dot the Cang Mountains!"
Yishan struck first. With his wide sleeves and great robes, his plump five fingers dancing within the cloth, more than ten li of river surface began to explode, one stretch after another, from beneath his feet. The great water became blue mountains, peaks piled upon peaks, rising with boom after boom!
The great river became blue mountains—a sight that seemed to have turned into a charming vista, but this was a divine ability, and killing intent lurked within!
He had entered the Dao through divine ability, and his divine ability differed from others': unless triggered, it unleashed no power. To stand within his divine ability was to invite utter catastrophe at the slightest movement!
The blue mountains bursting up without cease reached Shen Mu beneath the bridge in an instant, and Shen Mu could not help but grow elated—so elated that every mote of vital essence in him trembled and trembled, far more active than in ordinary times!