Chapter 541 — A Black Heart Beats a Demon
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu was about to summon the Wuyou Sword to cut down the demon banner when the demon expert appeared behind him. Shen Mu thrust his sword backward; another great banner appeared, and the demon expert leaped into it and vanished again, leaving his thrust to pierce empty air, with only a banner stuck in the ground.
So it went, again and again, until eight great banners stood on the ground around Shen Mu, their cloth spread wide, each banner's cloth joined to the pole of the next, forming a regular octagonal formation covering some mu of ground, with an open demon eye at the center of every banner.
Shen Mu frowned. Suddenly streams of demonic qi shot from the demon eyes, blasting toward him.
His vital essence surged around him and in an instant became a great bell, half-there and half-not, its walls made of countless interwoven thunder patterns — the Fifth Ancestor Human Emperor's Five Thunders Heaven-Supporting Bell!
Dang, dang, dang!
Boom after boom rang out. Inside the bell Shen Mu attacked outward, contending with each stream of demonic qi. The Five Thunders Heaven-Supporting Bell swelled and shrank, its power rising and falling, while the demon banners spun around him without cease, the demonic qi from the eyes thickening and thinning, its force surging and ebbing, hammering the bell until it clanged and setting his blood and qi churning.
Shen Mu shifted his feet, and the Five Thunders Heaven-Supporting Bell moved with him — but the demon banners outside moved with him too.
The Five Thunders Heaven-Supporting Bell was the Fifth Ancestor Human Emperor's supreme art, a flesh-body divine power mingled with thunder-magic. The five thunders are the five cloud-thunders; a mighty body drives the five-direction cloud-thunders to form the bell's patterns. With every punch, every kick, the five thunders quake, the great bell contracts and expands, and the power of the five cloud-thunders surges — there is no better art for breaking demonic cultivation.
And yet now Shen Mu could not break this demon expert's demonic art.
Suddenly Shen Mu's form changed drastically, becoming the Star Lord of Zhen, human-headed and serpent-bodied. Behind him the Gate that Bears Heaven rose. He spun once, and the Gate swept through the eight banners — then was blasted to powder by streams of demonic qi.
The Gate that Bears Heaven had not forced the demon expert's true body out.
"Open your eyes!"
In Shen Mu's eyes layer upon layer of formation patterns revolved, scanning all directions, yet he could never find the demon expert's position. He could see only figure after figure flitting at incredible speed among the banners, like ghosts.
And within the formation, the streams of demonic qi, after striking the bell, did not fully disperse. They formed threads invisible to the naked eye, threads spread through space, dividing space into many blocks, and in every cubic block of space demonic runes were ceaselessly taking shape.
This was a formation master. The attack just now had been a feint; his true aim was to trap Shen Mu inside his killing formation and refine him away!
That way he could conserve his strength to deal with the others.
He meant to finish Shen Mu off at the smallest possible cost.
Shen Mu's magic power far surpassed his peers, and his divine powers were fierce and domineering. Few could force him onto the defensive; only a handful of the strong — the First Ancestor Human Emperor, Lizheng, and a few others — could suppress him at the same cultivation realm. Yet this demon expert was one of them.
The First Ancestor, Lizheng and the rest were masters who had entered the Dao; that they could do it was no wonder. But this demon expert was of the demon race's younger generation. That alone showed how deep his attainments in formations ran.
"Formations, is it?"