Chapter 545 — A Fate Between Us
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Zhe Huali cried out and took a step toward Shen Mu.
"Yield!"
Beyond the heavens, Furiluo's voice rolled like thunder: "Your saber technique is square and orthodox, skilled in calculation—but your heart is in chaos now. You will only lose faster, die faster! When a sworn friend dies, you avenge him. To throw your own life away instead of taking vengeance is the act of a fool!"
Zhe Huali's face contorted, and suddenly he drew his saber with his left hand.
Outside the sandbox world, Furiluo frowned, yet made no move to stop Zhe Huali within it.
The sandbox world was a creation he and the Woodcutter Sage had forged together. If he interfered, the Woodcutter on the other side would interfere as well, and the tangle would never be unraveled—he had no chance of winning.
The Woodcutter Sage had been summoned abruptly, throwing his arrangements and plans into disarray and catching him off guard; hence he could only stake everything on this wager. He could not break his own wager, or he would very likely lose the entire game.
He needed time.
Though he admired Zhe Huali greatly—though Zhe Huali already had another master, he still regarded him as his own heir—for the sake of the demon race's great cause, however much he admired him, he could only steel himself and let him go.
The corner of Zhe Huali's eye twitched. At the hilt of the demon saber in his hand, that demon eye grew ever more uncanny and unfathomable; and the place it stared at was not Shen Mu, but Zhe Huali's own right arm.
Zhe Huali raised his right arm; the saber was already lifted.
Shen Mu had spoken truly: he could not perfectly execute the saber technique of the Divine Saber Luo Wushuang. To execute it perfectly, he would have to sever his own right arm—otherwise the arm would only be a burden.
His purpose in descending to this world had been to find a way out: to wield the saber with both hands, to bring his saber technique into the Dao, and to step free of Luo Wushuang's shadow.
That sword stroke of Shen Mu's had been dazzling beyond compare; he judged that he could not have evaded it either. To defeat Shen Mu, there was no other way but to sever the arm and push Luo Wushuang's saber technique to its utmost.
And yet, to sever his own arm meant that he would never step free of Luo Wushuang's saber technique, never find his own way of the saber into the Dao—it meant cutting off his own path.
Zhe Huali's expression shifted dark and bright by turns. The saber light fell—and struck the ground.
"I have lost."
He dropped to his knees with a thud—not toward Shen Mu, nor toward Yu He and the others, but toward Jiang Yi's corpse.
Zhe Huali knocked his head on the ground, rose, gathered Jiang Yi's corpse in his arms, and said, turning his head: "I have seen your swordsmanship. I will not let my master see it—because I mean to cut you down with my own hands, and avenge my sworn friend!"
Shen Mu's face grew solemn. He nodded. "If such a day truly comes, I shall die without regret."
Zhe Huali strode away, toward the Li Fire wall. With a hiss, the demon saber flew up and split the wall of fire with a single stroke, hewing out a path. Bearing Jiang Yi in his arms, Zhe Huali walked into the flames and vanished.
Shen Mu's eye twitched. Zhe Huali's bearing left him vaguely uneasy.
Zhe Huali was in no way his inferior. The saber stroke that had just cloven the sea of fire had been exquisite to the utmost; his fleshly body, his mana, his primordial spirit—even the attainments in Dao arts and divine abilities revealed in his saber technique—were no lesser than Shen Mu's. His physical body, indeed, was far superior.
The Zhe Huali of this moment was like Shen Mu after the First Ancestor Human Emperor had struck him a crushing blow—poised on the edge between collapse and transformation.