Chapter 549 — Gone Like Smoke and Clouds
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
True God Pang Yu did indeed have much to do, and so took his leave with Yu He. The Black Tiger God grumbled, "Raising the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange requires far too many forged components. The two of us will be busy a long while before they are done. Why not let him help?"
"Senior Brother, look at the sun in the sky!"
The Black Tiger God looked up, and understanding dawned. "You are right. We cannot let the gods and demons of Taihuang Heaven help, or there is no telling what chaos would come of it!"
The man and the tiger set to work at once, smelting the demon soldiers and forging the components the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange required. There was no need to refine away the demon-nature; it was enough to melt them down and recast them.
Both were master forgers, and both were skilled in the arts of calculation. Every component was forged with matchless precision, and every rune-seal upon it had to be stamped without the slightest error, accurate to the unit of a shunxi, a mere blink, striving always for greater perfection.
The Sun-Forging Deity had forged the sun in the sky crooked and warped precisely because, when he designed his man-made sun, he had not demanded high precision of each component. By Shen Mu's reckoning, in the blueprints for that sun and a half, the Sun-Forging Deity had calculated at best to the unit of a hu or a wei, and so the sun hung crooked and warped, a sight too ugly to bear.
Yet for a sun to hang in the sky and look round, one had to calculate at the very least to the unit of a xuyu or a shunxi.
The sun and a half in the sky were several dozen times larger than the great altar. Shen Mu's demands for the precision of the altar's components were already exceedingly high, every component accurate to the unit of a shunxi, and that was why the sun in the sky stung his eyes.
The Woodcutter Sage, too, was a master of calculation and forging, and so he likewise could not abide the sun of Taihuang Heaven.
Ten days later, Sang Hua, Shu You, and the others came hurrying back, bringing several hundred divine-ability practitioners with them, and waited for Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God to activate the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange.
Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God were busy upon the altar, adjusting and testing, not daring to slacken for an instant. In those ten days they had slept only two or three times; they were truly exhausted, yet their spirits ran high.
Not long after, True God Pang Yu, Venerable God Sang Ye, and other deities arrived with thousands of divine-ability practitioners. All of them looked toward the altar, and saw that the great components, black as ink, had now merged with the altar into one body; components long and short alike stood straight up toward the sky like spears, halberds, sabers, and swords.
Those components were covered in strange runes, runes profound and hard to fathom. More runes appeared beneath the altar; the space under the altar had been all but hollowed out by Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God, who had also installed a great many giant components below, of the utmost complexity.
The altar itself had been bored through with complex passages, and within those passages lay countless more components, runes linking every component on the altar.
The whole altar was like a single body, and yet within it lay an internal structure of incomparable complexity.
Thousands of divine-ability practitioners and one deity after another circled the vast altar several times, gazing and marveling as they went. Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God had shown them a beauty of great metal, heavy and new to their eyes!
This beauty was not regular; on the contrary, it was precisely that irregularity, the staggered shadows, the very texture of metal and rune, that revealed a beauty all its own.
Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God installed the last component, checked the alignment of the altar in the other world, and exchanged a glance; each saw the same elation in the other's eyes.