Chapter 575 — The One Who Holds the Heavenly Emperor's Jade Register
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"These star sands refined by our eldest senior brother are too heavy and solid—my strength can't move them at all!
" Shen Mu tossed aside the great cauldron and turned to sprint straight for the hall. Jiang Miao, seeing him come rushing back in such a fluster, leaped up onto the divine dragon's body, unsure what he meant to do.
Shen Mu channeled the Dragon-Rearing Sutra, but the divine dragon was dead, its primordial spirit devoured by a "fierce ghost" of Youdu, and there was no drawing on its cultivation at all. Had he been able to borrow this divine dragon's cultivation, he might still have fought Xing An. Shen Mu looked at Jiang Miao and shook his head.
"His cultivation is too poor—worse than mine. Even with the Dragon-Rearing Sutra I can't borrow much power.
. . Teleportation divine ability!
" Runes whirled around him as he prepared to flee with Jiang Miao, but with his cultivation he could carry Jiang Miao no more than a few dozen li—a distance that, to Xing An, was the space of a single breath. Before his teleportation runes could even be deployed, the runes suddenly ceased to turn, hanging motionless in the air.
Not only the teleportation runes—Shen Mu and Jiang Miao too were bound fast, unable to move.
Xing An came in from outside the hall, his face dark, one hand outstretched, fingers splayed, blood still dripping from them. Having completed the Divine Bridge and crossed to the Heavenly Palace, having become a god, his cultivation had risen to yet more terrifying heights; his strength was simply too great, and he had bound Shen Mu with effortless ease. He had been gravely wounded in the ten li of yellow sand, but he was a god after all, possessed of unfathomable powers; even the dregs of his strength could hold Shen Mu fast. Cold sweat broke out on Shen Mu's brow.
He forced out a thin smile. "Senior Brother Xing An, I'll just give you back the chest.
. .
" "It's not the chest I want.
It's you. " Xing An spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm. The wounds great and small across his body were a wretched sight; many gaped open, showing raw crimson flesh, and in places the white of bone.
All in all, his luck had been wretched: first trapped aboard the Ark of the Other Shore for the better part of a year—a place perilous beyond measure, full of seals and forbidden arts and killing formations, with the Silent Artisans to fend off from time to time. No sooner had he emerged than he ran into Shen Mu and was lured into the Ten-Mile Star Sand Tribulation Formation. Shen Mu had dusted off his hands and walked away, while he was left mired in the formation, his situation growing more perilous by the moment.
Only by exhausting every trick at his command had he held out this long. Had the star sand tribulation formation not suddenly ceased to turn, he would surely have failed and been refined alive into ash.
"Great Divine Physician, why must it be so hard to catch you? " Xing An swallowed the blood rising in his throat and said calmly, "Still, the good news is that you haven't escaped my grasp after all.
" Beneath his feet a darkness of incomparable density suddenly welled up—his Divine Treasury of Life and Death.
He walked forward as though treading the surface of dark water. Just then, in the darkness beneath his feet, an eye slowly surfaced.
Then another eye appeared, and then a beautiful woman's face emerged from the dark, her lithe and graceful figure rising into view as well. Xing An seemed to tread upon the surface of dark water, and the woman seemed his reflection—save that one was a man and the other a peerless beauty, each the other's mirror image.
The sight was profoundly uncanny. The two moved toward Shen Mu in perfect unison, their steps falling and lifting as one. Just as the darkness was about to touch Shen Mu, Xing An abruptly halted and advanced no further.