Chapter 580 — The Hidden Insider
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
He had not wished to have any entanglement with the Heavenly Court; his aim had been simply to preserve his own rule, and fearing that the demon race would fall into the Heavenly Court's grasp, he had chosen not to ask the Heavenly Court for help, but instead to summon the Ancestors of the Demon Race from Youdu.
And now it seemed he had been far too naive.
The Heavenly Court had long since taken control of the Ancestors of the Demon Race in Youdu, and meant to use them as a means to control the entire demon race!
The moment he summoned Lu Li, the demon race had ceased to be his to command!
"Now you may tell me how you will capture that youth surnamed Shen," Lu Li said.
Fu Riluo steadied himself. "Taking him is not difficult. In storming cities and seizing lands, the heart is what must be taken first. Every man has his weakness. Among the divine-power cultivators of Taihuang Heaven, no few cling to life and fear death; no few have already thrown in with our demon race — there is even a deity among them. At a single command from me, someone will seize him and bring him to me."
Lu Li's eyes lit up. "You have a spy in Taihuang Heaven, and a deity at that. Who is he?"
At Li City, Shen Mu stood before the gate tower and saw from afar the Black Tiger God bounding like the wind, bringing the Dragon Qilin and Snow Fox back from the demon lands far away; with them came several hundred divine-power cultivators of Taihuang Heaven and Jingping.
"Fat Dragon seems to have grown thinner!"
Shen Mu's eyes brightened. In the days he had been away, the Dragon Qilin had actually lost a whole ring of fat; it still had a great belly, but at least its stomach no longer dragged on the ground.
Shen Mu was greatly comforted. After a moment the Black Tiger God reached the foot of the city wall, caught sight of him on the gate tower, and at once rose into the air with the Dragon Qilin and Snow Fox, alighted before Shen Mu, shook himself and became a youth, and said with a laugh, "Junior brother, you are back at last! Fat Dragon, spit out your Dark Water Dragon Pearl and let my junior brother have a look!"
The Dragon Qilin, seeing Shen Mu, was like one meeting kin; it was just about to pounce on him and beg for spirit pills, but at these words it sat down obediently and opened its mouth to spit out a pearl. Plainly it had taken no small number of beatings in this time and had grown quite docile.
The pearl rose into the air, and at once radiance filled the sky, a glory of many hues shining over tens of miles around!
Within the pearl was a dragon-shaped pattern, swimming ceaselessly through the Dark Water Dragon Pearl, carrying a shockingly powerful surge of watery vapor!
Shen Mu cried out in praise, but inwardly he was puzzled: this Dark Water Dragon Pearl of the Dragon Qilin's was smaller than any other he had seen before, no bigger than a finger, while the smallest he had ever seen had been the size of a fist.
"Isn't Fat Dragon of the fire attribute? How is its Dark Water Dragon Pearl of the water attribute? And so small — could it be that all the spirit pills it ate before were the wrong ones?"
He had barely thought this when the Dragon Qilin opened its mouth again and spat out another pearl, like a blazing sun in the sky, brimming with fierce heat; bathed in that light, Shen Mu even felt a stinging pain!
"Two Dark Water Dragon Pearls! No — the other is a Qilin Pearl!"
Shen Mu was astonished, then saw the truth of it: the second pearl was no Dark Water Dragon Pearl. Within it was the pattern of a strange beast in the form of a qilin, treading fire clouds, mouth open in a roar.
This Qilin Pearl was astonishingly large, as big as a bushel basket, two feet square, and within it lay a dreadfully powerful qilin fire!
The qilin fire surged without restraint, its force beyond compare; seeing this Qilin Pearl, Shen Mu even wondered whether the Dragon Qilin had now cultivated to the Life-Death Realm.