Chapter 590 — The Calamity of Wuwang City
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
At the center of Shen Mu's brow, that willow-leaf-shaped vertical eye slowly opened, and from the seam of the eye a radiance like the veins of a butterfly's wing spilled out from either side of the lid, so dazzling it seized the eye.
"How beautiful!"
Granny Zhu could not help but cry out in admiration — though in the very next instant she saw that these butterfly-wing veins, for all their splendor, seemed to hold something unspeakably dreadful within them.
Zaifu, the Blind Elder, and the rest pressed closer to look, and saw that as Shen Mu's art drove it on, the eye opened wider and wider, the butterfly wings growing larger and larger, until it seemed his head had become a great butterfly! The butterfly, of course, was on his forehead.
Suddenly, Zaifu and the others felt threads of a dreadful throb, as though some hideous demon-monster were waking in the abyss and slowly opening its blood-red eyes.
"What is it?"
Zaifu, the Blind Elder, and the Silent Craftsman were the first to grasp it, and without meaning to they let loose wave after wave of terrifying divine might. They had sensed a threat and reacted beyond their own will, each at his own speed. Zaifu was fastest: with a clear, soaring cry of the blade, his divine saber flew up, spun a full circle, and hung in the air. The Silent Craftsman came next; behind him the forge-fire shot a pillar of flame into the heavens, the column whirling madly in the air and scorching the sky red. The Blind Elder was a shade slower; the Dragon Tuo divine spear clattered and quivered and became a black dragon coiled about his body, poised to strike.
Then Granny Zhu, too, involuntarily released her aura; countless stars surfaced behind her and formed the Great Luo Heaven star-force field, to hold back that dreadful throb.
Boom—
The Lame Elder was off and running, and in the next breath he was a hundred li away, only then coming to his senses: "It seems to have come from inside little Shen — not some frightful monster..."
Zheng—
Ba Shan drew his saber and swept a doubtful, startled look around him, crying harshly: "Where has this demon-monster come from?"
He too was a Grandmaster; though his saber art could not match that of a strong one like Zaifu who had entered the Way through the saber, he had founded the school that fuses battle and art, and he was keenly sensitive to unknown peril.
The Deaf Elder and the Alchemist were utterly at a loss, the Alchemist especially, who had no idea at all what was happening.
The Deaf Elder's cultivation had not yet reached the god realm; he had trained only to the middle stage of the Divine Bridge and had not begun to repair his Divine Bridge. He was drunk on the way of painting, his ears closed to all the world's affairs, and his reactions were somewhat dull. The Alchemist had two years ago finally succeeded in breaking through the wall of life and death, and was still in the life-and-death realm; he did not set much store by cultivation, and so his realm advanced very slowly. Only after Shen Mu passed on the Magpie Bridge Formula, the Mystic Guide Formula, and the Divine Crossing Formula did he turn his mind to training — but with so many women about him, his progress was dragged down all the same.
These two were the slowest of them all, yet even they soon sensed that something was wrong. That sudden, dreadful throb seemed to be some incomparably hideous demon-monster slowly waking; and the source of that dreadful throb was precisely the third eye Shen Mu was opening!
They all looked to Shen Mu's brow. The light bursting from that eye grew ever more gorgeous, and in the gorgeous light a black shadow could dimly be seen walking.
It was a very small black shadow, like a tiny infant — but it trod upon the light, walking out step by step from the depths of Shen Mu's third eye, and with every step the infant grew and swelled, until at last it was about to fill Shen Mu's third eye!