Chapter 591 — The Grudge-Bound Enemy
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Butcher, the Blind Elder, and the Silent Artisan rushed forward in a clatter, their eyes blazing as they fixed on his eyes, staring without blinking at his third eye.
Suddenly a thunderous boom rang out. The Lame Elder had already fled a hundred li away, but when he looked back and saw Butcher and the others gathered around Shen Mu, even his famously thick hide could not keep his old face from flushing red. He turned and ran back.
Everyone knew he was timid, yet no one mocked him. Instead, they examined Shen Mu's eyes with great care.
Shen Mu's eyeballs darted back and forth. He stammered, "Grandmother, Grandfathers, what are you all looking at?"
Grandmother Zhu examined him most carefully of all. She found nothing abnormal in his third eye. She could only see that the pupil of this eye was like the pattern of a butterfly's wing—the veins within it clearly different from those of an ordinary human eye, structured like a butterfly's wing, and these patterns were ceaselessly drifting and shifting.
"Shen'er, can you truly not remember what just happened?" Grandmother Zhu asked.
Shen Mu pondered bitterly. Suddenly his eyes lit up. "I remember!"
The others could not help growing anxious. Shen Mu laughed. "I was channeling the Three Cores of the Mystic Body, and when I ran the Sacred Pupil technique that Blind Grandfather perfected into my third eye, I felt an incomparably vast power surge in—as though I were omnipotent. And then…"
His brow furrowed tightly. He sank back into deep thought. The memory after that was a complete blank. It was as though he had lost a segment of his memory.
And this was not the first time. In Fengdu, when King Yan sealed his jade pendant, it had happened once. Later, when Varahi also sealed the jade pendant, it happened again.
This time it had nothing to do with the jade pendant—yet unexpectedly, he had still lost a segment of memory.
"The jade pendant… where is my jade pendant?"
Shen Mu's scalp suddenly went numb. He scrambled to his feet in panic, searching high and low, his hands and feet ice-cold. His voice trembled. "My ancestral jade pendant is gone… Bah, not ancestral—it's the jade pendant that Earthlord forged for me to suppress my demonic nature! It's gone! Grandmother, Blind Grandfather, did any of you see my jade pendant… Lame Grandfather, you must have taken it, right? Don't joke around—the curse will erupt! Give it back, quickly!"
The Lame Elder shook his head. "I didn't steal your jade pendant. But the curse did indeed erupt."
Shen Mu's body convulsed. He stood there dazed, staring at the enormous pit before him.
Before him, the original Wuyou City had vanished, replaced by a massive abyss—unfathomably vast, filled with churning magma and a sea of fire.
A true sea of magma, terrifyingly vast.
"The power of this curse is somewhat terrifyingly great—a hundred times more terrifying than the time I fell into Varahi's hands…" Shen Mu murmured.
"Shen'er, Earthlord appeared just now. He placed your jade pendant into your third eye."
Grandmother Zhu walked over and instructed, "Clear your head first. We few will go over there and discuss matters."
Shen Mu nodded blankly.
Grandmother Zhu glanced at the Blind Elder. The Blind Elder instantly became alert and was about to slip away when Butcher and the Silent Artisan flanked him from left and right, one seizing his left arm, the other his right.
"What are you doing?"
The Blind Elder was hoisted up by them, both feet dangling in the air. He cried out, "We're all from the same village! What are you doing? Have some decency at least! Shen'er, Shen'er…"
Butcher and the Silent Artisan, faces wreathed in smiles, carried him off into the distance. Shen Mu turned back, about to ask what was happening, when Grandmother Zhu smiled gently. "Shen'er, we're going to discuss matters. You needn't come along. Clear your head properly. Lame Elder, Deaf Elder, let's go. Bashan, you come too."
The group departed.