Chapter 593 — The Old Scholar Whose Verse Presses Down the Star River
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Behind him his primal spirit rose into being and, brush in hand, painted alongside him, pouring out its heart's blood, writing out a vast and magnificent composition, the very look of rivers and mountains.
Beside them, Shen Mu, Bashan the Libationer, Granny Zhu, and the rest all stared, dumbstruck.
They had never once imagined that the Deaf Elder — always grave of face, honest and simple — could have such a side: so free of restraint, so willful, so wild and unfettered.
With magma for ink and the earth for paper, in no long time he had covered scores of acres of ground with molten fire; the painting on that ground, wrapped in the blaze, shone so golden that it stung the eyes.
Who could have thought that in the heart of a mere old scholar there burned such full-throated, sweeping passion?
The Deaf Elder painted on without pause. He painted heaven and earth, heaven left blank, earth green; he painted wind and cloud, thunder and lightning; he painted towering mountains and rivers; he painted god after god and demon after demon, each with its own bearing, no two alike; he painted endless armies, grim and murderous, charging, those sinews and muscles like forged steel, hideous, their blades keen and bright.
He painted out a battlefield, and countless lithe figures leaping; at a single glance Shen Mu and the others felt that the gods and demons in the painting, the armies there, would leap right out of it!
The explosive power in those muscles, those figures slashing down with their blades, the lightning and thunder about to burst from the clouds, the torrential rain about to break, the howling hurricane, the ravaging tornado, the collapsing mountains, the boiling sea — how real, how utterly real it all was!
The Deaf Elder was painting a vast and magnificent world, and making that world come true!
The Butcher's song had made his inspiration burst, stirred his feelings to the depths, roused the heroic ardor and the creative power in his breast; he was wholly sunk in this mad creation, speaking straight from the heart, giving free rein to the visions within him.
After no one knew how long, the Blind Elder said in desperate alarm, "The demon army is almost here! A hundred li away!"
The Deaf Elder turned a deaf ear and painted on.
The Blind Elder frowned. "Eighty li!"
Shen Mu raised his head and looked toward the eighty li. There the murky demonic aura came rushing toward them like black fog; the array-patterns in his eyes opened layer upon layer, and his heart lurched. Among the mountains, countless gigantic monsters were surging like a tide over peak after peak, racing the whole way, brandishing all manner of uncanny weapons, mouths gaping as they bellowed and charged.
They were barely clothed, their garments ragged and torn — not like the demon clans of Luofu Heaven, but rather like refugees in flight.
They were enormous of body, running as though flying, and shaped monstrously, as if pieced together from different living things; their muscles and organs were crooked and deformed, far, far more terrible than the demon clans.
Some were covered with the heads of every race, their arms made of countless arms twisted together; some were all white bone, monsters grown out of skeletons; some had faces crowded with eyes great and small; some had legs and feet beyond counting, like centipedes.
Their weapons too were utterly primitive: great bone clubs with flesh still on them. Bloodlust glittered in their eyes, and as they ran they destroyed everything.
"These are no demon clans. These are monsters from Youdu!"
Shen Mu forced down the shock in his heart. These were deformed monsters born when wandering souls of Youdu absorbed its demonic aura and its demonic nature!
Youdu was not wholly Tubo's domain. He had once traveled there; though not for long, he had seen enough to know that Tubo set little store by power.
What Tubo cared about most was the rules. The rules of Youdu.