Chapter 614 — The Withered Bones of Chiming
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu had already burst out of the All-Heaven Stars Slaughter Array and reached the doorway of the great hall, only to be met head-on by the Cangwu tree sweeping down. "You, Qi! " With the little box tucked under one arm, Shen Mu seized the sword pellet in his other hand; his palm quivered, and countless tiny flying swords poured out, becoming Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains, and clashed with the Cangwu tree in a thunderous collision.
Qi Jiuyi had loosed that great divine art in haste, and the Cangwu tree's power was nothing much — it was meant only to delay him; had the great art been whole, even Shen Mu would have had to bring out the Tribulation Sword to meet it.
Shen Mu's Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains cut the Cangwu tree down and broke Qi Jiuyi's divine art, but the blade-light came rushing at his face and shattered his Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains. "Zhe Huali!
" In a fury, Shen Mu evaded the edge of Zhe Huali's stroke, spun, and swung his sword; the second form of the Dao Sword, Five Qi and Three Primes in Blossoming Union, erupted, its sword-light becoming five qi and three primes with cloud-chariots interwoven, and at last he broke Zhe Huali's move. At the hall's doorway no divine art barred the way any longer.
Shen Mu crouched, knees bent, then suddenly loosed his strength and shot forward; with a great booming crash the air before him was compressed into a wall, and the wall burst.
His body soared into the air and rushed out through the shrine's doorway, a faint smile slowly blooming on his face.
And then his body froze in midair.
The smile on Shen Mu's face had not yet fully bloomed when it slowly faded, turning by degrees to alarm. He was drifting backward, feet off the ground, and no matter how he drove his divine arts, it was no use. In midair Shen Mu straightened his clothes, held the little box in both hands, and made himself reverent.
At last his feet touched the ground.
Shen Mu turned at once, raised the jade box high overhead in both hands, and said in a low voice: "Spare me, Senior!
" His hands grew light — the box flew up.
Shen Mu quietly lifted his eyes and saw the jade box come to rest before the three-headed, six-armed dried corpse. "Ugh—" That corpse was no dried corpse, but a being whose qi and blood had withered and whose vital essences had run dry, sunk into a state neither living nor dead. With the coming of Shen Mu and the other two, and the wounds of Qi Jiuyi and Zhe Huali, blood had flown into his mouth and barely kindled a spark of the fire of life.
From his throat came a sound that made the flesh crawl, as though he were rousing the workings of his own flesh; from within him too came that crackle and creak, like bones knocking together. "Ugh—water. .
. or blood!
" Shen Mu hastily drew a water skin from his Taotie Pouch and offered it up with reverence.
Ever since the affair of the Flame Desert in the Western Lands, he had always kept a few skins of pure water in the Taotie Pouch. The corpse raised a hand with immense difficulty, very slowly. "Senior, let me.
" Shen Mu stepped forward and, all eagerness, opened the skin and held it to the corpse's lips.
When the skin was drained, the head on the right rasped: "Water—" Shen Mu brought out another skin and held it to the right head's lips; when that was finished, he brought out a third and put it to the left head's mouth. The left head drank with difficulty, and Shen Mu, stealing a glance, was startled: the shriveled flesh of the two heads that had just drunk was slowly plumping out, and qi and blood seemed to stir within them again.
More than that, his blood vessels were like cracked earth after long drought meeting sweet rain; soon there came the sound of blood running within them.
"This dried corpse.
.
.
no, not a dried corpse.