Chapter 614 — The Withered Bones of Chiming
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
He must be a mighty one of three hundred and fifty thousand years ago! He cultivated a wondrous art that sank him into feigned death, so that this divine mountain would not devour him.
A most mysterious method indeed," Shen Mu thought. The corpse's face slowly plumped; by degrees the lineaments of a face could be made out, no longer mere skin stretched over bone.
Yet his fleshly body must have been drained cruelly; water alone could not restore him to his own face.
Still, one could dimly see that he had been a man of middle years. "Senior. .
. " Shen Mu was about to speak when he saw the three-headed, six-armed man lift his eyelids; the parched eyes in their sockets swelled slowly, pupil and white growing distinct. "What year is it now?
" The man raised a hand, took the little box into his grasp, set it on his knee, and said, breath failing him.
Shen Mu hesitated, then said: "It is the Jingping era now. As for the year, I am not certain. " "Jingping?
" The three-headed, six-armed man tried to rise but could not, and, panting, said: "Should it not be Kaihuang?
Has the Kaihuang era perished too?
" Shen Mu answered honestly: "It perished twenty thousand years ago. Senior, you must have sunk into silence twenty thousand years past, and woken to a world twenty thousand years later.
Why did Senior come to the Demon Race's land? This is Luofu Heaven, the Demon Race's own; because of it the Demon Race nearly met destruction, and so they invaded Taihuang Heaven.
Senior's planet. . .
" The three-headed, six-armed man wheezed: "I am a remnant of the Chiming era. For how many tens of thousands of years I hid and fled I do not know; because I wished to go home, I came out from my hiding place, meaning to return to the ancestral land of Chiming.
On the road we learned that it was now the Kaihuang era, and then we met the enemy, and were forced to flee into this place. " "Enemy? " Shen Mu was taken aback.
The three-headed, six-armed man said calmly: "The enemy that destroyed my Chiming era. The Kaihuang era has perished as well; it must be the work of the same enemy.
Heh heh, I have heard that before the Kaihuang era there was yet the Shanghuang era. .
.
" He shook his head: "I am of the Chiming Divine Race of the Chiming era; my name is Chixi. I was once the overseer of executions in the Heavenly Court of the Chiming era, holding the power of life and death.
Whenever a god or demon transgressed, none escaped death upon the God-Slaying Terrace. " Shen Mu blurted out: "Then this divine mountain.
. .
" "This mountain is no mountain.
It is the God-Slaying Terrace. " The three-headed, six-armed man, Chixi, paused a moment and evened his breath, then said: "On the God-Slaying Terrace gods and demons are slain.
This terrace has drunk the blood of I know not how many offending gods and demons, and over the ages it has grown a great malevolence, so that even I suffer its backlash. I went to war with the Demon Race and was wounded myself; the terrace turned on me, and I had no choice but to seal myself away and sink into silence. Help me up. " Shen Mu went to him and helped him; Chixi's palm clamped onto his shoulder near the neck, and he got to his feet, swaying.
Shen Mu endured the pain: "Senior, you are hurting me. " Chixi seemed not to hear. Bearing down on his shoulder and neck, he walked to the mural, studied the starry sky upon it, and murmured: "The ancestral land — the ancestral land is here. .
.
I am not dead yet; I can still return to the ancestral land. They must still be waiting for me to carry them word. .
. Do you know? The reason this God-Slaying Terrace is so monstrous is that it was forged from the God-Slaying Terrace in the divine treasury of the Heavenly Palace — the God-Slaying Terrace of an Imperial Throne powerhouse.
" Shen Mu was appalled, and murmured: "An Imperial Throne powerhouse.
.