荒墟牧神 - 第607章 誅神之刃 - 簡牘書房

Shen Mu burst out of the temple and came whistling to the stone steps of the Divine Mountain, then flung himself flat, hiding his body beneath a step. Two thick beams of divine light swept over his head flush against the ground, scorching the mountain's stone slabs to a glowing red.

The moment they had passed, Shen Mu rolled twice, dropped to the steps below, rose, and bolted down the mountain like an enraged dragon, great plumes of smoke rolling behind him. As he sprinted he drove his primordial qi to churn out a fog, so that the whole mountain was veiled in mist.

And yet, from the wound on his neck, his vital blood was spilling out, pulled from his body, drawn into the mountain itself.

That wound had been made by Chixi's fingernail at the edge of his throat.

On this God-Slaying Platform, even the smallest wound could not heal on its own, nor be cured by medicine; so long as a wound remained, the platform would drain the qi and blood from it. The only course was to leave this mountain while he was still alive. Shen Mu was losing vital blood at a terrifying speed.

He did not dare look back to see whether it was the platform or Chixi taking it from him. He could only grit his teeth and race downward.

At last he reached the foot of the mountain, his mind gone blank. From the loss of blood his ears rang like thunder and his eyes went dark and heavy.

Shen Mu sent his primordial spirit out of his body to see the surroundings, while his right hand flew to his Taotie pouch, drew out the dragon spittle, and poured it over the wound on his neck; then he took out a Spirit Buddha Pill to replenish blood and nourish vigor, and swallowed it in haste. He felt his body and was shocked to the core—in this brief moment he had become nothing but skin and bone.

It would take some time of careful rest before he could recover.

To have two takers, the God-Slaying Platform and Chixi, seizing his qi and blood and still not be wrung dry—that in itself was a considerable feat.

"I do wonder whether Chixi was at work behind my blood draining so fast.

" Shen Mu, thin as a bamboo pole, tucked the little box under his arm and staggered forward, away from this uncanny divine mountain, thinking: "My Blood-Dissolving Powder was placed in the water. First he absorbed the blood of Zhe Huali and Qi Jiuyi and used their two lives' blood to wake himself; then he used my three sacks of water to moisten his body, and the powder would have seeped with that water into every corner of his flesh. When he absorbs my blood, the powder will dissolve the blood he has stolen along with it. He woke through blood; once that blood is dissolved, he will sink back into stillness. But if Chixi saw the danger early enough, he may well have held back a portion of clean blood. " A great master of both medicine and poison, Shen Mu knew how one might hold back a portion of clean blood, and he knew where Chixi would have put it: in his eyes—those very eyes that had shot forth the divine light. Only in one pair of eyes would he have clean blood.

Whether Chixi would sink back into slumber again, Shen Mu could not know, and so he had to keep his distance from this mountain. "If he is clever, he will press the water out of his body, let himself dry into a husk, then use the last of the blood in his eyes to stand himself up.

" Shen Mu urged his remaining primordial qi to melt the Spirit Buddha Pill in his belly, thinking: "May he not be that clever.

"

Inside the temple, Chixi knelt like a wooden carving, utterly motionless.

From the fingertips of his six hands thin streams of murky water trickled, fine and turbid, laced with milky-white bad blood.

Shen Mu's Blood-Dissolving Powder could not dissolve his divine blood. What it dissolved was the blood of Qi Jiuyi and Zhe Huali that he had absorbed; and the part of Shen Mu's blood he had taken in was dissolved as well.

After a long time, the water within Chixi's body was completely drained.