Chapter 617 — Too Hot to Hold
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Zhe Huali's gaze flickered as he studied the box, trying to pry it open. But the little box was fitted so tightly that there was no seam to wedge apart; even when he hacked at it with his demon blade, he could not leave so much as a scratch on it.
Cold sweat broke out on Zhe Huali's brow. He tried every divine power for breaking seals, and even ran through the demon-path arts that Binding Sun Luo had imparted to him, but the box would not open.
He looked up and saw phoenix feathers drifting down through the air like autumn leaves in the wind — not withered yellow leaves, but blood-red maple leaves.
Shen Mu was riding Qi Jiuyi in midair, plucking feathers and hammering away, beating that nine-headed phoenix until blood was everywhere on its body.
Yet Qi Jiuyi was fierce beyond measure. Though its nine heads had taken the blade, it twisted its necks around, and the nine phoenix beaks opened wide to spew out bolts of dark radiance to cut Shen Mu down.
Shen Mu paid it no heed and kept hammering savagely, while the Butcher's Blades on Qi Jiuyi's nine phoenix heads suddenly flew out, leaving only the nine flying swords still lodged in the phoenix heads.
The other flying swords deployed Sword-Treading Mountains and Rivers, forming the pattern of a landscape before Shen Mu. No matter how the nine heads bombarded it, the landscape pattern never broke.
And Shen Mu's hammering was truly too ferocious. The divine powers he used to pound Qi Jiuyi's body were not mere physical-body arts — he brought out the Yin-Yang Heaven-Flipping Hand, the Five Thunders Sky-Supporting Bell, and the like, and at times a myriad stars and constellations floated up behind him as he unleashed the Great Luo Heaven Star Palm Force.
The might of any one of these arts was enough to split mountains and shatter stone, and they were not only divine-path arts — from time to time Shen Mu also deployed eerie, sinister demon-path arts. Though inferior in raw power to the divine-path arts — likely because he had not invested much effort in demon-path arts — the demon-path arts were aimed precisely at Qi Jiuyi's physical body, corroding his flesh, eroding his primordial spirit, greatly diminishing his body's resistance!
This was the most terrifying thing of all.
Zhe Huali watched, and could not help but shudder. If those arts of Shen Mu's landed on him, he feared his own skin would split and his flesh would tear; he would not withstand many blows before his primordial spirit was smashed apart and his body pounded into slush!
"Qi Jiuyi can be beaten to this state and still not die — he's truly stronger than me. His body has a strange self-repair ability that lets him hold out longer. But he won't hold out much longer before Shen Mu beats him to death! If Qi Jiuyi dies and I still can't open the little box and obtain the God-Slaying Mystic Blade, then the next person Shen Mu beats to death will be..."
Zhe Huali drew a long breath, leaped into the air, pulled the demon blade from his back, and hurled it from his hand. The demon blade streaked across the sky, and with a sudden shake, a huge, monstrous eye appeared behind it.
When that demon eye appeared, the blade-light shone into its pupil, and at once blade-light filled the heavens, dancing and surging toward Shen Mu and Qi Jiuyi.
The long blade swept vast and mighty. Zhe Huali's blade art differed from the Butcher's Heavenly Blade Nine Methods — the Heavenly Blade Nine Methods walked the straight and upright path, unrefined in calculation, seeking only a vast and majestic aura of noble spirit, transforming the open brilliance in a great scholar's breast into blade-light!
But Zhe Huali's blade art was mostly inherited from the Divine Blade Luo Wushuang. The Divine Blade Luo's art was skilled in calculation, somewhat resembling the Daoist sword — yet the Daoist sword deduced the Great Dao through numerology, whereas the Divine Blade Luo's art established the Great Dao through rules and measure.