Chapter 622 — Beneath the Evening Mist, Silver Blossoms and Fiery Trees
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The cries of slaughter rose.
Devil-gods by the dozen roared in fury and came for Chi Xi. After a blood-soaked battle the corpses piled into mountains, and even Chi Xi could not help but feel weary. He cultivated the Leakless War God Art of the Crimson Bright era, a method that plundered blood and qi from the bodies of others and kept him at his peak at every hour, and with three heads and six arms his close-quarters onslaught was all but perfect. So long as an enemy was wounded, their blood and qi drained away without cease, and the drained blood and qi poured into his own body; one waned as the other waxed, and the longer the fight lasted, the better it served him.
This art was reckoned among the finest of the Crimson Bright era. Many cultivated it in those days, and no few devil-gods among them, which is why the devil-gods of the Crimson Bright era so often wore the form of three heads and six arms.
The Leakless War God Art had two flaws. The first was the burden it laid upon the flesh, so that the body felt weariness, though the blood and qi only grew more abundant. The second flaw lay in divine powers.
Because it was an art of close combat, his attainment in divine powers was not especially high. This executioner of the Crimson Bright era sat atop the high heap of corpses.
Night had fallen; firelight glimmered on every side, flames left behind by divine powers, sending up threads of black smoke in the dusk.
Gu City lay in ruins.
Paper boats came sailing in out of the dark, one after another, and the underworld runners aboard them gathered up the souls of the slain. Chi Xi watched these runners appear so abruptly, wooden-faced, and asked them nothing.
He was, after all, the executioner of the Crimson Bright Heavenly Court, a figure of immense standing, long since inured to such sights.
He sat on his mountain of corpses and looked into the distance, where a devil-god with three faces was walking toward him. As it walked it adjusted its own state step by step, a fearsome opponent indeed.
Honored King Vajra!
Chi Xi rested one leg on the head of a corpse beneath him, the other dangling loose and easy, steadying his breath, calming his heart, striving to press his rage down and wait for the moment it would burst. His foe was a Honored King of the devil race. He had once slain another Honored King of that race, relying on the Divine-Slaying Mystic Blade.
He knew well how mighty and terrible such an opponent was; his heart had to be made perfect, and he could give his enemy no opening whatsoever.
Rage, and the thirst for vengeance, gave him strength, but they robbed him of reason. Only by pressing the rage down, and then, at the instant of the death-struggle, suddenly releasing the long-suppressed fury to strike the enemy a fatal blow, would he taste that perfect exhilaration, that full pouring-out of wrath; the success of his vengeance would bring his Dao heart joy beyond measure. In the distance, Honored King Vajra was still striding near.
Looked at carelessly, he seemed less a devil-god of the devil race than a handsome, gentle man of middle years who had read all the books of poetry. As he walked, his arms turned and flew, working divine powers, one after another unfolding in succession; yet these powers gathered without dispersing, their might held back and unspent. His stride was not quick, yet his speed was extreme, giving the illusion that he was racing down from a high mountain.
That was a momentum, an invincible momentum!
Momentum was not a matter of how fast the steps fell. His steps were slow, yet he gave the impression of an overwhelming, unrivaled force. The speed at which his divine powers accumulated was frightful, and it pressed upon Chi Xi, heavier and heavier, until he could sit still no longer.