Chapter 631 — The Divine Eye Reveals Its Might
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Living in such a place, the common folk were naturally content and prosperous, free of desire and ambition, but at the same time too much peace had caused the arts of the Dao and divine powers to regress.
When the arts of the Dao and divine powers serve no purpose, no one cultivates them, and no one studies them.
They had been at peace too long; they had lost the daring and the drive to fight and strive. Shen Mu was different.
The place where Shen Mu had lived as a child was the Wilderness Ruins, perilous beyond measure, and yet by the time he was a youth he could already walk through those ruins, danger on every side. As for Jingping, it was a nation brimming with vitality, its strength rising madly; it had enemies, but it also had a stable rear.
The arts of the Dao and divine powers changed with each passing day.
While the soldiers at the front slaughtered and were slaughtered, the practitioners of divine powers in the rear applied the arts of the Dao to the common people, remaking their daily lives. Thus tower-ships, flying chariots, true-yuan cannons and all manner of novel things swarmed into being, making Jingping ever more creative, and its arts of the Dao and divine powers ever newer. As for Taihuang Heaven, the war there was so savage that it had no stable rear at all; even its social structure was incomplete, and with no soil for innovation and creation, the arts of the Dao and divine powers had no way to develop.
Shen Mu was born in the Wilderness Ruins; from childhood he had the careful instruction of the village head and the nine elders, and he came of age just as Jingping was expanding, in the great era of the Jingping Emperor's Master's reforms; that was how he had come to his present achievements. Moreover, he was one of the leaders of those reforms, the originator of the Eighteen Sword Forms, the pioneer of the Primal Spirit Guide, a being who had taken his first steps toward entering the Dao through the sword.
Compared with these Buddha-children who had lived in the Buddha Realm and never weathered a single storm, he and they had long since ceased to be people of the same order.
Shen Mu looked up. Ahead, the Buddha-child Puzhao was racing toward him.
This Buddha-child was a powerhouse of the Heaven-Human realm; he had debated the Dharma with Xuanliao the Demon Ape, his Buddha light shining upon all beings, and then the Demon Ape had raised a hand to block him, and he had coughed blood against his will and nearly died. He could not match Xuanliao the Demon Ape in debate, but his strength was unfathomable; as he ran he layered seal upon seal, each move, each fist and kick, vast and majestic, awesome in its discipline.
He unleashed his most practiced seal arts; with every seal struck, an impression of the Buddhas appeared. Behind him his primal spirit sat enthroned like a towering Buddha, and around that primal spirit hovered the phantom shadows of Buddhas great and small, each performing its own seal in time with his.
Puzhao ran, rolling toward him like thunder in the clouds; before the sound arrived, the lightning came! The seal art he now performed was a great divine power of the Great Merit Heaven of the Buddha Realm: Illuminating All Beings!
To master such a great divine power was granted to only a few even among the Buddha-children!
His momentum grew stronger and stronger, his primal spirit stronger and stronger, until it was the arrow on the string that must fly! At that moment, Shen Mu pressed his index and middle fingers together, formed a sword-finger, and touched it to his brow; then he thrust the sword-finger forward! The first form of the Tribulation Sword: Opening the Tribulation!
Puzhao had already erupted to his limit; a sword-light flew at him head-on, and he roared, the phantom Buddhas behind him each bursting forth, ten thousand dharmas striking forward. Shen Mu turned and walked away, leaping down from the air, falling to the ground.