Chapter 638 — The Dark Earth-Core
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Teacher Woodcutter once said that some of the places on Eldest Senior Brother's maps are exceedingly perilous — places even he would not lightly set foot in. Could this divine city of Taiming Heaven be one of them? " Shen Mu's eyes flickered.
He weighed the matter this way and that, and at last decided not to enter the divine city, but to go around it. He walked along the city's edge, and all at once caught sight of a figure.
He hurriedly halted.
"King Buddha Sakra!
" Shen Mu very nearly cried out aloud. He had seen another King Buddha Sakra — or rather, the King Buddha Sakra of the Kaihuang Era!
At that time King Buddha Sakra was not yet a Buddha, but a god with the look of a handsome youth, clear-browed and fine-featured. There was no Buddha-light behind his head, nor did he wear the dharma robe he wears now; nor was he barefoot. On his feet were gilded winged cloud-treading boots; on his body, armor of dazzling gold.
In those days King Buddha Sakra was no Buddha Patriarch, but a god of lofty station and great power! Shen Mu was stunned. King Buddha Sakra was not alone; he was escorting several great personages toward the divine city.
Shen Mu's heart pounded wildly.
As though possessed, he followed after them. Those people looked right through him, and even the gods and demons standing guard throughout the city seemed unable to see him.
Doubts rose in Shen Mu's mind. Suddenly he heard footsteps and turned quickly — a crowd of skeleton monsters were creeping along behind him on tiptoe, furtive and skulking, heads drawn in. Shen Mu laughed despite himself: "These dead things, so sneaking and furtive — how absurd.
. . Hm, no.
These dead are imitating the way I walk. So then the furtive, sneaking one is. .
. " His face reddened slightly. He went on tiptoeing forward, came to King Buddha Sakra's side, and reached out to tug at his robe — and grasped only air.
His hand passed straight through the hem of King Buddha Sakra's garment without touching anything solid.
Startled, Shen Mu waved his hand again. This time his palm passed through King Buddha Sakra's body, and still touched nothing at all!
"This divine city, and all these gods and demons in it — none of them are real!
" Shen Mu's expression went blank.
Could this be an afterglow of history? But an afterglow of history is the form and voice of a powerful being imprinted upon space, revealed only when something disturbs it; the figures of the weak cannot be imprinted by time and space. Yet here was an entire divine city, with many ordinary folk in it.
Plainly this was no afterglow of history. And the fact that he could not touch the people or the gods and demons of the city showed that he had not returned to the past either!
Then what, exactly, was this divine city?
King Buddha Sakra and those few walked on, talking as they went.
From King Buddha Sakra's manner, these men must be extraordinary beings indeed, their status perhaps even above his own. Shen Mu wanted to circle around to the front and see what these men looked like. When he came before them, he could not help but start.
The faces of these men were utterly blank — no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no nose, as though a sheet of paper had been pasted over each face! The skeletons had followed him around to the front as well.
Their jaws clattered loose and dropped to the ground; plainly they too were astonished. Whoosh — King Buddha Sakra and the others passed straight through Shen Mu's body.
Shen Mu stood dumbstruck; he felt nothing at all pass through him. He reached out to grab, and caught no one.
The skeletons fell into a fluster, groping about the ground for their jaws.
When those figures passed through their bodies as well, the skeletons trembled and shook, and lay prone on the ground, not daring to move. The remnant soul within one of the skeletons must have been relatively intact, for it wailed in a tearful voice: "Ghost.
.