Chapter 638 — The Dark Earth-Core
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
. " Shen Mu skirted the skeletons and caught up with those figures, thinking: "Now the skeletons aren't imitating me anymore — I wasn't frightened into lying flat on the ground. " King Buddha Sakra was saying something to those men, his voice very soft and faint, almost inaudible.
But gradually the voice grew louder and clearer. Shen Mu listened closely.
The faceless figure at the center, the one who seemed of the most honored rank, was saying: ". .
. Before our era there were several other eras.
I have gone to explore the ruins of those ages, trying to search out the origin of our enemy, to see just who our enemy truly is. I went again to Youdu and questioned Lord Earth; I went to see the Lord of Heaven, who was overseeing the motion of a billion stars. I have also paid visits to many of the innate gods and demons of the stars of the heavens. And, curiously enough, I did discover some useful things. It may be that our enemy is not as we imagine — the Heavenly Court. . . " Shen Mu leaned in to listen, and the voice dropped low again. "Think of defeat before you think of victory. Sakra, I need you to do one thing for me: gather every skilled craftsman under heaven and forge a place where we may take shelter even after defeat, preserving a portion of our strength to wait for the day we rise again. In my search for the secrets of the Heavenly Court this time, I found a wondrous place.
.
. " The voice grew fainter and fainter, until it could no longer be made out. Shen Mu followed them onward. The voice grew softer and softer, and at last he could hear nothing at all. And the further forward he went, the more indistinct the figures of King Buddha Sakra and the others became — more and more indistinct.
When they walked into a mansion and passed through its gate, the gods standing to either side closed the doors, and the figures of King Buddha Sakra and the rest vanished in an instant!
Shen Mu was dumbstruck. He had followed these figures into the mansion, and as the doors shut, King Buddha Sakra and the others disappeared before his very eyes!
"This. . . this must be.
. .
a gaze!
" Shen Mu bowed his head in thought for a moment, then suddenly raised it, his eyes bright as snow. He struck fist to palm: "A gaze! This must be the Kaihuang Era, more than twenty thousand years ago. Someone in this divine city saw this scene and turned what he saw into a memory! I am inside that person's memory! Eldest Senior Brother, like me, walked into this person's memory! A memory is what the eyes see turned into a vision in the mind. The one who saw this scene did not enter the mansion, and so when King Buddha Sakra and the others went inside, their figures vanished. .
. " He passed through the gate and came outside, his gaze searching in all directions: "He did not see the faces of those personages — which means those personages were too powerful. Their features must have been veiled by their own divine light, so that this man could not see their faces clearly; and therefore in the memory these people have no faces at all! Then where did he see this scene from. . .
" Shen Mu walked back the way he had come, his gaze like lightning, searching everywhere, thinking: "This person must have had a strange appearance. He may have been a being with many heads and many faces, able to see both ahead and behind. . .
" There were many gods and demons in the city; the streets were thronged with comers and goers, and it was hard to determine whose memory this was. This divine city must have been a place of great importance in Taiming Heaven.