Chapter 638 — The Dark Earth-Core
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
The number of gods and demons was beyond belief, and many of them had cultivated to the primal spirit form, and so were fantastically varied. Primal spirit forms like the four-spirit bodies of the Wasteland could be seen everywhere here. There were gods with human heads and serpent bodies, gods with ox heads and human bodies, bird heads on human bodies, human heads on bird bodies — a thousand strange shapes; and gods and demons with several heads were not at all uncommon.
Shen Mu looked this way and that. One god or demon after another passed through him or beside him, yet he still could not find the one who had seen this scene. "The whole divine city is essentially displayed within the memory — which means this person must have stood somewhere high. Only by standing high enough could he take in the whole city and imprint it upon his mind.
. .
" Shen Mu suddenly looked up toward the watchtower. Upon the watchtower in the city stood a god — likewise faceless! Shen Mu leapt into the air and flew swiftly to the high watchtower.
He circled the god once in flight. This god had a single head bearing four faces, a vertical eye at the brow, nine eyes in all; the topknot on his head was like a pagoda canopy, and at the very tip of that pagoda canopy was another eye, able to see in all directions!
"It's you! I've fallen into your memory! " Joy rose in Shen Mu's heart. He stepped forward abruptly and walked into the god's body. In an instant the scenery around him changed at furious speed.
The divine city collapsed and was extinguished; all the gods and demons and the common folk of the city twisted and vanished.
A crowd of skeleton monsters had been lying prone on the ground, shivering, in the divine city.
Suddenly the city was gone; everywhere were broken walls and heaps of white bones. The skeleton monsters were frightened out of their wits and ran about like headless flies.
And at the center of the city, where the watchtower should have been, there was now a deep, dark hole. A skeleton lost its footing and went tumbling down with a rattle, trailing a long, miserable scream. Shen Mu too stepped into empty air.
Alarmed, he was just about to use his divine ability to fly up when he felt a strange force field dissolve his power into nothing. His body plunged at furious speed. In his ears came the sound of stones rolling and falling and the screams of the skeleton monsters.
He hastily raised his hand and shot his vital essence out in all directions; at last one strand caught on something and steadied him. Then Shen Mu sent out another thread of vital essence, wrapped it around a falling skeleton, and gave a gentle flick. The skeleton flew up, arms and legs flailing, and landed outside the deep dark hole, dazed and bewildered, not knowing what had happened.
The other skeletons came up, jaws opening and closing, comforting it in silence. The crowd of skeletons lay at the edge of the hole and peered down. Beneath the ruins of this divine city was an incomparably vast hollow world, pitch-black within.
No one could tell how deep or how wide the hole was. Shen Mu hung from the thread of vital essence like a tiny insect suspended in endless darkness, infinitely small. The skeletons were aghast. One clutched another's foot, another clutched a third's foot, linking themselves into a line, trying to form a rope of white bone to haul Shen Mu up.
Just then something lit up in the darkness; light came through.
It was too far away for Shen Mu to see clearly. He urged on the Nine Heavens Far-Sight Art, but no sooner had he done so than the ability scattered into disorder and his two eyes nearly burst. He hastily abandoned the idea.
"Thank you! " Shen Mu drew in the thread of vital essence, bringing himself to the top of the dark cavern, head down and feet up, his legs braced against the stone wall, and called out loudly: "I'll go down and take a look first — you can haul me back up afterward!