Chapter 639 — The Head in the Jar
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
From the vault of that dark cavern down to the light below, the distance was unbelievably vast. Shen Mu fell and fell, until at last a chill of dread crept over even him. His speed of descent grew faster and faster; at this rate, if he could not summon his divine powers to slow his fall, he would surely be dashed into a puddle of pulp!
He tried to rouse his divine powers. No sooner had his vital essence formed a rune-seal than the rune scattered and would not take shape.
This subterranean space possessed a strange power that interfered with the working of his arts and the operation of his divine powers. Shen Mu soon discovered that this interference was an intrusion upon his very thoughts. Whenever he attempted to exercise his divine powers, some inexplicable force threw his mind into disorder, so that he could not bring them forth at all.
"A psychic divine power?"
Shen Mu was astonished. Such powers were rarely seen, yet the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Scripture and certain demon-path arts contained records of them. They were usually illusory attacks: by means of powerful thought-waves one generated a divine power that struck the opponent's brain, plunging him into an illusion where he could not tell the false from the true.
At such times one could use one's own divine powers to shatter the illusion, pierce through to the truth, and slay the foe.
Yet the psychic divine power in this dark subterranean space was far more formidable. It attacked his thoughts directly, preventing him from exercising any divine power at all, and so he had no way to break the opponent's psychic art.
"A psychic divine power — now there's a direction worth studying. When I get back I must speak of it with Imperial Preceptor Jingping, and see whether we might cultivate some scholars well-versed in psychic divine powers. If they took the battlefield, a psychic power bursting forth would leave the enemy unable to use their own arts — it would be like slaughtering chickens and butchering dogs... Bah, what am I thinking? Right now I'm about to be smashed into pulp myself!"
Shen Mu could not concentrate his spirit, but his physical body was still immensely powerful. At once he began to stride forward, attempting to run through the darkness, hoping that by an utterly terrifying running speed he might be able to walk upon the air.
He immediately discovered another peculiarity: the air here was thin, and the farther he fell, the thinner it became, so that even with his legs churning like wheels he could borrow no purchase from it.
Just then he saw a star in the darkness. That star was in fact only the size of a basket, and must be a grain of star sand.
"Eldest Senior Brother's star sand! So he really did come here!"
Joy rose in Shen Mu's heart. He planted both feet upon that basket-sized grain of star sand. The sand was pressed into a rapid fall, but within it was a strange force that resisted the uncanny force-field of this place. After falling for a time its momentum gradually weakened, and then it showed a tendency to rebound.
Shen Mu at once crouched, bending his legs, and suddenly sprang forth, landing upon another grain of star sand. He leaped like a flying thing, stepping across dozens of grains of star sand, bounding like a pellet of stars, and soon drew near to where the earth-core light shone.
The place from which the earth-core light issued was a platform floating in the darkness, with flights of steps on all four sides, wide below and narrow above, floating all alone at the center of the dark like an altar suspended in the void.
Shen Mu landed upon the altar and looked back. He saw grains of star sand drifting in the darkness — the Founding Patriarch had clearly found this place and laid down a formation. Which meant that the thing upon this altar was what the Founding Patriarch had wished to leave behind for Sage Woodcutter.