Chapter 642 — A Youth's Disdain
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
His heart, no doubt, thought the same. He was a man who had lived through that sorrowful age, and his seal art bore the deep brand of that age. His seal art could borrow the force of heaven's collapse, and could borrow the force of earth's rending; its power was supreme, its might inexhaustible.
This was precisely why the Human Emperors of every generation could not compare with him.
The Human Emperors of every generation bore heavy burdens, but none had lived through such years of grief as the First Ancestor: seeing heaven and earth overturn, seeing the splendid and magnificent Heavenly Court collapse, seeing countless kin and warriors die miserably, seeing the yellow dust bury a glorious age. Only with such experience came such a state of mind; only with such a state of mind could one create such an art and divine ability.
The Human Emperors lacked that experience and that state of mind, and so the arts and divine abilities they created were naturally inferior. The Human Emperors exchanged glances, appalled at heart: even the First Ancestor Human Emperor, facing Shen Mu, was forced onto the defensive, into the inferior position—truly and unmistakably pressed into the inferior position!
Though traces of Lizheng, of the Daoist sect's Dao Sword, and of Imperial Preceptor Jingping's sword art still lingered in Shen Mu's swordsmanship, his sword art already showed a tendency to leap free of their influence.
The mood within his sword art differed from that within the First Ancestor's seal art.
His sword art held none of Lizheng's melancholy remembrance of the ancients and of ages past, none of the Dao Sword's cunning calculation, none of Imperial Preceptor Jingping's wisdom in embracing the world and devising strategy from afar.
His sword art was instead unrestrained, like a prairie fire; like a spring wind sweeping over a desolate grassland, full of vitality and fighting spirit.
His sword art seemed bent on sweeping away demonic miasma and rooting out decay; it held the great boldness of sweeping away the old and establishing the new, the great perseverance of a fire fed with oil, striving to be strong. Within his sword art was another kind of world-shaking boldness, a state of mind brought by another age—an age utterly different from that of heaven-and-earth toppling and heroic lament: keen to advance, high in fighting spirit, reforming and changing the law, sweeping across the world! The First Ancestor Human Emperor and Shen Mu, two men of two different ages, two different divine abilities—one seal art, one sword art—each branded with the mark of a different age.
Judged by conception alone, it was hard to say which was higher or lower; but judged by state of mind, one was keen to advance and high in fighting spirit, the other mourning the past and sunk in past failure—and from this alone the outcome was already decided.
And there was something even more terrifying: Shen Mu's essence was too mighty, suppressing the First Ancestor's seal art, breaking apart his 'between heaven and earth I am supreme' seal art like rotten wood!
Shen Mu fought the more bravely the longer he fought; his long sword slashed, as if to cut down this pillar that propped up the old heaven and earth, forcing the First Ancestor to keep invoking his teleportation divine ability. "Truly an Overlord Body.
. .
" Emperor Qikang murmured.
The Second Ancestor said, dazed and shaken, "So there really is an Overlord Body in this world. .
. I had thought Emperor Shen reached this step purely by his own effort; I never imagined he truly had the legendary Overlord Body. This essence—it is simply monstrous.
. .
" The other Human Emperors nodded one after another. Without an Overlord Body, there was no explaining the scene before them.