Chapter 652 — The Celestial Palace of Xuandu
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 5
Ban Gongcuo had once been a Great Venerable of the grasslands, founder of the Golden Palace of Loulan, and he had despised the people of the Desolate Ruins above all others, often going to seize its strange beasts and its Forsaken folk to cultivate his shamanic arts. Yet now, hearing the Primordial Human Emperor's words, his convictions and his pride were shattered to bits!
He had lived ten thousand years, and only now did he learn that he himself was one of the Forsaken!
Forsaken by the gods!
"Why, after severing our divine bridge, did they still seal us in? Why would they not let us become gods..."
He did not trust Shen Mu, but he believed the Primordial Human Emperor's words beyond all doubt, for that being was the first generation of Human Emperor—the man who had led the ancestors of every race out of the calamity that ended the world!
Ban Gongcuo's own forebear had been among them!
Anyone might lie to him, but the Primordial Human Emperor alone would not!
As the tower ship flew, it left a dazzling band of light across the starry sky that long refused to fade. The god Chixi looked back at it and frowned. "Fast as this ship is, it is not unmatched under heaven. The treasure ship has left a trail, and I fear the enemy will discover it. We must borrow a road from the Lord of Heaven and reach the Suspended Realm as soon as we can—the enemy must not learn the Suspended Realm's whereabouts!"
Shen Mu's spirits lifted. "Borrow a road from the Lord of Heaven? Then shall we not get to see this towering being?"
"Not for a while yet. From here to where the Lord of Heaven resides is more than a month's flight!"
The tower ship skimmed on like a shadow over light. Several days later, Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu were engaged in the dual cultivation of their primordial spirits when the ship suddenly gave a slight jolt and slowed. The two withdrew their primordial spirits and went up on deck, and there saw a divine city of immense scale drifting all alone in the starry void, with a sun revolving around it.
The divine city was battered and broken; it must have passed through a dreadful war and been ruined in it.
The tower ship passed above the divine city. Looking down, Shen Mu saw many tall statues of gods lying fallen within it, all of them three-headed and six-armed—sculptures of the Crimson Bright era, no doubt.
Before long they came to a shattered star, which likewise bore a great many buildings in the Crimson Bright style.
Along the whole way, ruined divine cities drifted silently in the starry sky, and upon that road one could see countless corpses floating helplessly.
The mighty ones of the Crimson Bright era, seeking a place to shelter, had left countless gods and demons behind to guard their people on the march; most of them had fallen in battle here.
"However wild the customs of the Crimson Bright era, they fought to the death for the survival of their kind." So Shen Mu mused in his heart.
At last the tower ship entered a blank region—a world made of light.
As the ship sailed into the radiance, everyone aboard found that they could not see their own shadows; the light shone in from every direction, leaving no shade at all!
Shen Mu turned to look back the way they had come, and his whole body shook: he saw the Desolate Ruins, shrouded in darkness!
The Desolate Ruins seemed close enough to touch!
And yet Jingping, which lay outside the Desolate Ruins, could not be seen at all!
No Jingping, no Western Lands, no South Sea, North Sea, or West Sea!
That region was veiled by false celestial phenomena, and so could not be seen.
Besides the Desolate Ruins, he also saw the two worlds of Taihuang Heaven and Luofu Heaven!
He raised his head, and suddenly it was as if he had discovered a whole new world. Countless starlights shone across the sky; heavens great and small, bright and dim, appeared upon the vault of heaven, and some worlds were still in the midst of destruction!