Chapter 656 — Heaven Collapses, the Earth's Bonds Severed
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Behind him, Ban Gongcuo and Ling Yuxiu hurriedly shut their eyes, not daring to look.
There came a soft click, and of a sudden a murderous might burst forth to the heavens, as though some cruel, bloodthirsty being had woken and hungered for human flesh.
Inside the box, the jade-like head opened its eyes, a look of feverish excitement on its face; the membrane that joined the back of its skull to the box suddenly spread open like a fan, rustling and quivering.
Two beams of blood-red light shot from the head's eyes, sweeping and slicing wildly like roaming dragons.
The ship fell suddenly silent; the several hundred Fire Crow god-men charging at the tower froze in place, motionless.
The two beams drew back and slowly sank into the box. Shen Mu closed the lid; in the instant those red lights vanished within, the thick stench of blood nearly knocked him senseless and set his heart pounding.
From inside the box came the sound of a belch — whether it was his imagination, he could not tell.
Outside the tower, the Fire Crow god-men still stood frozen; then the shockwaves of the divine powers of the First Ancestor Human Emperor, Chixi, and the Great Sun Star Lord rolled in from afar, and one by one their heads slowly parted from their bodies, each head sliding slowly from its neck and dropping to the deck.
Thud, thud, thud — corpse after corpse toppled over.
"Cowherd, there is blood qi on you!" Ling Yuxiu opened her eyes, saw at once the blood-red aura clinging to Shen Mu, and cried out in alarm.
Shen Mu was briefly startled; he looked down at himself and indeed saw a faint red mist drifting around him. The mist was like vapor, impossible to touch, yet visible to the naked eye — a truly bizarre thing.
"Blood qi wrapped about you — Sect Master Shen, you are blessed."
Ban Gongcuo laughed: "You killed so many gods and demons — several hundred, was it not? Their vengeful spirits have latched onto you. You are certain to die!"
Shen Mu made as if to open the box; Ban Gongcuo's face changed drastically and he fled at once.
"This blood qi must be the blood qi from the box. Why does it cling to me? If I cannot keep the box fed, will I be the next it kills?" Shen Mu's heart was uneasy.
He could make nothing of the blood qi either; he only vaguely sensed that it had some connection with the box.
Suddenly the blood qi, like smoke, bored toward the center of his brow, slipping in beneath the willow leaf into his third eye, and soon all of it was absorbed by that eye.
From his third eye came the sound of a belch.
Shen Mu tilted his head. The box gave out a belch, and his eye, incredibly, gave out a belch as well. There were more and more strange things in this world.
In the world within his eye, a sinister voice rose from that blood qi: "Which little imp has stolen my food? That boy is the grain I had my eye on — you dare to steal my blood fiend? I will eat you..."
Shen Fengqing sucked the blood qi into his mouth as though slurping noodles, belched, and shook his fist fiercely at the heavens beyond: "Snarl at me? When I get out of here, I will smash you to a pulp and then eat you!"
Out in the starry void beyond the ship, a great battle had erupted; the tower ship was driven farther and farther away by the aftershocks of the three gods' and demons' divine powers.
The Great Sun Star Lord was locked in combat with the First Ancestor and Chixi. Chixi bore the thousand-layered Heaven-Suppressing Tower above his head and wielded six swords; his fleshly-body divine power was incomparably overbearing, and in battle he was ferociously valiant. To Shen Mu's eyes, Chixi's strikes were already too fast to follow.