Chapter 681 — Dry Bones Repay the Ring
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
On this journey they had covered fifty or sixty thousand li, and all of it had passed without incident. They had long since skirted around Luofu Heaven; vast as it was, towering at the center of Taihuang Heaven, it could no longer be seen now, hidden behind layer upon layer of magma surges and black winds. The only thing that could still fix their direction was Shen Mu's south-pointing chariot. The people were utterly spent; even the gods could scarcely hold on. Had they only needed to guard themselves, it would have been one thing, but the crux was that they had to guard tens of thousands of the Gifted, and under such extreme fatigue their vital essence drained away without cease.
Their bellies were empty, and strength seeped slowly from their bodies. Xing An opened his chest, took out some dried meat, and handed it to Shen Mu. "You are the leader.
You divide it.
" Shen Mu's eye twitched. He hurriedly stowed the dried meat into the Taotie Pouch and called, "Village Head, Grandpa Tu, come over here.
" He had the folk of the Village of Hidden Remnants gather round the Butcher. The Butcher hesitated a moment, then still brought down his blade.
"A child may not be able to stomach this meat," he said. "Cut it into small cubes," Shen Mu said.
"A cube the size of a fingernail for each person. The gods get a larger portion.
Grandpa Tu, can you divide it into tens of thousands of portions?
" "That is no difficulty. I fear only that they will not dare to eat it. " The Butcher's blade work was exquisite, and he soon had the dried meat portioned out. Shen Mu set it on plates; a plate of those cubes sat astonishingly heavy, wreathed in multicolored divine radiance.
For all his divine strength, he found it a strain to lift them, and some of the cubes still carried a monstrous, crushing demonic aura. "Those who cultivate the divine way take the cubes that give off divine radiance, one small piece each.
Those who cultivate the demonic way take the demonic-aura cubes. Do not take more than your share.
" He distributed the dried meat.
Xu Shenghua hesitated, then took two pieces as well, and gave one to Jing Yan.
Jing Yan balked a little. "Sect Master," she said softly, "what meat is this, really? " "Not human flesh.
" Shen Mu hesitated, then said in a whisper, "But it is nothing good either. Many arms and legs hang in Xing An's chest, and heads too. This is the flesh of the few nonhuman gods and demons among them. " When he had finished handing out the cubes, the Alchemist called him over again, and the two of them hurried to and fro, refining spirit pills without pause.
Granny Zhu, for her part, used her Creation divine ability to cultivate spirit herbs, and furnace after furnace of elixirs was refined and given to the gods and to the Gifted whose vital essence was spent. Even so, they were eating into their stores; pills and elixirs alone could not fill a belly, nor could they replenish water.
"Can the Creation divine ability create water?
" someone asked in a low voice.
Someone told him, "Don't speak. You waste the moisture in your body.
" Shen Mu rummaged in the Taotie Pouch, took out his own water reserve, and distributed it. Each person received only a little.
Though he had always liked to prepare against every contingency and had stored some water in the Taotie Pouch, he had not stored a great deal. The bodies of the Gifted were mighty; even dehydrated, they could survive a long while. For now, so long as they could keep a certain amount of water in everyone, it would be enough to live until they reached the place where Taihuang Heaven and Taiming Heaven met.
"To use the Creation divine ability to create water—that means altering the most fundamental structure of matter. It requires a heaven-defying mastery of Creation. The only one who might possess such mastery is the First Ancestor, the Human Sovereign. And the First Ancestor is gravely wounded…