Chapter 697 — Rebirth in the Netherworld
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu drew a long breath and quelled the agitation in his heart.
To gather Lady Tianyin's soul, the Soul-Summoning Art alone could never suffice.
Soul-Summoning was a divine ability that drew souls forth from the Gloom Capital, leading the departed back to their own flesh.
But Lady Tianyin had been devoured by starving wraiths until only her skin remained, and her soul, in all likelihood, had been eaten clean away, dissolved into the Tianyin Realm and made a part of its countless grains of black sand. To gather her soul, he would have to remold the Soul-Summoning Art itself!
It was the Kaihuang god who had "awakened" him to the idea of using a remolded Soul-Summoning Art to recollect Lady Tianyin's soul.
Should her soul return, the Netherworld's grip on the darkness of the Wasteland could be sealed shut.
What was more, Lady Tianyin surely knew a great many secrets unknown to anyone else, and she might well help Shen Mu unravel much of the Wasteland's hidden truth.
And since she was a heaven-born sacred being, this great ally might lighten the pressure on Jingping as well. Of course, all of it rested on whether his remolded Soul-Summoning Art could avail — whether it could gather Lady Tianyin's soul.
If the gathering failed, he could never escape her pursuit; death was his only road. The footsteps grew heavier and heavier; through the murky air Lady Tianyin's colossal silhouette came looming in and out of view.
She had come following the sound of Shen Mu's voice; but what occupied that skin was, after all, a starving wraith, not the true Lady Tianyin, and no vast divine powers did it command.
It could not see what lurked in the gloom; it could only fix its position by sound. Shen Mu steadied his mind, and behind him the Heaven-Bearing Gate suddenly took shape; the scroll in his hand gradually turned from dim to distinct.
Standing atop the pagoda's spire, he opened the ancient scroll and read out the Gloom Capital script upon it, the cadenced words of the Gloom Capital tongue flowing from his mouth unhurried, obscure, and profound.
Behind him, the Heaven-Bearing Gate abruptly flipped over — what had opened outward now opened inward; what had been the lintel was now the threshold, and what had been the threshold was now the lintel. The Heaven-Bearing Gate, as its name declared, was the portal that bore up heaven and earth: heaven was the Mystic Capital, earth the Gloom Capital, and above this portal's lintel stretched the domain of the Mystic Capital while below its threshold lay the domain of the Gloom Capital.
Never before had Shen Mu considered what place stood between heaven and earth; now he saw the answer clearly. Between heaven and earth lay the human world, but there was also a place called the Yin of Heaven.
By upending the Heaven-Bearing Gate he made heaven and earth turn over, and the Yin of Heaven, which had been beneath heaven, would become that which crowned heaven. This change, of course, was not a true flipping of the Tianyin Realm so as to set it above the Mystic Capital; rather, he was altering the structure of the Heaven-Bearing Gate ability.
Alter the structure of an ability, and its function differs from its former self; this time he had reversed it completely. The scroll in his hand was not a tool for working the ability but a tool for making sure he mispronounced not a single word — a dictionary of the Gloom Capital tongue, as it were.
As the rise and fall of his voice swelled ever wider, the high notes growing ever more stirring and the low notes ever more resonant, the Heaven-Bearing Gate no longer sent forth gusts of chill yin wind; little by little, light came shining from within it.
At the same time, Lady Tianyin finally fixed his position. She came straight toward him, her form growing ever more distinct.
When the black mist before her scattered, she stood before the high tower.