Chapter 697 — Rebirth in the Netherworld
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Without an instant's deliberation, the Kaihuang god opened the Book of Life and Death, and in the twinkling of an eye its light fell upon Lady Tianyin's face! Her features twisted, and she burst into a shrill, anguished howl, black smoke billowing from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
Whoosh! Her palm rose to cover her face, and her five fingers writhed at once like worms, shriveling at shocking speed.
Her other hand came up, groping for the Kaihuang god on the tower's top; but this palm too was deflated by the Book's light, and by the time it reached the spire it had become a limp weightless husk.
It harmed neither Shen Mu nor the Kaihuang god.
Shen Mu, undistracted, went on chanting in the Gloom Capital tongue.
The light within the Heaven-Bearing Gate burned ever brighter, pouring out in ever greater floods, and when that dazzling radiance streamed from the portal it was borne on a vast sound that shook heaven and earth.
That sound overlapped with Shen Mu's voice until the two seemed one, yet it had been magnified a thousandfold by the Heaven-Bearing Gate as it crashed back and forth between heaven and earth!
With a resonant hum the light from the gate struck Lady Tianyin's body, and her shrieks grew yet more piercing, so ear-splitting that they nearly eclipsed the Gloom Capital chant from Shen Mu and the gate.
Suddenly she shifted, dodging the Book's light, and her hand recovered at lightning speed. This sacred being, born of heaven and bred of earth, actually seized the tower's base with one enormous hand and bodily lifted the measureless pagoda aloft!
The Kaihuang god hastily shifted the Book of Life and Death, and its light fell upon her face again. Black smoke gushed from her visage as her features withered before the eye, until she became a faceless woman. Shen Mu's Heaven-Bearing Gate moved with her too, its light never once leaving her face from the start.
The light within the gateway blazed more brilliantly still, and the voice within it rose ever louder on high and sank ever deeper below, until ears hummed and chests vibrated in resonance. Her body was illuminated; darkness streamed madly in from all sides, pouring into her, even as the darkness inside her streamed madly out through her face!
Lady Tianyin struggled, shrieked, and swung the pagoda as though it were a trifling toy. Such frightening strength was enough to astound the age — worthy of a heaven-born sacred being indeed!
Shen Mu stood with both feet solidly planted on the spire; however she whirled the tower, he remained unmoved, turning pages and chanting on.
The Kaihuang god did everything in his power to hold his footing, keeping the Book's light on Lady Tianyin's face to drive out ever more black sand.
The black sand rushing in gathered into a rolling torrent of darkness, thick as a dragon, pouring frantically into Lady Tianyin's body. This was soul-summoning!
With the improved Soul-Summoning Art, Shen Mu summoned Lady Tianyin's soul: throughout the whole Tianyin Realm, within every grain of black sand, any fragment of her soul that remained — even the smallest mote — was stirred by his ability and sent flying into her body.
Nor did it stop there: his ability could reach into the Wasteland as well, into every one of the heavens connected to the Tianyin Realm! The Soul-Summoning Art had originally been a spell of the Gloom Capital; only because the practitioners of Jingping had little command of the Gloom Capital tongue had they gradually replaced it with the demon speech in the course of transmission.