Chapter 732 — Swift as a Flying Star
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
"I wonder how Brother Shen is faring."
He said softly, "Ten days now, and he has been practicing his martial arts the whole time. His martial divine powers have clearly grown rusty. I wonder whether he has awakened his martial soul yet, and brought it upon his body."
"How easy is it to bring the martial soul upon the body?"
The woman said, "Back then, to bring my martial soul upon my body, I entered the Forest of Ten Thousand Beasts at eleven. I met a desolate wolf — not one alone, but a whole pack. I fought and killed among the pack for more than ten days and nights, fighting without pause, holding them off without pause, until my flesh was nearly torn to pieces by the wolves. In the end I could no longer feel pain, could no longer feel that I was alive. And then, all at once, I sensed my martial soul, slew the king of the desolate wolves with a single blow, and so escaped with my life."
The other man said, "For me it was in my thirteenth year, when the clan held the Grand Rite of the Dancing Spoon. More than a hundred of us, boys and girls of thirteen, were sent into the Nether Demon Realm. Of that hundred-odd, three survived. I was one of them. That year, I awakened my martial soul. Brother Shen's time is too short. He looks young to me; I doubt he can awaken his martial soul. Let us mount the platform and take the divine blade's stroke."
Hu Bugui nodded.
The woman regulated her qi and blood, restored herself to her peak, and was first to step onto the God-Slaying Platform. She smiled. "Wait a moment, both of you. I will test the blade first, and see whether my martial primordial spirit can withstand one stroke of the God-Slaying Blade!"
Scarcely had she taken her stand on the platform when the two bloody auras crossed; they shrank with astonishing speed, like two streaks of blood-light, and circled her neck. However she blocked, however she dodged and shifted, she could not evade those two streaks of blood-light, nor drive them back!
And just then, all at once, a great hall before the Jade Pool shook with a thunderous roar, and dust rose in all directions!
Hu Bugui was watching the battle on the God-Slaying Platform; sensing something, he hurriedly turned to look. The rear door of that hall had been flung up into the air, and a stream of qi and blood ran across the vault of heaven, drifting and fluttering, straight toward the next palace!
"Can that be Brother Shen?"
Startled, Hu Bugui had not yet had time to turn back to the God-Slaying Platform when the rear door of the second hall also burst into fragments, and that rainbow of qi and blood drifted on, racing onward, rushing toward the third hall!
"So fast!"
Hu Bugui was shaken to the core. The rear door of the third hall had blown open as well. The third eye at the center of Hu Bugui's brow opened, and at once he took in the scene of the shattered rear door.
He was of the Three-Eyed God Clan, and the third eye of the Three-Eyed God Clan was an inborn sacred pupil, a pupil of extraordinary power, piercing the netherworld, gazing up to the Xuandu.
At once he saw, where the door had burst open, the figure of Shen Mu leaping up.
In midair Shen Mu crouched, arms spread wide, one foot planted on the chest of a sturdy peasant man, like a starving eagle stooping on its prey.
Boom!
Shen Mu stamped that sturdy peasant man down into the ground, and a savage current of air swept out in every direction.
"The one under his foot is Senior Uncle Gu."
Hu Bugui's face turned strange. He thought, "This Senior Uncle Gu does not care to fight with fist-intent and spirit; he likes to take the field himself. When he fought us he sealed his own cultivation, sealing his Heavenly Palace and his Divine Bridge and divine treasury together. But it seems he has run into a tough one..."
At the thought of this Senior Uncle Gu, the bones in his body began to ache. The pass of Senior Uncle Gu had been the hardest to endure; Hu Bugui had won it only with great difficulty.