Chapter 734 — A Battle Body Unrivaled Since Antiquity
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The farmwife walked straight on to the next shrine of the Jade Capital, and the deity guarding this one was likewise a farmer from that same village.
"Ma'am," the god stationed there said with a slight nod as he saw her come, then turned his eyes back to Shen Mu and Hu Bugui, battling furiously within the hall.
The two stood side by side; they were husband and wife.
In the year the Kaihuang Heaven Court fell, the Martial Combat Heavenly Master, who held war in his charge, had led the mighty of the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace out to meet the foe, and that battle was thick with shifts and turns, upheavals and disasters that to this day they could not fathom. The Kaihuang Divine Dynasty had collapsed so swiftly that they, its gods of war, were left dazed and utterly powerless.
After that battle the war-gods of the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace had fallen in terrible numbers, barely a hundred or so left; the Martial Combat Heavenly Master, his heart turned to cold ash, led them to seek out the orphans of the war-gods who had died, hid the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace deep in the Wasteland Ruins, and they, the war-gods, became farmers tilling the fields, one and all.
Some of them married and made families, but few would bear sons or daughters, for the Spirit Bridge realm of their children no longer existed and the young could not escape death, and they had no wish to watch their own children die. The glory of the past had become a yellowed frame in the album of their lives; now they were only a band of farmers plowing soil and sowing grain. Only when they entered the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace once more and saw that the descendants of their comrades-in-arms still kept their high and ardent fighting spirit would they be reminded of those towering years of old.
Shen Mu and Hu Bugui had fought their way here, their exchanges growing ever more ferocious, wringing every last ounce of meaning from the name of martial combat. Their flesh and sinews, their primordial spirits, their vital essence, all were knit into one, each of them master of his own distinct method of forging the body and method of unleashing power.
Martial-dao divine abilities were also divine abilities of the body, belonging to the school of combat technique; bodily divine abilities burst forth the strength of the flesh and did not cultivate spells, and yet the power a body unleashed surpassed the power of spell-based divine abilities. Martial-dao divine abilities, however, demanded that one enter the stage of comprehending the Dao through martial arts, and in the world today those who could take that step were truly few. Under the pressure Shen Mu brought to bear, Hu Bugui drew nearer and nearer to that stage.
His combat techniques grew mightier and mightier, until in turn he laid heavy pressure on Shen Mu, forcing Shen Mu to keep refining his own techniques even in the midst of their exchanges.
"To bring forth such a formidable three heads and six arms, he must have received a true transmission.
" The woman said, "It is far stronger than the three heads and six arms of many a god or demon of the Heaven Court. But without having fathomed the way of comprehending the Dao through martial arts, in the end he cannot hope to overcome Hu Bugui.
" The farmer beside her said, "Hu Bugui is indeed strong.
He can hold off the attacks of three heads and six arms, and the force of his counterattack only grows; his strength and his insight have already reached the stage of comprehending the Dao through martial arts.
He improves so quickly. " The woman felt the same.
Hu Bugui advanced too fast.
When he returned to the Dou Niu Realm he had already awakened a spirit fetus, and no one had held out hope for him; the people of the Dou Niu Realm all thought him ruined, incapable of forging a martial soul. And yet Hu Bugui had forged one all the same.