Chapter 820 — The Imperial Guard's Crossing of the Boundary
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The village chief's expression turned solemn as he lowered his voice, "Shen'er, put away the jade pendant and make no display of it. Let us first see what these people are.
" Shen Mu flipped his hand, and the jade pendant in his grasp vanished from sight.
That great blue-green kun bore an overwhelming aura, easily capable of churning rivers and overturning seas, and now, bathed in the lamplight of the ghost ship, it carried a host of demigods to the side of the great vessel. Beside this Yulin Army man-of-war, the kun looked small indeed.
Shen Mu was no stranger to kun, for a million years ago many kun had lived in the Star River, demigods themselves who could swim in the water and fly in the sky.
In those days the kun of the Star River mostly earned spirit pills by ferrying passengers. Though many of the demigods on the kun's back had human bodies, their faces were all different, and they bore differing numbers of heads.
Demigods are the descendants of ancient gods with divine blood flowing in their veins, and ever since Haotian Zun created the art by which demigods may take human form, they too can cultivate the Divine Treasury system and the Heavenly Palace system.
Yet demigods cannot wholly become human but retain some feature of their true bodies, and only a few ever assume full human shape.
When those demigods saw them they did not halt but pressed on toward the ghost ship. "Hook-serpents, halt that ship!
" cried a stooped old demigod leaning on a staff from the kun's back.
"It is the Ancestral Dragon King!
" Shen Mu exclaimed in surprise.
All around the river ran swift and turbulent, and suddenly one massive body after another surfaced, strange serpents hundreds of zhang long, covered not with scales but with bony plates, the plates edged with sharp spurs, while their tails bore scorpion-like barbs.
These strange serpents lashed out their tails and hooked the ghost ship's masts and gunwales to drag her to a stop. The hook-serpents were pulled ramrod straight, and several were torn apart on the instant, spilling blood across the Surging River. As the great kun swam toward the ghost ship, the old demigod unhurriedly tossed forth his staff, which turned into a divine dragon that threaded through the chains of black qi and struck into the ghost ship.
Only then did the ghost ship come to rest.
The old demigod then produced a mirror which blazed with light in the river water and hung above their heads, shining upon the great kun and all those on its back.
The black qi chains that bound the ghost ship recoiled from the mirror's light and could not approach. When the great kun reached the ghost ship's deck, it suddenly shook its body and became a radiant golden divine bird, and then the bird folded its wings and became a bird-headed, human-bodied god.
The others on the kun's back leapt down one after another.
The kun race is unlike all others and possesses three forms, the kun, the peng, and the bird-headed human form. The village chief felt a chill in his heart and whispered, "That old man's strength is great, and I am no match for him.
The demigods beside him are none of them weak, and that kun's power is not to be trifled with!
Shen'er, we must invite the First Ancestor before we can hope to explore this ghost ship. .
.
" He had just spoken when a beam of light shone down upon the river, a pillar of radiance like a moon falling from the sky, its moonlight falling upon the ghost ship.
Within the pillar a small boat drifted downstream bearing a one-armed man and several one-armed youths, yet the little boat came sailing along the pillar of light, plunged into the river, and made straight for the ghost ship. The one-armed man sat in the bow, unnaturally sacred in the moonlight. "Luo Wushuang!