Chapter 874 — Fierce Flame Shakes All Under Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu walked toward Jiangling Academy in high spirits. As for the doings of the Woodcutter and the Dharma Master Zixi, he understood well enough the deeper intent behind them.
Ever since the seal on the Yuan Realm was broken, every manner of power had come crawling out, and Jingping amid them all was a single drop in the vast sea, looked down upon, taken for a soft persimmon.
And when every power takes you for a soft persimmon and comes running to squeeze, you truly do get squeezed soft.
If Jingping was to survive in a Yuan Realm riddled with peril, the strength of Kaihuang's old retainers alone would not suffice; first they must hang out a signboard that rang loud and clear.
The title of a sage who appears once in five hundred years would win no credit at all from the great heavens of the Yuan Realm, whereas the signboard of the Jingping Overlord Body, unbeaten across every realm, rang far louder — so it was only natural to push Shen Mu out to serve as that signboard.
More crucial still was the Pact of the Little Earth Lord.
The Little Earth Lord was the Divine Son of Youdu, the other 'self' within Shen Mu — his elder brother, Shen Fengqing.
When the Woodcutter concluded the Pact of the Little Earth Lord with the gods of the Northern Heavens, he was swearing an oath to Shen Fengqing and to Shen Mu alike: should a champion of the Northern Heavens defeat Shen Mu, then even if the State of Jingping did not surrender, Shen Mu would not do the Woodcutter any harm.
Keeping his elder brother Shen Fengqing in check was something Shen Mu was confident he could manage. Shen Fengqing would surely grumble, but Shen Mu had faith he could talk him round.
And if the gods of the Northern Heavens lost and had no intention of honoring the Pact of the Little Earth Lord, the consequence was plain enough: they would be devoured by a jubilant Shen Fengqing.
The problem of his brother's diet, which had long vexed Shen Mu, was solved in a single stroke.
More crucial still, the State of Jingping was a wager — the only stake the Woodcutter and Zixi had to set against the Northern Heavens. And the Northern Heavens numbered in the hundreds. It was snaring a white wolf with bare hands!
It was a venture that could not lose. The Woodcutter and Zixi, those two Dharma Masters with a bellyful of wicked schemes, were of course the sort to dream up such a plan.
Jiangling Academy.
This Academy had been designed and built by the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping. It did not stand within the city of Jiangling; the city lived by trade and commerce, and had little room to spare for an academy's growth, so the Imperial Preceptor had raised Jiangling Academy upon the delta of the Jin River.
On that delta the Imperial Preceptor summoned the strongmen of Jingping to haul several great mountains into place, and the Academy was built against the mountains' flanks.
He also brought in masters of formation arts such as the Blind Elder, who fashioned several floating palaces, linked by cableways, encircling the peaks like the petals of a flower.
Beyond these, the Academy's disciples, testing their formations, had seared all manner of arrays into the mountain stone, so that what circled the Academy was not only palaces but great boulders one and all.
Some scholars, too lazy to walk, hopped from boulder to boulder in midair — a sight peculiar to Jiangling Academy.
Shen Mu came here with Yutian Zun, and from afar he saw that Jiangling Academy was in a great uproar. On the river, young folk were contesting their arts, fighting with uncommon ferocity; wave upon wave burst apart on the water, divine abilities erupted, and the din was like the roaring of monstrous beasts stirring up wind and waves in the river.
Suddenly the great waves on the river turned into enormous icebergs. The icebergs flew and spun, and a ceaseless clangor of ringing blasts rang out as sword after sword of ice grew from the ice and flew forth, slashing in every direction at once!