Chapter 892 — Seeking Aid by the Map
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu shook his head and went on with his research, but he propped the mirror upright so that it reflected the crystal coffin behind him.
He directed his calculation yuan soldiers to keep computing, studying those runes with self-forgetful absorption. After a long while, the corpse in the coffin opened her eyes once more.
The corpse lay within the coffin, yet at this moment her head soundlessly twisted around, twisting at a horrifying angle, her eerie gaze coming to rest on Shen Mu's back.
The lid of the crystal coffin flew up without a sound, and the corpse within likewise floated up level and silent.
Shen Mu was in the midst of his calculations when the corner of his eye suddenly twitched.
Behind him, the corpse drifted down noiselessly, her body suspended in the air, her fair head bowed low, her beautiful hair cascading like a waterfall past her snow-white neck.
Her head drew gradually nearer to Shen Mu's neck.
Shen Mu still seemed wholly unaware, yet beads of sweat trickled from his forehead. In the Taotie Pouch at his waist, the sword pellet seemed to have turned to quicksilver, slowly flowing out, quietly reaching the back of the corpse's head, little by little taking the form of a sword tip aimed at the wound on the back of her head that had healed not long ago.
Just then, light swirled ahead, and a middle-aged man clad only in white undergarments—a middle robe and trousers—stepped out from the radiance.
This middle-aged man had a stern countenance. The instant he appeared, he saw the corpse floating behind Shen Mu, and his eyes flew wide with fury. Behind him one divine treasury after another surged forth, and a heavenly palace rumbled into being above the piled divine treasuries.
Within the heavenly palace, above every hall great and small, stood phantom images of gods and demons, standing in serried ranks, appearing above the heavenly palace like a river of stars!
His primordial spirit, like an ancient god wielding the power of the starry river and possessed of boundless might, appeared before the imperial throne within the Lingxiao Hall, thrust out a palm, and the palm came crashing through the heavenly palace, booming toward the corpse behind Shen Mu!
"Lady Yuanmu, since you are dead, why haunt the living?"
When the corpse behind Shen Mu heard him call out her true name, she loosed a shrill, desolate shriek; her hanging hair flew up, and at once the various Great Ways of Guixu within her body seemed to revive. In the Dark Flower World, the darkness surged and came rushing toward this place!
Shen Mu immediately felt an immense oppressive might.
That was the power of an ancient god awakening within the corpse—a dreadful force, as though it would devour all things in the world, erupting behind him. Yet the middle-aged man's primordial spirit pressed a palm to her forehead, and that power burst forth, driving all the darkness surging behind her down into the Dark Flower World in one fell sweep!
The corpse fell back helplessly and landed with a thud inside the crystal coffin. The crystal coffin closed, suppressing her within.
The corpse struggled and shrieked inside the coffin, her delicate features turning hideous, yet she could never break free of the middle-aged man's suppression.
The middle-aged man walked toward Shen Mu and bowed in greeting. "Second Junior Brother, eight thousand years since we parted—eight thousand years without seeing each other—and you have grown a beard. Lady Yuanmu, has your corpse undergone a transformation?"
The corpse flopped about in the coffin like a fish on dry land.
Shen Mu returned the greeting and said with a smile, "Missing an old friend, I forgot my beard. Senior Brother, you have been gone eight thousand years, while I have been here less than half a year. I have already seen the journal you wrote in the mist, aboard the Ghost Ship. Senior Brother, have you found your Way of the Sage?"