Chapter 898 — Galloping Eighty Thousand Li
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
I will guide the way. " Not long after, they came to the silted plain she had spoken of: ten thousand li in breadth, with no mountains or rivers, only primeval forest, rank with grass and trees.
Yan'er flew to the center of the plain.
Shen Mu had her halt and leaped down himself, then told them to fall back: "The farther the better.
" They hurriedly retreated, leaving Shen Mu alone. Shen Mu took out the mirror and set it on the ground.
Then, all at once, he drew the Carefree Sword, raised it high, and drove it down point-first with all his strength.
Clang! The Carefree Sword pierced the mirror's surface; a crack appeared, then more and more cracks.
Shen Mu retreated at speed. The mirror shattered, and with it as the center space itself convulsed violently; a Yuan Tree burst up from the ground, growing ever larger and taller, forcing the space around it apart into fragments.
Very quickly the Yuan Tree reached a height of ten thousand zhang, and still it grew upward at a terrifying rate; its immense trunk thickened without cease, heaving the earth up into swelling ridges and splitting it with cracks, while thunder crashed and lightning fire spilled through the air, a sight of utter terror. Shen Mu, Carefree Sword in hand, drifted backward, calmly evading each riven crack in space before it reached him.
Behind him a Gate that Sustains Heaven suddenly appeared, and from his mouth came mysterious, obscure words, summoning the scattered soul fragments of the Yuan Tree's true body. Black sand surged between heaven and earth, swarming toward the Yuan Tree and pouring into it. He was calling souls.
Through this Yuan Tree, he was summoning the soul of Mother Earth.
For a time the Yuan Realm seemed to boil; the earth shook and the mountains swayed, the ranges trembled violently and the ground heaved madly, as though countless divine dragons were darting swiftly beneath the earth, rushing straight for the Yuan Tree. Soon great dark mountain ranges emerged upon the ten-thousand-li plain; they were the roots of Mother Earth.
Her roots were like towering mountains, racing madly over the surface and beneath the ground at astonishing speed; seen from afar, the mountains flew across the land like dragons, harrowing, yet incomparably magnificent. Mother Earth still had one soul that had not scattered.
Shen Mu's soul-summoning stirred her at once, and she could naturally sense the place of the Yuan Tree and of Shen Mu, and came flying to them. And in the center of the Yuan Realm, that Celestial Venerable Yu of ten thousand rays, with layer upon layer of radiant wheels and flames behind his head, was stirred as well, and came speeding toward them.
Racing along with him came countless tower ships and great warships of the Heavenly Court, banners streaming from their decks; countless heavenly soldiers and generals beat war drums, the drumbeats shaking heaven and earth, their battle cries surging forth in all directions like a great flood sweeping across the four wilds. "Mother Earth, if you wish to revive to your peak state, a price must be paid!
" Shen Mu's figure drifted around the ever-growing trunk of the Yuan Tree; the vast trunk was still swelling, still growing, its crown already level with the sky, ranked alongside the heavens. Darting among the fragments of space, Shen Mu took the form of three heads and six arms and quickened his spellcasting, crying in a loud voice, "I can bring you back to life, but before that, you must hold off the Celestial Venerable Yu!
" Deep in the earth the roots joined to the trunk, and the Yuan Tree grew vaster and more towering still; its crown covered a span of a hundred million li, and the ten-thousand-li plain could scarcely contain its enormous trunk.