Chapter 908 — The Calamity Sword, Part Three: Meeting the Tribulation
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
Within it the Shen-character continent lay vast and empty, holding only a few mountain ranges and the abyssal iron he had looted from Guixu, and beyond that nothing but Lady Yuanmu's crystal coffin. Heavenly Duke, Tubo, the Crimson Emperor, the Great Sun, the Old Buddha and the rest had all vanished.
Shen Mu's heart brimmed with feeling. He took out a silk ribbon, threaded the pendant upon it, and hung it around his neck.
"Heavenly Duke and Tubo have both gone back, the Great Sun Star Lord has returned to Youdu, the Crimson Emperor found the Crimson Bright Divine Son and returned to the Suspended Void Realm, and the Great Brahma of the Buddha Realm has woken and taken the Old Buddha away. " The old underworld envoy said, "The Slaughter Cauldron is the possession of Achou Tubo.
Tubo says he is no longer Achou; you are. He gives it to you.
Perhaps it will help you through a few more trials.
" He looked at Shen Mu, and after a long while he suddenly bowed and said, "Heavenly Venerable Mu, take care! " Shen Mu returned the salute. By the time he straightened up, the old underworld envoy and the ghost boat had vanished without a trace.
"Do not stir your vital qi rashly; it will damage your consciousness," the old underworld envoy's voice came from another world.
Shen Mu coughed violently, and felt his Spirit Treasures rock violently with the coughs; even his undying consciousness could hardly hold steady. After a moment the Spirit Treasures returned to stillness, but he still felt his vital qi seeping away. Without a soul, the fleshly body is a tree without roots.
Even an undying consciousness could scarcely bind the vast vital qi within him, so that the vital qi drained away little by little.
The Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas of the Great Brahma Heavenly King Buddha could slow this draining, but only slow it. Had Shen Mu cultivated to the realm of the Imperial Throne, he could, like the Crimson Emperor, have cultivated his undying consciousness to its utmost and endured long without a soul; but he was far from reaching that step.
He could only rely on the Sutra of the Three Primordial Spirits' Undying Consciousness and the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas to hold himself steady, so that his consciousness would not scatter.
Shen Mu sat on Dragon Qilin's great head, resting with his eyes closed, and unknowingly fell asleep. Dragon Qilin wandered on without purpose, walking from night into day, and from day into night.
Shen Mu woke now and then, and Yan'er had already cooked the meal, and it tasted very good, and the days were rather pleasant. One day a waning moon rose in the sky, and in its light a woman extended an invitation. Dragon Qilin ran up onto the moon.
This moon was a corner of the Heavenly Map, and within it there was still a Moon Palace.
The Heavenly Map that had once shrouded Jingping had been destroyed in the fires of war, leaving only scattered formation charts.
Shen Mu and the others stayed in the Moon Palace for a time.
His vital qi was still draining, and his cultivation declined day by day. Only when the spirit fetus joins with the soul is there a primordial spirit.
His spirit fetus had originally stood upon the Heavenly River, very close to the Southern Heavenly Gate; now, without a soul, his magic power could not bind it, and the spirit fetus drifted farther and farther from the Southern Heavenly Gate.
Seen from the vantage of his spirit fetus, the Southern Heavenly Gate grew ever more indistinct. The girl in the Moon Palace said to him, "Stay. I can look after you for a lifetime.
" Shen Mu still chose to leave, and laughed.
"My life or death is uncertain; I cannot hold you back. " That girl stood before the Moon Palace and cried aloud, "I do not care! I have waited forty thousand years, I do not care—" "I care.