Chapter 964 — Bigger! Even Bigger!
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
The sound of shattering bone beside him had been Shen Mu's bones crushed to pieces in a single instant; the sound of bursting skin had been Shen Mu's blood rushing into the skin that clung to the Prime Wood core beneath him. His flesh could not withstand such pressure and impact: in one instant he must have burst apart, his blood smearing the whole of the Prime Wood core.
Nor that alone—his whole body would be shattered to nothing, brains and all.
"Shen the Overlord Body, you cut off one of my arms, and I hated you for forty thousand years—yet you have saved my life three times."
Luo Wushuang's mind was a muddle. "What a pity I cannot repay you. I once wished to try myself against you, to have you look upon my saber art..."
The Prime Wood core was still surging, standing straight within the Creators' city, thousands of li tall, reaching straight for the blood-colored moon in the sky.
Soon the core stood ten thousand li high, still growing upward, taller and taller, longer and longer, pushing out through the atmosphere of the Taixu land.
The Prime Wood core whistled upward, came alongside the blood moon in the sky, and howled past it.
That blood-colored moon was a great ball of flesh, surely an enormous head, staring in amazement with grotesque eyes as this pillar swept by.
It must have been the head of an incomparably powerful Taixu Creator, slain by some unknown hand, his head struck off and left drifting in the skies above the Taixu land, where it became the moon of this uncanny world, coming out each night to play its cheerful, pleasing flute tunes.
Now it forgot to play. It was drowned in the infinite fire rising from below.
Beneath, the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's brand erupted. In a single instant the energy stored within that brand swept across the whole of the Creators' city, destroying everything!
At the same time, that drop of the Fire Heavenly Sovereign's divine blood, and the sword qi within it, were triggered. A vast, blinding fireball enclosed the Creators' city entire, and expanded outward as it spun, in a moment covering more than a thousand li, then ten thousand li. Where it passed, space shattered, mountains were reduced to ash, great rivers evaporated, the seas became nothingness.
At last the surging power below subsided; the Prime Wood core stopped growing; and Luo Wushuang's eyes gradually cleared, the blood flowing back. Though his body was badly wounded, he was alive, at least.
He sat up. He had been carried by the Prime Wood core beyond the heavens; in the void there was nothing at all but this incomparably thick pillar.
Luo Wushuang felt desolate. He looked toward the Prime Wood core, which was like a stretch of land, and suddenly he was slightly startled.
He saw many drops of blood seeping out from the wood, floating in space. The blood gathered of itself, and quickly formed a heart.
The heart grew many blood vessels, extending in every direction; more and finer vessels grew out, building up the form of a human body.
He saw a brain growing, the five viscera and six bowels taking shape, bones and tendons beginning to appear.
Before long the body grew skin and hair, and became a naked man—it was Shen Mu.
Shen Mu raised his hand. The clothes spread flat upon the Prime Wood core flew up; he shook the bone fragments off them and only then put them on.
"Earth Mother Yuanjun is truly good to me."
Shen Mu's face showed contentment. Luo Wushuang said nothing.
"To bestow on me a treasure even as precious as this—such deep feeling, such great kindness. And yet I was still scheming to wheedle more treasures out of her. Truly I have no shame." Shen Mu sighed.
Luo Wushuang kept silent, thinking, 'Even come back from the dead, this fellow is as detestable as ever, not a whit changed. I wronged him.'
A clatter of hooves came through the void—Luo Wushuang's inner demon had appeared once more.