Chapter 989 — That Venerable One Must Die
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
Had I taught him, heh heh, never mind nine grown Creators — even a hundred of them he could have taken down with ease! " Divine King Langwan knitted her brows slightly and said softly, "So then the Holy Infant has never learned consciousness arts?
" Shujun was silent.
Langwan's brows drew tighter still.
That Shen Mu had never studied consciousness arts was indeed beyond her expectations; she had assumed that Shujun, being Shen Mu's teacher, would surely have passed a Divine King's arts down to him, in which case Shen Mu's handling of the trial before him, though hardly easy, would at least have carried him through. It had never occurred to her that Shen Mu did not know a single consciousness art. "At this rate, he will not hold out much longer.
" Langwan's lovely brows smoothed out, and she thought, "After he dies, I will take back the Primordial Godstone, the Great Emperor's Seal and the Great Emperor's Altar, and make another Holy Infant. " Scarcely had the thought formed when Shen Mu, there upon the altar, abruptly fell into a stupor, lying on his side and snoring loudly in deep sleep.
Divine King Langwan was taken aback.
"To lie down at a time like this.
. . " Upon the altar, Shen Mu set the Scripture of Immeasurable Kalpas in motion, and at once countless tiny Shen Mus appeared on that little altar, jabbering and squabbling, striking at one another, a tremendous uproar.
These diminutive Shen Mus were in fact imitating the arts of the nine Creators, trying to make their consciousness as endlessly mutable as those Creators'; soon the tiny Shen Mus lay dead and wounded in swathes across the ground.
Some burst apart and died under the enemy's consciousness arts, some had their heads shorn off by flying swords that appeared from nowhere, some were crushed to powder beneath mountains that came out of the void, some were torn in two by a pair of dragons, some had divine fire well up from within and burned to death of themselves, and some gushed water endlessly from eyes and ears, mouth and nose, and drowned beneath the enemy's arts — a scene ghastly in the extreme.
The altar was in tremendous ferment, and the arts of the nine Creators had already overcome it, killing their way to its summit. Suddenly Shen Mu's eyes flew open; the world of the dream collapsed, and the tiny Shen Mus who had just died in such grotesquely varied ways dispersed at once like a dream.
Shen Mu sat up straight, both eyes shut, while the vertical eye at the center of his brow opened; lightning was born in the void, and in an instant thunderbolts filled the sky above the altar, gathering into a thundercloud of vast scale, and the lightning came crashing down like rain.
The space around the altar turned at once into a boundless ocean of thunder, and the consciousness arts of the nine Creators were blasted full of holes and fell into a state of stillness.
Those thunderbolts struck the ground and abruptly became numberless tender shoots, which swelled as they met the wind, until in a moment the whole altar was lush with green and had become a primeval forest. The nine Creators were just about to marshal their consciousness and respond when a wild wind blew up, desert sands burying the forest, and flames blazed; the divine wind rolled the divine fire onward, and a sea of fire came roaring at them.
In an instant the sea of fire rushed to their side. Light blazed from the brows of the nine Creators, and each stretched out a hand, pinched his own consciousness and slashed hard with it; the void split open, countless stars burst into being, and before each of them took shape a river of stars.