Chapter 1010 — The Struggle of Sovereigns, Close-Quarters Slaughter
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The drums rolled like thunder, shaking heaven and earth, as though the sound of the war drums were meant to rouse the Wuyou Township of today—to rouse the elders who did nothing but wallow in self-pity and curse heaven and blame their fellow man, to rouse the young who drowned in soft comforts and luxury and had no thought of striving onward. Shen Mu was not beating Kaihuang; he was beating the decayed spirit of the Kaihuang Era. And in the eyes of everyone in Wuyou Township, Shen Mu was no longer Shen Mu—he was that Heavenly Court they had sworn to resist unto death, that tyranny!
That scene of Kaihuang being beaten inside Shen Mu's domain showed them their leader fallen beneath the iron hooves of the Heavenly Court, fallen beneath the iron fists of the Heavenly Court's gods. Within Shen Mu's domain, the faces of those gods and demons twisted into savage grins, mocking the people of the Kaihuang Era for not knowing their own strength, mocking Kaihuang's perseverance and sacrifice as utterly incapable of awakening the benighted people of this age. The Heavenly Court that Shen Mu represented was mocking them, mocking them for having once been Kaihuang's companions, Kaihuang's fellow travelers on the Dao, and yet having become pitiful wretches and parasites who could only hope Kaihuang would turn the tide.
They had become mere spectators, able only to wave banners and shout encouragement for Kaihuang; they had become the protected, who panicked and grieved like mourners at a parent's death the moment Kaihuang failed. Shen Mu, aloft and exalted, looked down with cold eyes and mocked them—they were not fit to be Kaihuang's fellow travelers on the Dao! And yet. . .
This was wrong! They, the elders, had in that era been the favored children of heaven too, filled with boundless heroism, daring to defy the Heavenly Court and defy injustice, possessed of the grand ambition to remake heaven and earth! At the beginning, they had not been Kaihuang's subjects; they had been his comrades on the same path.
Only because Kaihuang had greater resolve, greater perseverance, greater means did they raise him up to be Kaihuang. They were not people who needed Kaihuang's protection.
The Kaihuang Era was not the era of Kaihuang alone—it was the era of them all!
The war drums sounded, the thunder rolled, and the blood in the hearts of the people of that age twenty thousand years ago grew hot once more, burned once more.
Amid the drumbeats, the spirit of that era seemed to be reborn, sprouting anew in every heart, growing anew, swelling anew!
Kaihuang's reforms had from the first been the reforms of everyone in an era; to pin one's hopes on a single man was to lose the very essence of reform. When everyone sank into their own private worlds, hoping a single leader would change everything, reform lost its soil.
When they let their hot blood cool and could only curse heaven and earth with their complaints, the spirit of former days was gone. When the new generation grew up in such an atmosphere, how could they still possess the fighting spirit of their forebears? How could they inherit the epochal spirit of the Kaihuang Era's reforms?
That they, when their aspirations could not be realized and their ambitions found no outlet, gave themselves over to wine and women and the most extravagant luxury—that was no longer so strange.
When the Way does not prevail, one does not set out upon a raft across the sea—for this is Wuyou Township, and they cannot leave.
They can only drown themselves in debauchery. But now, the epochal spirit that had lain silent for twenty thousand years was awakening amid the sound of the war drums.
Some had already awakened; they would let their spirit fill heaven and earth, to awaken more people, to restore the reforms and transformations of the Kaihuang Era! It was not too late for anything; they could still begin again.