Chapter 1018 — That Thin Eggshell
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace led the way, while Shen Mu, steering the Heavenly Lord's fleshly body, strolled at his ease through the inner palace. Beauties beyond counting filled those halls, lovely enough to make a man forget to leave.
So many beauties in the inner palace meant, naturally, so many palaces; winding paths led to secluded places, and whichever small path one chose, its end was the love nest of some lovely, tender, water-soft consort. Truly a life of comfort.
Shen Mu looked at those paths one after another and could not help shaking his head. "The Heavenly Lord knew how to enjoy himself. But now that he is dead, the one enjoying all this is no longer him, but one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables. I wonder whether the Heavenly Lord has left any other children over the years? And if children were born, whose children are they really?"
His curiosity was boundless. Though his present situation was perilous in the extreme, like walking on thin ice, where a single careless slip would expose him and leave him without even a grave, he still could not stop his mind from wandering.
At last the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace brought him to the forbidden zone within the inner palace. No human trace remained in the surrounding area, and ancient divine statues stood guard over the place. Each time they passed a stone statue, the stone sloughed away and it became a body of flesh and blood, holding various divine artifacts, bowing in salute.
Shen Mu gazed at them. These divine beings were all of extraordinary strength, their blood and vital force at its most abundant; even waking from petrification, they could in an instant rise to their peak.
"These soldiers must belong to one of the ten guards of the Heavenly Court, charged specifically with guarding the forbidden zone."
Shen Mu felt a chill of awe. The ten guards of the Heavenly Court — the Left and Right Feather Forest, the Left and Right Dragon Martial, the Left and Right Divine Martial, the Left and Right Divine Strategy, the Left and Right Divine Might — were all chosen from the strongest gods and demons under heaven, and the least of them had to be at the Jade Capital realm.
The fighting power of the god-and-demon guards stationed in the forbidden zone must be terrifying indeed!
Nor was that all: the divine artifacts in their hands were no ordinary divine weapons. Each one contained a Great Dao of the Ancient Gods, and presumably a small number of them joined together could condense into the form of an Ancient God and unleash appalling power.
One had to remember that even the Lord of Heaven was composed of no more than forty-nine kinds of heavenly Dao.
Yet here the gods and demons numbered in the tens of thousands, and the divine artifacts likewise numbered in the tens of thousands!
Though an assembly of divine artifacts could not compare with a true Ancient God, such numbers were nothing to be taken lightly.
"The Ancient God Heavenly Lord set great store by this place. I wonder whether the other Heavenly Venerables have ever come here."
Shen Mu walked on, thinking, "They must have. Those Heavenly Venerables would never overlook the place where the Heavenly Lord was born; most likely this place has been ransacked more times than anyone can count."
Ahead, the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace halted and bowed. "Father Emperor, the forbidden zone lies ahead; your son dares not enter without leave."
Shen Mu stepped forward and smiled. "If your father tells you to enter, what is there to fear?"
Waves of music reached his ears — the wondrous sound and melody of the Dao, the Dao murmuring low.
Hearing it, Shen Mu suddenly found that the runes of the Heavenly Lord's Great Dao he had once been unable to read now opened before him one by one; the mysteries hidden in each kind of Dao rune flowed with the sound and melody into his ears and became messages of unfathomable subtlety.