Chapter 1069 — The Five Stars Fall in Succession
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
On the other side, Shen Mu's sword light met the Zhen Star Lord, whose reaction was just as swift: the mirror in his hand rose to meet the sword light, while the white banner in his other hand swept up and drove down hard into the Heavenly River! Boom—the waters of the Heavenly River burst apart of a sudden.
That great white banner was like a standard blotting out half the sky.
With a swish, Shen Mu's sword light pierced into the mirror, vanished, and in the next instant flew out from the white banner. Flying out with the sword light came countless Creators of colossal frame, each with a vertical eye upon its brow, each vertical eye a Primeval Godstone; their bodies were firm, powerful beyond measure, and seizing Shen Mu's sword light, they turned it back and thrust at Shen Mu himself.
The Zhen Star Lord was first among the Five Luminaries, mighty in strength. What Shen Mu's sword contained was the swordsmanship and the sword way of later ages: nineteen foundational sword forms composed his art, and the twentieth form unified them, fusing his essence, spirit, and qi into the blade and transmuting them into the Way of the Sword.
And the Zhen Star Lord's white banner was linked with that soul-summoning mirror, and hidden within the banner were the corpses of many Creators. The flesh of these prehistoric Creators had been tempered to immense strength, and under his command they seized Shen Mu's sword light and turned it upon Shen Mu to kill him.
To turn Shen Mu's own swordsmanship to his own use and slay him with it — well did he deserve to be the strongest of the Five Luminaries Star Lords. And now his birthplace had come: the Zhen Star had descended, his magic power waxed ever greater, his cultivation in the Great Way ever more profound, his strength soaring; and with the marvels of the corpse-hiding banner and the soul-summoning mirror beside it, it straightway made the guest into the host.
Yet in the next instant, the vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened and his divine consciousness erupted; in a single blink that dread consciousness swept over every Creator corpse come charging in!
Thousands of Creator corpses were under the Zhen Star Lord's control, and his control rested upon the art of soul mastery. He was an ancient god who ruled the Way of Death; in that year he had slain the Creators, mastered their souls, and through their souls commanded their bodies.
These Creators were the Zhen Clan, and well-nigh the whole of the Zhen Clan had perished by his hand.
That the Zhen Star Lord had used the Way of Death to exterminate the Zhen Clan was a deed that shook prehistoric times. And now Shen Mu's consciousness surged in, and almost in the very instant of contact he seized these Creators' bodies with it and performed the Grand Emperor's art of borrowing life, wiping away the Zhen Star Lord's soul mastery!
The Grand Emperor's supreme Dalu divine consciousness, improved by Shen Mu himself and joined to the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace system, surpassed the Zhen Star Lord in the subtlety of its arts beyond all reckoning; to restrain his soul mastery was effortless.
The Zhen Star Lord was startled at heart, thought to himself that this boded ill, and then saw his white banner torn to shreds by thousands of Creators with their sword light, and his soul-summoning mirror smashed to powder.
The Creators charging at him were ranked above and below in thirty-three tiers, their forms staggered in orderly array, forming a sword formation. The Zhen Star Lord roared all at once, his serpent body writhing, and instead of retreating he advanced, charging to meet the Creators.
These Creators were all ghosts of his own slain; therefore he feared them not in the least. But the sword light blazed.
Though it was Creators who held the swords and set the formation, the one who wielded the sword art and the sword formation was Shen Mu; in truth Shen Mu was borrowing the Zhen Clan's Creators to trade blows with him.