Chapter 1171 — A Bosom Friend in the Boudoir
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
He was about to leave when Gong Heavenly Venerable's voice came from behind him. "If I were you, I would never subdue these void beasts. It is not that void beasts cannot be subdued, but that they are exceedingly strange. Every void beast is the equivalent of a small part of a human brain, and all the void beasts together make up a complete brain."
Shen Mu was taken aback. There was such a bizarre creature in the world?
Gong Heavenly Venerable went on, "And the mother beast is the equivalent of the brain's thought, controlling every void beast. When void beasts first appeared out of the void, many Creators went to subdue them. But later the mother beast appeared, and those Creators were all devoured by the void beasts. Not one of them escaped."
Shen Mu thanked her, then suddenly recalled the crux of the matter and ventured, "Fellow Daoist Gong, you say the void beasts appeared suddenly out of the void? There was no such creature before?"
Gong Heavenly Venerable shook her head. "The ancient giant beasts of the Ancestral Court are fearsome and incomparably powerful, but there was no creature as monstrous as the void beast. This creature was born out of the void, and from the moment of its birth it stood at the head of all ancient giant beasts, devouring the rest. A single void beast is not the strongest of all the ancient giant beasts, but void beasts breed far too quickly. However strong the other giant beasts were, they could not withstand such numbers, and little by little they died out."
Shen Mu felt this deeply.
The void beast eggs of the nineteenth void were the most terrifying thing he had ever sensed.
"If all the void beasts together form a complete brain, then is this creature born of nature, or made by someone?" Shen Mu asked.
Gong Heavenly Venerable hesitated a moment, then said, "Come with me this way."
Shen Mu followed her. Divine King Gong Yun led him to the rear of the ore vein, where he saw a vast basin, and within that basin lay countless dry bones.
Those bones were the size of mountains; even a single beast leg was tens of thousands of zhang long.
"In those days my Nuxin Clan honored women above all, and a woman's physical fighting strength is not the equal of a stinking man's."
Divine King Gong Yun led him into the basin, walking upon the enormous bones, and said apologetically, "I did not mean you... That is why we of the Nuxin Clan would tame giant beasts and use them in battle. This is where the Nuxin Clan buried their giant beasts. Come, look at this beast bone."
Shen Mu looked down. This skeleton had six thick legs, and the leg bones were sturdy as mountain peaks.
"This strange beast was called the Shanxu. It was like a walking mountain range, and its mouth gave out a hushing, whistling cry. It had six legs, just like the legs of a void beast. But the Shanxu had none of the void beast's sharp claws."
Divine King Gong Yun moved on to another enormous skeleton, whose legs bore claws sharp as curved sabers, eight or nine to each leg, the number varying.
"This is the Queqi."
Divine King Gong Yun said, "Its body was covered in trees and moss. When it lay prone upon the ground, one would mistake it for nothing more than a hill, and yet its claws were incomparably sharp, exactly like a void beast's claws."
Shen Mu studied the Queqi's claws. They were indeed extraordinarily sharp and identical in shape to a void beast's claws, only much smaller.
"This skeleton is a Pohao. It walked with a hobbling gait. They had fleshy wings and were skilled at lying flat upon mountain peaks and then gliding down. The Pohao's fleshy wings were the same as a void beast's fleshy wings."
Divine King Gong Yun came to yet another giant beast's remains and said, "This strange beast was called the Daxiong. It had a single eye, and was born with a powerful divine consciousness, skilled at bewitching people. That giant beast over there is named the Xiufeng. It has no eyes; only a great mouth upon its head."