Chapter 1174 — Tearing It Apart to My Heart's Content
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu steadied himself and continued his examination. Beneath the cracked ancient god egg lay a small, round pit. He could not help but start. He had seen pits of this kind before.
On the Creators' continent in the Blood-Rust Belt, there stood a great many altars, and nearly every altar bore a round pit of this sort. Those pits gathered the sacrificial power of the Creators, and that power evolved into wondrous forms - ancient gods manifesting as the Lord of Heaven, the Earth Mother, the Lord of Soil, and others besides, each of terrifying combat strength. "Could it be that the Creators imitated these altars, gathered their own divine consciousness, and visualized the forms of ancient gods to build their war machines?"
Shen Mu pondered deeply as he walked toward the ancient god egg split in two. The Creators must have learned a portion of the ancient gods' knowledge, and from it designed altars resembling those of the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor Taichu.
"The shell is a treasure. This ancient god who emerged from it had no idea how precious his own shell was, and so he ran off the moment he was born!"
He came to stand before the shell at the center of the altar. The shell was truly enormous, forcing him to crane his neck and look up. This ancient god egg was in no way smaller than the ancient god egg of Heavenly Emperor Taichu.
"That ancient god who cracked out of his shell - who knows where he has gone. Could the great terror Heavenly Emperor Taichu spoke of be him?"
Shen Mu blinked. In that year, the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor had led a host of ancient gods to seal the Ancestral Court. To be sure, part of his intent had been to seal away his own inglorious past, but surely he had also meant to seal a monstrous beast as terrible as the Void Beast. And the Void Beast seemed to be a freak assembled from disparate ancient behemoths, less a creature born of heaven and earth than an abominable being artificially created to destroy the world. Could the one who made such a beast be the ancient god who had emerged from this very shell?
"Be that as it may, this ancient god has left a flaw behind!"
Shen Mu strained every fiber to drag the shell. He hauled it into the space between his brows, storing it within the Shen-Character Continent. The shell was so vast it all but shrouded half of that continent. He did not yet have the dharma power to refine it smaller, and so for now he could only leave it as it was.
The two ancient god eggs he had obtained before had both been refined - one shrunk considerably by the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, the other refined as a treasure by the two Xuanwu Emperors into the central pivot of the Lapis Azure-Sky Banner. If he possessed dharma power of their caliber, Shen Mu too could refine the shell down to a smaller size.
"I have already deciphered the runes of one Egg of the Primordial Beginning. With this shell as well, I can unravel the Great Dao of the Ancient God of the Primordial Beginning."
His gaze flickered. He dragged the other half of the shell along, thinking, "If I can find a place of treasure here and gain firm footing, I will attempt to break through Ling Tianzun's divine arts and free my eldest senior brother first!"
He stacked the two halves of the shell together, lest they obstruct the vision of the vertical eye between his brows. But no sooner had he put the two halves away than the earth shook and the mountains swayed!