Chapter 1301 — The Two Modes Dharma Eye
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu turned a deaf ear to it all. He opened the vertical eye between his brows, but everything he saw through it swam in a blur, and he knew the ancient god Taishi within the egg was playing tricks; there was nothing for it but to take the ancient god's egg out.
Only then did the Taishi Egg breathe easy. The round egg rolled several turns across the ground, putting distance between itself and the breach in the Shen-Character Continent, lest Shen Mu cram it back in and wedge it fast.
"The ancient gods of the Taiji lode and I are on excellent terms — we talk together famously. If I use the Taiji primal stone they gave me to sharpen the power of my sacred pupil, surely they won't hold it against me?"
So Shen Mu consoled himself, and once more set his mind on the Taiji primal stone. He rolled the stone up and stuffed it into the pupil of his vertical eye, plugging the breach.
"Mu Tianzun, you are courting death!" cried Taishi within the egg. "The ancient god of the Taiji lode is sly and treacherous — more treacherous than I am by a margin you cannot reckon. Of the five great lodes, Taiyi came forth earliest of all; every other ancient god's egg was dug out, his alone was not. You may judge from that how vicious and cunning he is — and you dare to use his primal stone!"
Shen Mu tried to rouse the Taiji primal stone. He shut both his eyes and looked around with the vertical eye alone, and at once everything turned strange.
Mountains and stones, trees, rivers, cloud-breath, and even flowers and grasses, men and insects, birds and beasts — all had become a bizarre spectacle of the two qi of yin and yang tangled together!
Shen Mu was astonished beyond measure. He raised his hand gently and pinched a drifting leaf between his fingers. In his eye the leaf still wore the shape of a leaf, yet its essence had already become yin and yang qi.
At the faintest stir of his thought, the leaf dissolved on the instant, scattering away as a wisp of yin and yang qi.
Shen Mu opened his own eyes. The leaf was utterly gone, leaving no trace at all, not even ash.
He roused the vertical eye in his brow again and gave a light wave of his hand. A boulder ahead, two or three men tall, dissolved in an instant into threads and strands of yin and yang qi that melted away between heaven and earth.
"This Taiji primal stone is mightier even than the Taichu primal stone!"
He could not keep from exulting. Another flick of his fingers, and a great tree was abruptly transformed: the yin and yang qi that composed it shifted, and it became a giant octopus, its tentacles unfurling as it skimmed over eaves and walls and sped away into the distance.
Taishi within the egg sneered, "You are finished. You are done for. You have stolen the power of Taiji, the karma is deeply sown, and that ancient god will never let you go."
"They treat me very well," Shen Mu said hotly. "Don't talk nonsense!"
"Treat you well?" Taishi in the egg sneered. "If they treated you well, would they have beguiled you into going to the Great Blackwood?"
Shen Mu was slightly taken aback, then shook his head and laughed. "The Great Blackwood is the Ancestral Court's first holy ground — easy to hold, hard to storm. Even the Void Beasts dare not set foot there lightly, and the ancient god Taiyi keeps watch over it. There are lodes in abundance there; choosing it was truly a wise move!"
The Taishi Egg rocked to and fro, seeming utterly without words for him, at a loss how to bring him to his senses.
"Between Taiji and Taichu there is no high and no low; it is only that the Taichu primal stone does not suit you, while the Taiji primal stone fits you better."
Taishi in the egg set the earlier matter aside. "The Taichu primal stone suits the Supreme Emperor better. By the way, why did you ask the Supreme Emperor for the heart of Heavenly Venerable Hao?"