Chapter 1321 — Demonic Miasma at the Mine's Depths
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The white cat was the very one Consort Yan was forever cradling in her arms. On light, soundless feet, tail held high, it walked straight out before Shen Mu and, without so much as turning its head, said, "Heavenly Venerable Mu, I shall lead the way for you. This way, please.
" Shen Mu smiled and fell into step behind him.
The white cat, Little Seven, padded on unhurried, and said mildly, "This mining district is monstrously dangerous. Even one who has entered the Imperial Throne realm cannot hold out here for long. The men who come to this place to mine are all mighty among the gods, yet because they enter and linger too long, they are assimilated by the mineral veins. " Shen Mu heard the sound of quarrying and peered into the murk, and there was a divine being hewing divine stone from the cliff face.
All around the stone, strange runes were packed in close; on either side of the cliff stood mirrors, their light fixed on the divine stone, as though in fear the stone might flee.
The god gripped a pick and struck, blow after blow, ringing out clang, clang. Shen Mu watched a while, and saw that with every stroke the divine being's body grew a shade fainter, while he himself seemed to feel nothing whatever, still trying without pause to pry the stone loose.
The white cat Little Seven looked back; Shen Mu followed after, and saw yet more divine miners.
They too were like walking corpses, quarrying the divine ore for no one's sake but their own. Before each of them the rock face was daubed all over with uncanny runes, and beside him stood two mirrors, pinning the divine stone in their light.
They worked with their heads down, swinging their iron picks in dull tedium, clang, clang.
All at once one of them wept with joy, clutching a divine stone and shouting through his tears, choking out, "I've got one! I've got a divine stone! This is my third — I can finally go home!
" Whuff — an iron pick rose up behind him and drove into his skull, piercing clean through the crown of his head.
The god was dead where he stood! The one who had struck him down was himself a divine miner. Having finished the man off, he snatched up the Taishi divine stone that had fallen to the ground and said with a chuckling laugh, "The one going home is me!
I've had my fill of this place!
" Mad with joy, he raced for the edge of the mining district, crying, "Overseer! Overseer!
I've dug up a divine stone—" The other divine miners took no notice at all, still numbly hammering the rock wall. Shen Mu frowned. "Her Highness the Consort does after all have a good and merciful heart.
These miners are all condemned felons from the Great Prison of the Heavenly Court," said the white cat Little Seven. "They committed capital crimes, but Her Highness granted them this: mine three divine stones, and their guilt is pardoned, and they go home in silks and glory!
" Shen Mu studied the divine miners in the haze of the district.
"Their cultivation," he said, "will hardly sustain three divine stones.
" Little Seven glanced at the miners, contempt on his face. "Three stones?
To quarry a single stone without being assimilated already makes you an expert of the God-Slaying Platform realm. To quarry three and not die takes at least the Jade Capital realm.
Even a mighty one of the Skyreach realm, after three stones, will be half-phantom. He walks out of here a broken god.
" Shen Mu smiled a half-smile. "Can they truly leave? " Little Seven laughed coldly. "Her Highness keeps her word — would she cheat them? And yet, to this day, no one has ever left this mining district alive.
That fellow just now may be the first.
" They went deeper, and in the depths too there was the sound of digging; the gods down there had come to mine raw stone. Shen Mu saw that these miners wore fetters on their ankles, chained together.