Chapter 1323 — The Mine Mutiny
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
"It does not dislike you," said the Egg of the Great Beginning.
Shen Mu saw his own palm growing gradually insubstantial. Even the Great Beginning runes could not wholly shield his flesh; wherever they failed to shield him, the primordial stone's influence converted matter into pure energy.
"How am I supposed to carry this stone away?" His head ached; he was deeply troubled.
If he bore this strange primordial stone with him, then wherever he passed, all matter would likely cease to be, keeping its form while losing its substance, turning into every sort of bizarre energy body. Even those who came near would be rendered insubstantial.
More critically still, energy bodies were extremely unstable. If such bodies lay everywhere, they would surely trigger a tremendous explosion.
The Egg of the Great Beginning laughed. "That you need not worry about. I can carry it away and draw upon the stone's power. In time, its influence will gradually weaken."
Shen Mu nodded. The primordial stone of the Great Beginning was truly savage; to carry such a thing was to carry a weapon of wholesale slaughter. If he could not control it, he would likely blast his way along every step of the road, and one careless moment would see even him assimilated into an energy body and blown apart.
Aboard the ghost ship, when he had used the Way of the Great Beginning to collide with Heavenly Venerable Ling's Unchanging divine ability, he had already tasted that once.
"This stone may well be the most vicious of all the stones in the five mineral veins!"
He was just about to stow away the Egg of the Great Beginning and the primordial stone when the egg suddenly capered upon the altar. "Heavenly Venerable Mu, take the altar too!"
Shen Mu hesitated, then tried releasing his mana to draw the altar as well into the vertical eye between his brows. But the instant his mana surged out and sought to move the altar, the entire mining district abruptly boiled over.
The district shook with a roar. Every Great Beginning divine stone blazed forth, and stream after stream of strange power poured toward the Great Beginning altar.
Wherever that radiance passed, all things became nothingness. Even the ancient deities in the district were in a single instant rendered insubstantial, body and soul vanishing utterly.
Shen Mu's blood ran cold. He hastily thrust the Egg of the Great Beginning before him, only to find the light coming from every direction; unless he could burrow inside the egg, he would certainly not withstand it.
"Damn... wait, the primordial stone!"
At once his body shrank, and with a swoosh he vanished into the primordial stone, becoming a tiny Shen Mu seated upright within that water-sphere-like stone.
Countless beams of divine stone light shone in unison upon the primordial stone, seeking to refine this wretch who had thrown the whole district into chaos.
"Brother Dao of the Great Beginning!" Shen Mu shouted.
The Egg of the Great Beginning hastily drove the primordial stone. With a tremendous boom, the stone blazed with light, as though contending against those divine stones.
The two radiances collided, and a world-shaking surge swept in every direction. A pillar of light shot straight into the clouds, blazing with unearthly brilliance above the Ancestral Court.
And in the mining district, the miners who had escaped the divine stones' light had no time to flee before the second wave overtook them; one after another they were rendered insubstantial in the glow, reduced to a void state that had both form and energy.
The white cat Xiao Qi, outside the district just then, whipped its head around and saw the light flooding and surging out like a tide, rushing toward it at furious speed. Its fur bristled; with a shriek it fled outward.
At the same time Xiu Hongsu was alerted, and hastily drove the Heavenly Venerable treasure suspended high above the district.