Chapter 1357 — Divine Lords of the Four Extremes
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
When the first of Divine Emperor Langxuan's divine-consciousness dao patterns shattered, Heavenly Venerable Moon's own divine consciousness and primordial spirit suffered the shock, and the music beneath her hands faltered by half a beat.
With her faltering by half a beat, the strings of light in the peach forest slowed by half a beat as well.
When the music joined again and the light blazed up, Shenqi Yutianzun, leaning upon the Yuan Tree, had come deep into the peach forest, and that strange gale had come into the grove as well, wind shaking the peach trees, leaves rattling, petals falling petal by petal and dancing upon the wind. In the sky those forty-nine great stars burned still brighter, hanging above the palace of the peach forest like forty-nine eyes fixed upon that hall, waiting for the next chance.
Through the ten thousand li of peach forest, strand after strand of light shuttled and leapt ever more urgently, and the sky turned kaleidoscopic in an instant, now day and now night, now pelting rain and now blazing sun, now snow mantling ten thousand li in silver, now fierce sun and burning summer, or bright spring, or hills red with autumn.
In a single brief instant the peach forest could pass from one world to another, from spring to summer, from winter to autumn.
Here mountains and rivers, sun and moon and stars shifted without cease, yet eerily Shenqi Yutianzun, the Yuan Tree, the monstrous wind, and the forty-nine great stars in the sky never changed. Within the hall the zither sang on, its measure ever more urgent.
Heavenly Venerable Moon's ten fingers flew, string after string leaping, leaping ever faster, as if even her fingers could not keep pace.
Suddenly Heavenly Venerable Moon rose to her feet, her ancient zither hanging suspended and wheeling about her as she trod the air and danced upon the sky. Her legs, unbeknownst even to herself, were healed, and she could stand.
Where her form moved the zither moved with her, drifting before and behind her, above and below, to left and to right without rest, and with a clang and clash sharp notes rang out, and the palace of the peach forest split asunder in an instant, leaving only row upon row of massive stone pillars.
The pillars stood like a forest, like the bridges of a zither.
The strings of that zither suddenly flew up and fastened themselves to the pillars, one string to one pillar.
Heavenly Venerable Moon, graceful beyond measure, threaded her way among strings and pillars, floating and drifting, yet her music soared high and impassioned, faintly edged with a stern and murderous air.
The Alchemist circled her like a tiny star in flight, his Medicine King primordial spirit standing erect within the Heavenly Palace, and the Heavenly Palace of the Medical Dao wheeling about Heavenly Venerable Moon as well, to keep the dao patterns within those healing spirit pills from falling into disorder.
Hum— Shen Mu spread open his Yuantai divine treasury, and within the hall there opened as it were a vast world, the Ancestral Court hanging at its center, with Xuandu above and Youdu below, the Four Extremes standing guard on every side, and all heavens and myriad worlds emerging into view.
Shen Mu's chief primordial spirit rose slowly, its frame growing ever greater and taller, so that from whatever direction one looked one saw only its full face. He was a four-faced god.
The palms of that four-faced god-king spread open, and the ruins of the great hall were upheld upon his hand, pillars and strings running a hundred li this way and that, the ruins of the hall become a great zither.
Heavenly Venerable Moon danced among pillars and strings, now skimming above a string and now diving beneath, now winding about a pillar, her long sleeves streaming as she plucked the strings.
She seemed to have become the four-faced god-king in Shen Mu's palm, able to grasp with perfect clarity every detail of the peach forest and the great zither.