Chapter 1412 — Venerable Hong Shackled
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Venerable Hong looked at him with a smile; the two stood very close, only a few paces apart.
"I do not wish Lord Heaven to die.
Lord Heaven counts as a fellow traveler on my Dao. " Shen Mu lowered his brows and his eyes, and said in a hoarse voice, "Lord Heaven noticed me when I was still very weak. He favored me, and sheltered me for many years.
I have always taken him for an elder. I still remember how happy he was in my Shen Continent, together with Tu Bo and Emperor Chi. " Venerable Hong swept his whisk and said with a smile, "Venerable Mu, you are too full of sentiment.
Such feelings ill become a Heavenly Venerable. When Lord Heaven dies, he will have thrown off the shackles of the Heavenly Dao and be wholly free. You ought to rejoice for him, rather than bare killing intent at me. " Shen Mu's face was stricken with grief.
"I do not want him to become Venerable Hong through and through. A Lord Heaven who has become Venerable Hong is no longer Lord Heaven.
Hong, you are no longer Lord Heaven; you no longer uphold the will of the Heavenly Dao. You are only one of the Ten Venerables - a scrambling, sniveling thing no different from Hao, Zu, Lang and their kind. " Venerable Hong smiled. "Do you not think that becoming what I am now is better for Lord Heaven?
You are directing killing intent at a Heavenly Venerable, Venerable Mu. You should know the consequences of doing so. " Shen Mu raised his head; the vertical eye between his brows slowly opened, and he nodded lightly. "To direct killing intent at a Heavenly Venerable is, of course, exceedingly perilous.
I have known that since long ago.
But you and I are very close, and such a short distance is all but nonexistent to a being well versed in the Martial Dao.
In the Martial Dao, ten paces, one kill - and the distance between us is less than ten paces.
" Venerable Hong laughed.
"When Zhuo Cha, the Great Emperor of the Martial Dao, rises in fury to kill, the closer the distance, the stronger his attack becomes.
Even a being of deeper cultivation and higher mastery of the Dao arts and divine arts than his own, once he closes to such a distance, will be slain by him. For a time you studied under the Great Emperor of the Martial Dao, and you have learned his skills as well.
But have you ever considered.
. . " He stood upon the sea, very close to Shen Mu, yet bearing the grandeur of a Great Emperor of the Martial Dao - mountain-firm, abyss-deep.
"In those years, that Kaihuang was able to rise at all was by my support.
" The Martial Dao aura upon Venerable Hong grew thicker and thicker; his Martial Dao primal spirit, his Martial Dao will, were even more intense than Shen Mu's.
"The whole Kaihuang Era endured for twenty thousand years only under my protection!
" From Venerable Hong's plump, fat body came an appalling aura - a presence that struck terror, a presence that brought despair.
In the Kaihuang Era, the Ten Venerables had not cared in the least for the Kaihuang Heavenly Court; after all, the Kaihuang Kingdom had never, from first to last, occupied the Origin World, had never ruled the myriad heavens and worlds, and had never posed a mortal threat to the Heavenly Court. The Kaihuang Kingdom was merely a tiny state of the lower realms, propped up by Lord Heaven.
The greatest achievement of the Kaihuang Era lay in the Post-Heaven Daos.
They created three hundred and sixty kinds of Post-Heaven Dao, and had they been given time, they could have raised those Post-Heaven Daos to stand alongside the Pre-Heaven Daos, or even to surpass them.
The Martial Dao was one of them. Kaihuang's Sword Dao was another. And Lord Heaven, the true patron of the Kaihuang Kingdom, was surely privy to every fruit of that era's civilization.
"At such a short distance, you can do nothing.
" Venerable Hong's face shone with glory; his aura grew ever more despairing.