Chapter 1473 — He Is None Other Than That Legend
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
From the moment Di Qing rose to meet Heavenly Venerable Hong to the moment Di Qing fell in battle, no more time had passed than it takes a single stick of incense to burn, and in so brief a span another man could never have fled far at all. Yet the very instant Di Qing left this continent, Shen Mu was already driving the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, with the Zaiji Heavenly Palace as his guiding seat and the rest of his heavenly palaces in support, gathering his qi into a sword and sweeping one stroke behind him.
At that stroke's descent, layer upon layer of space came surging forth, and out of that surging space ten thousand stars poured from the void, stretching the distance between them and Heavenly Venerable Hong ever wider! Stroke after stroke he swept, and the space swelled without cease. Though all of them together, pooling the strength of every soul present, could not have stood against Heavenly Venerable Hong, when it came to flight, not even a Heavenly Venerable could hope to run Shen Mu down.
The Zaiji Void Sutra, the art of the Moon Heavenly Venerable — he had not mastered it fully, yet he had steeped himself in it long enough that, with such means, he was confident he could outrun the pursuit of any Heavenly Venerable. But to carry the people of this continent away from Heavenly Venerable Hong's pursuit — that was beyond his strength.
Di Qing was nothing to him; Di Qing's kin were nothing to him; but once he gave his word, he would spend every last ounce of himself to keep it. Shen Mu swept out more than ten strokes in succession until his mana began to strain; then he halted his feet, and the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art reshuffled the sequence of his heavenly palaces. Now he took his own principal heavenly palace as the guiding seat and the others in support, raising the power of his cultivation to its utmost limit.
Boom— An Other Shore Divine Ark appeared beneath the continent, bearing up the whole battered landmass, and slowly gathering speed. When the ark's speed reached its peak, the entire continent crashed roaring through the void and entered the first layer of the void.
A moment later the ark carried the continent through into the second layer of the void. But by the time it plunged into the sixth layer, the continent could no longer bear the void's crushing weight; the people among the ruins of Tianfang City upon it could hold out no longer either, and their bodies began to turn immaterial.
The many Sun Keepers spent themselves utterly, shielding them with their own mana and slowing that tide for a time. Yet this fragment of Tianfang City could not hold.
Divine stones the size of mountain ranges peeled away from the land one after another, broke free, and then little by little dissolved into the void. The fragment grew smaller and smaller, soon shrinking from a continent to an island, forcing the people upon it to crowd together, barely with room to stand. Shen Mu's vital essence shuddered; he forced the ark faster, driving it away from Xuandu.
He did not know how long had passed when his mana neared exhaustion.
With the last of his strength he tore the Tianfang City fragment free of the eighth layer of the void; and when the fragment left the void, Shen Mu's aura collapsed violently, and he nearly fell to the ground. "Everyone. " Steadying himself on Tian Shu's and Zai Fu's arms, Shen Mu addressed the hundred or so Sun Keepers and the people of Xuandu: "We are far from the battlefield now.
I cannot carry you out of Xuandu, but your pursuers will find it very hard to catch you. You can make your own way to the Origin Realm. There is no longer any place in this world that shelters the people of Xuandu. " He coughed violently, and after a moment said: "The Land of No Sorrow has been sealed off by the armies of the Heavenly Court; you cannot reach it.
Xuandu is no place for you to remain either.