Chapter 1483 — My Will Is the Will of Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
" "At the moment of my greatest glory, I plunged suddenly to the bottom of the valley and lay upon a sickbed for a thousand years. " Haotian Venerable stopped his steps and tilted his head, recalling the past. "In those thousand years I met with countless cold stares, countless mockeries; even those who had once followed me left me one after another, jeering at me, spitting curses upon me.
Having passed through that great rise and great fall, my Dao-heart thereafter became incomparably tenacious and steady. " A supremely powerful confidence and conviction flowed from his eyes as he declared loudly, "The reason I lay upon that sickbed so long was not the wounds of my flesh, but the wounds of my Dao-heart! When at last I rose from that bed, there was no one left under heaven who could vanquish my Dao-heart! From that time on I have seen all the warmth and coldness of the world; I saw through so-called family, friendship and love.
From that time on, I have lived only for myself!
" "I did away with one obstacle after another among my brothers and sisters; even the eldest crown prince I schemed against and reduced to Xie Wuqi! " "I leapt up to become the leader of the demigod clan and founded the Longxiao Heavenly Court, once more commanding the demigods under heaven. I joined hands with Venerable Yun and did away with my imperial father, who sat so high and seemed impossible to defeat; and I seized another's nest for my own, nibbling away step by step and entrenching myself step by step, and in this way stole the power of the Heavenly Alliance!
" "For the past million years: my imperial father was defeated, Venerable Yun was defeated, Venerable Huo submitted, Venerable Yue was defeated, Venerable Ling was defeated — my opponents grow fewer and fewer. " The confidence and conviction in his eyes turned into a smile: "And now it is Kaihuang's turn — the turn of our own Ten Venerables!
Venerable Hong is the first; after him, the Great Emperor, and then the Father God who rises again! " His Dao-heart grew steadier and steadier; upon the face of the Sky Sea no waves stirred, not a single ripple appeared!
Taisu slowly revealed her form again and said softly, "Then what of the one who made you lie upon a sickbed for more than a thousand years a million years ago, and a million years later made you fall once more from the peak into the dust, losing every shred of face in the Taixu?
" Her voice seemed to hold a strange magic; the muscles at the corners of Haotian Venerable's eyes twitched wildly, and the calm Sky Sea suddenly erupted into towering waves and furious billows, wind and surge rising in an instant! World-engulfing waves lashed the vast sky; the heavens turned black and heavy, and thunder and lightning cracked and crashed without cease, a horror like hell itself!
Only after a long while did the strange phenomenon of the Sky Sea subside.
The flapping of Haotian Venerable's robes slowly stilled as well; he did not answer Taisu's question, but walked straight on toward the River of Heaven.
The two great rises and falls of his life had both been granted him by Shen Mu: the thousand-odd years he lay upon a sickbed were the sword wound and the Dao-heart wound that Shen Mu had inflicted upon him.
The encounter with the Great Emperor in the Taixu, the head-on struggle, was likewise Shen Mu's doing; Shen Mu had even sought him out in person while he was healing his wounds and preparing to advance another step.
Not only did he wreck his grand plan to advance, he hunted him for six hundred thousand li!
His dignity was utterly swept away before the hosts of the Heavenly Court and the hosts of the Land of No Sorrow! He had been forced to kneel in worship to Taisu and lick her feet in order to survive!
To rise again, he had been forced to bargain with the tiger, forced to rely upon Taisu's power.
All of this, every last bit of it, was Shen Mu's gift!
The only one who could throw his Dao-heart into chaos was Shen Mu!