Chapter 151 — Craft Lacking Purity
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
With Libationer Bashan's explosive shout, a wall of light tens of zhang tall and with scarcely any thickness at all appeared before them.
This sheer wall burst forth with an orange-yellow radiance, a li or more in breadth, covered in many strange patterns, and at the center of every pattern burned a star; the whole wall bore thirty-six patterns and thirty-six fiery stars, like a chart of the heavens. No sooner had Libationer Bashan unleashed the divine power of the Heavenly Precipice than the sounds of slaughter suddenly rose from ahead of them, and a battlefield began shifting toward them. Howling in came hundreds of divine-power wielders, riding great beasts that galloped and roared, and head-on they met this sheer wall that stretched across heaven and earth.
The barbarian wielders could not help but pale. An old barbarian general, huge of frame and white-haired, cried out sharply: "Smash it down, quickly!
" Countless divine powers came howling and surging straight at the wall, and the boom and crash of collisions rang on without cease.
Then flying swords came, shrieking harshly, thud-thud-thud, driving into the wall; but often only the tip pierced through, and the blade was fixed fast in the boundless white face of it, unable to advance and unable to be withdrawn.
Hum-hum-hum, the Heavenly Precipice shuddered under the blows; hundreds of flying swords now studded the wall, and behind them divine powers burst one after another, bombarding it.
Those several hundred barbarian wielders slammed into it, and together with the bursting divine powers they battered the wall until cracks kept opening across it. Libationer Bashan roared, thrust both hands forward, and with another hum a second Heavenly Precipice took form and merged with the cracked one before him.
He bore unimaginable pressure and was forced back step by step; these hundreds of wielders pressed upon him together, and among them were not a few powerhouses of the Seven-Star realm, the Heaven-Man realm, even the Life-and-Death realm. That he could hold them off with the Heavenly Precipice and keep them from shattering it was already terrifying enough.
"Saber Offering Pellets! " the old general cried sharply. Whoosh — pellet after pellet streaked across the sky and spun whirling before the wall, and at once countless blades of saber-light shot at it.
A ringing clangor of ding-ding-dang-dang filled the air, and in an instant the wall bristled with treasured sabers, ten thousand of them and more. Libationer Bashan's expression changed drastically; the pressure transmitted through the wall drove him back dozens of paces, and his Heavenly Precipice was squeezed smaller and smaller by that dreadful force. "Junior Brother, Princess — we have entered a barbarian battlefield!
" Libationer Bashan shouted: "Be careful, you two!
" Shen Mu's heart gave a small jolt.
Suddenly from deep in the grasslands came the doo-doo of war horns, and another army came in pursuit. The old barbarian general had no choice; he cried sharply: "Meet the enemy!
" The army that came was a great host, made up of barbarian divine-power wielders and warriors: the warriors on foot, the wielders as cavalry mounted on tall strange beasts.
Besides these, giant birds wheeled overhead on spread wings, and on their backs stood soldiers of the Man-Di Kingdom, seven-colored feathers bound in their hair — women, all of them — hurling spells and keen swords down upon the field below.
Looking through the wall, Shen Mu saw amid the host a dignified barbarian general seated upon a white elephant, a head taller than the other strange beasts and in no way inferior to the azure ox beneath their own feet.
The young barbarian general's gaze swept this way and fell upon the Heavenly Precipice; surprise showed on his face, then he was as before, and he shouted: "Wind!
" A troop rushed forward at once, took the great gourds from their backs, set them heavily before them, and opened the gourd mouths.