Chapter 154 — Breaking the Will
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Kill!
" A shamaness with the head and tail of a leopard cried out fiercely, raised a bronze mirror, and shone it upon Shen Mu.
In the mirror's face surfaced soul after soul, hideous and ferocious.
Ding. Before the bronze mirror a flying sword appeared of a sudden, nailed fast to the mirror's face; that bronze mirror was hard beyond measure and actually blocked the flying sword, but in the next instant the sword spun sharply, became the Drill-Sword Form, and bored straight through the bronze mirror; the sword-light broke the mirror and ran the shamaness behind it through in one stroke. "What is there to fear in shaman poison?
" Shen Mu's robes snapped and flapped; he raised a hand and recalled his flying sword.
Another shaman's body sprouted tiger fur, tiger claws, a tiger tail; with a howl he hurled himself forward, rousing a wild wind, pouncing in so close that Shen Mu was given no chance to draw his sword at all. Shen Mu turned his body aside and struck with his fist.
The two men's footwork tangled in confusion, and the sound of blows — bang, bang, bang — would not cease. That shaman's head shook and rocked, grew a tiger's head, and he roared like thunder, booming without end, battering Shen Mu's soul with tiger howls.
Shen Mu used his fist as a seal; one punch blasted out — Sun Shines on the Yang-Spirit, Refined in the Void. His five fingers spread into a palm, and with a single cry of "Mo Ye Sa" he struck out the Heaven-Demon Sovereign-Heaven Seal. His palm and fist shifted again and again, Buddhist, Daoist, and demonic seal-arts alternating, and the tiger's roar had time to ring only three times before he shattered that shaman's soul to pieces and laid him out stiff and straight upon the ground.
Then a great shaman of a yet higher realm burst forth suddenly. His cultivation was far more overbearing than those shamans before him, his divine powers unbound, and he kept the shape and form of an ordinary man.
Though he had sealed his own secret realm, the moment his art was driven he took form at once, like a raging ape, gripping a golden rod thick as a pillar, sweeping away a thousand troops, his strength boundless and his swiftness extreme. Shen Mu reached out and plucked down his bamboo staff, and set bamboo staff against golden rod; the two flashed into combat, and of a sudden the sky-wide golden rod-shadows snapped shut.
That shaman's heart was touched by the bamboo staff, and astonishment showed on his face. But after all he was a great shaman of a realm, not a mere shaman; he decided on the instant to unseal his secret realm, and in the very moment his realm opened, his heart was pierced through by the bamboo staff, and his corpse fell prone upon the ground.
Shen Mu drew the bamboo staff from his heart. A great shaman of that realm is called a "divine-power wielder" in Jingping Kingdom; only the name differs — in essence there is no difference at all.
Had this divine-power wielder not sealed his secret realm, it would have been very hard to kill him; but so long as he fought at the same realm, he had the strength to slay his opponent, no matter whether that opponent had once been of that realm or of the Seven Star Realm! Boom.
A golden strongman leapt and bounded up onto the golden platform, landed with a heavy crash, a saber-pack taller than a man slung at his back; of a sudden he opened his great mouth and roared at Shen Mu, and from the saber-pack at his back saber-light came shrieking out, and with a rattling clatter a sky of saber-shadows chopped down at Shen Mu. At the same time that golden strongman gripped a saber in each hand and came dancing his twin blades in to kill; the two sabers now before him, now behind, like two great serpents coiled about his body, rolling toward Shen Mu.
Shen Mu held one Slaughter-Saber right-handed and one back-handed; from the sword-pack hidden at his back flying swords came hissing out to meet the falling saber-light.