Chapter 184 — Driving Ghosts and Enslaving Gods
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The black mist grew ever denser; it was daylight now, yet it seemed as though night had fallen. Shen Mu and the others could still barely make out their direction, and looking up they could still see the sun — but that sun was not the least bit dazzling, only a round, pale halo in the darkness, far dimmer than the light of the moon. They looked all around and saw only green mountains turned to hazy black ones. From behind came a clamor of voices, and someone shouted, "A few got away — three men and three women, and a big lion.
.
. Don't you go!
Pick up my head!
Come back—" Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly, and he looked at Shen Wanyun. Shen Wanyun understood; the flying sword leapt from the sword case on his back, swiftly dug a long trench in the earth, and he laid himself down in it. This was his first encounter with such a strange thing as the dead coming back to life, and it had left him somewhat panicked and at a loss; by now, however, he had calmed.
Shen Mu flicked his sleeve, swept up the earth beside it, and buried Shen Wanyun beneath the soil.
The group walked on, and before they had gone far, several screams came from behind.
"Someone's hiding in the earth, ambushing us!
" "My head's been cut off — has anyone seen my head?
" "Shut up, idiot!
If your head's gone, how are you talking?
" "So that's it.
No wonder I searched so long and never found it.
" "Has any senior brother seen my leg?
I'd be endlessly grateful if you'd trouble yourself. " .
.
. Shen Mu halted the Dragon Qilin, and Shen Wanyun quickly caught up.
"There shouldn't be any pursuers left," he said.
"Let's hurry.
" Suddenly a faint singing drifted through the mist — stranger still than the singing that had come from the river earlier, utterly without rise or fall, stiff and flat.
Shen Mu had them halt for the moment and stole over in silence, and then he saw those singers who were chanting. It was several 'corpses' singing, casting spells, working the Soul-Drawing Incantation in the dark mountain forest.
Their bodies were tattered and broken; to be working magic in the darkness was eerie beyond words. "The dead casting spells?
" Shen Mu was briefly stunned, and then suddenly thought of the Nine Nether Sect's divine arts, which carried a distinct savor of breaking through the boundary between life and death.
If such divine arts were studied to their utmost, could one break the boundary of life and death and attain deathless immortality? The Nine Nether Sect's arts were still far from deathless immortality; they merely drew the souls of the dead back from the underworld and let those souls dwell temporarily in their own bodies.
They had to keep the Soul-Drawing Incantation working without pause; if they stopped, their souls would likely be dragged back to the underworld, and they would truly die.
"No wonder those corpses are working the Soul-Drawing Incantation too. " Shen Mu thought, "They must keep the Soul-Drawing Incantation going without cease to keep moving. These dead ones are not weak in cultivation; best to avoid them. " He did not disturb these dead, and quietly withdrew.
"Let's take another direction," he said. They had not gone far when they came upon another band of Nine Nether Sect disciples working magic; besides these dead Nine Nether Sect disciples, he also saw several disciples of the Corpse Immortal Sect, likewise manipulating corpses, hunting down on all sides the soldiers who had fled the city, flying zombies treading yellow talisman paper as they flew through the air.
Shen Mu frowned and changed direction again. "We'll go to Lu Mountain. The Nine Nether Sect's corpses were buried there, and they rose from there to kill their way into the county town — that place must be empty!