Chapter 33 — The Myriad-Blade Sword Soul's Cry Pierces the Sky

own medicinal herbs, and in them were raised small creatures like spiders, silkworms, and centipedes. Just now, when the great flood had swept over, the pots had taken in water and several insects had crawled out, standing on the pot rims and squabbling with one another. Suddenly a black spider flew into a rage; its whole body blazed with flame, then the spider swelled to the size of a table and spat fire at the other insects. In the flames, several golden silkworms grew wings, stretched to a foot or more, flew out of the fire, and flung themselves on the spider, biting away with shrill squeals. The Medicine Master poked out his head and bellowed once, and the insects promptly shrank their bodies and crept back into the pots, behaving themselves. Shen Mu grew only more suspicious. Granny Zhu gave two dry laughs and mumbled: "These are all normal — perfectly ordinary..." Shen Mu probed: "Grandma, do people outside all fly, like Grandpa Blind?" Granny Zhu nodded: "People outside all fly." Shen Mu said: "And are they all spirit bodies, like the people in our village?" "All spirit bodies!" "And are they all as formidable as the people in our village?" "Formidable indeed! Otherwise Granny and the Blind Elder and the rest wouldn't have been forced to hide in the Wastes! Don't keep thinking about running outside — mind you don't die out there! The people outside are far more vicious than the Blind Elder!" ... Shen Mu was only half convinced. Were the people beyond the Wastes truly as formidable as Granny Zhu had said, soaring to heaven and diving into the earth, capable of anything? By the riverside, the Lame Elder had finished with the bodies, laying them out and putting them in coffins. Old Master Ma drove wooden pegs one by one into the coffin lids, nailing them shut, then pushed the coffins one after another into the river, letting them drift downstream with the current. The river ran swift; downstream there would be hidden shoals and jagged rocks, and these coffins could hardly drift all the way to the sea. Along the way they would be dashed to pieces, and the bodies would sink into the water, becoming food for the great fish of the Yong River. "The Lan River Sect may well be struck from the rolls of the Southern Frontier." The Lame Elder watched the coffins receding and said softly: "The sect master is dead, and all the sect's experts are dead too. It will be hard for that sect to survive." "That's not what I'm thinking about now." Old Master Ma shook his head and looked into the distance: "What I'm thinking about is that First Under the Gods. Mu Beilan was the prefect of the Five-Miao Prefecture in the Southern Wilderness; the State Preceptor of Yan Ning personally received his submission and granted him official rank of the second grade. Now he's dead, and the Five Elders of the Lan River are dead too — will it stir that First Under the Gods?" The Lame Elder shook his head and said flatly: "It will stir him! But he would never dare enter the Wastes!" Old Master Ma glanced at him: "Don't forget — a single State Preceptor of Yan Ning can do nothing to the Wastes, but behind the State Preceptor stands the nation of Yan Ning! And Yan Ning is a great sect wearing a nation's name! How could such a colossus not eye the Wastes with covetous hunger? This is a place of countless treasures!"