Chapter 1506 The Man Who Called Himself Tathagata
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
The several of them kept silent watch. On the tenth day, suddenly a discordant note appeared in the torrent of Buddha's voice within Shen Mu's dream!
Granny Zhu and the others felt the corners of their eyes twitch. They saw the countless Shen Mus seated like so many great Buddhas in the heavens around Shen Mu's primal spirit, and that voice came from the lowest heaven of all.
"...Equilibrium is the great root of the world; harmony is the universal Way of the world..."
This voice threw the Buddhist dharma into disorder; its interference was not strong, but like a plague it slowly infected the other tiny Shen Mus.
Granny Zhu and the others grew graver and graver of face. They saw the second tiny Shen Mu assimilated and soon chanting the Mira Palace Primordial Sage's sutras, then the third, the fourth...
By and by, hundreds of tiny Shen Mus were assimilated, and the speed of the contagion at once increased greatly, spreading ever toward the center, ever more tiny Shen Mus falling, layer upon layer of dream polluted!
Granny Zhu's face was grim. She picked up the divine bow she had thrown aside and gripped it hard.
The Lame Old Man stared at her hand, then his gaze fell upon the divine bow in it, and his face darkened abruptly. "Granny, what are you thinking of doing?"
"None of your business!" Granny Zhu said coldly, her eyes still fixed upon Shen Mu's dream.
The Lame Old Man paced about in agitation; suddenly his body moved, and he lunged to snatch the long bow from Granny Zhu's hand!
Granny Zhu had long been on her guard. Her other palm rose, and with a series of rumbling booms the terrestrial magnetic primordial force erupted from her palm; one layer after another of the Great Art of Primordial Magnetism pressed down upon the Lame Old Man, like mountain after mountain descending in turn, pinning him prone upon the ground so that he could not deploy his speed at all!
"Lame Old Man, you were gravely wounded before; you know nothing of the whole matter!"
Granny Zhu said angrily, drawing the divine bow, her eyes still fixed upon the tiny Shen Mus being assimilated in the dream—yet the bow she drew was aimed only at Shen Mu's primal spirit at the center of the heavens of the dream.
"I don't know!"
The Lame Old Man propped himself on his four limbs, struggling to rise, but again came several thunderous booms pressing down, flattening him to the ground once more.
His eyes flooded with blood and turned crimson. He struggled with all his might and rasped, "Si Youyou, you damned woman, I don't know what reason you have that you must shoot Shen'er dead! But this I do know: Shen'er was picked up by you, yet every time it was you who gave him away! Every time you thought keeping him was too much trouble, and every time it was I who stole him back!"
He could not struggle free of the Great Art of Primordial Magnetism. Suddenly he roared, "I raised Shen'er! Primal spirit, swap the sun!"
His body did not move; his primal spirit left it, and with a swish broke through the Great Art of Primordial Magnetism, coming in an instant to Granny Zhu's side to seize the divine bow.
Granny Zhu withdrew the bow and turned, her skirts and garments swaying; her primordial magnetic divine light became countless stars, and the star-force between star and star formed chain upon chain, threading up and down, interweaving and interlacing, laying down a heaven-encompassing net!
The Lame Old Man's primal spirit plunged into the heaven-encompassing net, yet was not caught by it; instead it sped through the starry void, raging, "If not for me, Shen'er would long ago have been given away to someone else! If you would kill him, kill me first!"
His primal spirit abruptly swelled, becoming incomparably majestic; he shifted the stars and changed the constellations, throwing Granny Zhu's divine arts into disorder—the peerless art of the divine thief displayed in him to the fullest!
"Lame Old Man, don't be reckless!"