Chapter 1523 — The Sacrificial Offering
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
The power of that blow was passing strange: it froze every particle that made up Shen Mu's body, his primordial spirit, and his Divine Treasury domain, so that his divine art of Imperishable Matter failed utterly. He had plainly recognized Shen Mu's divine art — the art of Imperishable Matter was the creation of Ling Tianzun, and its greatest strength lay in reversing the flow of matter and conjuring the illusion of time running backward. Yet to a being like the gaunt stranger, one who had already attained the Dao, this divine art, unfathomable though it was, still had a means by which it could be broken. He needed only to fix in place all the matter composing Shen Mu and keep it from flowing back, and the art would be undone. Another man would surely lack such immense mana, but for him it was not so hard. The gaunt stranger glanced at his severed arm, admiration on his face, and spoke again; that phrase was surely praise — that a cultivator as insignificant as Shen Mu could, with such meager strength, wound him so gravely. He went on driving his mana, and the earth around the riven Black Mountain surged up again, while Black Mountain itself kept cracking apart and, roaring, streamed into the monstrous eye behind him. Then of a sudden a killing formation hidden beneath the earth thundered to life. Astonishment showed on the gaunt stranger's face; in his eyes the power of this killing formation was trifling, and yet a formation had hidden beneath his very nose without his sensing it in the least — that was admirable indeed. But what astonished him more was that there was more than one killing formation. When the first was triggered it was like lighting a string of firecrackers: for a thousand li around Black Mountain, formation after formation was set off. The power of one formation could not touch him, but with a thousand of them erupting at once, the might was dreadful beyond words. Nor was that all — Shen Mu and the Blind Elder had joined hands to lay countless layers of killing formations here, some hidden in the most inconspicuous of places, in the ground the gaunt stranger had shattered, buried in the soil, within the rock of Black Mountain. That soil and rock, drawn into the monstrous eye behind him, now erupted inside the eye itself. Beyond the hundred thousand Black Mountains, the Blind Elder, Grandmother Zhu and the rest were on the move, fleeing far from the holy ground of Black Mountain; and then the Blind Elder turned his head, and saw, from the direction of Great Black Mountain in the darkness, a boundless murderous aura surging to the heavens, with countless killing formations working within that aura until the eye was dazzled. The Great Dao of heaven and earth was drawn along by those formations and turned into formations of the killing dao and the tribulation, their power shaking heaven and earth. "This is the greatest skill I have." The Blind Elder said in a low voice, "The dao of formations: when heaven looses its killing intent, when earth looses its killing intent, when man looses his killing intent — the Tribulation Formation of the Three Exterminations of Heaven, Earth, and Man. All the cultivation of my life, joined to the boy Shen's mana: this is the utmost I can do..." His eyes shone with extraordinary brilliance, brimming with hope, and he murmured, "Shen'er, with your mana, rallying the Great Dao of heaven and earth, can you slay that prehistoric existence?" He had scarce spoken when one formation after another collapsed and dissolved; the Tribulation Formation of the Three Exterminations of Heaven, Earth, and Man crumbled away, swept clean by a power beyond measure. The light in the Blind Elder's eyes dimmed, and Grandmother Zhu's voice came: "Blind Elder, look no more. We are going." The Blind Elder turned and followed her without a word. Grandmother Zhu said nothing; after a moment's silence the Blind Elder said, "This battle is not without hope of victory. Shen'er and I laid down another trump c