Chapter 1525 — Remembrance and Keepsakes
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Night, and the dew lay heavy, cold and raw.
When the sun rose, the chill in Shen Mu's body began to disperse little by little. Leaning on his crutch, he clambered unsteadily to his feet; the blood on the wooden staff was divine blood, still bright and vivid.
He looked ahead. All was ruin there.
The battle of the night before had wrought terrible damage. That sundered Black Mountain had been blasted to powder by the gaunt stranger's Dao Fruit, utterly annihilated, leaving not a trace.
The strange fiery eye that had been wedged between the clefts of the Black Mountain was gone as well; the ground on every side sank deep, sacrificed by the gaunt stranger to the past universe and refined into pure energy.
Everywhere lay scattered the petrified corpse of the gaunt stranger. The energies of the past universe and the present universe still balanced each other: though part of the Ancestral Court's matter had been sacrificed, the gaunt stranger's corpse had made up that portion of energy.
The Black Mountains all around seemed nourished by the gaunt stranger's energy; their slopes grew lush, putting forth many plants and growths unique to the Ancestral Court, and on the leaves of trees and tender grass hung dew condensed from spirit aura.
Half of the gaunt stranger's body still remained in the past universe, yet his Dao Fruit was destroyed.
With his Dao Fruit destroyed and only half a body left, he would soon be ground away in the great calamity of cosmic destruction, utterly annihilated, ceasing to exist.
A hoarse voice broke the stillness of the morning. Leaning on his crutch, Shen Mu called out low, trying to summon the lame old man's soul black sand.
Yet no soul black sand answered him.
Shen Mu cast his art slowly, his voice drawn long, like an old wounded wolf in the wild calling to its kin in a rough, hoarse cry.
From first to last, not a single mote of soul black sand was drawn to him.
The Dao Fruit's explosion had been too violent; under such conditions no soul black sand could possibly exist.
The Dao Fruit is condensed from the Great Dao, the supreme cultivation of one who has attained the Dao. The lame old man had driven the Taiyi crutch into the gaunt stranger's Dao Fruit and set off the explosion; in a blast that violent, the soul is annihilated utterly.
Shen Mu held the crutch with one hand and groped forward with the other, but caught nothing.
He drew a heavy breath. Was it possible that at the very last moment the lame old man, with that terrifying speed of his, had passed through the Dao Fruit and entered the strange eye behind the stranger's body?
Might he have gone through that strange eye into the past universe?
A flicker of hope rose again in Shen Mu's eyes. Leaning on his crutch, he hobbled forward, seeking some trace amid the waste.
The hope in his eyes slowly faded; his gaze grew hollow.
Even if the lame old man had gone into the past universe, he could not have survived the great calamity of destruction; he would still be ground to nothing, leaving not a trace behind.
He sat down, staring blankly. After a long while his lips moved, and with a catch of weeping in his voice he said, "You were the finest hand under heaven — even Pixiang Hall could not stop you..."
He fell silent again. After a long while he took out a jade bottle and carefully collected the divine blood from the wooden staff, though some brown stains still remained upon it.
Voices came — the people who had left the night before, returning to see what the battle had left behind.
Shen Mu hid his grief at the bottom of his heart and roused the Mystic Body Three Cores Art so that his complexion might look a little better; only then did he stand. Quietly he wiped the tear tracks from his face so that no one would see he had wept, and patted his cheeks to loosen the muscles stiffened by crying.