Chapter 41 — One Push of the Blade Shows True Mastery
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
The pig-butcher's knife in his hand clanged and rang; the blade tore the air, shrieking as it split the wind, and came down upon the trunk of the great tree like a storm breaking rotten wood!
Clang --
A great crash rang out. Shen Mu's stroke bit into the trunk, cut into the serpent hidden within -- but sank only halfway. The snake's hide, flesh, and bone had been tempered to a toughness beyond compare; though the pig-butcher's knife was forged by the mute's own hand and surpassed any common primal-spirit weapon, one stroke could not yet cleave the serpent in two!
Shen Mu's other hand seized the back of the blade; he drove power into both feet and brought out the lame elder's leg technique.
The lame elder said the legs are the wind, are the earth, are the root of all strength!
His legs and feet now took root in the earth, and he loosed his power all at once; the ground around his feet boomed and sank. Every scrap of his strength erupted. One hand pushed the back of the blade, the other gripped the hilt tight -- and he pushed the knife!
A harsh, grating shriek rose, and the great tree, serpent and all, was cut clean through at the waist!
Shen Mu steadied his stance, the pig-butcher's knife held across his body, blood streaming endlessly down the blade; the muscles of his back stood out one by one, still twitching.
And behind him, the towering tree toppled askew.
Boom --
The tree crashed down into the yard, raising a cloud of dust -- and suddenly the fallen tree came alive!
The serpent, cut in two at the waist, had still not died. Its severed half writhed, and a ceaseless crack-crack-crack of bursting rang out as the body hidden in the trunk burst the tree apart; bark and wood flew everywhere, even driving into the walls!
The bark and splinters it flung off were more frightful than spears, shrieking through the air with immense force!
Night Raid upon the City -- Storm and Rain!
The pig-butcher's knife whirled and danced in Shen Mu's hand, its blade-light flickering. His first stroke had released blade-qi, a heavy and mighty move that gathered the whole body's strength into one cut; now his blade technique had turned extraordinarily fast!
The butcher's blade technique had but one essential: fast, faster, fastest!
Clang clang clang clang --
A rain of impacts burst forth; countless pieces of bark and wood struck Shen Mu's knife and numbed his arm.
This serpent's strength was far above his own; only, its attention had been fixed upon the woman in labor in the room, waiting for the instant of the child's birth to draw in its soul and vital essence.
When an infant is born, the umbilical cord joins it to the mother's purple placenta, and its vital essence is all of the prenatal kind; after birth the prenatal turns postnatal. Before birth that essence is not yet complete -- and so the serpent chose to seize it in the very instant of delivery.
How it had slipped into this village, no one knew; it had hidden itself in the tree to cultivate, deceiving every soul in the little village. All the years it hid inside the tree it was never found; having devoured the souls of several infants, its cultivation had grown greatly. This time it had believed it would seize the child's essence and soul as smoothly as before, and had paid Shen Mu no heed -- so that his single stroke found its mark.
But though Shen Mu had cut it in two at the waist, it would not die in a moment or an instant.
Now the serpent fell into a blind fury. Knowing its body was severed and that it could scarcely live on, it burst the tree apart, opened its blood-bowl of a mouth, and lunged to bite Shen Mu!
A gale struck his face, shaking the skin of Shen Mu's cheeks violently, so that he could hardly keep his eyes open.
Without a thought, Shen Mu chopped forward with a gale-and-cloudburst of strokes; then a force beyond imagining struck him. The youth gave a stifled grunt and was hurled back; with a crash, a man-shaped hole was smashed through the courtyard wall!