荒墟牧神 - 第48章 沉江龍魂未曾滅 - 雲海書庫

Hum—

Behind Shen Mu, the halo behind that Buddha image's head began to turn; its radiance blazed out, shooting in all directions, and even that uncanny mist was swept clean away by the Buddha light. Then came a ceaseless thump, thump, thump, and Shen Mu looked around him: dried corpses were dropping out of the air one after another, so many that there was scarcely a place to set his foot!

Besides the dried corpses there were skeletons too, their flesh long gone, nothing left but bone; and yet those skeletons wore loose, flowing garments that looked like official robes.

The mist about him vanished and his sight was at once clear again. The singing, however, sang on, only farther off now, still plaintive and desolate, heavy with boundless sorrow.

Shen Mu dispersed his yuan qi, and the Buddha image behind him gradually faded.

"How can there be so many corpses hidden in this great hall? These bodies... they do not look like ordinary people..."

Shen Mu studied them, frowning slightly. There were far too many corpses here, and not one of them had rotted — something was not right. After all, the corpse of the Dragon King of the Surging River outside had long since decayed, leaving nothing but a skeleton; how then could the corpses in this hall have been preserved until now?

"One possibility: these corpses came in after the Wasteland Cataclysm. Like Hu Ling'er and me, they found the road leading to the Dragon Palace of the Surging River, and then entered this great hall."

Shen Mu's eye twitched; he looked ahead. Deep in the great hall there still hung layer upon layer of mist.

"Something in the mist killed them and left them like this!"

His scalp prickled and he gripped his staff tight. Ximilo was worthy indeed of a treasure that could buy a whole city; just now he had only poured yuan qi into the staff, and it had erupted with terrifying power.

Bringing the staff out this time had been Grandma Zhu's idea. Grandma Zhu was deeply anxious for his safety, and besides the staff she had taken on all manner of forms to guard him in secret.

"Grandma must have been worried sick these past days..."

A little guilt stirred in Shen Mu's heart. Then he gathered himself and swept his gaze around. "The source of the mist must be here in this hall, and the danger with it! What in the world killed these martial artists who came to explore?"

Just then the mist deep in the hall came surging toward him, spreading to his ankles, then slowly rising. And the dried corpses on the ground, wrapped in that mist, began slowly to writhe, rising to their feet in uncanny postures.

Higher and higher climbed the mist, until it passed over Shen Mu's head; and within the mist those dried corpses too began to float up, and as the mist grew thicker and thicker they vanished into it, no longer to be seen.

"What devilish thing is this, playing ghosts and gods and stirring up trouble? Ximilo!"

Staff in hand, Shen Mu walked on. He had gone ten zhang or more when the singing drew near once more. He raised the staff and struck the ground heavily; Buddha light blazed, Buddha sound coiled about him, and behind him there rose again the figure of a great Buddha, whose light shone upon all and drove the mist apart. And once more the dried corpses fell thumping to the ground, one after another.

"Little bald donkey..."

A voice suddenly sounded in the hall, enough to make a man's hair stand on end; yet the voice spoke only that one phrase, leaving Shen Mu and the little fox to wonder whether they had heard a phantom.

Shen Mu had at last seen the source of the mist. At the heart of this dragon palace stood a sculpture of ice, and it was from that ice the mist flowed.

He stepped forward. In the ice lay a young dragon, still and quiet, a broken sword driven into its chest, the blade run through its heart.

And among the dragon pillars of the hall, a great azure dragon swam slowly to and fro in the air; seeming to possess no true body, it passed straight through the pillars.