Chapter 1144 — Such an Ally, I Refuse
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The Cheng Earth Ancient God had the face of a man, the feet of a tiger, and the body of a hound; in his mouth fangs stood like a forest, and behind him trailed a great azure tail, nine tails in all. He sat upon the sacrificial altar taking his pleasure, feasting his eyes on song and dance.
Around him stood ranks upon ranks of heavenly soldiers and generals, a stern and heavy guard, while below, heavenly maidens plucked strings and blew on bamboo, struck drums and made music, their songs sweet and far-carrying, their dancing exquisite.
Those heavenly maidens were slender and graceful, their garments so scant they scarce covered their shame, and there in the full gaze of the crowd they danced, their every movement lewd in the extreme. The Cheng Earth Ancient God and the assembled divine generals laughed in high delight; stirred by the spectacle, the Ancient God raised his cup, a bronze tripod vessel taller than a man, in which the wine was already nearly gone.
He reached out and seized a heavenly maiden who was singing and dancing, gripped her hard, and squeezed; the divine blood of that maiden he wrung into the cup and drained it at a single draft! The maiden, her breath already gone, he tossed aside.
Outside the Cheng Earth ancestral ground Shen Mu saw this scene; he drew out the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner, stepped back several paces, then of a sudden gathered speed and went hurtling forward, and as he ran he flicked his wrist and hurled the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner into the ancestral ground! Boom, the banner, swifter than sound and soon a hundred, a thousand times the speed of sound, drove its jade shaft through the Cheng Earth ancestral ground trailing fire, and as it flew it slowly unfurled its canopy.
And behind the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner, Shen Mu ran no slower by a hair, head down, palm pressed upon the hilt of the broken sword.
Whoosh, man and treasure alike passed like lightning through the baleful qi beyond the ancestral ground; even the gods and demons of Xuan Province in the north who kept watch within that baleful aura had no time to catch sight of them before they were gone in a flash. The Glazed Azure Heaven Banner pierced through hall after hall of the divine palaces and came in an instant to the altar, leveling straight at the heart of the Cheng Earth Ancient God!
The Cheng Earth Ancient God's reaction was swift beyond measure: he reached out and seized the jade shaft of the banner, crying aloud, "Who dares such insolence?
" The banner's twenty-eight heavens opened and swelled outward. To his horror the Ancient God saw his own body lifted high and borne up to the first heaven, far from the altar.
In that very instant of the twenty-eight heavens bursting into bloom, a blade of sword-light came flying; in the Ancient God's vast pupils that sword-light was mirrored, and he saw it grow greater and greater within his eyes, until the sword-light quivered and became the Thirty-Three Heavens.
Sword-light entered his flesh, and the Thirty-Three Heavens swelled outward; though his body was incomparably strong and he strove with all his strength to summon its power and press the sword-light down, the might of the Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao was the imprint of a sword technique upon thirty-three voids.
By the measure of the Cheng Earth Ancient God's own cultivation of the Dao, he had never comprehended his Dao to the depth of thirty-three voids. However powerful his cultivation, however profound his magic power, however unmatched his insight into his own Dao, once that Dao was broken and his depth of comprehension fell short of his opponent's, his flesh could not contend against the Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao.
His body was split into thirty-four portions; thirty-three portions of flesh, from the lowest upward, evolved into heaven upon heaven, vast in mountain and river.
His head flew up, and flying up with his head was the figure of Shen Mu, whose left hand pressed a palm upon his brow.