Chapter 63 — The Mystery of the Three-Character Fusion
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
The thieving bald one called it twisted heresy, and suppressed me. Well done him — so I ate people inside his own temple, and made sure he had no merit at all! But if my merit were to stand above his, let us see how he would have the face to suppress me then! Hm — there is too much ice in this channel. If I still had my primal soldiers, I could punch through it, but the thieving bald one took them all away. . .
" Clang— Shen Mu roused the Chubao sword, driving the flying blade with his qi, and slashed down at the ice flood damming the gorge, crying, "Sang'e, lend me your strength!
" "That sword — the one that cut my chains? " Sang'e's eyes lit up; at once she revealed her true form, all hundred legs stirring, and flipped herself off the cliff.
Shen Mu leapt after her and landed on her back, and the hundred-legged white-boned centipede flew through the air, a hundred legs in motion, her body writhing, bearing Shen Mu straight for the choked ice flood.
"Cut! " Shen Mu roared, and the Chubao sword fell upon the ice flood. At the same moment Sang'e opened her mouth and spat, and a dreadful demonic essence rushed forth and poured madly into the Chubao sword.
The Chubao sword swelled in an instant to a hundred zhang in length and came down upon the ice flood!
The ice flood rose ever higher; floes were carried up onto the ice dam by the surging river, making the dam higher still, and if it went on piling up like this it would surely become a catastrophe for every living thing on both banks of the Yongjiang! The Chubao sword tore through the air; where its edge passed, the air was split into two walls of wind, visible to the naked eye; then the hundred-zhang blade came down on the ice dam and cut clean through it as though through bean curd, one stroke to the bottom.
"Oh no!
" Sang'e's face changed; she tried to spring into the air, but it was already too late. The ice dam, struck by the surging river, collapsed at once, and countless fragments of ice, pressed onward by the torrent, came sweeping over them!
This was annihilation, plain and simple. Before the fallen dam could crush them, the hurricane forced them down out of the sky.
Sang'e flew with all her might, striving to escape, but the collapsing dam and the flood had already overtaken her.
Hiss hiss hiss— Shards of ice flew everywhere; pain stabbed at Shen Mu's cheek, and a fragment sliced it open. His essence was thick and his defenses formidable — the raging ape could pound him and leave no wound — yet the ice flew so fast that it could still cut him.
Then imagine the peril if the dam itself came down upon them.
Sang'e raced on with him; chunks of ice great and small and the roaring waves screeched past them on either side, and then the hurricane, the ice shards and the giant waves all together smashed into them and sent the man and the monster flying! Bang.
Bang.
Two muffled thuds came from the cliff opposite, and broken stone burst into the air.
Shen Mu and Sang'e were pasted against the cliff, embedded in its face — one pinned flat in the shape of a cross, the other strung out into a column of stacked slabs. Then came a shrill sword-song, and the moment Shen Mu heard it he knew something was wrong: that cry of the blade was plainly aimed at him! He hastily spread his legs wide; with a ding, the Chubao sword very nearly buried itself in his thigh.
Whoosh— Shen Mu let out a long breath. Now, with his legs spread and the blade hanging before him like a dot, he had become the sign for "grand"; the Chubao sword still stood half a foot from his body. Beside him the great demon began to wheeze with laughter; Shen Mu could not help laughing too, and the laughter of man and monster grew and grew until it rang through the whole gorge.
Below them the river roared and raced — a crisis dissolved by this strange pair.