Chapter 765 — Old Memories of the Nether Capital
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
"And the Lord of Earth and Heavenly Venerable Yu keep a little tally-book of my faults every day. It is this nameless existence who is the truly wicked one, and they never breathe a word of it."
Shen Mu was rather indignant at heart. He came to the soles of the Lord of Earth's feet, which had become the remains of a battlefield.
He looked out, and his heart pounded with dread. The battlefield was vast beyond measure; even with his Sacred Eye he could not see its edge, and everywhere there was radiant light, the residue of divine powers left behind by great masters of the arts.
Each streak of radiance stretched ten thousand li, giving off a beauty that made the heart quail.
The ground was utterly flat, with no hills or rivers to be seen; and in the sky were palm prints and fist prints everywhere, marks struck into space itself that even after more than twenty years had not healed.
Clearly, the fighting here had been more terrible, more dreadful, than anywhere else.
"Could it be that the souls of Imperial Throne power laid siege to that nameless existence here?"
His heart pounding, Shen Mu carefully threaded the little boat through the battlefield, avoiding those brilliant divine powers; the more he saw, the more his heart quailed.
The ferocity of this great battle surpassed imagination; the number of gods and demons sent into it must have been a terrifying figure indeed.
And yet, at the edge of the battlefield, he saw once more the footprints of that nameless existence: deep footprints, plump footprints. Plainly this battle had not slain it; rather, it had fought its way out.
That nameless existence was the final victor.
"Youdu holds a being as terrifying as this?"
Shen Mu drew a long breath. He thought: "I must be careful in word and deed, lest I offend some terrible power in Youdu. Mm, as the village headman used to say, one can never be too polite."
He now came to the place where the Lord of Earth planted his feet. The demonic nature here was dreadful in its depth, demonic aura and demonic nature having settled and congealed into the land beneath the Lord of Earth's feet.
As the little boat flew from the sole of the Lord of Earth's foot, he saw a vast and magnificent black city, as though cast from black jade, whole and seamless, with no joint to be found anywhere.
"This must be the Jade Lock Pass of Youdu."
Shen Mu urged the boat upward, trying to leap the wall and enter the pass; but as the boat rose, the black jade wall of the Jade Lock Pass grew upward too. However fast the boat flew, it could never get above the wall and into the pass.
After testing this for a long while, Shen Mu dutifully followed the wall in search of a gate.
After who knows how much longer, he finally found the gate of the Jade Lock Pass. Outside it stood two demon gods on guard, axes and halberds in hand. Seeing the paper boat fly up, they were about to bow in greeting, only to see that the one aboard was not the old netherworld envoy but a youth, and they could not help but be astonished.
One of the demon gods leveled his axe and said: "Whose boy are you, and why have you come to the Jade Lock Pass? Why do you have the Heavenly Benevolent Sage King's paper boat?"
Shen Mu said hastily: "You two exalted gods, I am Shen Mu, styled Fengqing, come to visit my mother."