Chapter 1515 — Divine Retribution
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Everyone hurried to their feet, only to see Shen Mu haul the axe to the foot of the tree. His flesh swelled without cease, his body surging larger and larger, every muscle and sinew savage, and with a furious shout he brought the axe down upon the tree!
The crowd's faces went slack. The giant raised and lowered the axe again and again, dozens of blows, until nearly half the trunk of the World Tree had been cut through!
Granny Zhu said in a trembling voice, "Shen'er, stop chopping! You will be struck down by heavenly thunder!"
Hua Xuanxiu, at her side, cried out, "Old Cult Master, if you fell this tree, you will suffer divine retribution!"
The others too were frightened pale, at a loss for what to do.
Shen Mu kept swinging the great axe down without pause, and with a mighty crack, the sapling of the World Tree was hewn clean through at the waist!
The immense trunk toppled from the clouds, and a long while passed before it crashed down upon the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, raising a commotion that might well be called the rending of heaven and earth!
Fortunately, the people Jing Ping had migrated into the Ancestral Court all dwelled on the outskirts of the Sacred Mountains, and none were crushed by the falling World Tree. Yet the wind and waves stirred up by its collapse still swept over their settlements; the wild gale howled for a day and a night before it finally subsided.
Beside the World Tree, Shen Mu dropped the great axe and at once used the divine ability of Creation upon the stump, attempting by the Dao of Creation to make the stump sprout and grow a new World Tree.
Yet no matter how he drove the divine ability of Creation, the stump put forth no new sprout.
Shen Mu stood wooden as a statue, not stirring for a long while.
No one else stirred for a long while either. The one who had felled the World Tree before was none other than Tai Yi, who had swung the Chaos Axe and cut the World Tree down, severing the path by which the existences of the previous cosmic epoch might enter this universe.
The World Tree had revived because the seal on the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court was broken. Tai Yi had again come to fell the tree, and it was Shen Mu who had talked him out of it. Who would have thought that, unable to refine the World Tree, Shen Mu would fly into a rage of shame and borrow Tai Yi's Chaos Axe to cut the World Tree down!
"I did not mean to cut down the tree."
Shen Mu suddenly came to his senses and turned to stammer an explanation to the crowd: "I am not in a rage of shame. I only meant to cut the tree down and plant it in my Ancestral Court God Treasury. I thought this tree could regenerate, that after being cut through it would surely grow another..."
No one spoke.
"I truly am not in a rage of shame! You know of cuttings, do you not? Cut off a branch and plant it in the ground, and a new tree will grow. I intended to split the World Tree in two..."
Shen Mu looked imploringly at Granny Zhu. Granny Zhu coughed once and said, "Shen'er, there is no need to force an explanation. We all understand."
Shen Mu's face took on a bitter look, and he turned to the Lame Old Man. The Lame Old Man tugged at the goatee on his chin, looked aside, and snorted coldly: "Even robbers have their code, but one must not fly into a rage of shame simply because one cannot get what one wants, and forcibly cut the tree down."
Shen Mu fell silent, then turned and walked to the fallen World Tree sapling. The sapling had no roots or stem left; its branches and leaves were beginning to wither.
He took the sapling into his God Treasury domain, trying to plant it in the Ancestral Court. Yet though he dug a great pit and ringed the sapling with four great mineral lodes, the tree still did not come back to life; its branches and leaves were all parched dry.