Chapter 1214 — The Primeval Art and the Method of Immutability
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Yet he did not know that Shen Mu's grasp of Ling Heavenly Venerable's notes did not rest wholly on his own wit. Had he not had the Old Buddha's Immeasurable Kalpa Sutra, then even if he could have unlocked the mysteries of those notes, it would have taken him hundreds of thousands of years.
In intelligence and wisdom Shen Mu was no peerless man; he was merely skilled at using every kind of cultivation art and divine ability to raise himself up.
More and more great-Dao runes of the Taishi Way appeared. Different runes and Daos arranged and recombined, and began faintly to suppress the ghost ship.
The ghost ship, and every person and thing aboard it, had been assimilated into immutable matter, neither increasing nor decreasing; and now Wei Suifeng and the others sensed that the immutable matter was slowly beginning to change!
At that moment Shen Mu's heart was touched by something. He felt several powers steal soundlessly into this place, like river wind brushing past, and shivered again and again.
He looked at Wei Suifeng. Wei Suifeng had sensed it too, and wore a look of doubt.
Both hearts turned cold.
Someone had set eyes upon the ghost ship.
The ghost ship buried too many secrets. Within it lay not only the Empress's fleshly body but Jue Wuchen as well, and those most concerned with such things were none other than Her Highness the Empress, Lady Yuanmu, and also Hao Heavenly Venerable, Xiao Heavenly Venerable, and the rest who had taken part in that shameful chapter of history!
The monsters and goblins aboard the ghost ship counted for nothing — but those now arriving were the great personages!
Shen Mu decided on the instant. He dispersed the Taishi art and said in a low voice, "Senior brother — two chances!"
Wei Suifeng tensed as understanding came. The two chances Shen Mu spoke of were two chances to return to the past!
To evade those ancient existences there was but one way: to break Ling Heavenly Venerable's art in the past!
Only by returning to the past would those Heavenly Venerables be made wary enough to hold back, unwilling to follow them back through time.
For if they too returned to the past, their past selves would vanish.
Wei Suifeng's aura quaked, and he roused the ghost ship's art.
The ghost ship suddenly set sail. Mist rose over the river, thicker and thicker.
The ghost ship moved through the mist, and in the fog lightning flashed and thunder rolled, crack-cracking wildly outside the hull.
Shen Mu's and Wei Suifeng's expressions shifted. Once the ghost ship entered the mist, the immutability of matter set the people and things aboard flowing backward, returning to the past — yet the dreadful existences lurking behind had not given up, and had seized the chance to follow them in!
"They did not board the ship; they came in with the mist!"
Wei Suifeng's heart sank. He had become one with the ghost ship, fused into a single whole, and no matter who set foot aboard, he could sense it at once.
Those who entered the mist feared Ling Heavenly Venerable's art, feared being assimilated themselves, and so dared not step onto the ghost ship; but the newcomers were too strong. Stealing into the mist, their own mighty power began to alter the very composition of the fog!
Neither Shen Mu nor Wei Suifeng knew how many had entered the mist. Yet the intruders' mana did more than alter the mist's makeup; their true aim was to halt the ghost ship's crossing and drag them back into the present!
The ghost ship's art was not the perfect art of immutability wielded by Ling Heavenly Venerable. Rather, Ling Heavenly Venerable had created the ghost ship, and Shen Mu and Wei Suifeng together had completed the art.
Naturally, their comprehension at the time was limited, and they could not perfectly reproduce Ling Heavenly Venerable's art of immutability.
Since the art had its flaws, the newcomers had their chance to drag the ghost ship back into the present!