Chapter 1254 — The Lord of the Netherworld Descends
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu laughed aloud, flicked a finger, and a divine art of the Heaven Yin Realm shot into Yin Jiuzun's headless body.
At once the black sand of souls came boiling out of Yin Jiuzun's neck; his soul had been transmuted straight into that black soul-sand by Shen Mu's Heaven Yin divine art.
In the beginning, when he had learned the Profound Art of Transformation from Lady Tianyin, he had comprehended from it all manner of vicious and venomous divine arts, utterly unlike her own.
Now he was merely testing the blade.
Shen Mu reached out to seize the little bell hanging at Yin Jiuzun's neck. He had long since sensed that another enemy lurked in the shadows, and had never dared to strike with his full strength; had that enemy joined hands with Yu Wufei, he would surely have been no match, and the two of them would have cut him down.
Now Yin Jiuzun, bent on claiming the whole credit for himself, had even killed Yu Wufei, and that had handed Shen Mu his chance.
Yin Jiuzun might be the son of the Yin Son of Heaven; he might be a grandmaster of the Lingxiao Realm; he might possess a marvel like the Reincarnation Bell; but at such close range, he was certain to die in a single blow! That was the chance he seized!
In a head-on clash he had a chance of victory, but too small a one; the Reincarnation Bell was fearsomely powerful, and there was no telling what other might it held.
Yin Jiuzun had time and again driven the Reincarnation Bell to blast his soul.
He seemed steady and composed, but in truth he trusted too much in the Yin Son of Heaven's divine weapon; had he not carried that treasure of the Yin Son of Heaven's enlightenment, he would surely have beaten Shen Mu to a pulp, crushed his soul and shattered his primordial spirit, before ever closing in. As the son of the Yin Son of Heaven and the great crown prince of the Dark Capital, he had of course received the Yin Son of Heaven's painstaking instruction; in cultivation and strength, in Dao arts and divine powers, he far surpassed Hu Mengdie and Yu Wufei. In a head-on clash Shen Mu's odds were poor, but strike from close at hand, and Shen Mu was wholly certain of taking his life!
So it could be said that the Yin Son of Heaven's Reincarnation Bell was what cost him his life. In the instant before Shen Mu's fingers closed on the Reincarnation Bell, the little bell suddenly floated up. It was barely larger than a finger, yet the next moment it swelled to five or six zhang across, its mouth turned toward Shen Mu.
A chill of dread ran through Shen Mu, and he fled backward at once.
A tremendous clang rang out by his ear, and his robes flew apart like paper butterflies. Then his skin burst, and the skin of his whole body was stripped away like paper butterflies too!
Nor was that all; his flesh and muscle turned to flying ash in an instant, leaving only his bones! "The Yin Son of Heaven!
" Shen Mu's mind roared.
Only his skeleton remained, still hurtling backward, and with a boom his form left the Nether Capital of the Great Void and appeared in the Great Void itself, before the mighty pass of the Heavenly Court.
The one controlling the Reincarnation Bell was certainly not Yin Jiuzun; formidable as he was, he had not the strength to shatter Shen Mu with a single blow.
The Reincarnation Bell was the treasure of the Yin Son of Heaven's enlightenment; he would never rest easy letting Yin Jiuzun come out to kill Shen Mu, and must have split off a portion of his spirit to control the bell.
Nor had he expected Shen Mu to break free of the Reincarnation Bell's demonic sound of reincarnation, so that his own son was slain by a single blow from Shen Mu.
Had it been merely the death of the body, that would have been one thing; the Yin Son of Heaven's Dark Capital Heavenly Gate could restore a body, and he would not have stooped to personally wield the Reincarnation Bell to kill Shen Mu.