Chapter 1277 — Enemies Meet Face to Face on a Narrow Road
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Bai Yuqiong's battle against her own inner demon was nothing like Shen Mu's easy contest. The Taixu Demon Realm could not reproduce the great daos of Taichu, Taisu, Taishi, and Taiji, and Shen Mu's inner demon had never been as mighty as the Lan Yutian of Shen Mu's imagining. Bai Yuqiong, however, had never stepped free of the Great Dao of Divine Consciousness, and so this battle was bitter beyond measure.
The weakest link among her inner demons was in truth the inner demon Shen Mu.
Of her three enemies, Yin Tianzi had fought her to the death for hundreds of thousands of years, yet in her heart Bai Yuqiong did not truly fear Yin Tianzi. For Celestial Master Zixi she felt mostly admiration, adoring his talent and learning, loving his elegance and dash; only, they stood on opposing sides, and what she longed for she could never have. In truth, the one she feared most was Shen Mu.
She was forever afraid that Shen Mu would grind her consciousness away, awaken the Southern Emperor's spirit within her, and restore the Southern Emperor's memories. In the long, endless history of the Southern Emperor, her own small consciousness was but a single drop in that vast sea of memory, a thing of no consequence.
Yet as Bai Yuqiong, she knew she was a whole life of her own, with her own loves and hatreds, passions and grudges, her own aspirations and ideals.
She did not wish to become a single page in the long chronicle of the Southern Emperor's experience. She feared Shen Mu's divine arts, feared that he would wake the other soul within her, feared her own death.
And so, when facing the siege of the three inner demons, she always dodged the attacks of the inner demon Shen Mu, never daring to meet him strength against strength, lest she fall into his snare. Shen Mu watched for a moment, then suddenly called out in a loud voice, "Celestial Master Bai, start with me!
The inner demon Shen Mu does not have my skills. He does not know my divine art of reincarnation!
" "Truly?
" Hearing this, Bai Yuqiong's spirits soared; shocked and delighted at once, she sent out a single divine art, and Shen Mu saw the inner demon Shen Mu shattered to powder, torn into countless pieces by her art! Shen Mu's face darkened.
"It would seem Celestial Master Bai bears a great grudge against me. .
. " Once the inner demon Shen Mu was disposed of, Bai Yuqiong finally let herself go.
Divine arts of every kind, endlessly changing; her figure appearing and vanishing like a ghost.
Spatial arts, creation arts, the arts of divination, the arts of the Buddhist sect, the arts of the dragon race, the arts of the phoenix race, even the arts of the Northern Emperor and the Western Emperor, and the arts of other Lords besides, she unleashed them all at once! Before long, the inner demon Yin Tianzi was gravely wounded by Bai Yuqiong as well. To Shen Mu's mild relief, the inner demon Yin Tianzi's death was even more wretched than that of the inner demon Shen Mu, plain proof that what Bai Yuqiong felt for Yin Tianzi was mostly hatred.
What surprised Shen Mu, however, was that against the inner demon Zixi, Bai Yuqiong never once dealt a killing blow.
Not only did she refrain from the killing blow, she was all tenderness and sweetness, endlessly circling and toying with the inner demon Zixi! With Bai Yuqiong's strength, ridding herself of the inner demon Zixi should have been no difficult matter. Shen Mu grew suspicious. In Bai Yuqiong's eyes and brows there seemed a tenderness like water; her struggle with the inner demon Zixi looked less like a fight to the death than like flirtation and dalliance. The more he looked, the deeper his suspicion grew, and by degrees he grew restless.
From ahead came the clash of divine arts; plainly others were also searching for Lord Hao's whereabouts, and had already gone very deep.