Chapter 1305 — A Peerless Arrow
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Silent Craftsman, Blind Elder and the Alchemist were beside themselves with pride, glancing again and again at Shen Mu and the rest. Blind Elder laughed.
"What good is a high cultivation realm, I ask you?
Facing something this uncanny, you still have to rely on us!
" Silent Craftsman nodded and babbled his agreement without pause. The Alchemist could hardly hide his self-satisfaction either, stroking the beard on his chin.
The First Ancestor's face reddened slightly.
He had once despised these three for the lowliness of their cultivation, counting them useless, a mere drag on the others; never had he imagined that in the end it would be these three who came to their rescue. The withered-bone hand had been struck off, and at once the radiance around the divine bow subsided, gradually revealing its true form. Shen Mu put strength into his palm and plucked the divine bow off.
The bow shrank little by little, yet even so it measured a full zhang and two, and its surface was crowded with strange patterns.
These patterns looked like runes and seals, yet he could make neither head nor tail of them.
The others gathered round, but they knew nothing of the runes and seals upon it either. Shen Mu asked Taiyi within the egg, and Taiyi did not recognize them either.
Shen Mu tried to draw the divine bow; it came open with the greatest of ease, but the longer he drew the string, the more he felt his vital essence and mana howling as they were dragged into the bow.
At that same moment, divine light blazed within the bow, and countless billions of fine rays gathered together and became a single arrow.
Everyone felt a chill run through them. The power of this divine bow was immense; set among the treasures of the Emperor's Throne, it would still rank as a treasure of no small account.
Shen Mu slowly released the force, and the bowstring eased back by degrees; the arrow broke apart once more into threads of fine light and returned into the bow, and the power within the bow turned back into vital essence and flowed back into Shen Mu's body.
He had drawn the bow and released it without spending a single drop of mana.
Shen Mu handed the divine bow to the First Ancestor, who tried it in his turn, clicking his tongue in wonder.
Each of them tried it, and all were lost in amazement. Silent Craftsman's eyes lit up.
"If a method this strange could be folded into artificing, then divine weapons would drain far less mana, and a man could fight far longer!
" Shen Mu gave him the bow, then studied the severed arm in the tree roots and said doubtfully, "Where did this hand come from?
" Silent Craftsman shook his great hammer; the hammer head became a great axe, and with a ringing clang it bit into the dark, heavy root.
Sparks flew up as the axe struck the root; Silent Craftsman's face went black as he lifted the axe, and the blade was broken.
Shen Mu roused his broken sword and struck down with it; the shock left his arm numb and tingling, and even so he failed to cut the root open.
"This person grew inside the tree root. " The First Ancestor Human Sovereign tried as well and could not split the root.
He said, "A moment ago, when I touched the divine bow, that man spoke to me. He must still be alive!
" They all tried their own methods, wanting to split the root and see whether the man truly grew inside it, yet no matter what divine powers they wielded, no matter what divine weapons they summoned, they could not split the root.
Silent Craftsman laughed suddenly.
"We're fools, all of us.
We have the divine bow right here and we're still using our own treasures!
" He brought out the divine bow and strained to draw the string, but he could draw it only halfway before his mana gave out.
Shen Mu took the bow and, with every ounce of his strength, drew it into a full moon; almost all of his vital essence was pulled into the bow. A divine arrow swiftly took shape, arrow-light gathering madly and massing upon the arrowhead.