Chapter 1435 — Red Dust Becomes the Dao Path
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
Her Majesty the Empress turned to look at Shen Mu.
His expression remained as placid as ever, as though he had long known of this and found nothing in it to surprise him. The Empress steadied herself, pondered for a moment, and said, "My late husband was born premature, dug out by the Great Emperor for sacrifice, and so he was greatly flawed in both his cultivation and his strength. But you two Daoist brothers have lain dormant here for countless hundreds of millions of years; by now your cultivation must surely be complete, and you should not suffer my late husband's fate. Why then are you likewise so terrified of what is to come?
" What she meant, in truth, was to ask the Taiji ancient gods this: hidden here, quietly absorbing the power of the lode, after so vast a span of time they ought to have been able to emerge complete — so why had they not emerged at all? But she was the Empress, after all, and so she put the question with some tact.
"By the ordinary reckoning, we could indeed have emerged," said the male voice within the egg.
"So long a stretch of time would have sufficed for us to absorb all the power and all the Dao of the mining ground. And yet the Ancestral Court has barred our emergence.
" The Empress was utterly bewildered, and Shen Mu could not help but feel his curiosity stir; almost against his will, he leaned forward a little.
"We have been absorbing the power of the Taiji lode without cease, from the opening of the universe even until now," said the female voice within the egg.
"When the race of the Creator rose, they began to mine the lodes, and all five great lodes were worked. One Daoist brother emerged before ever the Creator appeared; he left behind an empty mining ground and wandered free and unfettered. In his day there was no mortal world to trouble him, and the Dao was pure; the moment he emerged he transcended and became the Dao. " "Then came our brother Taichu," said the male voice.
"Taichu might have attained the Dao after him, but alas, he had grown only halfway when he was dug out and made the Creator's precious thing for sacrifice. Before ever he was born, he was defiled. If he is to attain the Dao now, it will be hard beyond words: he must sever the sacrificial power the Creator laid upon him, and recover the whole of the Taichu lode's strength. " "The third brother was Taishi.
He too was dug out and made a great treasure, worshiped and sacrificed to by the people of the world. Yet afterward he fell into the hands of the Great Emperor of the Juyu clan. When the Great Emperor was defeated, he fell into Taichu's hands. By then Taichu was no longer in the state of an egg; he had come to desire power, and fearing that Taishi's perfect emergence would threaten his own standing, he imprisoned him.
" "Taisu, too, was born to a bitter fate. She was dug from the lode by the Nüxin clan of the Creator race, then carried off to the Juyu clan, and afterward fell into the hands of the Northern Emperor Xuanwu, who made of her a precious thing and refined her into the Glazed Azure-Heaven Banner. She sought with all her heart the way of transcendence, yet little did she know how ill her company would be; she was brought by a certain man into the previous cosmic epoch, and had no choice but to emerge ahead of her time. " "She wishes to attain the Dao, and so her karma is vast.
She must take vengeance on the Nüxin clan, vengeance on the Juyu clan, vengeance for being refined into a treasure, and vengeance for her premature emergence besides; and the karma of the previous cosmic epoch still waits to be settled. " Hearing this, Shen Mu felt a chill of awe in his heart.
The man of whom the Taiji ancient gods spoke as "ill company," that man was him.