Chapter 1534 — A Single Sword Pierces the Firmament, the Heart of Dao Mirrors the Cold Frost
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Tribulation?"
Kai Huang looked at Shen Mu. He had raised the divine sword and was studying it by the light that fell from Xuan Du, and his heart could not help but surge.
The fate of tribulation lies vast and dim — who masters the rise and fall?
In the Kai Huang era, the Shang Huang era, the Chiming era, the Ten Heavenly Venerables had again and again sent down tribulation to destroy the world, reducing splendid golden ages to scattered ash.
Amid those tribulations, one radiant emperor after another, one civilization after another that carried the past and opened what came after, had at last declined and perished; even the Kai Huang era had become a bubble, a shadow, a dream.
When the tribulation comes, who can seize the oar that rides the wind and cleaves the waves, and carry all living beings across?
Kai Huang had not seized it.
Now Shen Mu had named his divine sword Tribulation. Was it because he had seen that in the future the Ten Heavenly Venerables would send down tribulation upon Jingping?
Or was it that he would send down tribulation upon the Heavenly Court?
Perhaps both.
The power of the Tribulation Sword was wholly contained. To outward appearance the blade was utterly unremarkable: no intricate dao patterns, no superfluous ornament. In Shen Mu's hand it was like holding a beam of light, save that this light had an edge and a point.
Yet everyone who had taken part in the forging knew how terrifying this sword was.
When the sword was brought to completion, it had taken the four ancient god emperors and Kai Huang and the rest to temper and suppress it together; and at the moment it was finished, its might reached beyond the heavens!
The Tribulation Sword startles the celestial palace; a flick of the fingers brings down the stars.
Even the treasures of the Heavenly Venerables had never raised such a commotion.
Shen Mu gripped the sword, thought for a moment, then casually fashioned a wooden scabbard and slid the Tribulation Sword into it.
No scabbard could any longer be worthy of this divine sword. Were its sword-might fully unleashed, even the finest scabbard in the world could not withstand it; so it was better to spare the trouble and use the plainest, most ordinary scabbard to veil the divine sword's edge.
"Back then you convinced me with a sword and made me walk out of the Carefree Land. Afterward you cast the sword aside and turned to divine powers."
Kai Huang walked up to Shen Mu and said, "Now that you have picked the sword up again, do not fail it."
Shen Mu nodded. "My sword is not the sword dao pure and simple. When I use a sword, I use it to kill."
"And are divine powers not used to kill? Walk the dao, guard the squareness within your heart, do not stray from your true heart, do not betray your original intent — then what harm if the sword in your hand becomes a sword that takes life?"
Kai Huang stepped away, saying lightly, "Mu Tianzun, you are a genius of the sword dao, but you yourself have never noticed it. You feel that the way of divine powers and the sword dao are incompatible, yet it has never occurred to you that sword-dao divine powers are divine powers, and divine powers are divine powers — the two can be joined, can contain each other."
Shen Mu's mind roared; he stood frozen where he was.
Kai Huang's words had suddenly opened a door for him, and he could not help but tremble with excitement!
That divine powers and the sword dao could be joined — this was the plainest of truths, and yet it was a truth he had never once considered!
In the past, when he comprehended divine powers, he had brought divine powers into the Dao to the twenty-third heaven. He had labored enormously over divine powers, comprehending all manner of great daos, and had grown slack in the sword dao.