Chapter 1536 — The Seventy-Two Palaces of the Imperial Capital
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The instant he entered the city, Shen Mu felt that his span of life—which had once been coeval with heaven and earth—had at last found an end.
Practitioners who had cultivated to the realm of the Life-and-Death Divine Treasury could already sense when their years would run out; but once one had cultivated into the Divine Realm, a deity felt his life span stretch on without end, sharing the longevity of heaven and earth. This Jade Capital City, however, must have been touched by the Great Annihilation Tribulation, so that even the Great Dao had an end to its days, and cultivators likewise had an end to their days.
Shen Mu pondered a moment, then set in motion the Profound Body Three-Elixir Art; his primordial qi flowed through the World Tree, and that sense of a finite life span vanished at once. The World Tree was like an immutable substance threading through cosmos after cosmos—no matter how universes were destroyed or born, the World Tree never changed.
Though Shen Mu's World Tree was but a seedling, weak as yet, it still partook of that quality.
And since the aura of the Annihilation Tribulation within the Jade Capital City was not overwhelmingly strong, and he had not truly stepped into the tribulation itself, the World Tree in his Divine Treasury was able to withstand it. Were it the true Great Annihilation Tribulation, of course, a sapling World Tree could not have held; the young tree was still small.
Shen Mu made his way into the city, carefully skirting the places of peril. The cold-still wind and the heat-still wind here were the most uncanny of all: the heat-still wind burned hot enough to melt the Dao chains and domains of the Great Dao, while the cold-still wind froze everything, snapping the Dao chains and rendering every divine art useless.
They were extremely dangerous.
"This cold-still wind," Shen Mu murmured as he stood beneath a withered Dao Tree, watching it sweep past the trunk, "is like the Ultimate Void. " A look of surprise crossed his face. The cold-still wind shared some resemblance to his divine art of Gathering Circles to Perfection in the Great Luo Heaven, but it was far more formidable.
He caught the tail of that cold-still wind and followed it with care, observing closely, seeking to fathom the mysteries hidden within it.
After who knows how long, the cold-still wind dove into a field of chaos qi.
Shen Mu abruptly raised his head and looked around, only now realizing that he had strayed from the geographic chart of Wei Suifeng—he knew not where in the Jade Capital City he had run to.
The place was even more desolate. Withered Dao Trees stood everywhere, forming a forest; withered Dao Fruits hung from their branches, and here and there fruits had fallen beneath them.
The ground was strewn with the withered leaves and branches of Dao Trees, and as he trod, branches cracked and leaves rustled dryly. He stepped on something hard, and brushing aside the dead leaves, found a dried skeleton buried underneath.
These should be the remains of a Dao-Achiever, dead here for some unknown reason. "In the Great Annihilation Tribulation of the universe, even Dao-Achievers are but ants.
" Shen Mu surveyed the grove, then suddenly raised his hand; the withered leaves whirled up into the sky and lifted from the ground.
There, all through this forest of withered Dao Trees, lay the bones of Dao-Achievers everywhere—a sight to shake the heart!
Shen Mu raised an eyebrow and examined them one by one; after a long while he let out a turbid breath.
These Dao-Achievers had not died natural deaths—they had been slain!
Every skeleton bore wounds inflicted by all kinds of sharp weapons!
"Who was it that killed you?
" He paused before one skeleton and knocked upon it, trying to awaken it, but the skeleton did not stir; there was no spirit left within the bones.
He stood up, frowning, and scanned the grove.
This withered forest was like a charnel mound, entombing two or three hundred Dao-Achievers!