Chapter 1537 — All Beings Scramble to Cross
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
And what was strange was that Heavenly Consort Qiang had thrown in neither with Heavenly Venerable Hao nor with Heavenly Venerable Xiao. Heavenly Consort Qiang is the Great Emperor; by every reckoning of feeling and reason, the Great Emperor would never submit to any single man — yet the Great Emperor was also a fickle one, exceedingly skilled at bending with circumstance.
If he kept himself apart from these two bands, he would stand alone without allies, at a grave disadvantage.
The strangeness, then, lay exactly in the Great Emperor's decision to fight alone! That was not in keeping with his temperament.
"They are all trying to sort out the dao patterns of the Great Dao of the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls ahead of the other side, and cultivate the halls to completion.
" Shen Mu's gaze flickered, and he said in a low voice, "Were I in their place, I would, while pondering them, carry off several treasure halls, so that the other side could never obtain the dao patterns of the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls, and their road to the Heavenly Court would be severed.
" Before long, Shen Mu stood livid before a stretch of ruins; of that place only broken walls and shattered eaves remained, and an enormous pit.
The Ten Heavenly Venerables had, just as he expected, carried off this treasure hall!
Only he could not tell whether it was the work of Heavenly Venerable Hao or of Heavenly Venerable Xiao.
"It may also be that Heavenly Consort Qiang carried off a hall as capital for bargaining with the other Venerables.
But with Heavenly Consort Qiang alone, she should hardly have such strength. .
.
How thoroughly unprincipled!
" Shen Mu spat the words in anger and walked on.
Before long he came to the site of yet another treasure hall — that one too had been taken away, and was no longer here. The veins on Shen Mu's forehead leaped and quivered.
Such a move by the Ten Heavenly Venerables was understandable enough: when one side discovered that the other had carried off a treasure hall, the intent was plain, and so, as bargaining chips, they too must carry off a hall the other side had not yet had time to ponder. Thus each side held a hall, denying the other completeness, and in any exchange neither would come off the worse.
Shen Mu steadied himself and sneered, "If I were one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables, taking a single hall to haggle with the other side — not to gain the advantage is to lose. So I would simply take several halls; my capital would then be greater, and the other side would have to bleed heavily, trading other benefits to buy them back! " Not long after, he stood black-faced as charcoal before the site of yet another treasure hall.
Plainly, someone among the Ten Heavenly Venerables had nursed the same thought as he, and had taken a second hall as capital.
"Utterly shameless! Still, come to think of it, if I were one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables, I would try to carry off every hall that had not yet been pondered. .
. " He walked on, his face darkening by the moment, the veins on his forehead writhing one after another.
Sure enough, one treasure hall after another had vanished without a trace, plainly carried off by Heavenly Venerable Hao, Heavenly Venerable Xiao and the rest.
These halls would become the capital with which they coerced and traded with one another; and in such shabby dealings the Ten Heavenly Venerables were even more at home than Shen Mu.
There was nothing left along the road for Shen Mu to ponder, so he could only press on along the Ten Heavenly Venerables' path; as for the map Wei Suifeng had given him, he cast it clean out of mind.
This Jade Capital City was vast beyond measure; walking its streets, one could not begin to tell where the places Wei Suifeng had marked might lie.
Suddenly, from ahead came the surging sound of water, roaring and crashing. Shen Mu's heart stirred faintly: "The Chaos River?
Then I have come to the very core of the Jade Capital City!