Chapter 1552 — You All Still Have a Long Way to Go
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
This land too bore the buildings of Jade Capital City — an early Jade Capital City, to be sure; someone must have begun raising it as far back as the age of the fourth universe.
But those palaces and halls had collapsed, unable to withstand the onslaught of the Great Calamity of Destruction, leaving only broken walls and toppled pillars.
Jade Capital City as it stood today was more like a composite, a gathering of the Jade Capital Cities the sixteen universes had built one after another.
Shen Mu's Primal Fetus Divine Treasury domain now lay spread across these ruins, and the crumbling palace pillars stood like mountain ranges planted within his domain.
Only, the aura of decay seeping from these relics of palaces and towers was deeply unsettling — wisps like the smoke curling from the craters of little volcanoes, and from time to time the sound of flowing air issued from within, like the sighs of the dead, filling a man with desolation. Beyond that there were dao bones stripped of all energy, lying every which way, buried in the ruins, a length of bone or a joint showing here and there.
To either side, two long rivers of chaos surged, and thread upon thread of chaos qi rose from both banks like spray, giving off the bleak breath of all annihilation.
Within those two rivers one could faintly see countless figures struggling, rising and sinking, then winking out, turned into strand upon strand of chaos qi.
The destruction of two universes was a splendor and a pageantry that even the Sage of Painting could not paint, that even the greatest poet could not set down.
Upon the ruins of Jade Capital City between the two rivers stood Shen Mu, the Calamity Sword on his back, gazing at the Ten Venerables and the three ancient gods, a brilliant light flickering in his eyes.
The Ten Venerables were all old men and old women, standing beneath the two Dao Trees, and Heavenly Consort Qiang was wedged between the two trees.
They looked all about and saw that Shen Mu's divine treasury domain was indeed marvelously strange: there was the Ancestral Court, Youdu, Xuandu, the myriad worlds of all the heavens, and even a great many innate divinities.
Not only that, Shen Mu's heavenly palace was within the divine treasury as well. This was the extraordinary quality of one who entered the Dao through divine arts, the thing that set him apart from others.
Other men's heavenly palaces were behind their heads, forming a Great Heavenly Court, their primordial spirits taking residence and seating themselves within.
Shen Mu was the Shepherd Venerable who had founded his Dao upon divine arts, and his heavenly palace seemed to have become a mere auxiliary, floating within the Primal Fetus Divine Treasury, rather maverick, rather singular.
Within this domain there was in fact heaven and earth: the Lord of Heaven Shen Mu dwelt on high, looking down upon them; the Lord of Earth Shen Mu dwelt below, gazing up at them; and in the heavens, Shen Mu the ancient god in every shape and form turned his eyes upon them one and all.
The ten Venerables walked on, panting, toward Shen Mu, looking this way and that, and one after another they said, "Not bad.
Not bad at all. " Heavenly Consort Yan even saw Guixu, and praised it: "The Shepherd Venerable has created even Guixu — remarkable, truly remarkable.
" "Then shall we break it?
" Venerable Hao looked at Venerable Xiao and asked.
Venerable Xiao nodded.
"Then let us break it.
" Venerable Hao glanced at Ancestor God King, who stepped forward and said in admiration: "The Shepherd Venerable's forgeries have reached a real standard — playing the sovereign within his own domain. You know you are courting death, don't you?
" He grinned, showing three teeth, and of a sudden roused his forty-eight supreme treasures of the Dao of Heaven, bellowing: "Blasphemy against the Dao of Heaven, blasphemy against the Lord of Heaven! What audacity!