Chapter 1607 — The Remains of the Sages
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Lady Yuanmu proposed, "Why not this: this body is yours for a day, mine for a day, and we take turns. So long as we do not meet, we will little by little recall each other's kindness, little by little wear away the rancor between us, remember the depth of our sisterhood — and perhaps we may yet return to the way we were. What say you?"
Her Highness the Empress seemed much moved as well, and sighed, "I had the very same thought. We sisters cannot go on fighting forever. If we make peace, who in this world could stand against us? Since you are willing, little sister, then it is settled."
Lady Yuanmu blinked, and sent her voice into Shen Mu's divine consciousness: "My dear, when that old hag falls asleep, pass the dao of reincarnation to me, and we will refine the wretch to death!"
Shen Mu's divine consciousness rippled faintly. "Rest easy, Yuanmu. I understand."
Suddenly the Empress's divine consciousness stirred, and she sent, "That little slut is ruled by her whims. Does Heavenly Venerable Mu think it better that a madwoman walk the world, or a sane one? Heavenly Venerable Mu should be able to judge."
Shen Mu's divine consciousness rippled. "Rest easy, Your Highness. I understand."
He suddenly looked doubtful; he glanced at Boyang's skull, then followed the direction in which the skull's eye sockets pointed and looked where they gazed. "Before he died," he said in surprise, "Boyang seems to have been looking at something."
Her Highness the Empress came to stand upon Boyang's enormous skull and peered toward the place he had watched in death. All was the vast blur of chaos; only immense lotus roots and stems could be seen rising out of the chaotic mist and plunging into the endlessly turning darkness.
Shen Mu opened the vertical eye in his brow and looked that way, and his heart gave a leap.
At last he saw what Boyang had seen before death!
Beneath that twin lotus on its single stem, dao chains of incalculable thickness hung down, twisting and falling from the mouth of the great abyss of Guixu in a universe of the past, all the way down to this place.
The chains sank into the sea of chaos; they must have been joined to the roots of the twin lotuses!
Suddenly those chains shook violently, scattering the mist of chaos around them, as though some colossal thing within the sea of chaos had stirred up wild winds and towering waves.
Above the sea of chaos, the wind of heat-death came howling and surging at once, waves rose to the heavens, and lotus leaves were flung up from the sea!
Shen Mu and the Empress, standing upon their leaf, at once found their footing unsteady, and nearly were thrown off.
The two hurried to steady themselves, and then saw the air of chaos part: from beneath the roots where the twin lotuses pierced the sea of chaos, a disheveled head floated up, countless white hairs like silver threads drifting upon the surface.
Those silver hairs moved like living things, swimming in the sea, rising, stabbing again and again at the dao chains, trying to sever them!
Countless fine dao markings surfaced upon the chains, quivering without cease, and from all across the sea of chaos came dao sounds like the tolling of the great bells of antiquity, as though some being of boundless power and majesty were chanting the supreme dao!
Boom!
A vast head rose slowly from the sea of chaos, wild hair flying, fighting the suppression of the chains. Chain after chain ran through the front of her face, entering and emerging from her nostrils, her mouth, her ears, locking her fast.
It was a woman, no smaller in body than the God King Boyang; sunk in the sea of chaos so long, she had been so eroded by it that her features could hardly be made out.
The woman seized a lotus leaf, resisting the chains' suppression, forced her way up onto it, and took the chance to pant and gasp for breath.
Shen Mu and the Empress stared dumbstruck: here in the great abyss of Guixu someone was imprisoned still — and that someone was alive!