Chapter 1697 — Yours Truly Raises the Standard of Revolt
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shang Jun followed Shen Mu step for step; wherever Shen Mu went, he went.
He had no need to consider whether the road Shen Mu walked was the right one, nor to consider how Shen Mu used the Hongmeng runes and the Hongmeng vital essence to deceive the obelisk forest. He needed only to follow Shen Mu.
Along the way they walked and halted by turns. Had Shen Mu been walking out of the stele forest alone, it would have been far simpler; but bringing Shang Jun with him made it countless times more complicated.
The obelisk forest had been created by the First Young Master to suppress the Cripple's mortal body and those of other Dao-attainers, and among them was Shang Jun. To blind the obelisk forest, Shen Mu had to build a framework of Hongmeng runes to shroud the aura of Shang Jun's own Dao; only so could he lead him out of this place.
The Hongmeng construct was a formidable problem even for Shen Mu; he advanced and calculated at the same time.
He was like a walking obelisk, and Shang Jun walked in his shadow, as though suppressed within the obelisk that was Shen Mu, and so stirred no change in the stele forest.
Should Shen Mu's Hongmeng construct fail and Shang Jun's aura leak out, he would at once be suppressed by the obelisk forest and driven straight into a true stele!
How long it took, he did not know, but at last Shen Mu led Shang Jun out of the stele forest. Sweat steamed from his whole body; all this while he had calculated with all his strength, pushing his mind to its utmost, seeking the single path of life amid countless permutations, and only so had he walked out of the stele forest.
Now that he relaxed, his mind suddenly went dim and muddled, and his limbs grew strengthless.
Shen Mu closed his eyes and gasped several harsh breaths, standing there to steady his heart.
Shang Jun looked back. The steles stood in dense, crowded ranks, so many that the way they had come could no longer be found.
He felt as though a whole age had passed. He thought of the sixteenth epoch, of his own persistence in those years, of all he had met with in this life, and it seemed to him like the affairs of a former existence.
And in this life, he would be born anew!
Before long, Shen Mu opened his eyes and walked toward the outside of the gateway.
Shang Jun still followed him. Shen Mu said nothing, and Shang Jun said nothing either; he seemed to have melted wholly into Shen Mu's shadow.
He was a being who had attained the Dao through killing, and had once been an assassin; otherwise he could never have slain a Dao-attainer before attaining the Dao himself. Lurking in Shen Mu's shadow, he was invisible to ordinary eyes, and not the least trace of his aura could be sensed.
The two were about to step out of the gateway when Shen Mu suddenly halted, and Shang Jun halted with him.
Shen Mu studied the outside warily. After a moment he laughed aloud and said, "As a fellow young master of Miluo Palace, do you mean to aid the third and the fourth and suppress me? I hear you are the disciple the Master values most. Were it the Master, what would the Master do?"
Beyond the gate all was silent.
Shang Jun's heart gave a violent leap, and he looked beyond the gate. What was out there?
Why had Shen Mu suddenly spoken so?
Could the First Young Master of Miluo Palace be just outside the gate at this very moment?
"The Master can be impartial, favoring neither me nor any of my other senior brothers."
Shen Mu said calmly, "If you truly inherited the Master's mantle, you would not block me, nor would you block Shang Jun. For when Shang Jun attained the Dao in those years, the Master did not block him either."
Beyond the gate all remained silent; not a sound.
Shang Jun frowned slightly and thought, "Can the young master have misjudged? There is no one outside at all."
Just then an obelisk appeared in their view, drifting toward them.