Chapter 1767 — The Powerful Minister's Dao-Slaying Melody
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Peng, peng, peng, the skin and flesh of his body burst open one patch after another, and still he drummed in madness. In cultivation, in Dao Realm, Zaifu could never compare with Heaven Venerable Yue, but to rouse the ultimate killing intent of Lord Shang that Shen Mu had spoken of, a greater and stronger pressure was needed to draw out the killing intent within Heaven Venerable Yue's qin.
Amid the quivering of the qin notes, the killing intent all but burst the skin of his whole body open, making the blood and breath within him steam like morning clouds, and still he did not stop drumming.
Heaven Venerable Yue's Dao Realm heavens quickly came to the thirty-third layer, and Lord Shang's Dao-Slaying Melody was raised to the thirty-fourth kill! The thirty-fourth kill: Heaven sends forth its killing intent, shifting the stars and changing the constellations!
At this step the killing intent was so thick that it produced anomalies, warping space; in the sky there appeared a heavenly baleful tornado, forming the Heavenly Baleful Divine Saber, and besides the heavenly balefulness there was the blood balefulness, howling and spinning, numberless corpses rising and sinking in a vast ocean of blood, the bodies struggling, wailing.
Of a sudden the great drums burst one after another; around Zaifu the war drums a hundred zhang tall were shattered to powder by the killing intent!
Zaifu rushed forward, shielding the last great drum with his broad back, raised his hundred arms, and smashed them down upon that final war drum!
Dong!
The drum sounded, the drumhead burst, and Zaifu, drenched in blood, fell over on his back, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth: "This is as far as I can go.
What comes after rests entirely on you, Heaven Venerable Yue.
. .
" Zheng, zheng, zheng, the qin rose another step: the thirty-fifth kill of Lord Shang's Dao-Slaying Melody!
Earth sends forth its killing intent, dragons and serpents rise from the land! The earth cracked with a crunch and split asunder, and the killing intent gushing up from below wound and swam like dragons and serpents.
Blood spilled from the corner of Heaven Venerable Yue's mouth as she roused the thirty-sixth kill!
Man sends forth his killing intent, and heaven and earth are overturned!
Behind her the phantom of the thirty-sixth layer of the void emerged, swaying and drifting, unable to take fixed form; the thirty-seventh kill of Lord Shang's Dao-Slaying Melody she no longer had the strength or the foundation to perform.
The thirty-seventh kill was the all-important ultimate killing intent, yet Heaven Venerable Yue still lacked a measure of the art, and that final kill could never be plucked out. And just then, dream upon dream spread out and encircled her; in the dream Heaven Venerable Yue seemed to become Lord Shang, and through Lord Shang's eyes lived through Lord Shang's tragic life.
The dream seemed long, but in truth it was a single instant.
In that brief instant, in the form of Lord Shang, Heaven Venerable Yue lived through the twisted world at the end of the Sixteenth Epoch; Lord Shang's obstinacy, Lord Shang's dream, his hopes, his despair, she understood them all.
Only by standing there in person could one understand the hardships that Lord Shang's tragic life had met, understand why his saber had been broken by Shen Mu, why his Dao-heart had collapsed, why he could no longer become as he once was: the Lord Shang of the Dao of Slaughter who had struck terror into the great calamity that destroyed the Sixteenth Epoch!
In the thirty-sixth layer of Heaven Venerable Yue's Dao Realm her phantom appeared and plucked the strings. The thirty-seventh kill of Lord Shang's Dao-Slaying Melody!
Heaven and man act as one, and all transformations are fixed in their foundation!