Chapter 1780 — A Thread from Olden Times
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
By the time the radiance bursting from Tai Yi's coffin had dispersed, the starry sky was strewn with severed root-tendrils, writhing like great serpents cut in two. Palace Lord Changfeng was exceedingly hard to kill; even in such a state, his root-tendrils kept squirming, striving to gather themselves back together.
Yet the moment two tendrils touched, they triggered the Dao-wound left behind by the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.
The lingering might of that divine art erupted and riddled the tendrils with a thousand holes. Seeing this, Shen Mu let out a breath of relief.
Yet the instant he relaxed, pain seared through every part of his body.
He had been wounded ever since his battle with Palace Lord Chuge, and the right decision would have been to rest awhile, to recover to his peak before dealing with Palace Lord Changfeng. But time was pressing; if Palace Lord Changfeng and Palace Lord Huanxi should join forces, he would be no match for the two of them.
Moreover, neither palace lord had fully descended.
Once they did, and should they then entrust themselves to the void, whether Shen Mu could face either of them one on one was still unknown. So he could only come to battle wounded.
Fortunately he had frightened Palace Lord Huanxi away on the road; had that palace lord come to join Changfeng, this battle would likely have ended in crushing defeat. "Tai Yi surely won't hate me, will he?
" Shen Mu suppressed his wounds.
The Dao-wounds Palace Lord Changfeng had left were not troublesome, but those inflicted by the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin were far more vexing, hard to heal in a short time. He came before Tai Yi's coffin.
The ripples of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin had subsided, and though this divine coffin had been tossed about twice, it remained wholly unharmed, solid beyond compare - truly a coffin of the finest timber. Shen Mu stroked the coffin lightly, then dragged it with effort toward the World-Crossing Golden Ship.
"Tai Yi is so strong - a mere Dao-Burying Divine Coffin could never harm him.
" Full of confidence in Tai Yi, Shen Mu said in a hoarse voice, "Sworn Brother, come out quickly.
I'm spent.
" From somewhere aboard the World-Crossing Golden Ship came Lan Yutian's voice: "Brother, wait a little longer.
" Shen Mu could not drag Tai Yi's coffin aboard, so he had to stop and rest.
After a while, Lan Yutian still did not appear.
"Sworn Brother, are you not coming out yet?
" Doubt stirred in his heart.
"Wait a little longer for me - I think I'm about to find my way out! " Shen Mu waited a while more, until he grew impatient, and thought, "Can it be that Lan Yutian has gotten himself lost again? " Lan Yutian's sensitivity to the Dao was extraordinarily high; he was a man born close to the Dao. But he had one fault: a habitual inability to find his way.
In the past he had wandered lost into the Western Lands and idled about with Xu Shenghua for a spell; after leaving Xu Shenghua he had drifted, lost again, beyond the Great Void, and in a muddle had taken in a whole crowd of disciples. Luckily he had met Shen Mu, who had gathered him back. The golden halls within the World-Crossing Golden Ship were vast in number.
Shen Mu had once, in order to seek out where Kaihuang was, made vast and complicated calculations to determine the number of those golden halls, arriving at an appalling figure.
Shen Fengqing had then used the methods of Youdu to divide into myriads of incarnations and search through every one of those halls.
Had Lan Yutian not been hopeless with directions, he might have found a way out.
Unfortunately, he was. He had borrowed the golden ship's peculiar nature to preserve himself and to trap Palace Lord Changfeng, never imagining that he would lose himself in the process.
"I'm afraid Sworn Brother could grope about for tens of thousands of years and never find his way out. I can't count on him.