Chapter 1786 — The Elder of No Bounds
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
In the Chaos Long River of the Sixteenth Epoch, within Jade Capital City, two tongues of fire suddenly came racing along the lute strings. The Fourth Young Master, Zixiao, paled slightly and hastily flicked his hand, but the flames had already reached his fingers.
The Fourth Young Master blew out a breath, trying to extinguish the fire on his fingers, yet the flames abruptly turned savage beyond measure. At the mere puff of his breath, they burned him until his skin split and his flesh gaped, and in an instant two of his fingers were charred away to bare white bone.
Crack. Crack.
The white bone too was burned to nothing, reduced to ash, and the flames used those two fingers as kindling to set his other fingers alight.
The Fourth Young Master raised his hand and severed his right hand at the wrist. With a sweep of his sleeve, the severed hand flew into the Chaos Long River, where it blazed furiously and was soon burned to a handful of ash, ceasing to exist.
The Fourth Young Master, Zixiao, darkened and said with a flick of his sleeve, "The old thing beneath the World Tree has actually escaped."
Within Great Black Mountain, Shen Mu stirred inwardly. "So this man is an old acquaintance from my past universe. Of course, I have not yet returned to the past universe—he is an acquaintance from my future..."
To him, meeting the being beneath the World Tree who could contend with the Fourth Young Master was a thing of the future, yet to that man, it had already happened.
"Still, I was not so utterly wretched in the past universe. At least I had friends."
Shen Mu smiled and walked toward the World Tree. Along the way, many black mountains stood like insect cocoons already split open, and the prehistoric powerhouses parasitic within them were breaking free of their chrysalises.
The forces of Great Black Mountain were far greater than the Five Elders of Fengshu entrenched in the Heavenly Court. Those prehistoric powerhouses emerging from the black mountains were still very weak, each drawing upon the spiritual energy and power of heaven and earth. Between their breaths, the stars in the sky tottered on the verge of falling, and the starlight grew much dimmer.
As Shen Mu walked over, he saw two or three stars snuffed out by these prehistoric powerhouses' plundering, becoming dead stars.
"Perhaps they may not be friends after all..."
His expression gradually darkened. Along this entire journey, he had felt a profound hostility.
The vast majority of the prehistoric powerhouses entrenched in Great Black Mountain radiated intense hostility toward him.
"If I were truly a close friend of that being beneath the World Tree, how could these stowaways show me such intense hostility?"
Shen Mu's face was as calm as still water, yet sweat beaded at the nape of his neck. He thought, "This time it may not be a visit to an old friend. It may well be delivering myself to my own death, goods delivered to the door..."
The original Great Black Mountain had long since grown lush and verdant with the World Tree's revival, becoming an enviable holy land. But now these prehistoric powerhouses had stowed away here, devouring the spiritual energy and power of heaven and earth to replenish what they had spent in the Calamity of Destruction, reducing this place to utter desolation once more.
Shen Mu frowned slightly.
The World Tree ahead, by contrast, grew ever more verdant and vigorous, displaying its towering, upright posture that held up the myriad heavens and worlds.
"Lush, lush the ancestral tree, each year withers and flourishes. Chaos cannot burn it through, past the calamity it springs anew."
Beneath the World Tree, that aged voice sang. The song suddenly took on a tone of resentment, and in an instant killing intent surged: "Taiyi felled my tree, Tiandu burned my roots! Yet spring came to tend me, and returned my brocade city!"