Chapter 1795 — The Young Master's Secret Past
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Within the forest of obelisks there was still no trace of life. When Shen Mu had last come here, he could yet see a sun in the sky — the eye of the First Young Master, Taishang, peering at all within the obelisk forest.
But now, coming here again, only the radiance of the obelisks remained; the sun was nowhere to be seen.
The place was stifling; the obelisks stood like so many towers, suppressing everything.
The steles were forged from Chaos Stone, and Chaos Stone could be found only in the Taiyi ore veins and in the calamity of destruction; nowhere else in all the world could such a treasure be found. Yet to the First Young Master, Taishang, Chaos Stone was merely the stuff of which treasures are refined.
Shen Mu hoisted an obelisk onto his shoulder, slung it aboard the Golden Ship of Salvation, and pushed the ship out through the portal: "Ship of treasures, oh ship of treasures — off to the Ancestral Court with you!
" Shen Mu gave it a mighty shove, and the Golden Ship of Salvation at once bore the stele away. Shen Mu's gaze flickered and shifted; he watched until the Golden Ship of Salvation vanished into the depths of the Void Filth Field, and only then did he turn, heave the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin onto his shoulder, and stride into the obelisk forest.
He had already fathomed the secret of the obelisks: by transforming the primordial chaos runes within his body into the rune-state of the steles, he could walk into the forest unhindered by its suppression.
Had he not done so, with the steles whole in number, he would have had no way to disguise himself as a stele and enter the forest. "The First Young Master, Taishang, may not permit me to take the Cripple away, nor may he permit me to merge Taiyi and the Cripple into one; therefore I set one obelisk aboard the ship and let the golden ship carry that stele off.
With this stele missing, the forest's formation is incomplete. So long as he cannot find this stele, and cannot make whole the suppressive array, I am safe.
" Shen Mu smiled, and shouldering the coffin, strode boldly in.
At that very moment, in the innermost ring of the obelisk forest, halos of light suddenly streamed across the surfaces of the steles, and upon one of them the figure of Zhu Santong surfaced. The pig-headed, human-bodied Dao-attaining one's snout abruptly bulged out from the stele, his two eyes, big as bronze bells, rolling this way and that, as he whispered, "Old monster, old monster! Do you feel it? This forest's formation is missing another piece!
" Upon another stele the image of a little girl surfaced, as though someone stood before a mirror and yet no one was reflected within.
The girl thrust a leg out from the mirror's surface and said in astonishment, "The formation truly is incomplete! " She leaped out of the mirror and cackled, "Taishang's seal is too ancient — so ancient that the seal has collapsed!
" "It is not the seal that has collapsed. " The old woman surfaced from another stele, sensing with great care, and said, "These obelisks were forged from Chaos Stone; even the calamity of destruction could not mar them in the slightest. Taishang could lock us away for several more cosmic epochs, and this seal would show not a single flaw!
" She stepped out from the stele and said, puzzled, "And yet the seal truly is missing a piece. How very strange.
.
.
" At this the woman stepped out of her stele and sneered, "Just what trick is Taishang playing?
" The old man had already come into the village and checked on the Cripple; finding the Cripple still there, he set his heart at ease and said mildly, "We have long since been no match for Taishang. Whatever trick he plays. .
.
" He gave a muffled snort: "All we can do is be played by him.