Chapter 1827 — Subduing the Multitude of the Heaven-Opening Host
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
"Brother Taiyi, do you wish to become the Lord of Tiandu, or to be yourself again?" Shen Mu asked abruptly.
Taiyi was silent. The eyes of the thirty-five of the Heaven-Opening Host fell upon him one after another, and the Smiling Man, Shijing, said, "Leader, you are ill. Only by returning to the identity of the Lord of Tiandu will you be cured."
Taiyi sighed and said, "Daoist friend Mu, will you let me become the Lord of Tiandu?"
Shen Mu shook his head: "No. When I first entered Miluo Palace and met its master, my teacher told me to beware of Taiyi. I doubted his words and thought he was lying. But later I understood: what he bade me beware of was not you, but the Lord of Tiandu. For you, brother, I feel only admiration and reverence. While you are Taiyi, you are that transcendent master who guarded the Seventeenth Epoch for six billion years; but if you become the Lord of Tiandu, you may well become the one who destroys the Seventeenth Epoch."
Taiyi fell silent.
After a long while he opened his eyes, smiled, and said, "I understand. You may begin."
Light blazed from Shen Mu's eyes. In an instant his Primal Chaos vital essence stirred, and within the space of a breath countless Primal Chaos runes formed inside his body, arrayed in a strange and wondrous pattern!
In the blink of an eye, the impression he gave was as though he were a towering, majestic obelisk stele!
Of the Obelisk Forest laid down by the First Young Master, Taishang, one stele had been sent out of the Squalid Field by Shen Mu and delivered into the Ancestral Court, where it was destroyed by the hand of Her Highness the Empress.
With the forest incomplete, it could no longer bring forth the suppressive power of this place.
Yet Shen Mu had studied the obelisk steles deeply. Each time he entered the forest, he used Primal Chaos runes to simulate an obelisk stele and slip into the formation.
This time he transformed his own body into an obelisk stele — the very method the First Young Master, Taishang, had used when last he entered the forest and became a stele to suppress Dongyang and the others.
The Obelisk Forest rumbled into life. One stele after another blazed with light in an instant, countless runes surfaced, and the formation left behind by the First Young Master, Taishang, began to turn!
The thirty-five of the Heaven-Opening Host shifted their steps, their forms weaving in and out. Their reactions were swift beyond measure: the moment Shen Mu roused the suppressive power of the Obelisk Forest, they in that same instant roused the formation of the Heaven-Opening Altar!
At the same moment, the old man Dongyang, Zhu Santong, the girl, the woman, and the old crone all made their move, attacking the thirty-five of the Heaven-Opening Host, striving to break their formation!
They fought for every second. It would take time for Shen Mu to rouse the Obelisk Forest and drive its suppressive power to its utmost; before that, they must hold the Heaven-Opening Host back, and not let them bring out the full might of the altar formation!
This was the stratagem Shen Mu had settled upon with them.
The Heaven-Opening Host possessed a set of joint-strike arts with which they could stand head-on against the Young Masters of Miluo Palace — arts with which they had even gravely wounded the Second Young Master, Wuji, in the Ruins of Return!
The Second Young Master, Wuji — her strength was very likely above even that of the First Young Master, Taishang; and though she was bound by the red rope knot, to wound her gravely was no easy thing.
That the thirty-five of the Heaven-Opening Host could gravely wound her in the Ruins of Return, the very place of her birth, and fight their way out of the Ruins — Shen Mu had already come to regard these thirty-five as beings on the level of the Young Masters!
To rouse the Obelisk Forest took time; to drive the formation of the Heaven-Opening Altar took time as well. Whoever seized the initiative first would have the chance of victory!