Chapter 1834 — Breaking Into the Jade Capital a Second Time
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
" The two struck their bargain at once, and each went to make ready. Elsewhere, Shen Mu left the Guixu abyss and came to the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court, to see the descent of Young Master Lingxiao's Dao soldiers. Everyone in the Miluo Palace, as though they had known he would come, had long since drawn up their battle formation, waiting in stern array. Shen Mu walked into the city, then halted his steps.
There in the space and time of the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court, zither strings invisible to the naked eye were spread like a spider's web, guarding Young Master Lingxiao's Dao spear. Lord Haotian stepped forward and shouted, full of menace: "Lord Mu, your death is at hand, and you still dare come here to run wild?
" Shen Mu gave a snort of laughter. The Lord Haotian of old, though hardly admirable, had at least been a man of some standing; now he had lost every last shred of ambition. Under the manipulation of the Miluo Palace's two Young Masters, Lord Haotian's ambitions and grand designs had all turned to froth and shadow; he had been brought to heel so thoroughly that one could not help but marvel at the two Young Masters' methods. Hearing that snort of laughter, Lord Haotian flushed red, ashamed and furious at once.
Shen Mu paid him no mind.
His gaze fell upon that Dao spear. The spear held inexhaustible Dao might within it, quivering without cease, spear-shadows filling the air around it!
The power of such a Dao soldier was far more formidable even than the Cosmic Bell Shen Mu had forged!
"A pity the one who wields the spear is not here.
" Shen Mu looked all around, his gaze passing over the faces of the twelve Hall Masters of the Miluo Palace and the assembled Dao-attainers. He shook his head.
"Without the spearman, none of you is a match for me.
" He stepped forward, and all at once the zither strings quivered; a Dao melody came forth from the strings hidden in space and time. Shen Mu's figure rose and fell within the Dao melody, now walking amid Young Master Zixiao's divine powers, now standing upon the quivering strings, now laying his palm on a string and plucking it softly, sinking ever deeper into the net the strings had woven! The faces of the twelve Hall Masters and the assembled Dao-attainers grew graver and graver.
Young Master Zixiao, working her divine power across the void, could no longer touch Shen Mu in the slightest, and fine beads of sweat broke out on their foreheads. Shen Mu's rate of growth surpassed their imagining.
In a mere three thousand years he could already match Young Master Zixiao in a contest of arts across the void, and with such calm and ease, that they felt the pressure keenly! "He cannot break the Miluo Dao Burial!
" Lord Haotian swiftly set out one treasure hall after another, all seventy-two treasure halls arrayed in full.
Lord Haotian stood before one of them; the other twelve Hall Masters each had their own hall. But several of the Miluo Palace's seventy-two Hall Masters were already dead, and the rest had not descended, so other Dao-attainers had to stand in their places. They laid out the formation of the Miluo Dao Burial, each gripping his own weapon, veins writhing on the backs of their hands, staring fixedly at Shen Mu as he drew nearer and nearer through the sound of the Dao melody. The Miluo Dao Burial was a joint technique the Third and Fourth Young Masters of the Miluo Palace had created together, aimed squarely at Shen Mu's Dao arts and divine powers, a killing blow meant for Shen Mu alone.