Chapter 1855 — That Dao Ancestor Breaks the Heaven-Piercing Well
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
The qi of chaos vanished, and what met everyone's eyes was a lamp of ancient simplicity, no more than the plainest oil lamp: a small bowl beneath, a little clear oil within the bowl, and a wick laid across its rim.
The lamp was not lit, and there did not seem to be much oil in it either.
The gazes of Huadu and the other five Hall Masters flickered, and all at once they charged together at that oil lamp; and in the very instant they rushed out, Lan Yutian had already snatched the lamp into his hands.
Hall Master Huadu hastily halted his steps, but he saw that the other four Hall Masters were still lunging at Lan Yutian, and in a panic he cried out in a stern voice: "Do not go! Retreat at once!"
His figure drew back, yet those four Hall Masters no longer had time to retreat.
They saw that when Lan Yutian held the oil lamp up in his palm, the lamp had already kindled itself; its light shone with a strange purple hue, and in but a brief moment that purple radiance lit the whole treasure hall.
By now Hall Master Huadu had fallen back to the doorway of the treasure hall, and caught in that purple light, he suddenly felt that everything of his was illuminated through and through by that radiance, as though each and every one of his Dao arts and divine powers had been seen clear to the very dregs!
Startled at heart, he fled the hall with all speed.
In that startling glimpse, he had felt the shape of the lamp flame to be exceedingly odd, like a purple evil eye possessed of dozens of layered pupils!
He called it an evil eye because those purple pupils stood upright, like the vertical eye upon Shen Mu's brow; yet pupil upon pupil, together with the heart of the flame, made forty-one layers in all, and the pupils were purple in hue, while the flame at the center was naught but chaos.
Once the lamplight fell upon one, it was as if that purple-pupiled evil eye had seen through every Dao art and divine power, leaving not the slightest secret to speak of.
In the instant Hall Master Huadu left the hall, the four Hall Masters within suddenly gave voice to a single wretched cry, and then there was no sound at all.
Hall Master Huadu's heart was wrung as though by a knife, yet he dared not linger even a moment; with a long howl he fled far away.
And there in the hall, Lan Yutian held up the oil lamp with dulled eyes, staring blankly at the flame.
What had happened just now was truly bizarre: the oil lamp had lit, the flame like a purple-pupiled evil eye, and that eye had even turned a full circle within the light, its gaze falling upon the four Hall Masters one after another.
The four Hall Masters were struck by that evil eye in the lamplight almost in the same instant, and the Great Dao of those four Hall Masters swiftly turned to green smoke; even their dao trees and dao fruits, even their treasure halls, all turned to green smoke!
Those four Hall Masters had only time for a single wretched cry before they evaporated clean away before his very eyes!
"Bizarre! Truly bizarre!"
Lan Yutian cried out, and nearly flung the lamp from his hands.
While the lamplight shone, he could see, across the flame, everything of those four Hall Masters: their divine powers and Dao arts, their dao trees, dao fruits, and dao halls, all of it broken down into the most minute runes, as though decomposed into the smallest of particles.
But what he had not expected was that when the evil eye within the lamplight shone, it would be so terrifying.
"This lamp of my brother's — when the Master of Miluo Palace preached here, he stole his Dao charm and turned it into lamp oil; stole the exquisite subtleties he expounded in his preaching and turned them into a wick; and turned his Dao of Chaos into an evil eye."