Chapter 1860 — The Immortal Veteran of the Battlefield
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
Taishang said, "In the past sixteen cosmic epochs, Seventh Young Master has trapped and slain no small number of people. His ways make it very hard to rest easy. I must watch him return to the past before I can be at ease."
Taiyi nodded. "So must I."
The two sat down and waited quietly.
Shen Mu wandered on foot. He first went to the former site of the Ancestral Court, which had already become a battlefield of the Dao-attained. The Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron had been battered full of holes by the Young Masters' strange treasures; the strange treasures of several Young Masters had already been destroyed, leaving only the Heaven-Reaching Well of First Young Master Taishang.
The hall masters and the Dao-attained of Miluo Palace had turned from attack to defense, guarding the Heaven-Reaching Well, so that Lan Yutian, Xu Shenghua and the others could never break through.
Shen Mu gazed at the battlefield from afar, then drifted away. He strolled through the starry sky and went to the Four Poles Heaven. The four poles of the universe had now grown far vaster, and there the various races multiplied and dwelt; the Four Poles Heaven had long since grown strange to him.
When he came from the Southern Pole Heaven to the Southern Heaven, he saw that the heavens here were like so many little Jingpings; everything seemed in good order. The gods held power in their hands and used that power in the service of mortals; the mortals' commerce flourished and they supplied the gods with all manner of goods.
Shen Mu passed through one heaven after another; among all the heavens and myriad worlds, scarcely anyone knew him anymore.
Three and a half billion years of history had made everything utterly unfamiliar.
He walked through the ruins of former battlefields, standing amid the ruins to mourn the heroic spirits who had died in battle in ages past. He also sought the tombs of his enemies, but sadly found none.
Too much time had passed; the world had forgotten him, forgotten all those who had fought for the future.
Perhaps they did not understand why the people of the past had fought, why they had died, did not comprehend those in the Era of the Five Tribulations who had cast aside all thought of themselves, who had shed their blood and given their heads.
They were not even interested in learning the history of the Era of the Five Tribulations.
Longhan, Chiming, Shanghuang, Kaihuang, Jingping—the strivings of generation after generation had thus gathered dust, and few there were to brush the dust away and read the long-sealed pages.
Full of melancholy, Shen Mu at last came to the Origin Realm.
The Origin Realm was vaster and more solid than when he had left. The Ancestral Court no longer existed; it had become a mighty weapon. The Origin Realm had taken the Ancestral Court's place and become the center of all the heavens and myriad worlds.
The Heavenly Court of Jingping was built here, and Gongsun Yan's true body, the Primordial Wood, had grown lush and verdant. That little girl of those years, who had taken him for a tree that needed watering, had become the symbol of the Origin Realm.
Like an ordinary mortal, Shen Mu walked through the cities of the Origin Realm, observing the people's life, experiencing the people's life.
The Origin Realm had become wholly unfamiliar; the economy that ordered the realm and succored the world had changed greatly from when he left, and the culture and customs had grown so strange to him as to be jarring. The architectural styles of the divine cities, one after another, made him feel in a daze that he had come to an alien world.
People's clothing, their food, their speech, even the runes had changed from former days.
He was like an antique dug out of an ancient tomb, sharing nothing in common with this world at all.