Chapter 390 — The Giant Dragon Returns to Its Nest, Its Power Revealed
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Dragon Qilin was about to spit out the fire-attribute spirit pellets lodged in its cheeks, but the kindly smile on Shen Mu's face frightened it into gulping them all down with a single gulp.
"What a pity. Come New Year it should have been fit for the table," Shen Mu said softly.
The Dragon Qilin shuddered again and again and trotted obediently along behind them. Snow Fox, perched on its great head, kept cheering it on: "Fat Dragon, run slow and you'll be slaughtered at New Year!"
Shen Mu relaxed. Mishui Pass was not so very far from Crimson Dragon City, and according to the charts of the Wasteland, the Constellation Sea lay in the Heavenly Dragon Star Palace north of Crimson Dragon City, a good two hundred li off; on the charts it was named the Star Sea, though the folk around Crimson Dragon City called it the Constellation Sea.
In the Wasteland, many places bore ancient names quite unlike their present ones, a state of affairs owed, no doubt, to the civilizational rupture of the Kaihuang era.
From what Shen Mu had gathered, after the Kaihuang era ended, human history suffered a vast rupture lasting roughly a thousand years and more, and of all that happened in those thousand-odd years, very little was ever recorded and handed down. Apart from scattered mentions in the Three Great Holy Lands and Little Jade Capital, no other sect or nation retained any memory of those years.
Shen Mu summoned the ink flood dragon, and the creature meekly opened its jaws, revealing the True Dragon Nest, which the Dragon-Rearing Lord had refined down to a mere five feet square.
Relatively speaking, the nest was still large; even a deity like the Dragon-Rearing Lord could refine it only to the size of a round table, and to shrink it further would demand still greater power.
With his cultivation, the Dragon-Rearing Lord could not take that step.
"And yet the True Dragon Lord was refined into something like a jade pendant. Does that not mean the one who refined it into the Heaven Emperor Jade Tablet stood far above the Dragon-Rearing Lord in cultivation and strength?"
Shen Mu was dumbstruck. Who had taken the True Dragon Lord and refined it into the Heaven Emperor Jade Tablet? Why had it been given to the Ling family? What did that person intend?
The ink flood dragon spat out the nest. Shen Mu had just reached to catch it when a crushing, dead weight came down on him, and he cried out in alarm, "Put it back, quick..."
Bang.
The two young women saw the Great Cult Master Shen, both arms wrenched from their sockets, pinned by the nest against the flood dragon's back, and were left startled and unnerved.
"This great basin of a rockery seems a good deal heavier than the Cult Master's sword pellet." Si Yunxiang stuck out her tongue, remembering how she had forged Shen Mu a sword from mystic gold essence and ended up pressing him into the ground, and whispered the words under her breath.
Shen Mu gave a muffled groan and with effort drew his ten fingers, crushed into a bloody blur, out from under the nest. Fat Dragon hurried over and fawned, "Cult Master, I can lick your hands for you."
"No need."
Shen Mu's arms swung limply. He circulated his vital essence and forced the joints back into their sockets, endured the pain, took out a bottle of dragon saliva and smeared it over his fingers, then let out a breath.
With the True Dragon Nest revealed, the Heaven Emperor Jade Tablet at his chest at once began to stir, turning scalding hot, and it began to stretch its "body," writhing like a little dragon, struggling to fly from his breast and return to the nest.
This had happened once before: when Shen Mu had nearly been slain by a horde of flood dragons, the Heaven Emperor Jade Tablet had put forth a tiny dragon head and made them all submit.
But the True Dragon Lord had already been refined into the Heaven Emperor Jade Tablet, and the Dragon-Rearing Lord had said it could never become a true dragon again.