Chapter 760 — Who Would Look Back Again
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The tally the Founding Patriarch had left behind slowly shed its marks of age and little by little turned new, the jade tablet so crystalline it might have just been carved from the workshop. Shen Mu examined the characters and the runes upon it, his expression odd; these were indeed the writings of the Longhan era, differing only slightly from the characters and runes on the tally of the Jinwu General that Old Ox carried.
Shen Mu had gone back to the early years of Longhan and had come into contact with the script of that age; though it differed from the writings of later ages, he could still recognize most of it. The characters on the tally were seal script among the divine writings, belonging to the bird-and-worm script.
Within such characters lay the mystery of the great Dao of heaven and earth, and some sects in the world today that cultivate the way of talismans use this very bird-and-worm script, yet set beside the true divine writings they still fall somewhat short. After all, the divine writings of the early Longhan years lie so far in the past that much of them has been lost.
The two tallies were not one and the same; the Jinwu General was the general of the Heavenly Court who guarded the Jade Capital, and his tally bore the two characters "Jinwu" carved in relief.
This tally, by contrast, was cut in intaglio and read "Yulin. " "The Yulin Guard of the Heavenly Court?
" Shen Mu blinked.
"The Yulin Guard of which Heavenly Court?
" In the Longhan era there had been three Heavenly Courts, and each, presumably, kept its own Yulin Guard; judging from the Founding Patriarch's tally alone, it was very hard to tell which court's tally this was.
And the runes on the tally were a kind of command art, used to issue orders to the gods.
Command arts were one branch of formation arts, exceedingly profound, and in the world today those who had mastered them were exceedingly few.
In this Jingping Reform, even the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping had no knowledge of command arts; luckily the Blind Elder, a great master of formations, had come out of seclusion and compiled a set of command arts for Jingping's armies. "Why would Eldest Senior Brother have left this tally behind?
And where did he get it?
He must have had deep reasons for leaving it!
Perhaps this tally belongs to the Heavenly Court beyond the realm! If only we knew which Heavenly Court it belongs to, we would know the true identity of that Heavenly Court beyond the realm!
" A thought leaped abruptly into Shen Mu's mind. "Could Eldest Senior Brother have crossed over into the Longhan era as well? " At once he shook his head.
The tally was very ancient; if Eldest Senior Brother had crossed into Longhan and brought this Yulin tally back from that age, then it ought to look as new as Old Ox's.
The reason the tally was new now was that Old Ox's tally had roused the command art within its runes and washed away the marks of the years; but the tally itself had in truth gone through ages beyond counting to become what it once had been. "Unless he crossed into the Longhan era and never came back.
" A strange feeling rose in Shen Mu's heart, yet he rejected the notion again; the conjecture was too absurd. If the Founding Patriarch had never returned, did that not mean he had been living all along in daylight or in darkness?
A place of perpetual day or perpetual night—did such a place exist in this world?
"As it happens, it does. " His face turned strange again.
"Xuandu lies always in daylight, and the Heavenly Court of the Ancient Gods likewise; Youdu, by contrast, lies always in darkness, with no alternation of day and night.
If Eldest Senior Brother stayed in Youdu, Xuandu or a Heavenly Court, he could remain in the past forever.