Chapter 41 — One Push of the Blade Reveals True Mastery
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
The Butchering Blade in his hand rang out sharply, the long blade tore the air, screaming as it went, and came down upon the trunk of that great tree like a force that shatters the withered and the rotten! Clang— A great boom rang out. His stroke bit into the trunk and into the serpent hidden within it, yet it cut only halfway through.
The serpent's hide, flesh and bone had been cultivated to an incredible toughness; even the Butchering Blade, forged by the Silent Craftsman's own hand and finer than any common essence-weapon, could not cut this serpent in two in a single stroke!
Shen Mu's other hand seized the back of the blade, power surged into his feet, and he brought out the Lame Elder's leg technique.
The Lame Elder said: the legs are the wind, the earth, the root of all strength! His legs and feet now rooted themselves in the earth; then he exerted force, and the ground around his feet sank with a boom.
All his strength burst forth—one hand pressing the back of the blade, the other gripping the hilt tight.
He pushed the blade!
A grating, ear-piercing sound followed, and the great tree, together with the serpent inside it, was cut clean through at the waist!
Shen Mu steadied his stance, the Butchering Blade held across his front, blood running endlessly down the steel; the muscles of his back stood out one by one, still twitching.
And behind him, the towering tree toppled askew.
Boom— The great tree crashed down into the courtyard, sending up clouds of dust, and the tree that had fallen suddenly came alive! The serpent, cut in two at the waist, was not dead yet; half its body writhed, and with a ceaseless bang-bang-bang of bursting wood the serpentine flesh hidden in the trunk burst the tree into four and five pieces, bark and chunks of wood flying wildly, some even driven into the walls!
The bark and wood it flung off were more fearsome than spears, shrieking as they split the air with tremendous force!
Night Slash Across a Thousand Cities of Wind and Rain!
The Butchering Blade whirled in Shen Mu's hand, its light flickering. His first stroke had loosed blade-force, heavy and mighty, gathering the whole strength of his body into one cut; now his bladework turned extraordinarily fast!
The Butcher's blade art had only one essential: fast, faster, faster still!
Clang clang clang clang— The impacts fell like rain; countless shards of bark and wood hammered against Shen Mu's Butchering Blade until his arms went numb and aching.
The serpent's strength was far above his own; but its attention had been fixed upon the woman in the room awaiting birth, ready to absorb the infant's soul and essence in the instant it was born.
When an infant is born, the umbilical cord still links it to the mother's purple river-carriage, the placenta, and all its essence is of the inborn, the prenatal; after birth the prenatal turns postnatal. Before birth, that essence is not yet whole, and so the serpent had chosen the very instant of birth to seize it.
How it had slipped into this village no one knew; it had hidden in the trunk and cultivated, deceiving everyone in this small village. All the years it hid in the tree it was never discovered, and after devouring the souls of several infants its cultivation had grown greatly; this time it had thought the taking would go as smoothly as ever—but it had not noticed Shen Mu, and Shen Mu's stroke had found its mark.
Yet though Shen Mu had cut it in two at the waist, it would not die in a moment. Now the serpent fell into a frenzy, knowing its body was severed and it could not live; at once it burst free of the trunk and, opening a maw like a blood basin, lunged to bite Shen Mu! A gale struck his face, flaying his cheeks until they quivered violently and he could scarcely keep his eyes open.
Shen Mu did not stop to think; the blade in his hand chopped forward like a tempest, and then a force beyond imagining struck him.