Chapter 48 — The Sunken River Dragon Soul Has Not Perished
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
He approached and saw, within the ice, a young black dragon lying quietly, a broken sword thrust through its chest, the blade piercing clean through its heart. And among the hall's rows of dragon pillars, an enormous azure dragon swam slowly to and fro through the air; it seemed to lack a true body, for it passed straight through the pillars.
The singing came from the azure dragon's mouth, and its gaze never once left the ice-sealed young black dragon—from first to last, it did not shift away. Its gaze was filled with tender love and utter desolation; so was the song, as if grieving that a cherished child had been taken far away.
This was a dragon soul. The very spirit of a dragon.
She might be the Dragon Emperor of the Surging River, or she might be the Dragon Emperor's consort; she was a mother, and the young black dragon sealed in the ice must be her child.
She must have endured the catastrophe of the Wasteland Ruin—disaster looming overhead, her child meeting with calamity, struck by a fatal sword wound.
She loved her child too dearly; she sealed the child in ice, and died herself in the catastrophe, yet her soul still wandered this great hall, guarding her beloved child, still humming the lullaby of the dragon kind in the hope of waking her child. "You little bald donkey!
Look here! " Suddenly the voice came again. Shen Mu quickly turned toward it and saw that, aside from this block of dark ice, there was another block of dark ice in the hall, hidden behind the one that sealed the young black dragon—the two blocks joined together. Sealed within this other block was an old man in purple robes with white eyebrows.
His clothing appeared to be official court attire: a dark blue upper robe and a dusk-hued lower garment, embroidered with the nine-emblems pattern, gold-and-jade ornaments at his belt, a sword at his side, and a nine-tasseled jeweled crown upon his head; he was posed in the act of taking hold of something.
One hand was propped upon a Nether Soul-Devouring Banner, while his other hand reached into the neighboring block of ice, holding fast to an egg-sized azure pearl within it. And as for that azure pearl, no one knew what manner of thing it was—yet inside it coiled a tiny azure dragon. "Could it be that this pearl sealed the old gentleman in ice?
" Shen Mu blinked, stepped forward, and closely examined the old man sealed within the ice. Then he spotted something uncanny: as his own body moved, the old man's eyeballs inside the ice moved as well! "So that voice earlier was really his! " Shen Mu felt a chill.
He turned to look at the dried corpses covering the hall floor, and a possibility struck him. This old man in the ice should be the very first to have discovered the Raging River Dragon Palace.
He found this pearl within the dark ice and wanted to take it, only to be sealed in ice by the pearl instead. He must have survived in the ice for a long time; the only reason he had not died was surely because he used the Nether Soul-Devouring Banner he leaned upon to kill the warriors who entered the dragon palace, absorbing their vital essence and blood—which was why those warriors looked like dried corpses after death!
This old man had been sealed in ice from then until now; the cultivation he could bring to bear must be limited.
And Shen Mu, who had entered the dragon palace bearing the Brahma-Quiet Twelve-Ring Staff, had been sheltered by the Brahma-Quiet Twelve-Ring Staff's protection; he had not perished under the uncanny might of the Nether Soul-Devouring Banner—he had escaped that calamity. "So it was that old bald donkey of Great Thunder-Roar Temple's Ximilo.
No wonder it could repel the strange power of the mist.
" The old man in the ice could not open his lips, but his Adam's apple vibrated, producing words: "You are no monk of Great Thunder-Roar Temple—how do you come by the old bald donkey's staff?
" Shen Mu answered frankly: "I won it from his disciple in combat. " "Won it?