Chapter 90 — The Sword Across His Knees Slays the Specters
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Shen Mu drew in a breath and suddenly spat out a gale. Whoosh— The fog, skulls and all, was blown apart by that single breath.
He had never learned any spell or divine power for commanding wind, but his cultivation had been forced by the Deaf Elder and the Silent Artisan up to heights he had once never imagined; a breath was now spell and divine power.
The pipe clashed with the Chubao Sword, and countless sparks were struck from it; the sparks at once turned to fiery lava that came hurtling at his face.
Shen Mu shifted his steps, dodging the lava's blows, and pressed his attack still more fiercely.
The giant pythons the waters had become coiled around the old man, and at once countless water-swords stabbed at him from every side. Suddenly the bowl of the old man's pipe swelled huge, like a great black cauldron turned upside down, and a fearsome suction came from it and drank the waters all away—though the fire in the pipe was quenched as well.
Shen Mu closed in with ghostlike movement, arms wheeling, now fists, now palms, like a thousand-armed Vajra, attacking the old man madly. Suddenly his boxing changed; saber-light mingled with the fists, and his footwork shifted beyond all prediction, making his attacks harder still to guard against.
The old man kept retreating.
His strength still exceeded Shen Mu's, but Shen Mu's movement, footwork, boxing and saber-play were all weird and unfathomable; above all, that Chubao Sword was matchlessly sharp—even his pipe could not withstand it. The moves the sword performed were surpassingly simple, yet exceedingly effective: swift, powerful, and again and again breaking through the pipe's defense to strike straight at his flaws.
Shen Mu seemed a master of the sword; though the moves were simple and even crude, they gave him the sense of great skill that looks artless, and were most troublesome, forcing him to retreat whether he would or no. The Village Head's simplest sword moves, joined with the Deaf Elder's Nine Heavens of the Sacred Pupil—nothing could stand before them.
The old man took one more step back, and suddenly his heart lurched: from the corner of his eye he saw a boundary stone. The boundary stone of the Dead's Living Realm. Shen Mu raised his saber and closed in short, pressing into his guard; the Butcher's Knife was about to rise, and the old man had no choice but to retreat; with that one step back, all the flesh and blood on his body vanished at once, and he became a skeleton. And Shen Mu stepped forward, crossing out of the Dead's Living Realm, and at once flesh and blood grew over the bones of his body.
The old man said not a word, turned, and went; he leaped into the vast sea of fog. Shen Mu had grown flesh and blood, and his fleshly strength would rise still higher, while the old man had shed his own flesh, and his power would wane; as one grew and the other failed, retreat was his only road.
Shen Mu breathed out in relief.
This old man was formidable indeed; had the fight gone on, it might well have dragged out until the moment the dragon's blood failed—and then it would likely have been he who died.
He walked to the dock.
The sea of fog stretched vast and boundless, no end in sight, and through it the glow of a lantern faintly shone. "Will the Village Head make it in time?
" Shen Mu looked back.
In the Dead's Living Realm, demon clouds hung bleak and dim, surging steadily this way; plainly the strong ones of the city had set out to come and see. It would not be long before the rolling demon clouds arrived here.
Shen Mu waited a while. The boat with the lantern came drifting up, but still the Village Head did not appear.
The demon clouds were very close now; to delay any longer and it would surely be too late.
Shen Mu took out a Fengdu coin and slapped the gold coin into a wooden post of the dock, then stepped aboard the little skiff.