Chapter 137 — The Young Sovereign Lord Meets the Daoist Sect
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
At this moment there were no Grand Academy scholars before or behind the gate; those scholars were still asleep and resting. Only the two Daoists outside the gate remained. Not far off was a strange beast guarding the mountain gate, dragon-headed and qilin-bodied, chained in place, dozing with half-shut eyes.
When Daozi Lin Xuan saw Shen Mu approaching, his heart gave a small jolt. He looked to Danyang Zi. "Martial Uncle..."
Danyang Zi lifted his eyelids, glanced at Shen Mu, and said, "Go on. Imperial Preceptor Jingping teaches the scholars precisely in order to cultivate this man. You need not fret over gain and loss."
Daozi Lin Xuan assented, rose, and came forward to meet Shen Mu. The two men's qi auras stirred in resonance; each halted, and they bowed in salute.
Shen Mu said, "Shen Mu, scholar of the Grand Academy, pays his respects to Daozi Lin Xuan. I am of the Five Luminaries realm."
Daozi Lin Xuan said gravely, "Lin Xuan of the Daoist sect pays his respects to scholar Shen Mu. I am of the Six Harmonies realm, with my Sixfold Universe Divine Treasury sealed."
He had sealed his own Sixfold Universe Divine Treasury. Shen Mu said, "Does the Daozi use weapons?"
He took down a bamboo staff from his back, then a butchering knife, then an iron hammer, and then the Chubao Sword. Daozi Lin Xuan was about to speak when Danyang Zi said abruptly, "No blades or weapons. Only Dao arts, divine powers, and close combat."
Puzzled, Daozi Lin Xuan set down his whisk and said, "Since Brother Shen puts it so, I will not use a weapon."
Danyang Zi breathed a silent sigh of relief, his gaze shifting away from the Chubao Sword. With weapons the disadvantage would be far too great; the very shape of that sword made his heart leap. Its scabbard had a fish-dragon for a mouth, rather like the sword worn by a first-rank minister.
If it were genuine, then Lin Xuan's whisk would break at a single touch, and there would be no need for any contest at all.
Shen Mu smiled. In his eyes two additional rings of pupils suddenly appeared; the Lingxiao Heaven Eye and the Qingxiao Heaven Eye opened in full. The ground beneath his feet abruptly sank, bluestone slabs bursting apart one after another, and the shattered stones on the ground were shaken into floating suspension.
"Ha!"
Shen Mu expelled his breath and gave voice, and drove out a punch. The hundreds of shattered bluestones that had just risen were, in the quaking of that fist, ground still finer—the largest no bigger than a bean, the smallest fine as sesame seeds!
Countless fragments of stone rushed with that punch straight at Daozi Lin Xuan!
A dragon's roar shook the air. The force of his punch had fused with the stone fragments and become a dragon of sand that charged straight for Daozi Lin Xuan, like a true and living god-dragon!
At the same instant his feet moved with ghostly swiftness, and close behind the fist force he arrived at Daozi Lin Xuan's side.
Daozi Lin Xuan's heart leaped in alarm. In a flash one pupil turned white and the other black; he raised a hand and pressed forward. His palm was like jade, like a jade seal, and the seal was like a mountain; upon it were carved strange bird-script and worm-script characters, uncanny beyond measure, carrying an air of hoary antiquity—and it met the true dragon head-on.
The Heaven-Overturning Seal!
The two men's forces erupted, and a dull, dreadful boom rang out, like thunder smothered beneath clouds too dense to let it pass.
The strange beast with the dragon's head and qilin's body before the mountain gate heard that muffled boom and raised its head doubtfully, glancing about.
Shen Mu felt as though his Nine Dragons Riding Wind and Thunder had met a wall standing between heaven and earth, a wall his force could not pierce; and in his heart he rejoiced: "This Daozi is truly extraordinary! Far more formidable than the Grand Academy scholars I have seen before!"