Chapter 236 — The Land Without Sorrow

But alas, a great battle had passed through here, and the Moon Shepherds were extinct; the last of them, the Moon Guardian, had been devoured by the Soul Boat when Shen Mu became the new Moon Guardian. The Demon King Dutian and the Dragon Qilin hid in a palace that had not yet collapsed, sheltering from Shen Mu's earth-shaking divine aura.

The Dragon Qilin, rocked this way and that, soon narrowed its eyes and fell asleep; only the Demon King Dutian had no trace of drowsiness, and he looked out through the palace window.

He could see the towering Shen Mu standing amid the pillars like a great mountain. Shen Mu's power had become substance; those rings of lunar radiance falling in ceaseless cycles were power made solid, possessed of dreadful might.

"This world is not as lowly as I imagined.

Such a creation of the gods requires the profoundest arts of Dao and divine power; no ordinary civilization could have built it.

" The Demon King Dutian's gaze flickered bright and dim, and his heart was truly torn: "Do I really mean to invade such a world? What fills me with dread is not the height this civilization has reached, but the thing that destroyed it. .

. " In the darkness of the wastes, countless monsters were roused by the giant ship and came swarming. These monsters were enormous, yet beside the Soul Boat they were far too small, like so many ants — and slow besides.

The Soul Boat simply rolled over them. Amid the thunder's roar came the wet crack of things crushed underfoot; countless mysterious creatures of the dark were trampled until their guts burst and they became puddles of muck.

Countless more monsters flung themselves at the Soul Boat, their gibbering demon tongue carrying on the air. They struggled to climb this ship that sailed on land, but were struck down by the thunder the Soul Boat's passage generated, their corpses falling like rain.

"Kankhenavu (Sanskrit: the Soul Boat)! " In the darkness a dreadful aura stirred; a black shadow grew larger and larger, wings like clouds, flying out of the dark, leaping over the thunder-layer the Soul Boat made, invading the Soul Boat with rolling demon clouds.

From the demon clouds a monstrous creature thrust out its heads — nine of them — and spat demon fire at Shen Mu in the midst of the pillars. The blazing fire lit the sky in the darkness.

The monster's vast body rolled within the clouds, like a bird's body and like a jiao-dragon's, as though it were a monster formed of two creatures fused into one. "Garuda!

" The Demon King Dutian was startled. Lunar radiance coiled around Shen Mu, holding the demon fire off.

Suddenly a crescent moon appeared between his brows, and the crescent slowly turned toward a full moon, as though a door were being drawn open.

Quickly a full moon appeared at the center of his brow — not a full moon, but an eye, giving off light like lunar radiance. Chhh — A light of dazzling whiteness flashed across the sky, cutting the darkness, cutting apart the demon fire that filled the heavens.

One after another bird heads fell through the air — no more, no fewer than nine — and behind each head writhed a jiao-dragon neck, hissing out gouts of blood.

The round moon on Shen Mu's brow slowly closed, became a crescent again, and then the crescent too vanished. The Demon King Dutian shut his mouth and said nothing: "Once this brat lets me go, I will absolutely not invade this monstrous world!

" The Soul Boat traveled on, and still monsters kept surging toward it, until suddenly a ringing roar came out of the darkness and the countless monsters abruptly withdrew, vanishing into the dark.

Shen Mu's jade pendant flew on ahead of the ship, looking impossibly small, like a speck of dust. Suddenly the pendant struck something with a ding-dong note, as though against an invisible barrier, and was fixed there upon what appeared to be empty nothing.

The barrier was like a lake stood upright between heaven and earth; it rippled gently, and from the pendant as its center the ripples spread outward, growing larger and larger, until at their center another world slowly revealed a grand and vast corner of itself.

Worryfree Village.