Chapter 311 — The Eerie Corridor

They burst into that room, and the old man in the painting still had not halted; he went on into another. Shen Mu hurried after him, and there, charging straight at him, came a figure. The two nearly collided, and each hastily twisted aside.

In the instant their bodies crossed, they caught sight of each other's face, and both were startled.

"Sect Master of the Nether Demon Sect!"

"A Mandi Kingdom warrior!"

Shen Mu's reaction was the quicker. In the instant they brushed past, his palm was already raised, and in a flash it broke the sound barrier, erupting in a thunderclap as he drove one palm-seal onto the man's back, over the heart.

Nine Dragons Commanding Wind and Thunder!

His palm landed on the man's back; the force was on the very verge of releasing when the man at last reacted. His blade orb had only just floated up, and then the power of Shen Mu's strike erupted. Draconic force came surging. The first wave of impact shattered his protective vital essence; the second, a twin-dragon blow, wrecked the muscle and sinew of his back; the third smashed his bones; the fourth ground his heart to pulp; and the fifth drove the draconic force straight out through his chest, bursting from his body as a blood dragon, claws bared and fangs bared wide!

That Mandi warrior's blade orb hung in the air, and the curved blades within it rang with a shrill note. One after another, slender curved blades split out from the orb. In that same moment Shen Mu's other hand brought up his sword; the edge of the Carefree Sword caught the orb, and with one stroke he cut it open.

The blade orb burst apart at once, scattering into a hundred-odd broken curved blades that went clattering to the floor.

And the Mandi warrior's vital essence scattered into nothing; he fell dead.

Ban Gongcuo, a step behind, had not even had time to rescue him before Shen Mu had cut the warrior down at close quarters. He could not contain his fury. "Sect Master Shen, that was one of my men!" he said, his voice harsh.

Shen Mu returned the Carefree Sword to its sheath and shook his head. "When your man met me, his first instinct was to strike me dead. I only defended myself. Had I not seized the first move, it would be I lying there now. If the Venerable One is displeased, why not walk in front? When your own men meet you, they will not raise a hand."

Ban Gongcuo hesitated. To walk ahead of Shen Mu was to lay his back bare before him. With what ease this brat had killed that Mandi warrior with a single palm strike—given the chance to kill him, he would surely be all the more nimble about it.

He did not dare entrust his back to Shen Mu.

What was more, Shen Mu had named only one possibility. What if the next one they met was not Ban Gongcuo's man, but the two white bats and the dragon qilin that kept to Shen Mu's side? Then he would be pinned between them, and Ban Gongcuo could already picture his own end.

But to keep running around after Shen Mu was no answer either. Shen Mu charged this way and that without rhyme or reason; plainly he had not cracked the treasure ship's art of spatial alignment. If they went on careening from room to room like this, Ban Gongcuo feared he too would be dragged off course by Shen Mu, and would have to recalculate everything from the start to work out the structure of the ship's rooms.

"I cannot let this brat lead the way."

With that thought, Ban Gongcuo pushed open a door. "This way!"

Behind him came the sound of a door opening; Shen Mu had run off into another room. Furious, Ban Gongcuo had no choice but to chase him down—after all, the silver helm that commanded the ship was still in Shen Mu's keeping.

The two entered this room and stopped short. Shen Mu lifted his foot; some slime had stuck to the sole of his shoe.

The room was thick with green slime. It coated the floor and the walls, and there was even slime on the table, enough to turn the stomach.

Shen Mu looked around and saw that the old man in the painting was in this room too, carefully skirting the slime, moving only where there was none.

He was a man out of a painting; the slime could do him harm, could glue him fast. He had to avoid it.

Ban Gongcuo saw the old man as well, and his heart jumped. He hastily swung the Myriad Locust Banner in his hand. Zheng, zheng, zheng—a violent clatter of impacts rang out: Shen Mu had loosed his flying sword and blocked the locusts.

Angered, Ban Gongcuo looked at Shen Mu and said in a low voice, "Should Sect Master Shen not give me an explanation?"

Shen Mu said calmly, "My surname is Shen. That is the best explanation there is."

Ban Gongcuo was shaken to the core, and in an instant he grasped the crux of it.

That dreadful being whose two eyes stood more than two hundred and sixty zhang apart was waiting for someone surnamed Shen; and the reason it had fastened on him and Shen Mu alike was that they were both surnamed Shen!

He was clever beyond measure—otherwise he would not have lived so long—and he thought: "Can it be that the master of this ship is surnamed Shen? That this brat belongs to the clan that owned the treasure ship? If so, then he too comes from Carefree Land! No wonder the wretch came running to this place... Wait! Sixteen years old. That terrible being is waiting for a sixteen-year-old boy surnamed Shen! And this brat is sixteen as well! Sixteen years ago this ship fell here. What is the connection between them?"

He forced down his shock, waved the Myriad Locust Banner and recalled his locusts; Shen Mu recalled his flying sword as well.

The old man in the painting found a path and slipped through another doorway.

The two hurried after him. They pushed the door open and saw a long corridor. Ban Gongcuo was briefly taken aback. He had calculated the art of spatial alignment governing these rooms, and by that means had been able to find the ship's bridge—but this corridor he had never seen.

"By all rights, the total number of rooms here should be the number I calculated. Why, then, is there a place I know nothing of?" he wondered, at a loss.

If he had not seen through this place's art of spatial alignment, how had he found the bridge?

And if he had seen through it, why had he not calculated this corridor?

By his reckoning, this corridor should not exist at all!

Then there was only one possibility: the art of spatial alignment he had deduced was merely an outer structure, a blind to deceive the eye—there to make whoever found this place believe he had already searched the whole treasure ship, and so overlook its true secret!

It was even possible that the silver helm Shen Mu had obtained was itself a decoy, a treasure that could not truly command the ship!

"Even I was fooled. The gods of Carefree Land are truly extraordinary. Lucky for me the brat surnamed Shen is at my side—otherwise I would never have discovered this secret."

Ban Gongcuo's gaze flickered. The last room had been full of green slime, which meant the being that hunted this ship had clearly found this place too and forced its way in.

The old man in the painting raced along the corridor wall, now high, now low, as though dodging something.

Shen Mu and Ban Gongcuo looked, and saw that the walls bore many traces of battle. Deep palm prints had been left in the wall, and besides the palm prints there were strange weapon marks, dreadful beyond measure—it seemed that the slightest touch would trigger the world-annihilating power stored within, sweeping away all things, destroying all things!

These were the marks left by divine weapons!

Beyond the marks of divine weapons were imprints left by divine abilities. These imprints were not large, but each still harbored a fearsome power, contained and unspent, giving off a heart-stopping pulse and glow from the wall.

The light within the imprints was runes—bright, dim, flickering without pattern. The runes were intricate and profound, very hard to make out.