Chapter 374 — Uncanny Craftsmanship

Mu Qingdai asked, "Has this place been invaded by the Wilderness Ruins? Otherwise, why must we leave before nightfall?"

Shen Mu shook his head and did not elaborate.

The group waited outside the hall for a while. All at once the sky darkened, and faintly they heard thunder. Shen Mu looked up. A moment before it had been a clear, bright day, and now dense black clouds had abruptly appeared out of nowhere.

It was early winter, the weather cold; thunder was rare in such a season, let alone lightning, and yet this sudden mass of dark cloud came trailing thunder behind it.

The clouds grew thicker and heavier, blotting out the sky, and then a torrential rain came crashing down from above. Everyone hurried to take shelter beneath the eaves of the hall, while the rain poured in sheets and the water ran ice-cold.

Even if rain fell in this season, it should never fall so heavily; yet now it came down in a deluge.

The dozen or so flood dragons crowded in as well, coiling themselves around the bronze pillars to escape the downpour. The dragon qilin hid in the doorway of the hall, dozing where the rain could not reach it.

Then the great deer ran over to the dragon qilin, lowered its head, and tossed it out of the hall with its antlers, before lying down itself.

The dragon qilin was furious. Soaked through by the rain, it stormed back, jaws gaping wide; the stag leaped up, shook its enormous antlers, ready to fight at any moment.

Suddenly steam rose hissing from the ground. Long Yu stretched out a hand and caught a palmful of rain, and said in astonishment, "The rain is hot!"

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. He reached out a hand, and the rain falling from the sky was indeed warm, scalding hot, like water just boiled!

He hurried out from under the eaves, his vital essence flaring, forcing the rain to part to either side so that none of it fell on him.

He looked up. The sky had turned very dark; within the sullen black clouds lightning rolled from time to time, and the rumbling came from a thousand li away, racing with incredible speed toward the spot above their heads, then on to the other side. In the blink of an eye it had rolled more than two thousand li!

This was not the sound a thunderclap made!

Wang Muran and the others walked out from under the eaves as well and gazed upward. In the dark clouds above there was more and more lightning, bolts crisscrossing, splitting the sullen clouds apart, a most terrifying sight.

And the rain falling from the sky grew hotter still.

"Something seems to have happened up in the sky.... Fat Dragon, put that deer down!"

Shen Mu turned and shouted. The dragon qilin opened its jaws, a stag's neck clamped between its teeth. The stag was enraged and about to lunge back, but the dragon qilin sat down on it with its rump, crushing it as though beneath a great mountain, unable to move.

The thunder in the sky grew ever denser, like a giant beating a war drum, and the lightning clumped into balls, balls of lightning rolling this way and that, lighting up the darkness.

Layer upon layer of heavens opened in Shen Mu's eyes, and he peered into the clouds. All at once he glimpsed vague figures flickering at tremendous speed, leaping and bounding above the clouds, slaying one another!

On the other side, Wang Muran, Long Yu, and Mu Qingdai, who came from Little Jade Capital, had also learned arts such as the celestial eye and the holy pupil. They urged their spells and looked up, and cries of alarm broke from them one after another.

Suddenly the dense, heavy clouds were torn open, and a tall, imposing figure appeared within the dark cloudbank, two great sabers gripped in his hands. In the instant the lightning lit his face, it looked all the more ferocious, elated, savage!

"Grandpa Tu!"

Shen Mu cried out in alarm. He had seen the butcher in his madness—in Hidden Remnant Village the butcher often went mad, and when the fit was on him he would cut at even the village headman. Only before Shen Mu did he show a trace of gentleness.

The words had barely left his mouth when several more figures appeared in that rift in the clouds and attacked the butcher!

"That rift in the clouds just now—Grandpa Tu's sabers cut it open!"

As the thought came to him, the clouds closed over, the lightning continued, and that rolling thunder was no thunder at all, but the tremendous boom of bodies moving at blinding speed!

The butcher's sabers had sliced through the sky, and the blades were blazing hot, boiling the rain within the clouds—which was why the rain falling from the heavens grew hotter and hotter!

Just then Shen Mu suddenly saw a vast and towering continent descend from the sky, passing through the clouds. That land had mountains and rivers, ridge upon ridge of green peaks, but it faced the ground they stood on, as though it were about to collide with the Kingdom of Jingping—a sight to horrify the heart.

"Aba!" Mojiang said gravely.

"That's right, it's the village headman!"

Shen Mu nodded again and again. "The headman is up there too. Who are they fighting?"

The continent in the sky seemed to have met its nemesis; with a howl it rose and flew back into the clouds, and then its mountains and rivers suddenly crumbled and collapsed.

Shen Mu was dumbstruck. The village headman's sword art had been broken by someone!

Boom—

The sky quaked violently, and a pillar several dozen zhang thick came crashing down from the heavens, piercing through the clouds like a sky-propping column fallen from above.

But it was no pillar. It was a madly whirling column of water, like a spear shaft formed of enormous water dragons coiled together—someone was gathering water into a spear!

"Grandpa Blind's spear art!"

Shen Mu's mind reeled. That colossal water-dragon spear was none other than the blind elder's spear. The blind elder rarely used a weapon; even against an existence at the level of a sect master, a single bamboo staff sufficed.

A single bamboo staff was enough for him to break every spell and divine power.

And now he had gathered water into a spear; he must have met a powerful enemy he could not easily deal with!

Mojiang's face was grave. He turned and walked back into the hall, brought out the wooden box, and pointed at Shen Mu. "Ah, ah. Ah, ah, ah!"

Shen Mu nodded solemnly. "Rest easy, Grandpa Mojiang, I won't go running off. But I can help too—I have a great many formidable flood dragons under my command."

Mojiang raised an eyebrow, his expression somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

Shen Mu flushed and said in a low voice, "Formidable enough, at any rate..."

Mojiang was about to leap into the air. He had just sprung up when he abruptly halted three zhang above the ground, body utterly still, floating quietly there.

In the pouring rain, blood dragons came walking from every direction, braving the storm, and surrounded this holy ground of the immortals layer upon layer.

Dong!

Mojiang's feet landed on the ground, leaving two deep footprints. All around the prints came a crackling din as flagstones burst apart, cracks spreading in every direction.

Mojiang set the box on the ground, and its lid opened of itself, revealing a box full of silver pellets the size of fingertips.

On his back he carried a great furnace—his blacksmith's furnace. Even with the box set down, this great cylindrical furnace stayed on his back, unfaltering.

The furnace had long since gone out, black as pitch.

Mojiang clenched both fists, his vital essence erupting, and suddenly the furnace on his back burst into roaring flame.

One by one the blood dragons halted. Some clung to the railings, some crouched on the heads of the stone lions, some stopped on the stone steps, and others appeared atop the great hall behind Shen Mu and the rest.

All around was gloom, and a heavy, solid footfall came to them, along with rough breathing—steady, yet carrying a wild fury.