Chapter 445 — Dragon Soaring Over the Sand Sea

The youth's reflexes were lightning-quick; the instant Shen Mu moved his sword, he hurled himself backward and dived into the sheepskin tent.

The sheepskin tent burst into pieces, and countless blades of sword-light shot out from it in every direction. Then all at once the sword-light froze, and in the next breath it plunged howling into the earth like a long dragon — for the youth had slipped away through the ground the moment he retreated into the tent.

Boom—

A li away, in the Blazing Desert, eight thousand flying swords came rolling and wheeling up out of the soil, hurtling skyward in pursuit of the youth's figure.

The youth leaped into the air and suddenly flung his arms wide; two wings of blazing gold grew from his back. The wings beat like mad, and countless golden feather-swords rose against Shen Mu's sword-light, clashing with a ringing clang-clang, sparks flying through the air, flying swords hurtling wildly everywhere in the sky.

Shen Mu reached out with his great hand, and the disordered flying swords in midair abruptly halted and gathered toward the center, clanging and ringing as they met, until they became a spinning ball of metal more than a zhang across.

That was his sword core!

Only, this sword core was truly enormous, hovering in the air and revolving without cease, utterly metallic.

A fire tornado came raging across and swept the youth up; his form was swallowed by the fiery whirlwind, yet the next instant he appeared at the very top of the whirlwind, standing atop the tornado, and laughed long and loud: "Sect Master Shen! Human Emperor Shen! You truly are a ghost that will not be shaken off! Do you think the tattoos all over your body frighten me? Take a bow from me—"

This youth was none other than Ban Gongcuo; standing at the head of the tornado, he bent low and bowed to Shen Mu.

The moment he bowed, a grim and sinister altar surfaced behind him, and upon the altar a demon god took form, likewise bending to bow!

Shen Mu suddenly splayed his five fingers and pressed them toward the ground. At once the earth beneath the fire tornado warped, and the sand and stones upon the surface whirled madly, dragging the fiery whirlwind down to be swallowed by the earth.

At the head of the tornado Ban Gongcuo could not keep his footing and could not complete his bow. He looked up and saw that the sword core had at some unknown moment come apart, and the eight thousand swords were spinning madly like a vast maw bristling with sword tips, coming to devour him.

The Sword-Circling Style.

"One Finger Settles the Realm!"

Four great booms rang out in succession from within Ban Gongcuo's body; divine treasury after divine treasury opened, and his dharma power surged at once. He pointed his left hand at the ground, and at once the earth ceased to warp and turn; from beneath the ground welled up fiery lotuses, one after another, fixing the ground in place.

His right hand he pointed at the great maw in the sky that came to devour him, and within that maw formed of countless flying swords there too appeared fiery lotuses, one after another, colliding with the spinning, coiling swords and blocking Shen Mu's move.

Ban Gongcuo smiled in mockery: "Sect Master Shen, I have already reached the Seven Stars realm. To stand one level higher is to stand one heaven higher — enough to crush a man dead! You have felt that dharma power of mine, the power that leaves you in despair, have you not?"

Suddenly the fiery lotuses shattered with a great crash, and Ban Gongcuo was startled at heart: "His dharma power is no less than mine! I am already at the Seven Stars realm — how could he have honed his dharma power to such a pitch?"

As a being who had been reincarnated more than a dozen times, he would not claim to be first under heaven in the honing of dharma power at a given realm, yet he was one of the rarest in the world; those who could surpass him in the sheer abundance of dharma power at the same realm were very few. Shen Mu was one of them, but he could not surpass him by much.

He had fought Shen Mu several times before. The first time, the two were of the same realm — both at the Six Harmonies realm — and their dharma power was much the same, well-nigh equal.

Shen Mu had relied on the variations of his arts and divine abilities, leading him along the whole way and forcing him to exhaust himself in response, until Shen Mu seized the initiative and he was defeated.

But in their second head-on clash, his cultivation realm had risen faster than Shen Mu's, and his dharma power already far surpassed him; Shen Mu had contended with him by relying on that monstrous great sword core of eight thousand swords, and did not come off the worse.

Yet now he was a divine-ability wielder of the Seven Stars realm, and Shen Mu was still at the Six Harmonies realm. By rights, Shen Mu should be utterly crushed by him in dharma power, and his divine abilities should be unbreakable by Shen Mu!

But now, in the very first head-on clash, Shen Mu's flying swords had still crushed his One Finger Settles the Realm divine ability. True, it was by the keenness of the flying swords, yet it showed that Shen Mu was not much inferior to him in dharma power; even if he was weaker, the gap could not be opened wide.

When the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping attacked the Loulan Golden Palace, Khan Luandi surrendered to him. Ban Gongcuo knew then that the Golden Palace was bound to fall, and so, without waiting for the Imperial Preceptor to launch his assault, he fled by night, abandoning every great shaman and shaman king in the Golden Palace, high and low alike; even the Shaman Venerable did not know he had slipped away in the dark.

The Loulan Golden Palace was destroyed, and the Shaman Venerable was slain by the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping. In the bitterness of reflection Ban Gongcuo knew the grasslands could no longer shelter him; the Imperial Preceptor would surely order the masters under his command to hunt his traces everywhere, and so he hid himself in the Blazing Desert.

He was a reincarnated body, and his cultivation advanced with astonishing speed, an advantage no other divine-ability wielder could match. Each day he hid in this oasis; at night he went to the Western Lands and seized the common folk there, bringing them back to the oasis to practice his arts. In less than half a year he broke through to the Seven Stars realm.

His original plan was that once he had restored the cultivation of his former life, he would storm back to Jingping and take his revenge. And when that time came, who could withstand a single bow of his head?

Yet this encounter with Shen Mu threw him into some confusion. He had risen to the Seven Stars realm; it should have been a crushing momentum. He had not expected Shen Mu's strength to have advanced by leaps and bounds as well, and that he still could gain no advantage!

"Ban Gongcuo, you have fallen behind the times!"

Shen Mu suddenly charged out of the oasis in the Blazing Desert, his body seeming almost to slide across the ground, crossing a distance of a li or more, as though he rode the wind. The muscles and sinews of his body shifted like coiling dragons, his fleshly body invincibly strong, and he said unhurriedly: "Hiding here, you likely do not know: since your Golden Palace was destroyed, the arts of the Dao and divine abilities have advanced at astonishing speed. At the Six Harmonies realm one can now cultivate the primordial spirit; apart from a single divine treasury, there is almost no difference from the Seven Stars realm. Speaking purely of realm, you are no higher than I!"

Ban Gongcuo's body was like a great golden Buddha. The two fleshly bodies crashed together with a roar; dragon cries and Buddhist chants reverberated without cease. Ban Gongcuo's gleaming golden face went white in an instant, his arm snapped with a crack, and he was sent flying backward.

"This is not the Nine Dragons Imperial Art!" he shouted fiercely.