Chapter 448 — Night Raid

In the last years of the Kaihuang era the heavens underwent a great change, and the gods of that age built the Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark to drive back the darkness and let all things grow, so that the common folk might live. Yet those two ships were weapons of war as well: the Sun Warden of the Dawn Ark and the Moon Warden of the Soul Ark could each call upon the power of those vast and magnificent vessels, lifting their own strength to the level of the heavenly gods, a might that could remake heaven and earth.

Shen Mu had once sailed the Dawn Ark and had borrowed the Soul Ark's power besides, and he knew well how formidable those two ships were, how far beyond the ordinary. By the Dragon-Commanding Art of the Dragon-Rearing Scripture he could borrow the strength of the Flood Dragon King and his shoal of dragons, open the Divine Bridge and the Divine Treasury, and send his primal spirit straight up to the Heavenly Court; yet he could go no farther than the Southern Heavenly Gate, and was never permitted into the depths of the Court.

But with the power of the Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark he could reach the Jade Terrace itself and stand beside the Jade Pool.

Yet the Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark had their bane, and that bane was the Myriad Gods Natural Art of the True Heaven Palace. The power the Dawn Ark lent the Sun Warden and the power the Soul Ark lent the Moon Warden came from the bodies of the two ships themselves, not from the Wardens' own strength; those ships held within them a vast and terrible energy, and with the god-made sun and the god-made moon for their driving force, they could drive back the darkness. The Myriad Gods Natural Art, by contrast, held to the creed that all things have their god and all things have their spirit; through perception of nature it created primal souls, awakening the things of heaven and earth and rousing them to life to fight on its practitioner's behalf.

What if a god who cultivated the Myriad Gods Natural Art could awaken the spirits of the Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark and make them fight for him?

Then nothing would await the Sun Warden and the Moon Warden, or the Sun Herders and the Moon Herders aboard those ships, but bloody slaughter and death; even the Wardens themselves could not escape. "Many years ago there must have been a terrible battle here," Shen Mu said. "The Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark met gods who cultivated the Myriad Gods Natural Art, and one after another they perished.

And this. .

.

" He looked west, his gaze flickering bright and dim like a candle in the wind. "This has surely something to do with the True Heaven Palace of the Western Lands.

" He had always taken it for granted that the True Heaven Palace of the Western Lands must be a holy place like the Great Tingming Temple or the Daoist sect: its master's divine powers and Daoist arts might be godlike and beyond all mortal mastery, but he was a mighty one still trapped in the Divine Bridge realm, and this holy place could be no different from any other. But now it seemed the True Heaven Palace of the Western Lands must hide a great many secrets, and perhaps even some dreadful being.

More than that, the very name of the True Heaven Palace was worth pondering.

The Heaven-Sage Sect was so called because the woodcutter had passed down its scriptures there and the woodcutter was revered as a sage; the Great Tingming Temple took its name because Mount Sumeru stood so high, amid the thunder layer, where the sound of thunder and the voice of the Buddha rolled and pealed together, rousing even the deaf. The Daoist sect was named for the Dao Sword and the gate of Mount Kunlun, and Little Yujing itself was a shard of the Yujing of the Kaihuang era; the names of the holy places each betrayed something of their origin. Then what was the origin of the True Heaven Palace?

Why had the gods of the True Heaven Palace destroyed the Dawn Ark and the Soul Ark?

The temple ruins in the desert, the uncanny dune giants, must surely be the work of the True Heaven Palace's gods; and this eerie fire that lay over the whole desert, the flame brand that rose on the bodies of the Forsaken of the Wilderness Ruins the moment they set foot in the sands, burning them to death, was it too bound up with the True Heaven Palace?

Why, when the Forsaken of the Wilderness Ruins set foot here, did the flame brand rise on their flesh? Why were they alone burned to death by the eerie fire, while others could touch it and come to no harm?

How many secrets did the Western Lands hide? The desert flames burned fierce and hot, unbearable to him, when suddenly another set of ruins appeared ahead; before the Dragon Qilin had even drawn near, the wild sand in those ruins howled and gathered, and a dune giant slowly took shape, then another and another, wild sand spinning and leaping about their feet.

The Dragon Qilin was about to skirt around them when Shen Mu shook his head, "No need.

Keep going.

" The Dragon Qilin had no choice but to brace itself and charge at the murderous dune giants, while in Shen Mu's eyes layer upon layer of formation patterns turned as he studied those ruins from afar. The dune giants came charging, nearer and nearer, when suddenly a sword rang out; the Wuyou Sword flew whistling forth, skimming low over the desert and raising whirlwind after whirlwind that lashed up sand and dust. When the dune giants had come within a hundred zhang of the Dragon Qilin they abruptly collapsed, and the rolling sand and dust came surging at them; the Dragon Qilin roared in alarm, and the roar scattered the crumbling dunes.

Shen Mu recalled the Wuyou Sword, and the Dragon Qilin bore him into the ruins, where idols had been hewn every which way across a shrine niche, shattered into fragments. The Dragon Qilin swept on its way.

"By noon tomorrow we should be into the Western Lands.

" Aboard a ruined Dawn Ark, Shen Mu kindled a campfire and let the Dragon Qilin and Xiong Qier rest. He himself could hold out, but the Dragon Qilin had run so far and needed rest, and Xiong Qier was young and could not bear such a long journey. The youth looked west, his gaze passing through the desert covered in eerie fire, and in the firelight a figure surfaced in the distance, warped by the flames.

Shen Mu smiled and waved a hand, and the figure, startled, hurriedly fled.

"The Great Venerable grows ever more timid," Shen Mu said, shaking his head and laughing.

Ban Gongcuo drew away from that ruined Dawn Ark, his face shifting between fair and foul. His severed arm had been reattached and his wounds were all but healed, yet to this day he had never found a chance to ambush Shen Mu.

It was not that he had never thought of striking from hiding, or of meeting Shen Mu head-on, but at the thought that his odds of winning were small he had no choice but to give up the notion. He was just about to leave when he suddenly saw the sand all around flowing in utter silence; his heart stirred, and he hastened to look by the firelight.

The desert in the night was not wholly dark; the firelight lit it, though one could not see far.

Ban Gongcuo saw a strange figure walking in the firelight, like a marionette, its joints twisted, moving in an uncanny posture.

The quicksand of the desert flowed with the puppet's steps, and strange to tell, the flowing sand made no sound at all.

Ban Gongcuo's heart gave a leap; he saw another puppet-like figure, then a third, a fourth. .

.

As they drew nearer he could at last make out that these uncanny shapes were woodcarved idols, and that the idols' eyes were true eyes, not wood, drawing in silence toward the Dawn Ark.

Ban Gongcuo's heart pounded wildly.

One of the woodcarved idols suddenly turned its head and looked at him, showed a bizarre smile, and laid a wooden finger to its lips in a gesture of silence. Ban Gongcuo blinked, did not move, and watched the idols come to the foot of the Dawn Ark.