Chapter 452 — The Ancient Bronze Bell

Long Qilin, though, was delighted. The moment it carried Shen Mu out of the city it broke into a furious run, swift as wind and lightning, far faster even than it had been in the desert.

For all that he could be delicate of feeling at times, he was no Ge Ke; hearing Shen Mu say with his own mouth, to the Patriarch's own son, that the Patriarch was not dead but had ascended to godhood, the fat brute was beside himself with joy and redoubled his efforts.

Shen Mu felt a little guilty about deceiving him.

"That skeleton poling the boat in the sea of fog outside the Realm of the Living Dead must be Daoist Lingjing."

Shen Mu thought: "If he is Daoist Lingjing, then the Patriarch is most likely in the Realm of the Living Dead as well. The village head gave me eight Fengdu coins; I must enter Fengdu again and find out the truth!"

He took out the map of the Western Lands that Ge Ke had given him, spread it open and studied it on every side. After a while he finally located the True Heaven Palace and Fangxiu City. He raised his head to judge his own position, then pointed out the route to Long Qilin, and they raced off to the southwest.

Directly ahead of them a great mountain barred the road. The mountain's form was strange, like a giant standing there, with two peaks growing down from the giant's shoulders; but what was stranger still was that the two peaks, as they descended, suddenly swelled thick and round, like two great bells hanging to the ground.

The post road, reaching this point, split in two, passing between the two great bells and skirting the body of that strange mountain.

When Long Qilin came running to this place, Shen Mu looked up and saw a woman in black robes and a black skirt, graceful and ethereal of figure, drifting up the mountain.

She alighted at the head of that strange mountain, where a golden, glittering talisman hung, as though stamped upon the summit.

Shen Mu's pupils contracted sharply: the woman was peeling that talisman from the summit!

"Not good! Fatty Long, charge through!"

He had barely spoken when the great mountain suddenly shook with a rumbling roar; the enormous mass lifted a foot, and stone of unimaginable weight was drawn up out of the earth, as though a mountain peak were being pulled from the ground!

Shen Mu knew things were bad. The Worry-Free Sword left its sheath behind him and shot with a swish straight for the woman on the summit!

To catch the bandits, catch their chief first. This mountain's transformation into a mountain giant must be sustained by the power of some expert who had awakened the mountain spirit; kill this woman, and the process of transformation should be cut short!

The woman glanced back and sneered: "You killed a disciple of the Yu family. I don't care if you're the King of Heaven himself, you'll be buried with them!"

The mountain giant pulled one leg free and set it on the earth, sending soil flying, then wrenched the other leg out with effort, and only then rose slowly to its feet.

When the mountain giant stood, clouds hung at its waist, and the two bell-shaped secondary peaks were lifted up as well; the rock upon those peaks came rattling down, and boulder after boulder fell from the sky, soon piling up and choking the road.

As the mountain giant rose, the woman on the mountain rose with it, and the Worry-Free Sword spun whirling, turning into the Drilling Sword form and shooting straight for the clouds.

The Yu woman atop the giant's head also sensed the danger. She gave a soft cry, and flying rings streamed out one after another; with a slap of her hand, countless rings flew to snare the Worry-Free Sword stabbing up from below!

Ding, ding, ding, ding, a burst of explosions dense as rain. The rings slipped over the Worry-Free Sword and shrank at once, only to be shredded by the spinning blade.

Her cultivation was not weak, but the arts of the Western Lands did not follow the path of strengthening the self; they borrowed the myriad things of heaven and earth for battle. Compared with cultivators of the same realm in Jingping Kingdom, her own fighting strength was far weaker, and compared with Shen Mu, the Nether Demon Cult Leader who had cut his way here through one slaughter after another, she was weaker still by a great margin.

The Worry-Free Sword was a divine sword besides, unmatched in keenness; it shredded countless rings without losing the slightest momentum, rising from below to pierce in through the woman's jaw and out the top of her head.

A flash of blood appeared on the summit.

Shen Mu recalled the Worry-Free Sword, and before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, he saw that most of the rock on the two secondary peaks had fallen away, revealing bodies of brass. These peaks really were bells, not true mountains at all, but bells whose surfaces had been coated in a layer of stone!

Primal weapons of such size, Shen Mu had seen a fair number, but all of them were treasures of sect-guarding rank!

Though the primal weapons of the Western Lands were not so exquisite as those of Jingping Kingdom, a sect-guarding treasure was no small matter: it was forged by a Spirit Bridge expert at the cost of a lifetime's heart's blood, and its might was nothing to scoff at.

"That talisman on the summit must be a seal, holding this mountain giant bound! This giant has most likely been animate for ages, sealed here by its master and kept as a great treasure to guard the clan!"

Shen Mu's eye twitched; he knew at once that things were bad. The mountain giant lifted the two great bells, swung them up, and without a word slammed them together with a thunderous boom, the mouths of the bells aimed straight at Shen Mu!

The mountain giant had not been awakened, it had been sealed. This giant had always possessed a spirit; the Yu family had sealed it here, to be unsealed when need arose and driven into battle, this dreadful colossus!

Clang.

The two giant bronze bells collided, and rolling waves of sound came crushing forward; wherever they passed, the road was folded up in layer upon layer, tumbling toward Long Qilin.

But the greatest threat was not the uprooted road, it was the sound of the bells.

The tremendous clangor of two sect-guarding treasures striking together, a sound like the great bells and grand pipes of antiquity!

"The great clans of the Western Lands are this ferocious! Fatty Long, don't move!"

Shen Mu could not help but marvel. His primal energy erupted, and countless runes and sigils swirled around him, wrapping him and Long Qilin together.

The annihilating sound wave came roaring in, but before it reached Long Qilin, those runes and sigils had already formed a teleportation array; the teleportation art was triggered, and Shen Mu vanished together with Long Qilin.

The next moment, Long Qilin and Shen Mu appeared about a li away. Had he triggered the teleportation art alone, he could have traveled twenty or thirty li; carrying one person, he could still manage more than ten. But carrying a monstrous bulk like Long Qilin, a single li was already his limit.

Yet a distance of one li was far too short for that mountain giant; a single stride of its leg could surely span more than ten li!

Shen Mu looked back and saw the post road where they had just been fly up like a silk ribbon snapping in the wind, and then the road shattered in the raging sound wave.

The sound waves from those two bronze bells destroyed more than twenty li of road; wherever they passed, they truly pulverized everything!

"The mountain giant has no magic power at all; it strikes the great bells with sheer strength alone, and the might is this terrifying. Truly remarkable."

Shen Mu could not help but marvel, and Long Qilin at once bolted away with him. Behind them, the immeasurably vast mountain giant turned its body and took a step; Shen Mu suddenly felt as though dark clouds were pressing down on his head, and looking up, he saw the giant's huge foot already above them.