Chapter 479 — In the Barren Desert, a Crimson Sea and Rising Radiance

After the storm, Shen Mu crawled out from under the heavy dunes. He looked around: desolation and bleakness met his eyes, and everywhere lay the scale-like dunes left behind by the hurricane.

The massive Xizhou had split apart, the great ship almost wholly disintegrated — plainly the Old Mother of True Heaven's final strike had been too powerful. She had meant that blow to destroy Imperial Preceptor Jingping and herself together, and in the end it had shattered even the Xizhou.

The flames in the desert were gone. The sand was still red, but it no longer held that fire which had scorched the Forsaken of the Wasteland.

Shen Mu looked farther off, and saw no flames there either.

The Flame Desert had gone out.

He was stunned for a moment, then hastily raised his hands. The flame patterns on them had vanished too.

He took out several mirrors and examined himself again and again, up and down, but still found no trace of flame patterns.

"The Old Mother of True Heaven is dead!"

Shen Mu's heart gave two wild leaps. The Old Mother of True Heaven had laid down in the Flame Desert a fire aimed specifically at the Forsaken of the Wasteland: any Forsaken who set foot here would have flame patterns rise upon his face, and the higher his bloodline, the more patterns appeared.

Shen Mu, for instance, had been covered head to toe in them.

The Old Mother of True Heaven was dead; the flames of the Flame Desert had gone out; and with them the flame patterns on the Forsaken would vanish as well!

"Pff! Pff!"

A dune in the distance split open and Long Qilin crawled out, spitting sand. Shen Mu called to him from afar and limped toward the Xizhou.

His wounds were grave — not from his clash with Ban Gongcuo, but from the terrible shock of the Old Mother of True Heaven's final blow, which had left him badly broken.

Long Qilin joined him and bounded to a stop in front of him, laying his tail flat. Shen Mu stepped onto the tip of his tail; Long Qilin lifted it, and Shen Mu slid onto his back.

Long Qilin raced off with him and came to a halt beside the Xizhou.

Shen Mu sat down and called out loudly, "Imperial Preceptor Jingping, are you still alive?"

"I am here."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping's voice came to him. Shen Mu looked toward it and saw the Imperial Preceptor leaning in the shade of a great boulder. Shen Mu slid down from Long Qilin's back and said with a smile, "Hurt again?"

"Not too badly. Much lighter than last time."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping squinted, feigning sleep, then opened one eye and glanced behind him. Weakly he said, "The Old Mother of True Heaven was truly formidable. With the Xizhou's power to draw on, her strength surpassed the gods of Heaven Above."

Shen Mu looked where his gaze had gone, but saw nothing. Puzzled, he first healed his own wounds a little, then tried to lift the Imperial Preceptor up — and could not move him.

Imperial Preceptor Jingping said, half-smiling, "Cult Master, you cannot lift a god."

Shen Mu understood, and healed him where he lay, saying with a laugh, "Does the Imperial Preceptor still mean to go to Heaven Above?"

Imperial Preceptor Jingping shook his head. "In this fight with the Old Mother of True Heaven, she held the advantage of terrain, and I nearly failed to overcome her. If we go up into Heaven Above, where there are more gods and where the ground is all theirs, it will be far more dangerous still. I must wait — wait for the Emperor to mend the divine bridge, and for the other Cult Master-level beings of Jingping to ascend."

There were many powerhouses of the divine-bridge realm in Jingping, men trapped at that stage for many years. Shen Mu's dissemination of the spatial-art model for repairing the divine bridge had given them hope of godhood as well.

"You let the Great Venerable go?" asked Imperial Preceptor Jingping.

Shen Mu examined his wounds with the utmost care and said, "I had an agreement with him. I could not take his life. And without taking his life, it is very hard to keep him. The Great Venerable's talent for fleeing is unmatched in this world; never have I met a man so slippery. But at least I left him half a leg."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping said gravely, "Letting him go will bring endless trouble. I cannot withstand his soul-worship sorcery either. Few know my true name, but if he goes to Jiangling to inquire, he can still find out what I am called. The Emperor's name, too, can be found out."

Shen Mu took out silver needles and stuck them into him until he bristled like a hedgehog, the last one going into the space between his brows. He said with a smile, "To me, the Great Venerable is no longer worth worrying about. The god-demon behind him is called Kuiwu. The Great Venerable plotted against him and stripped away his divine flesh. He hid Kuiwu's body on Yang Mountain in the Wasteland and his primal spirit on Yin Mountain. Destroy the primal spirit of Kuiwu, and the Great Venerable's soul-worship sorcery is broken."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping shot him a glance and said calmly, "And if the Great Venerable moves Kuiwu's primal spirit before you get there?"

Shen Mu was struck dumb. He slapped the Imperial Preceptor hard on the thigh; Imperial Preceptor Jingping's eyes streamed with tears from the pain. Shen Mu hastily withdrew his hand and swiftly refined several batches of spirit elixirs, saying, "The Great Venerable's skill in medicine is superb — only a hair short of mine. Even with half a leg gone, he will not die. You stay here; I will go to Yin Mountain first! Remember to take your medicine on time!"

Imperial Preceptor Jingping fetched the Black Tortoise Pearl and tossed it to him. "Take the Black Tortoise Pearl, just in case!"

Shen Mu left behind several bags of water and food, leaped onto Long Qilin's back, and sped away.

Imperial Preceptor Jingping leaned against the great boulder and tried to struggle to his feet, but fell back again. He panted a few rough breaths and smiled bitterly. "Wounded like this again... A good thing that little bastard of a Cult Master shoved the Black Tortoise Pearl into the Old Mother of True Heaven's hands and she did not strike at once. Otherwise he really would have played me to death..."

He could not help feeling a lingering dread.

Time and again Shen Mu had thrust the Black Tortoise Pearl or the Azure Mystic Water Dragon Pearl into the Old Mother of True Heaven's hands to test her, never once considering that Imperial Preceptor Jingping was not nearly as strong as he imagined.

The fellow had boundless faith in him — faith even Imperial Preceptor Jingping did not have in himself. Following at Shen Mu's side, the Imperial Preceptor felt danger at every turn.

"Good that the boy is gone. Yin Mountain is dangerous; following him is more dangerous still."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping lay back and closed his eyes to rest. Just then, behind the great boulder he leaned against, sand began to swirl without a sound, gathering, slowly forming a dune giant.

Imperial Preceptor Jingping noticed nothing. A snore rose in his throat, yet his eyes slowly opened.

Quietly he raised his hand and plucked from between his brows the silver needle Shen Mu had driven there.

It was no silver needle, but a sword — the Sorrowless Sword.

Holding the sword, eyes narrowed, Imperial Preceptor Jingping suddenly stabbed backward into the boulder behind him!

Behind the boulder, the dune giant smiled and lunged forward — and at that moment the Sorrowless Sword burst through the stone and ran in through the giant's heart. With a great boom, the eight thousand sword-lights within the Sorrowless Sword shot out in all directions, flying from the dune giant's body!

The Sorrowless Sword rang with a jingling chime; the eight thousand blades flew back, divine blood dripping from their tips, and the eight thousand swords merged into a sword pellet the size of a tangerine.