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

Imperial Preceptor Jingping leaned against the stone and watched the sword pellet circle the boulder and come to rest before him.

"Thank you."

Imperial Preceptor Jingping smiled, flicked it with his finger, and the sword pellet shrieked away, vanishing into the distant desert.

Behind the great boulder, the dune giant slowly crumbled. Divine blood seeped from the sand, more and more of it, gurgling and spreading in every direction.

Long Qilin raced east with Shen Mu on his back. Suddenly Shen Mu raised a hand and beckoned; the sword pellet came whistling toward him and he caught it in his palm. Long Qilin's body lurched violently and he took a headlong tumble.

Shen Mu tucked the sword pellet into the Taotie Pouch and said with a smile, "The Old Mother of True Heaven is finally finished."

Long Qilin was startled. "The Old Mother of True Heaven is still alive? Haven't the flame patterns on your body vanished, and the desert fire gone out? How could she still be alive?"

"That is exactly her cunning. She made us believe she was dead, and Imperial Preceptor Jingping pretended to believe it too — but the Imperial Preceptor gave me a look, so while I was treating him I turned the Sorrowless Sword into a needle and drove it between his brows."

Shen Mu said with a smile, "The reason Imperial Preceptor Jingping gave me the Black Tortoise Pearl was that he feared it would fall into the Old Mother of True Heaven's hands and make her harder to deal with, so he insisted I carry it away. Now the Old Mother of True Heaven is truly dead. If you do not believe me, look behind you."

Long Qilin hastily looked back, and saw a crimson sea spreading swiftly behind them — an ocean of divine blood, devouring the desert, surging toward them, a sight of utter terror!

Long Qilin ran for his life. After a hundred li or so, the crimson sea finally stopped spreading.

Long Qilin was appalled. "The Old Mother of True Heaven bled so much?"

"Her divine blood turned mortal, became ordinary blood, so naturally there is more of it."

Shen Mu looked back too. Above the crimson sea rose layer upon layer of radiance, and along its shores a great many dense plants were sprouting, growing madly — even in a barren place like the great desert, there is stubborn life in abundance.

"So it is with people. However harsh the surroundings, they will always live on!"

He opened his Danxiao Heavenly Eye and gazed far into the distance. The shattered Xizhou had become islands in the crimson sea; Imperial Preceptor Jingping had already crawled onto one of them and was not drowned.

"Remember to take your medicine on time." Shen Mu waved from afar and urged Long Qilin to hurry on.

Ban Gongcuo stanched the wound on his body and sat on a cattail leaf. The leaf bore him on wild wind and thunder toward the Wasteland; by the time he arrived, three days had passed and the sky was growing dark.

In those three days he had healed his wounds, though his right calf had been severed by Shen Mu and he moved with difficulty.

Ban Gongcuo searched about, his eyes lighting up. He followed a herd of strange beasts of the Wasteland onward, and before darkness fell he came at last to a set of ruins.

Chh —

Ban Gongcuo raised a hand and cut the hind leg off a stag. The other strange beasts roared and howled, uttering threat after threat.

Ban Gongcuo opened his Taotie Pouch and a swarm of soul worms flew out. He said with a cold laugh, "You dare bully me too? A pack of beasts — I cannot do anything about that fellow named Shen, but killing you is easy enough!"

The other strange beasts eyed the soul worms darting everywhere and did not dare come forward.

"The Great Venerable is truly magnificent."

Suddenly a voice came from within the ruins, saying leisurely, "The Great Venerable of the Loulan Golden Palace, fallen so low as to bully strange beasts — how laughable."

"Who is there!"

Ban Gongcuo hastily joined the stag's leg to his own severed leg, not troubling to fit it properly, and rose to his feet — and saw a chest fly out from deep within the ruins.

Bang.

The chest opened, and two legs ran out of it; then two arms and half a torso flew out and fitted themselves together, becoming a headless body.

The headless body groped about in the chest, drew out a head, and set it on its neck.

"Great Venerable, do you not recognize an old friend?" The strange body turned its head — a youth with red lips and white teeth, wearing an uncanny smile.

Ban Gongcuo's face went ashen.