Chapter 494 — The Struggle in the Dark Chamber Behind the Scenes

Bai Qu'er still held the Dragon God Pearl high, the child of Bai Qingfu and his wife cradled in her arms, and turned to lead the crowd into the darkness. The Dragon God Pearl gave off a quiet radiance that scattered the dark before them. They had to reach the post station ahead as quickly as they could, and seek the protection of the deity there.

Beside the chest, the Dragon Qilin shook its body and gave a low, rumbling growl. Shen Mu took out the great cauldron and tossed it to Ban Gongcuo. Ban Gongcuo looked at the cauldron with its missing leg, shook his head, and said, "The cauldron is broken, its power diminished. I fear it can't protect us. Fortunately, I have other treasures."

He crammed the cauldron back into his Taotie Pouch and brought out a great gourd, winding its strap around himself, and chuckled. "Sect Master Shen, this was my primordial weapon in my first life. It is called the Jade Blood Gourd. It is the treasure that made my name, and I have not used it in a long, long while. I always hoped I might break through, fuse all I have learned in these ten thousand years into one, and reforge my Jade Blood Gourd. But I could never bring so many arts together into a single whole."

He slung the gourd on his back. The gourd stood over three feet tall, and Ban Gongcuo had no legs; carrying such a thing on his back made for a rather outlandish sight.

"Great Venerable, I never imagined you were once a man of such grand ambition."

Shen Mu drew the blade pouch from his Taotie Pouch, slipped its straps over his shoulders, and settled it on his back. Then he took out two Butcher Knives and slid them into the pouch. "A pity. Once you saw that godhood was beyond your reach, you turned twisted, and went astray."

Ban Gongcuo eyed his Taotie Pouch and sneered. "And you think that when you find godhood beyond your grasp, you won't turn twisted too? That Taotie Pouch is mine!"

"I picked it up in the Golden Palace."

Shen Mu drew a great iron hammer from the Taotie Pouch and gave it a light swing. The hammer rang with a clear chime, its head splitting and spreading outward, eight feet across, spinning ceaselessly with the handle as its center. He stopped channeling his mana, and the hammer shrank back down to its ordinary size. Shen Mu slid it into a leather loop beside the blade pouch on his back and fixed it fast, then took out a bamboo staff, gave it a light sweep that shook out a string of afterimages, and tucked that into his back as well.

Ban Gongcuo was dumbstruck. Then he saw Shen Mu draw brush, ink, paper, and inkstone from the Taotie Pouch and stuff them into his sleeve, and fix several scrolls with the other clasps of the blade pouch behind him, and could not help laughing. "Sect Master Shen, are you going up on stage to sing? Your back is nearly stuffed full!"

Shen Mu took out the poison pouch and the sword pellet. The poison pouch held bottles great and small; the sword pellet came apart into eight thousand swords, and he envenomed each flying sword one by one. "Better to be prepared. When I first walked out of the Wilderness Ruins, this was just how I was outfitted. It looked very crude, but it was practical. Later, when I had rank and standing, that was when I stopped being so crude. But in a fight to the death, the cruder the better, the higher the fighting strength!"

At these words, Ban Gongcuo took seven banners from his own Taotie Pouch and planted them at his back, then brought out a bronze mirror with a sleeve behind it, which he fitted over his left arm like a shield. He took out a set of flying daggers as well, hung in rows inside his lapels, both sides packed full.

Shen Mu stared blankly as Ban Gongcuo produced several sword cases and stood them upright at his feet, along with the blade orbs so common on the grasslands. Only Ban Gongcuo's blade orbs were no small matter; their quality far surpassed those of the grassland experts. He also brought out a Taiji Disk, and a Buddhist shrine containing a small Buddha, and then a thick pillar, which he set up beside him, covered in rune marks that flickered bright and dark.

"Great Venerable, your wealth is truly frightening," Shen Mu praised. "Imperial Preceptor Jingping and I have ransacked your Golden Palace several times, and still you have so many treasures!"

Ban Gongcuo sneered. "You have lived ten thousand years; the things you have gathered can only be more than mine! They are coming. Open your eyes!"

The Buddha light in his pupils blazed; he stirred the Buddhist Heaven Eye, and within the Buddha light a Daoist Eye took shape, becoming the pattern of the Taiji diagram of yin and yang. Ban Gongcuo looked into the darkness, but could see only shadowy, shifting figures, nothing distinct.

"Open!" Shen Mu cried low, stirring the Nine Heavens Gazing Eye Art. Starlight flared in his pupils; the Great Sun surfaced amid the river of stars, and then layer upon layer of formation patterns emerged. The Blind Elder had fused the Nine Heavens Gazing Eye Art with the First Holy Pupil of the deity Ziqing of the wilderness-opening age, making it more powerful and its divine power greater. But such a Holy Pupil burned far more mana, and for now Shen Mu could only force open the Jingxiao Heaven Eye, five heavens in all. In daily use he still relied chiefly on the Danxiao Heaven Eye. The darkness ahead was too heavy, and the Danxiao Heaven Eye could not see far, so this time he stirred the Jingxiao Heaven Eye.

The Dragon Qilin also widened its eyes to look, but saw nothing. "Sect Master, what do you see?"

Ban Gongcuo could not see far either, but he could make out more than a dozen figures walking toward them out of the dark. "Sect Master Shen, there are only a dozen of them, right?"

Shen Mu gazed straight into the darkness, nodded, and smiled. "Only these dozen divine-power masters. Rest easy."

Ban Gongcuo let out a breath and laughed heartily. "Here I thought I'd end up like Bai Qingfu and his wife, dying in this place for a pile of worthless commoners. I'm not that noble. Looks like following Sect Master Shen brings boundless fortune. We won't die!"

The Dragon Qilin chortled. "The Sect Master always turns ill fortune into good!"

Xing An's chest banged its lid open and shut as well, laughing aloud.

Shen Mu smiled too, and pointed. The chest split into four and spread flat. Xing An's chest was made of taotie hide and bone; the bone frame formed the chest's space, and taotie hide was stretched over it. Now that the chest lay open, it at once formed a stable space a hundred zhang across.

They stood within this stable space, shielded by the chest's divine light, with no need to fear the darkness' encroachment. Ban Gongcuo laid out his treasures, while the Dragon Qilin stared in alarm at the racks spread open inside the chest, where arms and legs of every kind were enshrined. Catching Shen Mu off guard, Ban Gongcuo secretly plucked off two legs and stuffed them into his Taotie Pouch, hanging his own poisoned leg up on the rack in their place.

Shen Mu pretended not to see, and looked ahead. Beneath his Jingxiao Heaven Eye, behind the dozen or so figures walking toward them, stood a great host of hundreds of demon lords from beyond the realm! They stood quietly there, and at their head was a tall figure riding a massive strange beast, calmly watching the dozen divine-power masters in the vanguard. Those dozen were only a probe, a test of their strength!

Shen Mu buried what he had seen in his heart and drew a long breath. The sword pellet slid from his sleeve and rolled soundlessly to the edge of the chest, then burrowed into the soil. In the earth the sword pellet came apart, and thin flying swords stretched away into the distance, spreading through the ground for a hundred zhang in every direction.

"Strike!"