Chapter 516 — The Girl in the Shadows

A flash of inspiration came to Shen Mu. He used a Daoist divine art, drew his sword, and executed a single move, Sword Treads the Rivers and Mountains. Still the girl shook her head, meaning she could not see what he was doing.

Shen Mu was utterly at a loss.

Suddenly the shadow girl ran forward, stopped after a few steps, and beckoned to him.

Shen Mu chased after her. They ran and stopped by turns, and after a long while the shadow girl halted; Shen Mu ran into her, passed straight through her body, and hastily checked his steps, nearly falling into the bottomless cliff ahead.

The girl tried to seize his hand but could not; luckily Shen Mu steadied himself at once and did not fall over the cliff.

The girl pointed ahead, and Shen Mu's heart shook violently. There below the cliff before him stood a forest of magnificent dark cities, tall and towering buildings steeped in exotic splendor; such a grand and vast cluster of city architecture as he had never seen before in the Waste!

"How strange. There is no such city in the Waste at all. Can it really be that a dark realm has surged in and covered the Waste..."

Shen Mu frowned slightly. If the dark substance could flow between the Kaihuang Waste and the Shanghuang Waste, then to dam it up in the Shanghuang Waste would be to dam this dark realm up there as well, would it not?

Could sealing the rifts in the cliff really seal away a whole world?

"The darkness of the Waste is more complex than I imagined. I fear it cannot be sealed..."

He had barely thought this when the shadow girl suddenly leaped, springing from the sheer cliff and plunging down, gliding as easily as if on level ground, slanting through the air straight toward the city below.

Shen Mu leaped after her, keeping pace. After a moment the two came into the city, and Shen Mu looked around: the city was bustling, thronged with people coming and going, but in his eyes, all those people were blobs of black shadow.

If those black shadows were replaced by real human beings, this would be a metropolis of incomparable prosperity.

He also saw towering gods and demons in the darkness, standing atop the high towers and great halls, warily watching all around.

Shen Mu was startled, and felt vaguely that something was not right.

He had seen a scene like this before.

When he had traveled back forty thousand years to Bailong City, the gods and demons of Bailong City had stood guard just like this, except that the gods and demons of Bailong City had been guarding against the darkness outside the city!

Then what was this city in the darkness guarding against?

The shadow girl led him weaving through the city. One black figure after another turned its head to look at them; no doubt in their eyes Shen Mu's form was strange indeed, and they could not help but stare.

They passed through street after street and came to a mansion of extraordinary grandeur. From that mansion a figure of incomparable majesty suddenly rose slowly, spreading four arms to shield the residence, as if, because Shen Mu had come, this deity was guarding its mansion against invasion by the demon Shen Mu.

The shadow girl leaped up onto the palm of that dark deity, then sprang nimbly to its shoulder and spoke to it of something.

The deity tilted its head, studied Shen Mu, and spoke, but what reached Shen Mu's ears was again a whispering sound, and he could not understand its words.

After a moment the dark deity lowered its palm, signaling Shen Mu to stand on it. Shen Mu hesitated, then stepped onto it, but his feet found nothing to stand on, and he nearly passed through the palm; he hastily roused his divine art and only then floated above the palm.

The dark deity was astonished. It raised its other hand and poked Shen Mu with a finger, but the finger passed through Shen Mu's body without touching him.

The dark deity scratched its head, equally unable to understand why such a thing should happen.

"This is far too strange!"

Shen Mu's heart shook: "Even an omnipotent god or demon cannot touch me!"

Suddenly the city fell into panic. The dark deity set the shadow girl down and at once soared into the air, heading for the city gate.

Shen Mu hurried after the shadow girl. The two ran to high ground, and saw the space beyond the city quiver; one black opening after another suddenly appeared, and monstrous demon gods of immense, hideous bulk were crawling out of those openings, leading countless demons in a surge toward these magnificent cities.

A great battle erupted.

Before long the city was breached, and countless demon creatures poured in like a tide, fighting and slaughtering in the streets and alleys.

Shen Mu followed the shadow girl in dodging this way and that. The city was in utter chaos: everywhere divine arts and primal weapons burst forth with power, everywhere houses and palaces were collapsing.

The night was exceedingly long. Then suddenly the crowing of a rooster came to his ears; Shen Mu's heart gave a small jolt, and he saw the darkness surge, and the city surge with it, while the demon gods and their demon hordes retreated in frenzy, burrowing into the spatial openings one by one and vanishing.

Shen Mu's body was jolted by the surging darkness. He was just about to seize the shadow girl beside him when she, like the city, turned into streams of black vapor and receded with the darkness, vanishing from sight!

A ray of sunlight spilled down and lit his surroundings. Shen Mu looked around: this was a stretch of high mountains and steep ridges, and no city could possibly have appeared here.

"Hierarch! Hierarch!"

Long Qilin's call came. Shen Mu followed the sound and at last found the ruins where they had rested the night before. Seeing him, Long Qilin hurried over with a washbasin in its jaws, set the basin down, wagged its tail, and said with an apologetic smile, "Hierarch, it's time for breakfast. You're already quite late..."

Shen Mu turned and looked around. All that he had seen and heard the night before seemed like a dream.

"This Waste is too strange. Could I really have entered another world last night?"