Chapter 530 — Descending from Heaven

Long Qilin was stunned for a moment, then it came to him: Shen Mu was using the rite of sacrifice, making himself the offering. While sending himself into the other world, he had swapped the demon general of that other world into this one, preserving the balance of energy between the two worlds! "The Sect Master's calculations have reached such a level?

How did he work it out?

" Long Qilin's eyes went wide. He had followed the young Founding Patriarch in cultivation for many years and had attained no small mastery in the art of calculation himself; had he not been so lazy, he would have ranked among the very finest calculators of the age. And yet this calculation of Shen Mu's was beyond even his comprehension.

He understood the principle, but as to how it was actually done, of that he knew nothing.

The rite of sacrifice merely turned flesh and blood into energy and sent it to the other world, bringing back a living being from that world in exchange; but Shen Mu had not turned himself into energy.

He had sent himself to the other world whole and entire. The learning bound up in that was vast beyond measure, beyond Long Qilin's vision and experience. Shen Mu had employed not only calculation, but the Dutian Demon King's rite of sacrifice, the art of measuring space, and the art of teleportation. So many disciplines were involved that any one of them could occupy a cultivator of divine abilities for a lifetime.

"The Sect Master has sent himself to the other world as an offering. Then how will he come back? " Long Qilin seized on the crucial point, and looked at the demon general on the altar, who was still utterly at a loss.

In alarm he said, "You stay right there!

Do not move! " The demon general remained entirely bewildered.

He had been in the thick of battle; how had he suddenly arrived here? He looked down and saw, below the altar, a frantic creature covered in scales and mane, neither pig nor dragon, and beside it an even stranger great box. It had been that absurdly fat monster that had spoken just now. The demon general glanced about him.

All around was a dense, overpowering darkness. He muttered, "Yege ha'ei (Where is this)?

" Long Qilin lifted the box and hurled it at the demon general. The demon general gave a cold snort and reached up to catch it.

Of a sudden the box flew open and, with a gulp, swallowed him whole!

Bang. The box crashed down upon the altar.

Within it the demon general raged like a churning sea, battering the box so that it rocked this way and that, bouncing and banging without cease. The instant Long Qilin threw the box he leapt into the air; the moment the box landed, he landed atop it and pressed it down. The demon general inside was possessed of immense strength, and the blows nearly flung him off. He cried out hurriedly, "We cannot let him out! Absolutely not! We must keep him, so that when the Sect Master wishes to return, we can sacrifice him back!

The pills the Sect Master left me will not hold out much longer.

.

. Wait, my spirit pills are all in the box! " Astride the box, Long Qilin let out a wail of misery.

.

. .

The horn blasts grew louder and louder, until they seemed to explode right beside Shen Mu's ears, nearly deafening him. He looked back: a wild torrent of air came surging in, sound waves riding upon the wind, rippling the skin of his face into wave after wave. Behind him were long tusks, over ten zhang long, wrapped all over in steel blades.

Three giant elephants, their bodies covered in strange demon runes, were drawing a cloud chariot at full gallop behind him; the elephants' tusks swung this way and that, skewering a dozen demons upon the steel blades and flinging them about, limbs flailing. Upon the cloud chariot was mounted the horn of some unknown beast, longer even than the tusks.

The long horn had been hollowed out and turned into a war horn; the great opening at its tip could hold two or three men, and the sound that came from it was deafening. At the front of the chariot, a giant demon strongman was rousing his primal energy and blowing the horn.

So loud was the blast that it carried across the whole battlefield. This colossal cloud chariot cared nothing for friend or foe.

Elephants and wheels alike crushed and trampled everything in their path, killing no one knew how many charging demon soldiers.

Flesh and blood flew in every direction!

All around Shen Mu were shrieking demons in black armor, brandishing weapons, racing on foot, all toward the same direction, howling as they rushed into battle. "Apu gao nen han (Who are you)? " One demon spotted Shen Mu at once, a look of confusion on his face.

The next moment, his head flew high into the air. From Shen Mu's Taotie Pouch flew the sword pellet. The youth snatched it up and clenched it hard; with a hum, countless flying swords burst from either end of his fist, like a double-bladed longsword with a point at both ends, the blade thirteen zhang in length.

Shen Mu whirled the sword into a circle, sweeping all directions.

The demon soldiers who had thrown themselves at him were in an instant reduced to numberless limbs dancing through the air. The galloping giant elephants too were shorn of their forelegs; they pitched headlong, their tusks snapping.

Behind, the enormous cloud chariot was flung up into the air with a whoosh, flipped over, and sailed right over Shen Mu's head.

The giant demon strongman upon it was head-down, feet-up; catching sight of Shen Mu, his face showed shock, and then a sword drove in through the top of his skull and nailed him dead into the chariot. Having rid himself of the peril of the elephant-drawn chariot, Shen Mu let out a breath of relief.

He looked back, and his scalp went numb.

Behind him was a grand army of chariots, countless giant elephants drawing cloud chariots, arrayed in ranks, driving an unending horde of demons toward the battlefield opposite. The thunder of hooves shook the earth, a booming roar that rolled like a collapsing mountain toward the battlefield.

Behind the elephant-drawn cloud chariots lumbered many huge beasts, larger even than the elephants, racing at full stride.

Upon the backs of these beasts stood demon gods one and all, hideous and ferocious of countenance, each brandishing a demon-god weapon. The demon-god weapons unleashed dreadful power, sweeping with a hum over the battlefield, cutting toward the deities in the enemy formation.

Waves of radiance, dazzling and terrible beyond measure, ran riot above the battlefield. As the powers of the divine and demonic weapons clashed and burst, space itself warped.

The sky was filled with light of every hue; blades of light with earth-shaking power swept to and fro through the air, their shockwaves lashing out in all directions. To fly in that sky was all but certain death!

Shen Mu swiftly took stock of his situation, and his expression grew grave: his position was at the very front of the demon army! The demon soldiers posted here were plainly the lowest rank of all, the expendables hurled against the enemy formation.

He himself stood among the expendables, about to meet the collision with the enemy battle line, and so he too had become an expendable! "Apu gao nen han?

" Shouts of challenge came from the cloud chariots behind; many demon strongmen were looking at him with suspicion.

Shen Mu called out loudly, "Kude gei lou (One of your own)! " Countless demon soldiers came leaping down from behind the cloud chariots, the elite of the demon race, swarming like the tide, charging madly at him, crying fiercely, "Hatila (Kill)!

" Shen Mu hesitated no longer. He turned and ran, inwardly indignant: "I already told them I am one of their own.

Why are they still trying to kill me?