Chapter 154 — Breaking the Will

"Kill!

" A shamaness with the head and tail of a leopard cried out fiercely, raised a bronze mirror, and shone it upon Shen Mu.

In the mirror's face surfaced soul after soul, hideous and ferocious.

Ding. Before the bronze mirror a flying sword appeared of a sudden, nailed fast to the mirror's face; that bronze mirror was hard beyond measure and actually blocked the flying sword, but in the next instant the sword spun sharply, became the Drill-Sword Form, and bored straight through the bronze mirror; the sword-light broke the mirror and ran the shamaness behind it through in one stroke. "What is there to fear in shaman poison?

" Shen Mu's robes snapped and flapped; he raised a hand and recalled his flying sword.

Another shaman's body sprouted tiger fur, tiger claws, a tiger tail; with a howl he hurled himself forward, rousing a wild wind, pouncing in so close that Shen Mu was given no chance to draw his sword at all. Shen Mu turned his body aside and struck with his fist.

The two men's footwork tangled in confusion, and the sound of blows — bang, bang, bang — would not cease. That shaman's head shook and rocked, grew a tiger's head, and he roared like thunder, booming without end, battering Shen Mu's soul with tiger howls.

Shen Mu used his fist as a seal; one punch blasted out — Sun Shines on the Yang-Spirit, Refined in the Void. His five fingers spread into a palm, and with a single cry of "Mo Ye Sa" he struck out the Heaven-Demon Sovereign-Heaven Seal. His palm and fist shifted again and again, Buddhist, Daoist, and demonic seal-arts alternating, and the tiger's roar had time to ring only three times before he shattered that shaman's soul to pieces and laid him out stiff and straight upon the ground.

Then a great shaman of a yet higher realm burst forth suddenly. His cultivation was far more overbearing than those shamans before him, his divine powers unbound, and he kept the shape and form of an ordinary man.

Though he had sealed his own secret realm, the moment his art was driven he took form at once, like a raging ape, gripping a golden rod thick as a pillar, sweeping away a thousand troops, his strength boundless and his swiftness extreme. Shen Mu reached out and plucked down his bamboo staff, and set bamboo staff against golden rod; the two flashed into combat, and of a sudden the sky-wide golden rod-shadows snapped shut.

That shaman's heart was touched by the bamboo staff, and astonishment showed on his face. But after all he was a great shaman of a realm, not a mere shaman; he decided on the instant to unseal his secret realm, and in the very moment his realm opened, his heart was pierced through by the bamboo staff, and his corpse fell prone upon the ground.

Shen Mu drew the bamboo staff from his heart. A great shaman of that realm is called a "divine-power wielder" in Jingping Kingdom; only the name differs — in essence there is no difference at all.

Had this divine-power wielder not sealed his secret realm, it would have been very hard to kill him; but so long as he fought at the same realm, he had the strength to slay his opponent, no matter whether that opponent had once been of that realm or of the Seven Star Realm! Boom.

A golden strongman leapt and bounded up onto the golden platform, landed with a heavy crash, a saber-pack taller than a man slung at his back; of a sudden he opened his great mouth and roared at Shen Mu, and from the saber-pack at his back saber-light came shrieking out, and with a rattling clatter a sky of saber-shadows chopped down at Shen Mu. At the same time that golden strongman gripped a saber in each hand and came dancing his twin blades in to kill; the two sabers now before him, now behind, like two great serpents coiled about his body, rolling toward Shen Mu.

Shen Mu held one Slaughter-Saber right-handed and one back-handed; from the sword-pack hidden at his back flying swords came hissing out to meet the falling saber-light.

Crosswise and lengthwise, a vast line of sky! The bodies of the two, one great and one small — the golden strongman half a body taller than he — suddenly crashed together.

Two saber-lights, one horizontal, one vertical: the horizontal was a mountain barring the road ahead, the vertical a saber cleaving that mountain. Blood-colored saber-light surged skyward, as though a giant swung his blade and hewed a road out of a sheer cliff wall stretching a thousand li.

That golden strongman's body split into four pieces, slain by this crosswise-and-lengthwise saber-light.

Shen Mu shook his sabers to jar the blood from the blades, put both Slaughter-Sabers back into the saber-pack with a backhand, then suddenly raised a finger: with a tinkling ding a flying sword left its sheath and pierced through the brow of a shaman who was bending a bow of primal qi to shoot him.

"Kill him! Avenge our masters and brothers! " More shamans came surging without cease. Shen Mu stepped crosswise, twisted his body, and kicked back; now saber, now sword, now fist, now foot, striking down on the spot each shaman who came to challenge him.

After a while, no sound remained all around. Before the mountain gate of Loulan's Golden Palace, upon the golden steps, more than forty corpses lay strewn this way and that.

Shen Mu looked below the platform.

Below were faces of dread and eyes of terror, and meeting his gaze they shifted of themselves, dodging and evading, not daring to look him in the face. The spirit and will of these shamans were strong, but after more than forty were killed in a row by Shen Mu, that spirit and will could not help but decline.

And once declined, they would decline again and again, breeding hearts of fright, breeding the cowardice that the foe could not be overcome, breeding awe and dread of Shen Mu!

All that Shen Mu had seen along this road bred in him a rage toward Loulan's Golden Palace. When General Tuolimu ordered his soldiers to gather the souls of the rebels, he had said they were to be presented to Loulan's Golden Palace; he had been puzzled then, and now he understood — Loulan's Golden Palace actually used souls to cultivate its arts.

He had not come this time to block their gate, but to take back the lower half of Zai Fu's body; yet since enemy and friend were now made plain, then he would destroy this sect's will and spirit, grind their confidence to powder, trample their arts and methods underfoot, and let them know that the divine powers they cultivated with the souls of others were worth not a single coin! "Which of you has cultivated the Shaman Venerable's Louluo Sutra of Loulan's Golden Palace? " Shen Mu swept his gaze around, his face cold, and then the corner of his lips slowly revealed a smile: "Come out.

I want to kill one. " Before the mountain gate, a stretch of silence. Behind the mountain gate, the faces of the great shamans of the Golden Palace, like figures cast in gold, gradually took on the color of iron.

After a moment, a youth walked out, and a middle-aged great shaman beside him said in a low voice: "Simuluo, his flaw lies at the shoulder blade, two parts from the left shoulder. That is the flaw in his art, the place he has not refined. " That young great shaman said in a low voice: "I had already seen it; only I had not made out the exact place.

Many thanks for the Shaman King's instruction.

" Libationer Bashan's face darkened, and he sneered: "Shaman King, for an elder, is this not a little shameless?

" "Martial Khagan, after you!

" That middle-aged great shaman's face was wooden; he raised a hand: "In those years I lost to you. In pain I took thought of pain, and these years my cultivation and strength have advanced by leaps and bounds; ever I have wished to wash away my former shame. Heaven has pitied me — you have delivered yourself to my door at last.