Chapter 163 — The Waters of Bangong Lake

The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping trembled slightly.

"What you mean to do is too vast an undertaking, and the road ahead is strewn with thorns. My years are nearly spent; I can aid you no longer.

From here on, you must walk alone.

" The Young Patriarch smiled.

"Go back, then.

" The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping bowed low, his long salutation sinking to the ground.

"My thanks, Daoist friend, for half a lifetime of support!

" The Young Patriarch returned the courtesy. "Since we walk the same Way, it is only right that we uphold one another. " The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping turned and departed, robes snapping in the wind, until he vanished into the vast sea of humanity in the capital. The Young Patriarch rose and summoned the Elder of Punishments.

"Come.

It is time the Young Sect Master ascended the throne. " At a frontier pass beyond the borderlands, Libationer Bashan, his face dark as storm clouds, led Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu into the Man tribe's border fort, his heart full of vexation.

The Man garrison commander's expression shifted at the sight of them returning, and he came forward.

"Martial Khan — the Holy Land has decreed that if we meet you, we must on no account let you out of the pass!

" Libationer Bashan's gaze turned grim. "Do you wish to die? " he said coldly.

The commander shuddered and glanced about him.

Libationer Bashan swept his eyes over the officers nearby. "Do you all wish to die? " he asked coldly.

Gritting his teeth, the commander called, "Open the gates! " The gates swung wide, and Libationer Bashan rode his ox out of the pass.

Shen Mu looked back and saw, atop the gate tower, a young Man tribesman practicing his fists, each blow driving a fierce wind, and he could not help a soft sound of surprise. The youth, sensing himself watched, hastily checked his forms and looked down. "That boy is strong.

His foundation is extraordinarily solid," Shen Mu said in admiration. The youth's gaze came down upon them, eyes blazing.

"Martial Khan!

" he cried out. "My name is Bangong Cuo, youngest son of the Grassland King. One day I will defeat the Martial Khan and become the overlord of the grasslands! " Libationer Bashan turned and studied the young tribesman.

"You have spirit. Keep training. You are a seedling with a sound foundation.

Run through another set — let me see! " Bangong Cuo ran through another fist form, and Libationer Bashan said to Shen Mu, "This boy's boxing is broad and sweeping, his force far fiercer than the others'. His body carries a rare endowment.

He will be a great vessel one day.

" Shen Mu nodded. With the same techniques and the same cultivation, some men's punches are simply stronger than other men's — that is innate gift, a thing no one can envy into his own possession.

"Rare indeed.

So long as he does not die, he will be a name that rings across the grasslands. " They walked on toward Qingmen Pass, while Bangong Cuo, fired by the Martial Khan's praise, threw himself into his training with redoubled zeal.

Before long a golden light flashed across the sky and a Shaman King descended, face gloomy, and summoned the garrison commander.

"You let the Martial Khan out? " The commander steeled himself. "The Martial Khan's divine might is boundless — how dared we bar his way? Had we tried to stop him by force, I fear our frontier soldiers would have died in droves, and then we could never have held the pass against Jingping's great army. " The Shaman King gave a cold snort and was about to fly into a rage when his eye suddenly fell on Bangong Cuo, still practicing his fists atop the gate tower.

Startled and delighted at once, he pointed. "Whose child is that?

" "The youngest son of the Great Khan of our Man-Di Kingdom — Prince Bangong Cuo.

" The Shaman King smiled, reached out, and made a grasping motion from afar, and Bangong Cuo, helpless against the pull, came flying through the air to land before him. "What an endowment — the very special constitution the Shaman Sovereign has been seeking! " The Shaman King looked him up and down, approval written on his face. "The Shaman Sovereign commanded me to find the sacred child of reincarnation, and at last I have found him! Bangong Cuo, come with me!

" The garrison commander was aghast and moved to stop him, but the Shaman King had already turned into a streak of golden light and fled afar with the boy. When he brought Bangong Cuo back to Loulan's Golden Palace and delivered the little prince before the Shaman Sovereign, even the Shaman Sovereign could not contain his startled joy. He hurried with the boy to the sacred temple and bowed.

"Great Sovereign, the sacred child of reincarnation has been found. He bears the same constitution as yourself — a heaven-endowed genius such as the grasslands see only once in centuries.

You may reincarnate now. " From within the shrine came a shrill, piercing laugh, and then a withered, skeletal freak of a man shot out head-downward, feet in the air, and pressed crown to crown against Bangong Cuo. An earth-shaking boom rang through Bangong Cuo's skull — and then his soul scattered and his spirit dissolved.

Surging vital essence poured ceaselessly from the freak's body into Bangong Cuo's, and at the same time the Great Sovereign's soul passed over as well, planted within the boy.

"Disciple," came the voice, "in my reincarnation I defied heaven and altered fate — those who should die do not die, and those who should live do not live. For that, the underworld bailiffs will come to seize my soul. Set your formation well and hold them back.

" The Shaman Sovereign hurried forward, carrying out shrine after shrine and setting them in a ring around Bangong Cuo. The golden bones within those shrines were the remains of the Great Sovereign's previous seventeen lives, refined into artifacts. All at once space shuddered.

A chill wind breathed in from another world, and the lamps in the sacred temple dimmed at once; out of that other world drifted a small boat, unhurried. It was a dark world, and its only light, it seemed, was a green lamp hung at the boat's prow, burning dim and uncertain. Beneath the lamp sat a withered old man, folding paper boats and paper figures. The little boat drifted on, toward the sacred temple.

The Shaman Sovereign was frantic; he poured every scrap of his power into the shrines, and within them the seventeen golden-bone skeletons seemed to come alive, barring the gateway between the other world and the world of the living.

The old man in the boat sat steeped in boundless darkness. From where he sat, the only lights in all of heaven and earth were his own lamp and the entrance to the other world — and that entrance was blocked by seventeen skeletons. He raised his hand, and the paper figures and paper horses came alive as one: the figures mounted the horses, the horses galloped joyously, and the whole cavalcade hurled itself at the entrance barred by the golden skeletons. On horseback the paper riders brandished paper knives and paper swords, mouths open in soundless cries — a war shout, bristling with killing intent. The seventeen golden bones moved as one and clashed with the onrushing paper host in a single tangled melee.

Those seventeen golden-bone skeletons formed a formation of tremendous power, one that raised its might to the very level of the gods — yet the force streaming from the other world was dreadful beyond measure. When the paper knives hacked down and the paper swords thrust in, even the golden bones of the Great Sovereign's seventeen lives could not withstand them: one stroke of a knife could sever a bone; one thrust of a sword could pierce a skull! The Shaman Sovereign drove the seventeen skeletons to hold on desperately, fighting for their lives against the paper host, while the Great Sovereign pressed on with his reincarnation — and now the little boat in the other world was closing in, and the old man aboard had risen, lamp in hand.