Chapter 1512 — Can This Tree Be Felled?
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu and Granny Zhu were struck dumb; they quickened their pace, and the closer they came, the larger the sapling seemed. Its branches and leaves rose as high as the clouds, and all around were thunderbolts, crackling as they struck at the leaves. Yet even the heavenly thunder of the Ancestral Court seemed insignificant before this sapling, thin as needles, utterly unable to harm it in the least. Shen Mu came beneath the tree and saw Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua sitting there comprehending the Dao, while the Blind Elder and the Silent Artisan were closely examining a great axe.
The others bustled to and fro, mapping and measuring the Dao patterns on the branches and leaves of this strange sapling, trying to unlock its mysteries. Ming Huang stood not far off, staring fixedly at a burly man beneath the tree; the man, eyes on his nose and nose on his heart, paid him no heed.
Shen Mu stepped forward and ventured, "Brother Tai Yi.
" Tai Yi rose and said, "Lord Mu, this land is yours, and the tree that grew from this land is yours as well. So I waited for you to come and ask you: should this tree be felled?
" Shen Mu hesitated and ventured, "This sapling is.
. . " "This tree is the World Tree.
From one cosmic destruction to the next down to this day, the divine tree has neither died nor been extinguished. Through calamity after calamity of cosmic destruction, countless living beings — even divinities who attained the Dao — could not escape death, yet this tree alone survived. " Tai Yi said, "I felled it once before and burned it with fire, yet to my surprise it still would not die.
This is your domain now; I am but a guest lodging here, and to fell your tree I must ask your opinion.
" "The World Tree? " Shen Mu's heart pounded.
He looked up at the inconceivably vast sapling and murmured, "This is the divine thing that can survive the great cosmic destruction? " His eyes shone bright.
He had always minded that he had never seen such a divine tree with his own eyes, and had always dreamed of beholding this great tree. Yet that great tree had been cut down by Tai Yi and set ablaze, burned until only blackened roots and stems remained — and now, unexpectedly, it had come back to life!
"Lord Mu, if you keep this tree, the undying parasites of the sixteen universes before will crawl into this universe, and even I cannot hold them back. " Tai Yi said, "But even if the tree is felled, the passage cannot be wholly severed.
They will still come, only it will be delayed a while. Keep the tree, and they will come that much sooner. Whether to keep it or cut it rests entirely with you, the master of this land. " Shen Mu hesitated, gazing up at the World Tree's young shoot.
The Azure Emperor of the Eastern Heaven and the Earth Mother Yuanjun had both cultivated divine trees to great attainment; the Earth Mother was herself a primordial tree that upheld the heavens and all worlds.
Yet beside the divine tree before him, the Earth Mother was inferior by no small measure! This divine tree was almost a divine thing in a natural state of immutability! A divine thing that could run through one universe after another!
Yet it was precisely because of this divine tree that prehistoric beings crawled along its roots into the next universe, evading the great calamity of destruction and parasitizing the new universe.
And this in turn led to another evil consequence: the lifespan of the new universe was greatly diminished!
"Mass and energy are conserved; the total quantity of energy and matter in a universe is fixed. And beings who have cultivated to attainment are, in effect, gathering the universe's energy together.
" Tai Yi seemed able to see through Shen Mu's thoughts, and said at his side, "The more the powerful multiply, the more the energy concentrates.