Chapter 34 — At the Ancient Temple of the Waste God, Paying Homage to the Merciful Venerable
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The Lame Elder's heart trembled faintly.
Could the Jingping Imperial Tutor and the Jingping Empire truly be so reckless as to set their minds on the Desolate Ruins, a place so uncanny and dreadful, and think to set foot in it and swallow it whole? Yet Huo Ye had not been wrong in one thing he said: the Jingping Empire was indeed a sect disguised as a state!
The Jingping Empire had been founded on martial might and was ruled by martial might.
Its officials were divided into nine grades and eighteen ranks, from the Jingping Imperial Tutor and the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent at the senior first grade, down to the Gentleman for Meritorious Service, the Ceremonial Aide, and the Erudite at the junior ninth grade—not the erudite of the present day, but men of broad learning; at the junior ninth grade they occupied such offices as Erudite of Calligraphy, Erudite of Medicine, Erudite of Mathematics, and Erudite of Divination. Every one of them came of martial stock, and some were outright patriarchs, sect masters, or grandmasters of other sects. As for the soldiers of this state, each and every one was a martial artist, mighty in battle and skilled in war; abroad they could storm cities and seize territory, at home they could crush rebellion. It was absolutely a power of boundless terror. When a sect disguises itself as a state, governs its own domain by the methods of a state, unifies resources, subjugates other sects, governs in unison all the martial artists and practitioners of the mystical arts within its borders, and bends every sect under its sway to its own service—then how mighty, how dreadful must such a state become?
Over the years the Jingping Empire had expanded without cease; its territories grew ever broader and ever vaster, swallowing up sects like the Lanjiang Sect and annexing one small country after another. And now the lands of the Jingping Empire had reached the very edge of the Desolate Ruins, where the Ruins blocked its way.
What barred the path of this state was the darkness and strangeness of the Ruins. In the Desolate Ruins, whenever night fell, the uncanny encroachment of darkness would come; to step into that darkness was certain death, and so the Jingping Empire dared not enter. Nor were the perils of the Ruins limited to this alone: strange beasts abounded here, monstrous events occurred one after another, and omens of ill fortune were everywhere.
For the Jingping Imperial Tutor and the Jingping Empire to bring their armies against the Desolate Ruins was no simple matter. Yet the dangers of the Ruins could not daunt the Jingping Imperial Tutor.
The Lame Elder knew this man, and understood something of his temper—after all, it was this man who had severed his leg.
No horror could frighten him; no peril could stay this man! He would surely enter the Desolate Ruins!
Perhaps, even at this very moment, that man was already gazing from afar upon the vast, boundless, inscrutable and eerie expanse of the Ruins! The village soon regained its calm; the waters left by the collapse of the Little Lanjiang were quickly absorbed into the soil, and by the next day the earth was baked hard by the blazing sun.
This time Shen Mu had obtained a sword-hiding pouch, the very one that belonged to Yan Qing, a disciple of the Lanjiang Sect. The pouch was six feet long and not large; it was made from the hide of a small crocodile, with a belt to fasten at the waist and two shoulder straps, so that it could be slung upon the back.
When primal qi entered the pouch, the crocodile's jaws would open, and from its mouth a scabbard and a hilt would be spat forth.
A martial artist refined his qi into threads; once the threads of primal qi coiled about the hilt, he could draw the sword and drive the flying blade with his qi.
After the first sword was drawn, another hilt would rise from the scabbard; draw the second sword, and a third would appear.