Chapter 76 — An Army of Tigers and Wolves
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 3
In a low voice he said, "Neither will I. " Within the fog, thousands of monstrous beasts cleared the way ahead. Their bodies were as sturdy as mountains, with long tusks and bone armor over every inch of their hides, and they bore heavy loads, yet they moved at no slow pace; as they walked, their bone armor knocked together with a clatter and clang.
Behind the beasts came an army stretching beyond sight, steeped in a killing air, banners streaming.
Down the center of the army chariots rolled past, and in the sky above sailed tower ship after tower ship. The tower ships were packed with soldiers too, and at the core of each ship a dozen or more alchemists were busily refining elixirs, while boy attendants endlessly cast the finished elixirs into the great furnace at each ship's heart. The moment those elixirs entered the furnace they were transformed into wild mana, which surged from the furnace into the two bellows-beast sculptures at the stern of each ship. From the mouths of those sculptures came blasts of violent air that lifted the tower ships and drove them forward.
Jingping's great army was coming up from the border passes, and this was only the vanguard; behind it, an even mightier army was massing at the frontier. There, the banner of Jingping's Imperial Teacher fluttered.
Watching the Jingping army draw nearer and nearer, Shen Mu's heart sank.
Every single soldier in that host was a martial artist, a martial artist who had been through slaughter and war. An army of tigers and wolves -- that was exactly what this army was! Facing such a host, Crimson Dragon City, for all its appearance of unshakable solidity, seemed a mere pellet of ground, to be broken at a touch!
"Jingping. . .
" Shen Mu suppressed the shock in his heart and murmured.
The village headman had once said that Jingping was a sect disguised as a nation. To Shen Mu's mind, a nation was indeed more powerful than a sect -- greater in cohesion, greater in the capacity to unite, greater in explosive force! When a sect turns into a nation with a rigorous organizational structure, a complete official bureaucracy, and academies to rear the next generation, how powerful would that make it? To become a nation -- that was the ultimate direction of a sect's growth!
In the city lord's mansion, Granny Zhu, wearing Fu Yundi's skin, stood with her hands clasped behind her back, the Eight Aspects Heavenly Gods rising behind her, every inch the bold, domineering lord of Crimson Dragon City, Fu Yundi. In her heart she thought, "Jingping's Imperial Teacher.
. . has finally come. " And before the gambling den, the blind elder stood leaning on his staff, ears cocked toward the sound of the marching army drawing nearer. At the mouth of the vegetable market, a butcher who was nothing but a torso from the waist up was whetting his knife with a shh-shh. In the bookshop on the next street, the deaf elder with the iron ears was wielding his brush in the shop's courtyard, painting.
The brush was a full zhang and more in length, and the deaf elder painted like a man deranged, like one possessed. All at once he lifted the brush, and the finished painting, a thundercloud several zhang across, soared into the sky. The painting climbed into the heavens and slowly faded from view, and in an instant dark thunderclouds massed, and with crack after crack, countless bolts of lightning and peals of thunder came crashing down from the sky.