Chapter 79 — The Sun-Driver of the Wasteland
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The village head, the Alchemist, and the rest all turned to look at him, doubt in their hearts. The Alchemist asked curiously, "Shen'er, you have seen this ship?
" "I saw it on the Wasteland Atlas.
. .
" Shen Mu too was shaken in body and soul.
This great thing that looked like a ship must be the Sun-Boat he had seen on the map in the Calamity-Quelling Palace!
When he had first seen the term Sun-Boat, he had been somewhat puzzled, not knowing why it was called a Sun-Boat; now he knew.
The Sun-Boat was the ship that hauled the sun!
And the sun must be that great black ball hauled behind the Sun-Boat on chains. That great black ball must be the extinguished sun.
Surely, before the Darkness fell upon the Wasteland, a Sun-Boat had hauled a burning sun across the Wasteland's lands!
Shen Mu was dazed: why had the sun the Sun-Boat hauled gone out?
If the Sun-Boat hauled the sun, then what of the Moon-Boat recorded on the map?
Was it a great ship hauling the moon?
And what place was the Sun Spring? And the Moon Spring? Boom, boom.
That Sun-Boat was walking this way.
This inconceivably vast ship actually had legs, legs thick as mountain peaks, formed of lava too, and through the cracks between lava and lava one could even see firelight.
That firelight was magma, as though the Sun-Boat's blood.
This great ship had twenty-four legs, matching the twenty-four solar terms.
Its legs looked thick and strong, yet a single step carried it six or seven li. For this colossus to appear before their eyes was profoundly shocking. The Deaf Elder looked at the Silent Craftsman, whose gaze was fervent as he gestured there; the Deaf Elder said, "That is not the true sun, but a treasure refined by the people of that age, before the Darkness fell.
Silent Craftsman, I think you are right. .
.
" The enormous Sun-Boat drew nearer and nearer to Crimson Dragon City, and the air grew hotter and drier; Shen Mu raised his head and looked up, and could scarcely see the top of the ship. The ship was too vast. The golden, resplendent palaces above fell into his view; they looked quite ordinary, but that they should still look ordinary at such a distance was itself most extraordinary.
He supposed that if one came close, those palaces must be immense indeed, and a grown man standing within them would be utterly insignificant.
"That is where the god race dwells.
" The village head said softly, "I have heard them called the Sun-Herders, and their god is called the Sun Warden.
" "Sun-Herders? " Everyone was slightly startled. Of all in the village, the one who had dwelt in the Wasteland longest was the village head; he had come here several hundred years ago, and knew the most.
Clearly he had heard of the Sun-Boat, and knew certain secrets. "I wonder whether the Sun-Herders' descendants still live aboard this ship?
Whether the Sun Warden is still aboard? " the village head said in a low voice. The Sun-Boat walked past Crimson Dragon City and went on to meet the thousands upon thousands of the Kingdom of Jingping's troops.
The scene was so grand, so magnificent, that the army forgot to advance; countless soldiers gaped up at the colossus like fools.
Too terrible, too stunning.
Pff— One leg of the Sun-Boat came down, and that leg, mighty as a mountain peak, crushed countless soldiers into mire; and when the ship's leg lifted again, a small lake had been trodden out beneath it. "Run for your lives—" Only then did some come to their senses, shrieking as they fled backward, while the soldiers behind had not yet understood; and so man crushed man, man trampled man, and by the time those behind understood and tried to scatter and flee, it was too late.
This immeasurably vast Sun-Boat walked along the road by which the Jingping army had marched, toward the Kingdom of Jingping's border, trampling countless soldiers to death along the way.