The Divine Martial Stars

Chapter 948 The Dead Are Now Gods

“That easy?! Is this even real?!”

Li Mu could barely believe his luck.

Knowing that he needed to be prudent, Li Mu enveloped himself in a layer of magic energy. Like wearing a golden suit of armor, he carefully stepped into the cabin. Nothing happened. Even as he took the crystal ball containing the fragments of Wang Shiyu’s psyche and soul, nothing happened.

“What is so special about this crystal ball that it could store a person’s soul inside? Looks like the fragments of Shiyu’s soul and psyche are inside…” Li Mu murmured to himself as he held up the crystalline sphere.

Although he quickly realized what was amiss.

The image of Wang Shiyu inside the crystal ball evaporated and reformed. Even as the image reconstructed itself, a closer inspection would show that the image was more translucent than it should have been. He could see how his gaze manage to penetrate through it as if it was a thin sheet of papyrus.

He knew what was going on.

“Shiyu is missing eight fragments of her psyche and soul. This is only one fragment of each… It’s not enough…”

He couldn’t help feeling slightly let down after his momentary exhilaration.

At any rate, he should be pleased with the results.

Li Mu studied the ball, wondering how he should release the fragments from inside the crystal ball and store them. Out of nowhere, the rusted sword shuddered with a whining hum. With a flash, the sword slashed the sphere in half and the fragments of Wang Shiyu’s psyche and soul turned into flashes of light that the rusted sword assimilated into its blade.

“Oh, so the sword could keep Shiyu’s fragments? Good.” sword could keep Shiyu’s fragments? Good.”

That would be one conundrum solved.

Li Mu gripped the rusted sword, feeling its weight in his hand. A strange warmth filled his grasp like he was holding the hand of a loved one. For the first time since the rusted sword has been in his possession, he could feel a connection. A real emotional and intimate connection. That must be the fragments of Shiyu’s psyche and soul reacting to contact with him.

“Don’t worry, Shiyu. I’ll get the rest of your fragments back even if it means my death.”

He swore to the sword.

It hummed by means of response.

The broken shards of the crystal ball fell on the marble table and burst into pearly-white dust that drifted and vanished into the air.

BOOM!

The ponderous and immobile ship gave a sudden shudder like a gigantic leviathan stirring from a long slumber.

Shocked, Li Mu quickly looked around and sensed any changes, but there was nothing. Not around him at least.

His gaze fell on the other two pearl-like spheres on the marble desk.

One of them appeared like a luminous pearl with its pale waxen glow.

Li Mu could study it for hours and he could still make nothing out of it. The other looked like it has something else sealed inside as well. Beneath what seemed like a diaphanous crystalline layer of glass was something as red as fire. Deep in its core, Li Mu could spy something relatively dull—something rouge—and sensed no life radiating from inside the flame-like substance.

Li Mu could study it for hours and he could still make nothing out of it.

“All right, time to go. No more idling around.”

He stowed both the luminous pearl—or whatever it really was—and the flaming pearl away and left the tiny cabin.

The mounds of crates remained the same as they were when Li Mu came in earlier. Strangely, each and every one of them looked new and pristine, even the paper talismanic strips that held them shut, as if these were the only items onboard the Lunar Specter that has remained undecayed by both time and age. That left Li Mu in a curious mood as to what were the contents inside. But Feng and the others were still waiting outside and he should get out. He had gotten what he had come here for and that should be enough.

Li Mu sped for the upper decks, flying up the stairs and streaking across the boards.

Finally, he had reached the first deck of the aftercastle, about to make for the stairs when his movements froze.

WHOOSH!

A streak of lightning blew through the boards, jetting straight for Li Mu’s head.

“I’ve seen this lightning magic before!”

He conjured a scythe-like blast and fired it at the lightning bolt.

“Huh?! A powerful one!?” A voice ripped through the blurry veil of wooden splinters and dust flying through a hole in the wall. Next came a figure steeped from head to toe with strands of purplish lightning bolts. The stranger lifted an arm and flung it forth, firing more than a dozen lightning bolts that engulfed Li Mu in a miniature storm below decks.

Boom! Boom!

Li Mu withdrew at once, his entire self shimmering with a golden luster. The barrage of lightning bolts smashed into a parallel of energy bolts Li Mu unleashed and an explosion erupted as both sides collided.

“Watch every point of egress! Someone’s here! Keep him inside here at all costs!”

The stranger barked a string of orders.

From outside came the wordless acknowledgment of what could only be his colleagues or subordinates.

Shock and disbelief spread across Li Mu’s face.

He recognized the stranger.

A dead man.

A man who should have been dead, yet here he was.

“What the hell—?!”

The stranger did not stop loosing bolt after bolt of attacks until one of his lightning bolts came close enough to illuminate Li Mu’s face. He paused and yelped, “Li Mu?! What in Heaven’s name are you doing here?! A-Are you dead too?!”

“You should be dead, Lei Cang,” Li Mu gasped incredulously.

The battle at the Immortal Palace long ago had seen almost every single Thunder Clan member perish, including the lord of the Clan and his heir Lei Cang. There was no doubt of it, yet how could a person whose death was all but an absolute certainty appear alive and well in the Battlefield of Chaos?!

To say nothing about how much Lei Cang had evidently progressed since Li Mu last saw him.

“I might have died back then, but I’m a god now, Li Mu! Looks like you’re dead, or else how could you be here? Tell me, which Legion did you join? How dare you come to the territory of Legion Kommodore to steal the treasure of the Lunar Specter!” Lei Cang sneered as he recovered from his momentary astonishment.

“Huh?”

Li Mu immediately picked up strange details from what Lei Cang just said.

“Died, but a god now?!

“Could it be…”

“I’m here under orders, Li Mu. Whatever Legion you belong to, you have intruded into Legion Kommodore territory and have wrongfully tried to plunder the Lunar Specter. I hereby pronounce you guilty of these charges. Surrender now, and I might be able to plead your case just yet. Defy me and I’ll destroy you and your soul, and you’ll never live to see the next daylight.”

Like a real god of thunder, Lei Cang stalked towards Li Mu amid tangles of lightning bolts crackling angrily all over him.

He really has become stronger than before.

Very much stronger, in fact, that he appeared to be so close to breaking through the Upper King Realm.

That was not all. Li Mu even nothing that even the lightning he conjured was different. Unlike before, the lightning bolts he produced were no longer of the ordinary kind, but rather, the more destructive Amaranthine Deathbolt.

“Is this what he means by being a ‘god’?”

Li Mu wondered as he channeled his powers. A swath of golden swept over him, forming a shroud of golden shaped like a giant bell. It spun in midair with such grace and serenity, utterly unfazed by the fusillade of lightning bolts pelting down on its with the harmless semblance of raindrops on its aureate shield.

Combat Craft: Shield of the Aureate Bell!

As another one of the combat techniques Li Mu learned from his time in Molderad, Shield of the Aureate Bell works differently from Taoist Craft: Shroud of the Golden Bell—it uses Primordial Qi and it is an impregnable shield used for individual defense.

“It seems that your repertoire has increased since you’ve become a god too, eh!? But so what? I’m no longer the Lei Cang of old, and defeating you is easy enough! Hahahaha!”

Lei Cang grinned wickedly with malice swirling in his gaze.

This was a chance.

Lu Mu clearly has not joined Legion Kommodore yet. Even if he’s in the military, he would only be a member of one of the other six Legions. Otherwise, Lei Cang would have been notified if Li Mu were here as a member of Legion Kommodore. That makes him a rival that Lei Cang could kill with hardly any consequences.

He had been spoiling to chance to kill Li Mu since Earth and to think the opportunity had finally dropped on his lap.

“Here’s your last chance, Li Mu. Surrender and yield the treasure of the Lunar Specter,” warned Lei Cang with lightning bolts sparking menacingly in his fist.

Protected by his bell-like shield of gold, Li Mu responded wryly, “What treasure? I know nothing about no treasure.”

“This is the Lunar Specter, once the magnificent flagship of the Moon Monarch and the Map of Cosmos, the fabled divine artifact of the Children of the Moon is supposed to be here. Yet after a search of the decks in the aftercastle, it is nowhere to be seen. I’ve spoken to the peasants outside and apparently no one but you had been inside here. So the Map must be with you…”

“Whether it’s on you or not, Li Mu, I don’t care,” Lei Cang thought quietly, “But since you’re here, blame it all on your luck that you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time!”

In the meantime, Li Mu was doing his best to hide his astoundment.

He was instantly reminded of the vibrantly hued map depicting terrains and lands separated by colored lines which he recovered from the cabins earlier. “Is that the Children of the Moon’s Map of Cosmos that Lei Cang spoke about?”

Lei Cang pressed on, “During the final battle that wiped out the Children of the Moon, it was said that the Lunar Specter was carrying the most sacred relics of their race—the Map of Cosmos, the Lunar Pearl, and the Blazing Pearl. Of the Eighteen Sterling Trailblazers of Legion Kommodore, I am the lucky one to have found the Lunar Specter. But it appears that my luck has not yet run out—I found you! Finally, I could kill you with my own hands… Much power I have gained, Li Mu, and clearly, so have you… You’ve been here for quite some time, haven’t you? A member of the other Legions, I hazard? By the way, do you know why am I telling you so much? It’s because you’re at your last breath, Li Mu. Consider this a favor that I’m sending you to your grave with so many secrets…”

Li Mu sighed.

“Gods,” he almost groaned, “He’s as much a talker as Song Yu!”

Li Mu decided to just strike his blow to cut short the banter.

Power swirled at the center of his opened palm. He delivered a chop, simulating the blow of a saber, sending a blast that cleaved to halves a wave of Amaranthine Deathbolts rolling towards him before barreling straight into a Lei Cang who could still not yet stop babbling.

Boom!

The latter was sent hurtling into the air before he smashed through the deck overhead.

Li Mu tore after him and soared out of the hole that Lei Cang had made and out into the open.

Up overhead, the blood moon had fully disengaged from its ordinary twin. The two moons were like a pair of sworn enemies; rivals locking horns against each other in a sky where the dark crimson shade threatened to engulf the other half whole in a fateful showdown.

“General!”

“What happened?!”

Several dozens of sentries clad in silver-white armor huddled around Lei Cang to help him.

Lei Cang gasped for breath as he struggled to look up at Li Mu with rage and rancor blazing in his eyes. “That man has pilfered the treasures of the Moon Monarch! Take him down, dead or alive!”

“At once!”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Flickers of silver danced in the dark sky.

Almost a hundred nickel-plated sentries appeared. They must be soldiers under Lei Cang’s command who had boarded the Lunar Specter when Li Mu was searching the belowdecks. Unlike the armies and the forces of the militant sects and orders on Earth, these well-trained sentries were not only powerful and deadly but also well-accustomed to fighting as a single cohesive unit that they quickly lined up into some sort of troop of formation.

Li Mu waved a hand.

A shower of energy bolts rained down on the sentries.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The first thirty-man-strong company was caught by the blast and everyone crashed to the ground.

Li Mu sped away and rejoined Feng and the others near the prow.

“Are you all right, Li Mu? What’s going on? Why did you get into a fight with the people from the military?” Feng asked with distress.

Before Li Mu could say anything, a squad of sentries was storming their way.

“Wait a minute, good sirs! This man is the Chosen One from our village of Oststern! He’s not an enemy!” Feng cried, hoping that his explanation would defuse the situation.

“That’s right, he’s a Chosen One born from the Tree of Eternity!”

“We’re all witnesses!”

The rest of the scavengers quipped.

“Hm?!” One of the sentries, a lean person that looked like a seasoned lieutenant, lifted an arm and the approaching squad stopped their advance. He peered at Feng and asked, “What you just said, is that true?”