Chapter 958: The Far Shore of the Void
The golden desert was truly vast. Qin Mu and Luo Wushuang had traveled a long distance, walking for over ten days without yet reaching the end.
Many strange events occurred within the desert. At night, the sky was dark and moonless—the moon of the Tai Xu region had been knocked beyond the heavens by Qin Mu using the Core of Primordial Wood.
The night was deep, and the sound of a woman's weeping came from the desert, circling around them, now near, now far.
Luo Wushuang's primordial spirit left his body, transforming into a thousand-zhang divine being, radiating divine light for ten thousand zhang. He walked forward holding his blade, and only then did the sound refrain from drawing near.
"It should be the weeping of lonely ghosts," Qin Mu said, somewhat puzzled. "Lonely ghosts in the desert—why haven't they transformed into Tai Xu monsters?"
In the darkness, there were also shrill howls and melodious, lingering songs.
There were no stars in the sky, nor a moon, making it impossible to discern direction. When the two planned to rest, ghostly flames drifted faintly in the darkness ahead of them.
They followed the ghost flames. When they stopped, the ghost flames stopped. When they advanced, the ghost flames advanced.
When day came, the ghost flames disappeared. However, when Qin Mu took out the geographical map painted by Yue Tingge, he discovered that the path they had taken matched the map exactly, and he couldn't help but marvel.
On the second night, the ghost flames appeared again, guiding them on their way.
On the third night, under the guidance of the ghost flames, they encountered an extremely magnificent city in the desert. In the night, the city was brightly lit, and even at this late hour, it was extremely lively. The streets were mostly filled with vendors, and pedestrians bustled to and fro—all of them giants, ten zhang or even over a hundred zhang tall.
The ghost flames drifted into the city, landed, and transformed into a giant, who respectfully invited them to enter.
The giants in the city were extremely hospitable and entertained them attentively.
Qin Mu opened the third eye in the center of his brow, surveyed his surroundings, saw through the true forms of these creators, and remained silent.
Whenever the giants offered him wine, he accepted without refusal. Luo Wushuang had been quite wary, guarding against treachery, but seeing Qin Mu eating, drinking, and making merry, he also relaxed.
Since arriving in Tai Xu, he had been beset by misfortune—forced to rebel against the Heavenly Court, then defeated by Qin Mu. Weighed down by worries, he ended up dead drunk.
After eating and drinking his fill, Qin Mu bowed to the giants and said, "Thank you all for your hospitality. If I achieve success in the future, I will surely establish a Netherworld in Tai Xu, so that you all may be reborn."
Hearing this, the giants broke into delighted smiles. The city lord was a thousand-zhang giant who had everyone come into his palm to sing and dance.
They played and made merry for a long time that night, until Luo Wushuang, drunk, fell asleep.
When dawn came, Qin Mu woke him. Luo Wushuang rose and found himself lying in the palm of a thousand-zhang giant, surrounded by nothing but withered bones.
Startled and uncertain, Luo Wushuang stood on the high vantage point and looked down. The city was filled with white bones covering the fields, not a single living person. His heart trembled with fear: "What exactly did we eat and drink last night?"
Qin Mu bowed to the giant's corpse and said, "Rest assured, all of you. The promise I made yesterday, I, Qin, will surely fulfill in the future. Brother Luo, let's go. We must continue our journey."
Luo Wushuang followed behind him out of this creator city. He looked back and saw the wind blowing sand, quickly burying that eerie city beneath the golden sands.
Luo Wushuang recalled that when they had encountered this city the previous night, there had also been wind and sand swirling in the desert, and then the city had appeared.
He was truly unnerved, wondering what in the world he had gorged on last night.
On the seventh night, they encountered an old woman blocking their path. She held a child by the hand, carried a basket on her other arm, knelt on the ground, pushed the basket to Qin Mu's feet, and kowtowed to them like a pestle pounding garlic.
Qin Mu said, "Madam, rest assured. I accept the things in the basket. In the future, I will open a Netherworld here, giving you all a place to go."
The old woman raised her head, grinned, took the child's hand, and turned into a gust of yin wind, dispersing into the darkness.
Luo Wushuang was baffled and asked, "Qin Ba Ti, what is the deal with these creators appearing on the road? Why do you tell them you will establish a Netherworld here?"
"They are creators who died in the desert," Qin Mu said, lifting the basket and uncovering the cloth covering it. "They died here with no souls to return to. By day, they suffer the torment of the scorching sun; only at night can they come out. Establishing a Netherworld gives them a place to return to."
Luo Wushuang still didn't understand: "The natural laws of Tai Xu are incomplete. Creators who die here all transform into Tai Xu monsters. Why haven't these creators' ghosts transformed into monsters?"
"Probably because their strength is too great. The creator city lord from the ghost city earlier, and the old woman who blocked our path—after death, their heroic spirits did not scatter, their divine consciousness did not disperse. They can protect themselves and even their clansmen from being corrupted by Tai Xu. The reason I said I would open a Netherworld here is also because they are too powerful."
Qin Mu took out the contents of the basket—a small bottle. Almost solidified divine consciousness flowed at the bottle's mouth, sealing whatever was inside. He smiled and said, "If I hadn't agreed to them, I'm afraid we wouldn't have been able to walk out of this desert alive."
Luo Wushuang felt a chill in his heart. He hadn't considered all this.
"Then will Qin Ba Ti actually help them establish a Netherworld?" he asked. "Your promise to establish a Netherworld is merely a temporary expedient. Establishing a Netherworld in Tai Xu is as difficult as ascending to heaven."
Qin Mu examined the bottle and said, "The reason they stopped us is precisely because I am capable of establishing a Netherworld."
Luo Wushuang was puzzled.
Qin Mu didn't explain. Hidden within the third eye in his brow was the Qin Character Continent, forged from a fragment of the Earth Lord's Horn. For others, establishing a Netherworld was an impossible task, but for him, it was not impossible.
After all, the Netherworld Capital and Fengdu were both forged from fragments of the Earth Lord's Horn, just like the Qin Character Continent—all fragments of the Earth Lord's Horn.
However, Qin Mu currently lacked the power to transform the Earth Lord's Horn into a world, and he was not the Netherworld God Son. If Qin Fengqing were here, it would be very simple.
He observed the divine consciousness seal at the bottle's mouth. The seal was quite special, composed of divine consciousness. Through the seal, he could see that the bottle seemed to contain a vast ocean. When gently shaken, waves surged within, towering and terrifying.
Qin Mu tried to extend his primordial energy into the bottle, but the divine consciousness seal at the mouth blocked it.
"Ah, right. They are creators, so I should use divine consciousness."
He mobilized his divine consciousness, which passed through the seal at the bottle's mouth. Inside the bottle was indeed a great sea. When he had shaken the bottle earlier, he had stirred up hurricanes and giant waves on the sea's surface, roaring loudly, accompanied by thunder and lightning!
His divine consciousness looked upward and saw starlight filling the sky at the bottle's mouth. A river of stars spiraled around the opening, with six star vortices.
His divine consciousness flew across the ocean and reached the bottle's wall, only to find that the wall was actually land perpendicular to the sea's surface, forming a ring shape.
The land was extremely vast, with mountains, rivers, and everything imaginable!
Just then, he saw a sun leap out from the sea!
"This little bottle actually contains a world!" Qin Mu was startled. Strangely, although the bottle contained a world, it didn't feel heavy at all.
"So that old woman just now was the chieftain of the Cangshan Clan," Shu Jun's voice sounded in his mind. "The Cangshan Clan was a very large tribe in ancient times. The creators of this tribe excelled at creating heavens. This bottle of yours is actually a heaven world."
Qin Mu was shocked, finding it hard to believe. How vast was a heaven world? Could this little bottle really contain one?
Moreover, when his divine consciousness had entered the bottle, he had seen that the world inside was more expansive than many heaven worlds in various primordial realms.
"In ancient times, the Cangshan Clan visualized countless heavens," Shu Jun said. "The one she gave you should be the Gourd Heaven. The bottle containing the Gourd Heaven is called the Gourd Heaven Bottle—a rare treasure. She gave you the Gourd Heaven Bottle, which shows how much she values you."
Qin Mu solemnly stored the Gourd Heaven Bottle into the Qin Character Continent, placing it alongside the crystal coffin and Yun Tianzun's physical body.
The Gourd Heaven Bottle was extremely important. If the Yan Kang reforms failed in the future, they might need to find a way out, and this bottle could serve as a refuge for the people of Yan Kang.
"But that old woman is no pushover. Her things are not so easily taken," Shu Jun laughed. "You've received her treasure, so you must fulfill what you promised her. That old woman was a formidable figure in ancient times. Though dead, her divine consciousness remains. If you fail to accomplish what you promised her, you will die horribly!"
There was a note of schadenfreude in his voice. "When you accepted the basket, her divine consciousness was planted on you. She has countless ways to kill you!"
Qin Mu's face darkened. He said awkwardly, "Such as?"
"Such as visualizing all sorts of things inside your body, making countless needles grow in your stomach, making you unable to see your enemy's moves in battle, or visualizing a sun inside you to burn you to death, visualizing an ocean to burst you open. Killing you is far too simple." Shu Jun chuckled.
Qin Mu's scalp went numb. He took out paper and brush and wrote down the matter he had promised the Cangshan Clan in his notebook, lest he forget.
Ten days later, they reached the end of the desert.
Along the way, they had seen more ruins buried beneath the sands. What they had encountered earlier were cities; later, they were simple stockades; and toward the end, they were just hastily established camps.
The wind blew golden sand, revealing bones scattered everywhere beneath the desert surface.
This should have been when the Great Emperor attacked Tai Xu. His divine consciousness was incomparably powerful, shrouding the Tai Xu region, transforming into various attacks to hunt down the creator tribes.
The environment of Tai Xu had also grown increasingly harsh. Creators could manipulate nature according to their will, but after the Great Emperor's destruction, Tai Xu was filled with ownerless divine consciousness and Tai Xu monsters, making it difficult for creators to survive.
These should have been the last batch of creators in Tai Xu. They had fled here, leaving behind countless corpses of their clansmen.
"The migration of the Tai Xu creators should have occurred during the time when the Great Emperor was killed—that is, the middle to late period of the Long Han era," Qin Mu pondered. "In that era, the Heavenly Court had no idea there was another world, nor that there was a bloody war. The only one who knew about it was Yun Tianzun."
For unknown reasons, the Great Emperor had bloodily purged the Tai Xu region. Yun Tianzun should have come here, designed a trap with the Tai Xu creators, and trapped the Great Emperor to death within the Supreme Divine Consciousness Domain.
"But why did Yun Tianzun's physical body appear in the Great Emperor's brow?" Qin Mu was puzzled. Yun Tianzun should not have died in this battle, but rather in the struggle for control of the Heavenly Court. His physical body could not have appeared here.
Moreover, the blood curse on the Yun family should have been placed by the creators when Yun Tianzun died—but at that time, the Great Emperor had clearly already died in Tai Xu.
He sighed. The more secrets he knew, the more doubts he had.
Although he had been to the Long Han era, it still hung before his eyes like a thick fog.
He had too many questions he wanted Yun Tianzun to answer.
"Once I leave the Tai Xu region, I will borrow the power of the Heavenly Duke and the Earth Lord to resurrect Yun Tianzun!"
Qin Mu looked ahead and saw the edge of the Tai Xu region. Beyond the end of Tai Xu lay endless dark void, with no more land.
The final gathering place of the creators that Yue Tingge had mentioned was built there—a simple city wall, a majestic altar, with some residual light flickering upon it.
Those Tai Xu creators should have created another void here. The Void Bridge connected to the world they had created, and they had migrated into that world.
Qin Mu and Luo Wushuang arrived at the gathering place. It had long been empty, leaving only the ancient altar.
The light on the altar was a fragmented bridge, leading to who knew where. The Void Bridge was extremely unstable—the bridge of light would collapse from time to time, then reform. Beyond the bridge was a scene of doomsday!
Qin Mu frowned, looking at the Void Bridge, calculating how to cross it. Suddenly, he saw a woman crossing the bridge at the other end!
Around that woman was a scene of world-destroying chaos—the void twisted, collapsed, terrifying beyond measure. Behind her floated a series of heavenly palaces, forming a fragmentary Heavenly Court, attempting to cross the void and reach the far shore of the Void Bridge!
"Xu Tianzun!" Luo Wushuang said in a low voice.
—Zhai Zhu has a cold, his nose running like a broken faucet that won't shut off, can't show off anymore~ Tomorrow I'll take a cab home, will try my best to keep updating, weakly begging for monthly votes~