Chapter 978: Wetting Themselves in Fear (Second Update!)
Qin Mu looked at the celebrating crowd below the altar. The clan leaders of the various races were gathering their respective clansmen, making preparations.
"What are they planning to do?" Qin Mu asked curiously.
"They plan to gather the strength of all the clansmen, jointly visualize you, and help boost your physical body and divine consciousness."
Lang Wan the Divine King said: "Just like how they elevated the Grand Emperor back in the day. Although the number of Creators who sacrificed to the Grand Emperor back then was far greater, and it's impossible to recreate that grand scene today, a million Creators offering sacrifices and visualizing together is still enough to make your cultivation and strength advance by leaps and bounds. In just a hundred years or so, your cultivation and strength can reach the level of an Imperial Throne powerhouse, or even stronger. Your physical body might even be elevated to be indestructible."
Qin Mu looked at the excited crowd below, then thought of ancient gods like Earth Lord and Heaven Duke, and shook his head. "Becoming a god through sacrifice has too many limitations. Although it can elevate me, it will also restrict me. I think it's better for me to cultivate on my own, continuously improving my cultivation and strength."
If it were before, he would definitely not have refused such a large-scale visualization sacrifice.
But now, Qin Mu suspected that the ancient gods were visualized into existence by the Creators.
Ancient gods were restricted by their own great dao their entire lives. Perhaps they weren't restricted by their own great dao, but rather by the thoughts of the Creators who created them.
When the Creators visualized Earth Lord, their thoughts were that Earth Lord was the deity who governed death, fair and selfless. So Earth Lord became an ancient god condensed from countless such thoughts, finding it very difficult to break free from the shackles of the Creators.
What bound Earth Lord was Earth Lord himself. And Earth Lord himself was visualized into existence from countless thoughts of the Creators.
Of course, his theory that the Creators created the ancient gods was just a guess. Whether it was actually true, he didn't know.
The main reason Qin Mu had this guess was because of Lang Wan the Divine King's mount—that colorful phoenix.
He felt that the colorful phoenix's situation was very similar to that of the ancient gods, so he was somewhat resistant to everyone visualizing him.
Lang Wan the Divine King glanced at him, then sent a ripple through her divine consciousness, notifying the clan leaders of the various races.
When clan leaders like Xiu Min, Zi Li, and Zhu Qiu heard this, they were all astonished, but since this was the will of the Holy Infant and the Divine King, they had no choice but to obey.
Qin Mu watched the crowd disperse and breathed a sigh of relief.
The ancient gods had far too many restrictions—they were beings without freedom. The ancient gods themselves were desperately trying to break free from these shackles. Wouldn't it be foolish for him to willingly jump into them?
"Why did you refuse the Creators' sacrifice?"
Shu Jun's big head flew over, complaining: "You missed the chance to become the Grand Emperor!"
Qin Mu laughed: "Become the Grand Emperor? My goals are far greater. What's a mere Grand Emperor to me?"
Shu Jun felt deeply regretful and shook his head: "You don't know how powerful and terrifying the Grand Emperor was."
"Even if I wanted to become an existence like the Grand Emperor, the Creator race wouldn't allow me to become another Grand Emperor. Shu Jun, the Creator race already created one Grand Emperor, which nearly led to their extinction. How could they create another Grand Emperor?"
Qin Mu smiled: "If I became another Grand Emperor, who's to say I wouldn't exterminate all the Creators to secure my own rule? I am the Holy Infant of the Creator race, not a ruler like the Grand Emperor. Otherwise, what difference would there be between me and the Grand Emperor?"
Shu Jun widened his eyes—this time his eyeballs didn't pop out—and said: "What you said actually makes a lot of sense. But do you really have such good intentions? I don't believe it. You're too cunning, you little brat."
Qin Mu smiled slightly and said to Lang Wan the Divine King: "Sister, let these Creators rest for a while to recover their physical strength and divine consciousness. Once they've recovered, we'll go to Carefree Village."
Lang Wan the Divine King was surprised: "All the Creators are going to Carefree Village?"
Qin Mu nodded: "All the Creators."
Lang Wan the Divine King frowned slightly: "Isn't that too grand a display?"
She didn't want to say it outright, but Shu Jun couldn't hold back and voiced her true thoughts: "All the Creators going? Are you trying to crash your ancestor's place? When an army is at the gates, it's hard to guarantee your ancestor won't have other thoughts."
Qin Mu laughed heartily and shook his head: "I plan to have the Creator race sit down and talk with Carefree Village and Emperor Kai. Without showing the Creator race's strength, even if Emperor Kai agrees, his ministers might not agree to peaceful coexistence with the Creator race."
His eyes gleamed as he said leisurely: "When two behemoths talk, they naturally need to have matching strength."
He felt somewhat excited, thinking to himself: "Best if I can scare Emperor Kai so badly he wets himself!"
Lang Wan the Divine King gave him a deep look and immediately sent a message through her divine consciousness to the leaders of the various races, telling all clansmen to rest.
Three to five days later, the Creators who had participated in the sacrifice had their divine consciousness restored to peak condition. Lang Wan the Divine King once again notified the clan leaders, ordering them to organize their clansmen and set out with their entire clans for Carefree Village.
When this order was given, the Creators of all races were incredibly excited, rubbing their hands together and discussing animatedly: "The Holy Infant truly lives up to his name—he's making a move on Carefree Village!"
"I've long been annoyed by that traitor Qin. The Holy Infant is a divine being sent from heaven, leading us to raze the enemy's nest!"
"Don't be careless. There's a big-headed monster baby next door who's quite formidable."
"The Holy Infant can beat that monster baby until it cries for its mommy and daddy!"
"Of course."
...
Qin Mu and Lang Wan the Divine King stood at a high vantage point. Qin Mu looked at the marching formation of the Creator race, with families dragging along their households, and couldn't help but frown deeply. Because the Creators cultivated divine consciousness and used visualization to unleash divine abilities and refine treasures, each person's divine consciousness abilities were different, and each person's mount was also different.
Visualizing divine beasts like dragons and phoenixes as mounts was normal, but there were also many who visualized bizarre-shaped mounts. Clan Leader Zi Li's mount being a giant white silkworm was already strange enough, but there were also those riding giant spiders, eight-legged monsters, feathered serpents, giant kun fish, and even trees!
Besides that, there were all kinds of winged flying houses, as well as tower ships and treasure chariots, and some people sitting inside giant eggs!
There were also enormous sacred objects flying through the starry sky, carrying a hundred or so Creators. Some Creators simply sat on planets, with elders behind them pushing the planets at full speed, then leaping up and jumping onto the planets, letting the planets carry them toward Carefree Village!
Many young Creators, because their cultivation was insufficient, visualized wings for themselves and flew by flapping them.
However, their wings were not uniform—some were big, some small, some long, some short. Some had many pairs of wings, while others visualized their wings in a riot of colors.
The attributes of the wings were also all different—some were thunder-attributed, some wind-fire attributed, and some that, with a single flap, would cause torrential rain and flooding everywhere.
This wasn't even the most speechless part for Qin Mu.
What made him most speechless was that the Creators of the various races were in complete chaos during the march, dragging their feet. They didn't look like they were going to intimidate Carefree Village—they looked like they were fleeing disaster!
Qin Mu was so angry his hands trembled. He took several deep breaths and muttered: "Even if I had the National Teacher come discipline these fellows, it would probably take over ten years to make them obey military orders and become uniform, usable troops. With such ragtag stragglers, how can we scare a great hero like Emperor Kai into wetting himself?"
He knew very well how powerful the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court was. Whether in formations or military strategy, the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court had formed a powerful civilization. Those battle-hardened gods and demons had far better control over the battlefield than the Creators.
In one-on-one combat, the Creators were far too powerful. But in large-scale battlefield conflicts, the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court's strength far surpassed the Creators!
One must know that the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court had terrifying existences like Heavenly Master Zi Xi, also known as Yan Yun Xi!
Scholar Zi Xi, also known as Yan Yun Xi, was the highest achiever in formation techniques. She was someone who dared to ambush two Earth Mother Primordial Lords alone and fight head-on against Martial Combat Heavenly Master Zhuo Cha, an Imperial Throne powerhouse!
Moreover, teleportation formations and teleportation divine abilities were products of the Emperor Kai era, representing the highest achievements in mathematics and numerology of that era!
Lang Wan the Divine King said: "The Holy Infant need not worry. You only need to use your divine consciousness to communicate with the Creators, and you can smoothly march and deploy formations, making them uniform."
Qin Mu shook his head: "Merely being uniform doesn't make an invincible army that conquers all. We also need to form various battle formations among the Creators, with leaders proficient in various military strategies, and different battle formations combining to form different killing arrays. The divine weapons in each Creator's hands and their divine abilities also need to become part of the battle formations. It's too chaotic right now..."
He sighed: "Going to Carefree Village in such a noisy manner will make Emperor Kai laugh at us. That wouldn't be an army at the gates—that would be making a fool of ourselves. For now, we can only try to get them into orderly formations along the way. It's just that my divine consciousness isn't strong enough to mobilize all the Creators."
Lang Wan the Divine King said: "You can use my divine consciousness to contact everyone, deploy troops, and arrange formations."
Qin Mu sighed: "That's the only way."
His divine consciousness connected with Lang Wan the Divine King's, and he immediately felt how vast and profound this woman's divine consciousness was—like an endless ocean!
As their divine consciousness moved, Qin Mu felt his vision extend wildly, flying out who knows how far!
Not only that, he could clearly touch every single Creator, and every Creator's thoughts and consciousness were clearly reflected in his mind!
Such powerful divine consciousness was truly unfathomable!
With Lang Wan the Divine King's help, mobilizing each Creator became much easier. He thought to himself: "This method of deploying troops and arranging formations should be spread to Yankang! The combination of divine consciousness and primordial energy should also be spread to Yankang! If that happens, training an invincible army of gods and demons would be effortless!"
Along the way, he used Lang Wan the Divine King's divine consciousness to issue orders to every Creator, making them change their ranks, adjust their formations, abandon those messy visualization objects, and divide into various formation groups, visualizing only one type of object.
As for those Creators who refused to obey orders, Qin Mu had the clan leaders and elders go restrain them. If the elders refused to obey, the clan leaders would punish them. If the clan leaders refused to obey, Lang Wan the Divine King would step in personally.
This journey of training troops while marching was truly exhausting. Even with Lang Wan the Divine King's divine consciousness to mobilize all the Creators, it took over a month before Qin Mu could get these Creators to stop running around randomly during the march.
Only now did Qin Mu understand why the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court had lost so quickly after losing the command of the Four Heavenly Kings.
When a great enemy is at the gates, changing generals on the eve of battle is a major taboo in military affairs. The Four Heavenly Kings of the Emperor Kai Heavenly Court commanded the troops, but because of various reasons, they couldn't participate in the battle, so command fell to the Four Heavenly Masters, leading to a complete collapse.
If merely training troops was this difficult, how much worse would changing generals on the eve of battle be?
"Having orderly ranks still isn't enough. The formations I've had these Creators set up are only superficial—good for scaring others, but trying to fool formation masters like Yan Yun Xi would be a stretch."
Qin Mu felt uneasy: "Hopefully she's still in Fengdu and hasn't returned to Carefree Village."
Carefree Village, Thirty-Third Heaven.
Ever since Emperor Kai came to the Other Shore world and turned a sword's length of land into the Thirty-Three Heavens, establishing Carefree Village, Carefree Village had been plagued by disasters.
The Star Creators among the Creators had created who knows how many stars, completely surrounding the Thirty-Three Heavens of Carefree Village. Countless stars blocked all roads in and out of Carefree Village, and from time to time, stars would fall from the sky and crash into Carefree Village.
Whenever this happened, the Observatory Department in Carefree Village needed to issue early warnings, and divine beings would take action to blow up the planets to ensure Carefree Village's safety.
However, from time to time, Creators would still charge out from the piles of stars to attack Carefree Village, causing great trouble and casualties each time.
It wasn't until Emperor Kai's 107th generation descendant, Qin Fengqing, returned from the outside world with his parents that this situation gradually improved. Every invading Creator was eaten by Qin Fengqing, and the Creators' invasions finally stopped.
Now, outside Carefree Village, countless stars and debris locked the place down. Only a few divine beings from Carefree Village could sail tower ships out of Carefree Village.
In the Thirty-Third Heaven, intelligence reports kept coming in. Yan Yun Xi, dressed in men's clothing like a scholar, was flipping through the reports and laughed: "These Creators have actually started learning to set up formations. How interesting. Their formations might fool others, but bringing them before me is like a minor sorcerer showing off before a great one. Your Majesty, has your injury fully healed?"
Emperor Kai frowned and said: "The injury has fully healed. No need to worry about me. This time, all the Creators of the Other Shore world have mobilized. I'm afraid they intend to wipe us out in one stroke."
Yan Yun Xi smiled: "Why is Your Majesty so worried? With the Divine Child here, the Creators can't make much trouble."
Emperor Kai sighed: "I'm not worried about our safety. I'm worried about Qin Mu. He's fallen into the Creators' hands. I'm afraid these Creators will kill him to sacrifice to their banners."
Yan Yun Xi frowned and sighed: "He's always been so stubborn and headstrong, always liking to play with fire, believing in seeking fortune through risk. Wanting to become the Creators' Holy Infant—what nonsense. That Lang Wan the Divine King is exceptionally intelligent, with courage and boldness. She'll definitely discover his true identity and use him to deal with Carefree Village and Your Majesty. Once the Creators' army arrives at Carefree Village, they'll probably drag him up and behead him publicly as a sacrifice to their banners..."
"Ahead is Carefree Village!"
In the central army of the Creator forces, Qin Mu used Lang Wan the Divine King's divine consciousness to transmit his voice to everyone, shouting: "The traitor Qin is right there! Everyone, perk up and scare the traitor Qin until he wets himself in fear!"
In the void, the divine consciousness of a million Creators converged into a single stream, forming an earth-shaking voice: "Wet himself in fear!"
—Second update, a 4,000-character chapter.