Tales of Herding Gods

The crack was three yards wide, and the chest carried Qin Mu and the rest inside it. Two steps in, they got stuck, and Qin Mu hurriedly pushed the dragon qilin’s tummy inward. However, the chest still couldn’t move. Pangong Tso, who was under the chest, was also groaning from the squeeze.

“Quiet!” Qin Mu shouted out in a low voice and made the chest go back a bit. One of Xing An’s divine arts came close at that moment, pillar-like divine light sweeping past the crack.

Qin Mu immediately had the big chest hide behind a huge rock that was jutting out. The speed of divine eyes was extremely fast, and their light flashed by in no time.

‘Luckily Xing An’s eyes aren’t Grandpa Blind’s eyes; otherwise, this huge rock couldn’t have hidden us.’

He let out a sigh of relief and opened up the chest. He grabbed the dragon qilin by his neck and stuffed this fatty inside.

“Cult Master…” The dragon qilin shivered in the chest. “There are all sorts of body parts in here, even heads! There are also hearts! And so many hands and fingers!”

Qin Mu closed the chest and sent it back into the crack. Without the fatty dragon qilin, it went much smoother. The chest continued to head deeper in while the light in front of them grew stronger and stronger.

Qin Mu leaned against the chest to look forward. At the end of the crack, he actually didn’t see green plains or blue sky. Instead, it was a golden-yellow desert. It was a completely different sight from before.

‘Could the world in this crack be different from the world in that crack earlier?’

Just as he thought that, divine light suddenly shone behind them, shocking Qin Mu. There was no place to hide this time so he could only rush the chest to crawl forward.

Luckily, they were not far from the world in the crack, and the chest quickly crawled through, tumbling down into the golden desert. After two tumbles, the chest stood up once again.

Qin Mu looked back and saw the beam of divine light shoot through the crack before disappearing. He didn’t know if it had seen them or not.

His heart shook, and he jumped down to look at the bottom of the chest in a hurry. Pangong Tso’s figure had vanished.

‘That guy truly slips away fast!’

Qin Mu burst out laughing. Pangong Tso had to have taken the chance to escape when they fell into the golden-yellow desert. It was to save himself from being assassinated by Qin Mu in cold blood.

They had been in the darkness of Great Ruins just then with Xing An chasing after them so they’d had to work together. But once there was no darkness in the surroundings, Pangong Tso naturally made his escape.

He had no legs and was no match for Qin Mu. If he had escaped just a little slower, he might not have had the chance to run away.

“Grandmaster is truly crafty,” Qin Mu praised.

He opened the chest, and the dragon qilin hurriedly jumped out with a horrified expression. He wasn’t willing to get close to the chest anymore.

Qin Mu looked into the chest, and it was still the same as before. Taotie’s bones formed its structure and its skin was wrapped around it. Inside, there were many cabinets like before, but the number of body parts was much lower.

He also saw the place where the chest had been sliced apart and sewn back together. It was Butcher’s two knives which had done the damage.

After Xing An had escaped from Butcher’s knives, he should have mended the chest.

‘If I could summon the spirit in these divine hands, legs, spirits, and heads and awaken these body parts, Xing An would not be impossible to deal with.’

Qin Mu’s gaze flickered, and he closed the chest before starting to sprint through the golden-yellow desert. The chest ran after him as if it was flying, following steadily behind him. The dragon qilin also ran quickly while sneaking glances at the chest from time to time with fear in his eyes.

After a moment, the dragon qilin managed to overcome his fear and jumped onto the chest to squat so the chest would be doing the running.

‘Fatty Dragon has already reached a new realm of laziness!’ Qin Mu thought as he turned back to look at the fatty.

The desert in the distance connected to the sky, so Qin Mu with the chest kept on running ahead. Suddenly though, he stopped in front of a huge skeleton lying on a sand dune. Half of it was buried under the sand.

Qin Mu walked forward and instantly felt a god’s aura. He hurriedly stopped, and the chest behind him also stopped. The dragon qilin had fallen asleep, but was instantly jolted awake. He raised his head to look around and cried out, “Xing An has caught up?”

“No!”

Qin Mu examined the god’s skeleton that was buried under the yellow sand. The ribs were extremely large, bulging upwards. Under them was a thoracic cavity in which dozens of people could probably stand.

He carefully went forward, and the chest tiptoed after him.

Qin Mu stretched out his palm, but felt that something wasn’t right. He took out Pangong Tso’s huge cauldron and slowly went closer to the god’s skeleton.

Suddenly, he heard a clunk, and he gave a grunt. The webbing between his thumb and forefinger exploded, and his palm became all bloodied. One leg of the huge cauldron that had once belonged to Pangong Tso was also sliced off!

The huge cauldron had been refined by Pangong Tso in his previous life when he was a strong practitioner close to god level. His huge cauldron was definitely on the level of a cult legacy treasure!

Qin Mu couldn’t damage it even when he used his sword pellet. This was enough proof to show just how strong was the cauldron.

Yet in front of the god’s skeleton, it was like clay. Its leg had been sliced off just like that.

Qin Mu endured the pain and sealed the wound. He picked up the cauldron’s foot from the ground and saw that the broken surface was as flat as though an invisible sharp knife had sliced through it.

When touching the broken surface, he could feel a scorching heat.

“This is… the yang qi of yin-yang two qi. They had been refined by the owner of this corpse into divine vitality to protect his body.”

Qin Mu put away the huge cauldron and the broken leg while the dragon qilin stared forward carefully. He asked with curiosity, “Cult Master, what damaged the pot?”

“The divine treasures of this god.”

Qin Mu grabbed a handful of yellow sand and gently blew it forward. Once the particles got clause, something that couldn’t normally be seen with the naked eye happened!

Inside the body of the huge god’s skeleton which had collapsed in the sand, there were seven complete divine treasures!

They were originally invisible to the naked eye, but once the sand came close, divine lights of all colors were instantly shown, lighting up the divine treasures!

The god’s corpse was large, but the divine treasures were not. The Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure at the heart of the god’s skeleton’s brows was only the size of a square inch. The Five Elements Divine Treasure was only slightly bigger. The Six Directions Divine Treasure was located at the dantian while the Seven Stars Divine Treasure was located between the head, heart, and lungs.

Celestial Being Divine Treasure was on the backbone, and Life and Death Divine Treasure were below the waist. As for Divine Bridge Divine Treasure, it would fly out from the Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure to transform into a flying bridge, stretching out of the head!

These divine treasure weren’t huge, but it was strange how if one looked closer, there seemed to be the space of millions of miles there. It was extremely vast. Qin Mu could even see a withered sun, moon, and stars, as well as broken Milky Way and constellations!

In the center of Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure, there was the spirit embryo of the god. It should have been part of the primordial spirit, but the soul of the skeleton had long departed. However, the spirit embryo hadn’t yet withered.

‘He died from injuries to the primordial spirit.’

Formation markings swirled in Qin Mu’s eyes as he focused his gaze on the Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure. The god’s spirit embryo had been stabbed through the chest. The sword even left a phantom behind, which showed just how terrifying the strike had been!

The broken sun and moon orbited around the spirit embryo, and bright rays of light shone down from them. They were the yin-yang two qi.

The thing that had severed one of the huge cauldron’s legs was one of the qi of pure yang.

“After he died, his blood and flesh wasted away, but he still managed to preserve his complete divine treasures. The spirit embryo is still here, and the remnants of his divine vitality are still so powerful, cutting apart a cult legacy treasure so easily.”

Qin Mu muttered to himself irresolutely. An ordinary god couldn’t have such abilities after he died. He had once taken a look at the corpse of Xu Shenghua’s master, Jade Sovereign who had been blasted from the sky by Sunshot Divine Treasure he had forged and died miserably.

Even though Jade Sovereign’s corpse still carried a dense god’s aura, it was no match for the god’s skeleton.

On top of that, the divine treasures of Jade Sovereign had crumbled after he died.

‘This was a true god, a real god!’ Qin Mu’s expression was solemn as he flipped through his taotie sack and took out Black Tortoise Bead. He muttered, “Why would a true god die here?”

He took out Black Tortoise Bead and borrowed its power to execute a spell to awaken the spirit of the god’s skeleton.

Bones rattled.

The corpse suddenly twitched, and the dragon qilin jumped in shock. His scales rose, and even his tail trembled.

Qin Mu executed Ten Thousand Spirit Nature Technique which was best for women to cultivate. His thoughts were too complicated, and he couldn’t cultivate it to the extreme. However, he could still barely execute it with Black Tortoise Bead.

A huge white skeleton hand slowly rose up from the sand, and the skeleton gradually sat up. Its skull drooped down; it seeming to be observing Qin Mu and the dragon qilin. Yellow sand flowed down in a waterfall from its eye sockets and mouth.

“Fight!” The skeleton stood up and grabbed a tattered flag from the sand dune. He waved it with his jaw opening and closing. The remaining magic power in his divine treasures shook the air, so even though he didn’t have flesh and blood, he could still speak in a world-shaking voice. “Accepting the imperial edict! Behind is our homeland, so we have no way to retreat anymore! Fight! We can only fight!”

Qin Mu’s mouth fell open, and he scratched his head. The spirit he summoned should have been a new spirit, but from the looks of it, a part of the skeleton’s consciousness seemed to have lain dormant within it and had been awakened by Ten Thousand Spirit Nature Technique.

“The battle has already ended years ago, senior!” Qin Mu shouted out. “Where’s your hometown? Why have you died here? On whose order were you fighting for? Who is your enemy?”

The skeleton lowered his head to look at him, and his voice shook. “As subordinates of High Emperor, High Official of Fomalhaut, we have received the order to block this place. Junior, where are you from? This is a battlefield, quickly fall back! Where are my brothers?”

The god’s skeleton swung the huge flag and jumped up, rushing up to the high sand dune. He then froze, just standing there.

‘Founding Emperor Era? Isn’t that something from tens of thousands of years ago?’

Qin Mu was flabbergasted. He hurriedly rushed after with the chest. When he came to the top of the sand dune, he couldn’t help being stunned. Numerous skeletons lined the desert before them.

They were strewn across the golden-yellow sand. Some huge skeletons couldn’t be completely covered and parts of them stuck out from below.

Divine weapons were lying all across the desert, along with tattered battle chariots. There were also rushed motley battleships and metal disks that were three hundred yards tall.

Qin Mu was stunned. He was before what was once the battlefield of gods and devils. Thousands of them had died, but not one had been buried.

“What year is this?” Beside him, the god lowered his head and asked, “Where’s High Emperor? Why are my brother’s corpses left to air in the wild? Why weren’t these warriors given the due respect after they died…”

“Senior, High Emperor Era has long ended and become a legend. Not only High Emperor, even Founding Emperor Era ended…” Qin Mu said sorrowfully.

“Did High Emperor also die in battle?” The god hung his head down. He seemed to be crying, but no tears fell. He walked toward the battlefield and picked up a white bone. “My brother, my comrade in arms, High Emperor Era no longer exists, but I can’t let you lie here without a place to belong to… Little brother.”

He turned to ‘look’ at Qin Mu. “Can you awaken these brothers of mine? We will bury ourselves and rest in peace.”