Tales of Herding Gods

When the next day dawned, the darkness withdrew rapidly. No matter if it was east or west, all of the darkness flooded back to the cliff. Everything vanished at the cliff where the source of Surging River was.

Qin Mu hurriedly flew forward and was roughly six hundred yards away from the cliff. From south to north, he started searching.

Twang!

The formations in his eyes activated and instantly, two beams of light that shone onto the mountain. Not a single crack on the mountain could escape his eyes.

Qin Mu referred to the light spots he had marked and started comparing them to the cliff. He searched all the way to the north before searching all the way back to the south. After a moment, he surveyed the cliff once again.

The cliff was very high, and it was pretty uneven. The complicated terrain made searching to be quite an exhausting task, but it was the simplest and most effective method.

He Yiyi and the rest continued to bore through Supreme Emperor Heaven, and because Yan Jingjing had remarkable abilities, she was invited by He Yiyi to help. She could melt the rocks in the tunnel and turn them into lava. He Yiyi then turned the lava into lava giants, and that sped up the work.

Yan Jingjing had always been driving the Sun Ship and had never done anything like boring a tunnel, so that kind of task was very fresh to her.

He Yiyi had originally used formation skills to slice out a path and, even though her speed was fast, too much magic power had to be exhausted. She wouldn’t be able to last long before she had to stop and take a break. With Yan Jingjing’s help, she just needed to turn the molten rocks into lava giants and let them walk out of the cave; therefore, the speed was even faster than before.

The most crucial point was still that Yan Jingjing was a god. Her flames could melt the mountain rocks and also reinforce the tunnel.

‘With this speed, we will be able to bore through Supreme Emperor Heaven in just a few days.’

He Yiyi was surprised and delighted. She thought to herself, ‘However, if I drag her lover boy for a visiting marriage, she will definitely go into a fury, and I can’t beat her. What a pity. When her lover boy rode a white horse and asked me to lay on his back as we jumped out of the painting, I really wanted to marry him so much. There are no men in West Earth that are as outstanding as him…’

‘Found it!’ Qin Mu’s eyes lit up. He finally found a crack that didn’t light up the night before.

He searched several times, and only then did he finally find the crack. The crack didn’t light up, and it lay between two other cracks. A chunk of mountain rock had blocked it at just the right spot.

‘Sister Jing isn’t around now, and the dragon qilin is sleeping, should I call them over to investigate together?’

Qin Mu hesitated, but he still decided not to bring them along. Even though Yan Jingjing could defend against the darkness, she was using the divine light from her own body to repel it. The dragon qilin couldn’t deal with the darkness, so he still required Yan Jingjing’s protection.

Only Qin Mu could blend into the darkness.

Thus, it was not important whether he brought them along or not.

“Fatty Dragon, after Sister Jing comes out, just tell her to wait here for me.”

Qin Mu shouted and flew to the rock in front of the crack. The rock was like a rock door, but more than half of the rock door embedded into the mountain body. If one surveyed from afar, they wouldn’t have noticed it and, furthermore, there were even two cracks on its side.

He examined the rock door in detail, and there were no words or runes on the rock door. There also wasn’t anything like a handle.

“Seven Heavens of Heaven’s Eyes!”

The divine light on Qin Mu’s brows swept pass the gate, and he tried to check if there were any unique markings on the inside of the door. However, what disappointed him was that it was just an ordinary door. There were no signs of refining.

When he didn’t discover anything abnormal, he went to the crack behind the door. It was pitch black in the depths of the crack, and he couldn’t see any peculiarity.

When he walked in, the crack was very long, and there were also cracks on both sides of the mountain walls. The cracks were all pitch black, and no light escaped out.

The divine light in his eyes shone, and he tried to light up the cracks on the wall. However, the divine light from his eyes seemed to be swallowed by the darkness, and he couldn’t light up whatever was inside.

He stretched out his hands and touched the darkness. Rustling sounds rang out beside his ears.

“These cracks are the other worlds buried here!”

If it was day time in the Great Ruins, the other worlds buried there should be in the darkness.

‘The source of the darkness is right at the end of this crack. The source of the darkness that buried era after era, I would like to see what’s the cause of it…’

He composed himself and continued walking forward until his figure vanished into the darkness.

Qin Mu walked quite a long distance forward and over two hours had passed, but there was still no end to the crack. After walking so long, he was getting slightly worried. If it were the other crack, he would enter another world the instant he crossed it, but that crack seemed to be way too long.

‘I’ll walk another hour, and if I still can’t find the end, I’ll return.’

Just as he thought until there, he suddenly saw a light ahead, and his heart stirred. He hurried forward with quick steps and, from far away, he saw a person lying on a wall holding a lantern in his hand. The lantern was glowing with divine light.

Qin Mu stopped and looked around. He activated his Heaven’s Eyes again and surveyed the surroundings. Only when there was no danger did he continue forward and go to the side of that person.

It was a god who had died there long ago. He laid his back on the wall, and his eyes were completely out of focus. His expression was also blank.

Qin Mu examined the clothes and embroidery of the clothes on his body and thought to himself, ‘He is a god from Founding Emperor Era!’

The lantern had yet to extinguish, and when its light shone on the god, the god looked translucent.

Qin Mu was suspicious and braved himself to pinch the skin of the god. Suddenly, the god deflated and shriveled up, making his clothes and skin pile up on each other.

A chill ran up Qin Mu’s spine, and his hair flared up. He took several steps back.

After a few moments, the clothes rustled and floated up. The skin of the god slowly inflated as though air was pumping into his skin. Not long later, the god was laying against the wall once more.

“His flesh and blood have disappeared. His primordial spirit has also disappeared. All his divine treasures, his celestial palaces, they are all emptied out…”

Qin Mu picked up his courage to walk forth and examine him. He couldn’t see what had eaten the god and left only his skin behind. He muttered under his breath, “I can learn from the mistakes of my predecessor, and if I know the reason for his death, it might be beneficial for me. What’s weird is that without flesh and blood, how is he able to expand back up again? Is there something under his skin?”

He hesitated for a moment and took out Carefree Sword as he tried to slice open the skin of the god. There seemed to be something that was squirming under the skin and defending against Carefree Sword, making him unable to pierce through the skin.

Qin Mu frowned and remembered the Life and Death Book. He shone it at the god and saw a name appear on the Life and Death Book. The human skin suddenly opened its mouth to let out a blood-curdling scream. Trails of black smoke flew out from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose before it quickly shriveled up!

The black smoke blended into the darkness and vanished.

Qin Mu was bewildered, and his heart was beating intensely. What had happened was simply too strange, and he hadn’t even encountered such strange things in Fengdu.

After a moment, his heartbeat returned to normal. He picked up the lantern and continued to walk forward. Just a short distance later, he saw a huge stone tablet that stood tall, blocking the road in front of him.

He raised the lantern, and the light from the lantern scattered gently on the stone tablet. On the stone tablet was a kind of writing he had never seen before.

Qin Mu was skilled in numerous languages and had no trouble recognizing most words. Furthermore, he also has a deep understanding of the reason and logic behind all kinds of languages.

However, the language on the stone tablet was a completely new language.

“What kind of text is this?”

He gave it some thought and took down the willow leaf on the heart of his brows. He asked gently, “Brother, Heaven Duke, Crimson Emperor, do you guys recognize the writing on top?”

In his third eye, another pupil appeared in his pupil to take a look.

“I don’t.”

Qin Fengqing’s voice rang out. “Brother, let me out. I won’t eat you.”

Another eye squeezed over and squeezed Qin Fengqing’s eye away. It was the clone of Heaven Duke that didn’t have the chance to escape when they passed by Xuandu before.

“The words on it read Heavenly Yin World.”

Heaven Duke’s voice rang out faintly, and he said, “Heavenly Yin World is a world below Xuandu. Even though I give off brightness and I can light up numerous worlds of all sizes that are around me, there are also places I can’t shine on, and that’s below my feet. The place below my feet is Heavenly Yin World. Strange, why is the boundary stone of Heavenly Yin World here, by right, it shouldn’t be here.”

Qin Mu asked puzzledly, “Isn’t it supposed to be Youdu that’s under Heaven Duke’s feet?”

“Youdu is the place where the dead go after death. Heavenly Yin World is a place that has no light. They aren’t the same.”

Heaven Duke was still about to speak when Qin Fengqing’s infuriated voice rang out, shouting, “Shut up, old fogey! If you explain things so clearly, how am I going to trick him and eat him?”

In Qin Mu’s third eye, sounds of an old man getting beaten could be heard. After a moment, the Crimson Emperor’s voice rang out. “I didn’t say anything, why are you beating me… Little brat, do you think I’m afraid of you? I’m the celestial emperor of Crimson Light Era…”

“Son of Qin, your brother has torn us into pieces, he’s going to escape and eat you up, quickly cover the willow leaf back!”

“Brother, don’t believe them, we are brothers and brothers should help each other. I won’t eat you… Shut up, old man! If I get him out and eat him up, I can release you guys!”

Qin Mu hurriedly put the willow leaf back on and finally regained peace in his eye.

“Heavenly Yin World? Could the dark substance come from this place?”

Qin Mu calculated and slowly took a few steps back. He came to the front of the god’s skin and shone the lantern on it. The skin of the god really inflated back up as he had expected.

Qin Mu put the lantern down and took out the Life and Death Book to shine again. The god opened its mouth again and let out a miserable scream. Black smoke poured out from his orifices, and it quickly shriveled up again!

Qin Mu muttered to himself, “Could this black smoke be the dark substance?”

He raised his hand and grabbed a bunch of darkness. To others, darkness couldn’t be touch, but to him, touching the darkness was like touching sand. However, the sensation was extremely light and almost undetectable.

“Could Heavenly Yin World be covered in this kind of dark substance? Why would this kind of dark substance invade the Great Ruins and the other worlds?”

He composed himself and kept the Life and Death Book. He picked up the lantern and, after some thinking, he didn’t carry it. Instead, he put the lantern in his taotie sack.

If that kind of dark substance was everywhere in Heavenly Yin World, carrying a lantern and walking about was akin to disaster.

He circled around the Heavenly Yin Boundary Stone and in front of his eyes was gray. He had come to a strange gray world.