Chapter 317 — The Return of the Soul

The treasure ship flung those Youdu creatures far behind, and its speed only increased — such a thing had never happened before!

On the deck, Ban Gongcuo and the others hurriedly seized the railings lest they be flung overboard: "Could it be that little wretch Shen Mu is driving the ship with the silver helm? " Ban Gongcuo looked at Shen Mu, and saw that Shen Mu too was gripping the railing, wearing no silver helm — clearly it was not he who steered this treasure ship.

Ban Gongcuo was briefly startled. If it was not Shen Mu sailing the ship, then who was piloting it?

Could some dreadful being be hidden aboard, or was there a ghost on this ship?

Ever since they had come aboard this strange vessel, uncanny things had happened again and again; to this day they had never explored it fully, and instead had met with one eerie event after another — on reflection, it sent chills down the spine.

The treasure ship raced through the world of Youdu, a realm of darkness, without sky and without earth; sailing on through that vast blackness was enough to make the heart quail. How long it sailed thus, no one knew.

Suddenly came a crash that nearly pitched them all over; several soldiers and great shamans, unable to keep their footing or their grip, were flung out of the ship at once, and the instant they fell into the darkness beyond, their flesh and bones dissolved and they became heaps of white bones that clattered down. "There is land below!

" someone cried. Shen Mu looked down. The treasure ship had struck the summit of a mountain, punching a great hole through the peak, and it was that impact which had thrown those soldiers and shamans clear.

The peak receded swiftly into the distance, and faintly beneath it one could make out stretch upon stretch of land — but oddly, the landmasses were not joined together; they floated like islands in the dark.

Boom— Two enormous landmasses collided, a scene of extraordinary violence; the plates of land crushed against each other, and at once thousands of great volcanoes erupted together across them, magma rushing skyward with rolling black smoke, three hundred li high, a spectacle beyond compare. Countless thunderbolts flashed among the dense clouds and the magma, tearing the sky apart; cooled rock fell like rain, a dreadful rain of stone, and the boulders struck with terrifying force, like comets crashing down, dragging long tails of fire.

The earth shook and the mountains trembled; magma rain, rock rain, and acid rain fell together — nothing less than the end of the world. The treasure ship passed through that deluge, and everyone aboard immediately loosed their essence qi, raising great shields one after another to hold off this uncanny rain and keep from being smashed to death.

Suddenly came a ringing, clattering hail of blows: this time it was not magma rain that fell but diamonds — adamant, as the ancients called them — fist-sized diamonds raining down from the heavens, the product of thunderbolt strikes, strewing the whole ship.

The ship tilted and swept its cargo of molten lava and diamonds overboard, then rounded a great volcano and steered off into the distance. Lava ran everywhere on the volcano, like fiery dragons flowing from the crater down the slopes. Shen Mu glanced hastily and was startled: amid that earth-shaking, world-annihilating scene, millions upon millions of people were walking, climbing the mountain.

These people walked with heads bowed, silent and soundless, through the scene of annihilation, like walking corpses; each step seemed to cost them immense effort, yet still they pressed forward, as though something ahead drew them with fatal attraction. And at the very front, many had already reached the crater at the summit, and leapt, uncomprehending, into the volcano, where they were swallowed in an instant by the magma surging skyward! Besides this great volcano, there were thousands of other volcanoes on this landmass, and besides this landmass there were thousands of continents.

How many people were trudging through annihilation and casting themselves into the volcanoes — surely the number could not be counted at all.

"These people are not people; they are ghosts! " Shen Mu was shaken to the core.

He saw that these were the souls of the dead, without bodies, and not all of them the souls of humans: there were souls of strange beasts, of the demon races, of dragons and phoenixes, even of heavenly demons. The treasure ship threaded on its side among volcano after volcano; countless souls walked among them. One volcano after another erupted, red magma soaring skyward, the sound deafening.

Ban Gongcuo's face was ashen; he murmured in a trembling voice, "The Yellow Springs.

. . the Yellow Springs.

. .

" Shen Mu was briefly baffled, not knowing what the fellow meant. "What Yellow Springs?

" "They are going down into the Yellow Springs! " Ban Gongcuo suddenly screamed himself hoarse: "This is the world we go to when we die!

We are on Tubo's horns!

" Shen Mu gave a sudden shudder, and at last understood Ban Gongcuo's words: the ship beneath them was sailing between Tubo's two horns, and these "continents" were no continents at all, but cross-sections of Tubo's two horns!

Tubo has nine coils, and "nine coils" means nine bends: Tubo's two horns are crooked as a river, twisting through nine turns. And Tubo's two horns are also called the Nine-Bend Yellow Springs — two Yellow Springs.

Shen Mu's scalp went numb.

"Yellow Springs" was indeed rather apt, for these volcanoes kept erupting, magma spanning the heavens, lighting up layer upon layer of land, so that from afar they must look like yellow or red rivers.

Only, these two horns were a little too vast!

Was this still a god?

"Heh heh, heh heh.

.

.

" Ban Gongcuo had clearly suffered some deep hurt in the past; a touch of frenzy showed on his face now as he muttered, "This is the truth I once saw. . .

I cannot die, I absolutely must not die; whoever loves death may have it, but I must live. .

.

" The treasure ship at last passed through the landmass and sailed clear of that place. Shen Mu looked back, and could finally take in the whole of those two horns: magma spewed from landmass after landmass, joining them one to another, each landmass forming the firmament of the one beneath it.

Countless landmasses joined in this fashion made nine warping turns, like the Nine-Bend Yellow Springs seen from afar.

Countless dead souls, drawn in from who knew how many worlds, came onto these lands and leapt into the Yellow Springs.

And yet this was only the two horns of the immeasurably vast Tubo!

He looked down. No one knew how long those horns were; they plunged deep into the darkness, their end beyond sight. Below the horns must lie Tubo's head — in legend he has a bull's head, and the horns are a bull's horns — yet for all Shen Mu's eyesight, he could not see where that head might be.

Shen Mu shrank his neck and inwardly resolved: he must never sign the Pact of Tubo at random. Sign the Pact of Tubo heedlessly, and should it take effect, he might never be able to turn the tables again. His heart darkened; and yet his father had signed the Pact of Tubo.

The Pact of Tubo, once signed, could hardly be undone.

The treasure ship sailed faster and faster, and came above another stretch of land: a world collapsing, dying, shrouded in darkness, from which paper boats drifted one after another, and on those paper boats were the souls of the dead.

Many paper boats slipped past the treasure ship, drifting toward the place of the Nine Coils; the souls aboard were ragged and tattered, one and all of the host of heavenly demons, of the heavenly demon race — yet they were not the ferocious, savage things Shen Mu had seen in the Wasteland Ruins; rather they were gaunt with grief, aged and sick and dying.