Chapter 425 — The Yin Capital of the Netherworld

The Great Sun rose in the west, and sunlight and fire came pouring down, racing along the long chains to flood through the Sunlight Ark. The vast land-going ship scattered the darkness of the Wasteland and lit everything around it, and in that darkness countless monsters, touched by the sunlight, hissed and sizzled at once, sending up coils of black smoke. In the villages nearby, the forsaken folk of the Wasteland, startled from sleep, stared blankly as the mountain-high Sunlight Ark strode past their villages on twelve legs like mountain pillars.

The dazzling sunlight fell upon them and brought no discomfort at all, only warmth; yet the monsters in the dark fled in panic. Since the Kaihuang Era came to its close, such a sight had grown rare indeed. In the latter years of the Kaihuang Era, when the darkness descended, several dozen such Sunlight Arks in the Wasteland walked west of their own accord, scattering the dark and bringing light to the people.

But after the Kaihuang Era, the last of the Arks fell into ruin, its sun extinguished; only the Sun Wardens and the Sun Herders remained, dragging a darkened sun behind them as they kept their silent watch over the Wasteland, and the ship no longer showed the glory and the fire of former days.

And now this Sunlight Ark had come back to life, carrying a blazing sun that pierced the dark, leaving light wherever it passed. Upon the Ark stood towering giants bathed in golden light, and as the great vessel lurched and pitched without cease, it made its way toward the God-Sundering Mountains.

"Sun Warden! Something is moving this way!

" Aboard the Ark, the chieftain of the Sun Herders was beside himself with alarm.

Sensing that something colossal was moving toward them, his heart went cold, and he hurried to report it to Yan Jingjing, who stood at the vessel's center steering it. Yan Jingjing, at that moment as imposing as a god of heaven, looked at once into the darkness.

She too had felt a dreadful pulse approaching: the newcomer was closing fast from behind the Ark, far faster than the Ark itself!

Her gaze was like two immense pillars of light that tore the darkness open and let her see what truly lay within. Mist surged in the dark, and through the mist lofty peaks loomed and faded.

Yan Jingjing was briefly taken aback: those immeasurably tall mountains were formed of numberless white bones, and beneath the divine light of her eyes those bones writhed and shrieked, endlessly seeking to hide, as though terrified by her gaze. Behind the mountains of bone the mist grew heavier still, a sea of fog with range upon range of peaks, and beyond that sea of fog stood two great mountains like a pair of gateways, and a deep and shadowed world.

Fengdu.

The Ghost Gate. The world of Fengdu swept in with astonishing speed and soon overtook the Ark. The mist howled past on every side, and in an instant everyone aboard found the laws of heaven and earth transformed: the flesh fell from their bodies and they became skeletons.

The mountains and rivers of bone within the mist passed straight through their bodies; then vast ranges and plains and waters flowed through them like a tide, and even the sun above the Ark grew dim and lusterless, turning green and hazy. Yan Jingjing stretched out her hand.

The laws of the world of Fengdu had not altered her body; she was too powerful now, no longer subject to Fengdu's command.

The world of Fengdu seemed not to be substantial, as though it were not the same world they stood in: she could touch nothing of it. Then she saw Fengdu, the towering ghost city, and upon its walls and gate-towers stood netherworld deities, colossal beyond measure, braced as though before a great enemy.

And at the heart of Fengdu, a demon god seemingly made of darkness let his cloak hang aslant, spreading out on every side, taller and more imposing than the Ark itself. The Ark passed straight through his body, and Yan Jingjing did not see his face, only, in the darkness beneath the cloak, two eyes of fiery red. Whsssh— The world of Fengdu flickered past; the mist surged on ahead and vanished into the darkness.

The sun slowly recovered its brilliance, and everyone aboard looked down to find flesh and blood restored to them, leaving them with no notion of what had happened. "The mist of the world of Fengdu is surging toward the God-Sundering Mountains.

.

.

" Yan Jingjing raised her head toward the God-Sundering Mountains, where the Headman and his companions were intercepting and slaying the gods of the High Heavens. The fighting raged at its fiercest: some peaks of the God-Sundering Mountains abruptly grew taller, while others sank in an instant into the earth. Now and again sword-light and blade-light split the sky, shaking the heart, and all manner of sounds carried over, as though demons roared and gods whispered.

"My ox-herding brother has ridden the Flood-Dragon King to borrow the Soul Ark.

He says the Soul Ark lies far from here, and that he must sail from the Soul Spring into the Sea of Stars, and he asked me to hold them off for a while. I do not know whether he will be in time. .

.

What is that? " Yan Jingjing pressed on at full speed and suddenly froze again. On the side of the God-Sundering Mountains that faced the Wasteland, clusters of ghost fire surged; where those fires had come from she could not tell, they had simply appeared. "Pleiades Sun Star-Ring!

" Layer upon layer of firelight in Yan Jingjing's eyes became a star-ring, and she looked toward the ghost fire. Within it, paper boats were drifting out of an endless darkness, storm lanterns hung at their prows lighting the gloom, and many paper men on paper horses galloped madly, charging into the mist.

On boat after boat, old men in tattered black robes sat beneath the storm lanterns, steering their craft into the mist, and dimly within the mist could be seen towering figures like gods and demons, battling those old men. Eerie light pierced through the two worlds again and again, yet, strangely, these fluctuations never passed from those two worlds into the real one; the waves did not strike the Wasteland, nor have any effect upon reality at all.

"That is.

. . the legendary Yin envoys of Youdu!

" Yan Jingjing was astonished beyond words. The Yin envoys of Youdu were fighting Fengdu?

What was the meaning of this? She had no time to ponder it.

The Ark rumbled on, charging toward the God-Sundering Mountains, drawing ever nearer to the battlefield of Fengdu and the world of Youdu; and above that battlefield lay the field where the Headman, the Imperial Preceptor Jingping and the others fought the gods of the High Heavens, a battle no less magnificent, though it paled somewhat beside the war between Fengdu and Youdu.

All those fighting on the mountain were exceedingly powerful, each the match of a god or demon, possessed of vast divine powers; yet they seemed utterly unaware that beneath their feet another battle was unfolding, greater still in scale, more awe-inspiring still.

As the Ark traveled to the foot of the God-Sundering Mountains, before it had even drawn close, Yan Jingjing suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation of the heart.