Chapter 550 — Smiling On, Unchanged

"I can fix it. I can fix it!"

Shen Mu kept reassuring himself, his face shifting from dark to bright and back again, never settling. "The elders in the village taught me that a man who can make a mess can also clean it up. This time I can surely clean it up... I only fear I cannot."

He had made far too great a mess.

Taihuang Heaven had once had no sun. It was the Sun-Forging God who, with the divine-ability practitioners of Taihuang Heaven, had labored to forge one and a half suns; and that sun and a half had become the pride of every practitioner in Taihuang Heaven. Now half of that pride had been blasted away by their own hands.

It was not that he had never thought of forging a sun to give back to Taihuang Heaven. Forging a perfect sphere was not so very hard for Shen Mu; the hard part was how to turn a sphere into a sun.

The Sun-Forging God had been a cook, a fire-tender of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court, and he commanded the power of divine fire. So even though his craft was poor and the sun he refined was a sight to shame the eyes, it could still give light, still provide Taihuang Heaven with light and warmth.

That divine fire was likely far higher in grade than even the Li Fire of Li City. Thus, in rebuilding the sun, divine fire became the greatest difficulty.

Just then, after that black pillar of light had destroyed half a sun, it pierced through the void. In the instant the black light passed through, the ripples in space were visible even to the naked eye, spreading outward in layer upon layer.

"The other sun!"

The Black Tiger God's heart clenched. He watched with bated breath as the ripples traveled to the other sun.

Below the altar, thousands of Taihuang Heaven's divine-ability practitioners, and the gods floating in the air—Pang Yu, Sang Ye, and the rest—felt their hearts clench in spite of themselves, their fists tightening until their nails nearly pierced their flesh.

The ripples came on, passing through that sun in the sky. The sun still hung there, but as the crest passed, it was squeezed into the shape of an oval egg yolk; as the trough passed, it was stretched out, lengthened more than tenfold.

The crowd watched the sky in panic. When the ripples had passed and the sun still hung there, everyone who had been so frantic breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, with a great crack, a huge piece broke off the surface of that whole sun and fell.

The fallen piece was vast as a mountain. It trailed long flames and billowing smoke, sliding down at a slant, and no one knew where it struck.

The sun in the sky had never been round to begin with; now it looked as though a mouth with jagged teeth had taken a bite out of it.

"Junior Brother, shall we run for our lives?" the Black Tiger God quietly proposed.

"My friends, I have two pieces of good news to tell you all!"

Shen Mu stood on the altar, wiped the waterfall of cold sweat from his brow with a sweep of his sleeve, and did his best to look confident and justified. He swept his gaze around and declared in a ringing voice: "The first good news is this—the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange is open! This bridge connects Taihuang Heaven and Jingping. Every one of us in Taihuang Heaven now has a road of retreat. Even if we cannot defeat the Demon Race, we can withdraw to Jingping and preserve our race!"

Below the altar, the blank expressions still hung on the faces of thousands of divine-ability practitioners, who turned their heads with difficulty to look at him.

Having delivered the first piece of good news, Shen Mu waited quietly a moment, waiting for them to digest it.

This was to claim credit for himself.

Taihuang Heaven had never had a road of retreat. If the gods and the divine-ability practitioners were defeated, the common folk could only be carved up like fish and meat. Now Shen Mu had built the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange, giving everyone in Taihuang Heaven a road of retreat—a retreat that could preserve their race and their lineage. What a monumental achievement that was!

With such a merit to his name, when Shen Mu went on to claim further credit, even if these divine-ability practitioners and gods of Taihuang Heaven flew into a shame-fueled rage, they would not beat them to death.

After a moment, Pang Yu, being a true god after all, was the first to recover. He nodded slowly and said, "Young friend Shen and Brother Black Tiger have forged the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange, giving the people of our Taihuang Heaven a road of retreat and survival. Truly a merit beyond measure!"

The Venerable God Sang Ye and the other gods nodded one after another. The merit Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God had won was too great.

In connecting the two worlds, there was not only a road of retreat; the divine-ability practitioners of Jingping could also come to Taihuang Heaven's aid, letting Taihuang Heaven hold out longer.

One divine-ability practitioner stammered, "But the sun in the sky..."

Shen Mu's face glowed with glory. He laughed heartily: "That is the other piece of good news I mean to tell you—a great and joyous matter!"

His voice rang loud enough to wake the deaf: "My friends, the sun in the sky is too battered, too old. We can replace it with two new suns! Round suns, perfect suns!"

Silence fell all around.

Suddenly, Sang Hua grew excited and raised both hands high: "Yay—"

The cheer was rather jarring. Sang Hua's cheer grew smaller and smaller, until at last the long-braided girl settled down obediently, coughed twice to cover it up, and dared not speak.

"Do not speak."

The True God Pang Yu wore a stiff smile and said in a low voice to the many gods beside him, "Keep smiling. Keep calm. Do not show any killing intent. They are disciples of the Heavenly Master; we must show magnanimity."

One of the gods, smiling, said in a low voice, "Will they really help us refine the sun anew?"

"I do not know."

The True God Pang Yu, smiling, said, "If they do not refine it, we cannot let them leave Taihuang Heaven. But judging by their confident looks, they should be able to."

Shen Mu looked at the many divine-ability practitioners below and the dark-faced gods of Taihuang Heaven, and the cold sweat on his brow felt like a great flood with its gates about to burst.

The Black Tiger God said quietly, "Junior Brother, they seem a little unhappy. Have they discovered that we do not know how to refine the divine fire that lights the sun?"

"Shut up, Senior Brother."

Shen Mu, wearing a stiff smile, said through clenched teeth in a low voice, "Keep smiling. Just pretend that we can refine the sun."

The Black Tiger God kept smiling, his voice coming through the gaps of his tiger teeth: "This is our first time activating the Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange. We do not know whether it can connect to that altar in the Barren Ruins. If the connection fails, will they settle both scores at once and beat us to death?"

"Shut up, Senior Brother!"

Shen Mu's smile was beginning to slip. "The Bridge of Spiritual Power Exchange should be open by now. Can we enter the Barren Ruins from here?"

The Black Tiger God said quietly, "If something goes wrong, and we cross the bridge, we might be ground to pieces. What comes out the other end would be a puddle of mangled flesh."

A cold wind blew past. All around was dead silence.

In the Barren Ruins, night was falling.

Stone giants walked among the mountain forests, raising huge stone hammers to pound the ground, tamping it firm and flat. Along the way, many towering trees were uprooted and, astonishingly, walked like men, yielding the road, then took root on either side, standing in rows.

The stone giants cleared the way, and behind them followed thousands of women. The girls wore clothes of every color—a riot of reds and greens, brilliant as flowers and willows—and chattered without cease. Square stone slabs drifted down from the air, laying themselves one after another at their feet.