Chapter 606 — The Old Soldier at Dusk

A brilliant halo swept over the Great Luotian Star Force Field with a hum. The earth heaved and cracked like burnt crispbread. As the halo shattered, a broken planet drifted over in the sky, stirring up monstrous waves—but the towering surge was also held back by the explosion, and then the waves receded, and the floodwaters spread!

The explosion was brief. Before long, silence returned around the altar. The blood river that had shrouded it was utterly gone. The deity and his halberd had vanished into nothing. The altar stood broken, stained with the hue of blood.

The deity had liberated himself in soldier's liberation, his primordial spirit dissolving. With the power of self-sacrifice, he had broken the sacrifice, preventing the ancient being the demon god sought to summon from descending.

Shen Mu stared blankly at the blood-stained altar, motionless for a long while. Granny Zhu could not help saying, "Shen'er, let's go. He chose self-liberation—it is a good thing for him. After all, he kept his promise and fulfilled his wish. Let us go to the next altar, and pray we meet the Woodcutter Sage..."

Shen Mu followed her in silence the whole way. Granny Zhu found it rather unusual and turned back with a smile. "Shen'er, what are you thinking about? This is not like you."

"I am thinking that perhaps my ancestor, this Kaihuang, may not be the great hero I imagined him to be."

Shen Mu said, lost in thought, "When I learned I came from the Carefree Land, that I was of Kaihuang's line, I always held a notion in my heart—that Kaihuang was a towering hero, a great champion, a man of supreme ideals, followed by countless heroes. He must have been kind and worthy of respect. But..."

He shook his head and was silent for a moment. "Perhaps he is not that sort of man. Perhaps he is just a cowardly old fool, without that courage, without that breadth of spirit, hiding away in the Carefree Land, living out his days in drunken oblivion. Perhaps he failed the countless heroes who followed him..."

Granny Zhu blinked and burst out laughing. "Shen'er, you are still a child. Why think so much? When I was your age... hmm, Fan Xuanshu had already set his eyes on me, and I was scheming how to do away with him... When the Village Head was your age, he was still playing in the mud!"

Shen Mu laughed. "The Village Head had surely already taken a master by then, groomed as the next Human Emperor. How could he have been playing in the mud? Granny, you are joking again."

Seeing him smile, Granny Zhu said with a laugh, "You are the child I raised. Though I was not kind to you when you wet the bed and did not want to keep you, now that you have grown I always worry you will leave me, leave the village. I always wonder whether you are doing well, always fear you will be taken advantage of. Perhaps that is a parent's heart. I do not want you to grow up so fast and have so many worries. You should be carefree... It is all that damned Village Head's fault, making you a Human Emperor! When we get back, I am going to splash black dog blood on his stone statue!"

They came near the second altar. Looking from afar, they saw a demon god attacking it, trying to seize control of the altar.

Two deities and demons did battle, a scene of utter terror.

"Is Bindri Luo not afraid the Woodcutter Sage will harden his heart and sacrifice all of Luofu Heaven in blood?" Shen Mu shook his head.

Granny Zhu set down the little flower basket, dug out the scissors, took several scraps of cloth, and with her ten fingers flying, threaded needle and line to weave a tattered garment. She smiled. "Bindri Luo is preparing bargaining chips! The more altars he takes, the stronger his position in the negotiations! Rise—"

The tattered garment she had just sewn flew up and sped toward the battlefield. It pounced upon the demon god and slipped itself onto his body.