Chapter 791 — Antecedents and Roots

"If I knew what the Supreme Emperor was hiding, I would not have come this time."

The scholar poked the donkey along with his radish and sighed. "The age of the Supreme Emperor has been wiped away," he said. "The Primordial Realm is gone, and only the Supreme Emperor's Wastes remain. Even one who wished to seek out the secrets of that age could not find them. Even the Supreme Emperor's Sword God knows little of it, for he was young. I have met a few remnants of that era, but none could speak clearly of it. So when the Earth Mother's Primordial Realm appeared this time, I came out to search for its secrets."

Suddenly the mist over the sea thickened, sweeping in and wrapping the Jade Sea in fog. Ahead someone shouted: "This is where the Earth Mother fell! The mist has thickened all at once—there must be ghosts about! Everyone, be careful!"

The voice was not far from them; it belonged, most likely, to gods and demons who had come to this place from other heavens.

Just then Shen Mu saw a vast shadow sweep through the fog ahead of them, and hard upon it came shrieks and furious bellows, then wave after wave of dreadful divine power—and then blade-light and sword-shadow burst out across the sea!

The dragon qilin and the water qilin panicked, each opening its mouth to spit. The water qilin spat out a qilin pearl that churned the surrounding seawater into a rampart against the surging powers.

The dragon qilin, though, spat out two pearls: one a fire qilin pearl, the other a black-water dragon pearl.

The water qilin shot him a glance and thought: "This fellow's bloodline is not as pure as mine, and his skill is not as good as mine."

Scarce had he thought it when the qi-blood and mana gathered in the dragon qilin's two pearls went berserk. The pearls swelled to more than a zhang across, and countless rays of divine light shot wildly from them, pinning down the fluctuations all around!

The water qilin gaped, tongue-tied.

That blade-light and sword-shadow was only the backwash of Luo Wushuang's and Bai Qu'er's divine powers, stirred up by the crowd ahead, which had thrown the whole sea into chaos. When the wind and waves died down, all ahead was still again.

They crept forward cautiously, and before long they saw a great many people standing before a pillar that lay across the sea, strange smiles on their faces, staring at them and laughing without pause.

The fog hung thick, and their figures were dim and hazy.

The pillar floated on the water, and the people before it were demons and gods—and several god-demons besides, huge and towering, reeking of dense divine and demonic might.

Other gods and demons had arranged themselves in a great circle, staring around in terror, while more of them fixed their eyes on the pillar floating on the sea.

Shen Mu felt his heart crawl at their laughing and halted the dragon qilin.

Those gods and demons were still smiling at them, their expressions indescribably stiff.

"What are they laughing at?" the Heavenly Worthy of Imperial Heaven wondered.

No sooner had he spoken than the gods and demons floated up together with the pillar, rose into the air, and withdrew into the fog.

"Hee hee hee..."

Out of the thick fog came the laughter of those gods and demons, now left, now right, now before, now behind.

"There is a monster in the sea—join hands and fight it!" the gods and demons of the circle shouted to them.

Shen Mu looked at the scholar, who said: "There are many of them, and they make a big target. The monster will surely strike at them. We can take the chance to slip past."

When those god and demon experts heard this, they cursed him roundly. The scholar, riding his donkey, went cheerfully around them and passed on by.

Shen Mu had the dragon qilin and the water qilin keep close behind him and looked back: those gods and demons were still in their great circle, facing a mortal foe, curses never ceasing.

Suddenly a thick shadow flashed through the fog again, and when it had passed, the sea was utterly empty—those hundred-odd god and demon experts had vanished into thin air!

Shen Mu shivered. Among those gods and demons had been several deities, and they too had vanished in an instant!

He hastily ordered the Heavenly Worthy of Imperial Heaven to stay close, and had the dragon and water qilins follow the donkey.

Again the hee-hee-hee of laughter came, ringing all around them, and the fog grew thicker still.

Divine light rippled in Shen Mu's eyes and became a River of Stars Sevenfold Heaven. As he gazed about, a face suddenly appeared before them.

The dragon qilin feared this above all things and nearly cried out; then one face after another surfaced in the fog, forming a great ring around them.

Those faces were the very gods and demons from before!

The faces of those god and demon experts whirled around them with a huffing sound, their smiles growing ever stranger, strange laughter coming from every direction.

Suddenly behind Shen Mu a dark, sunken doorway emerged. The doorway yawned wide, and the faces passed through it one after another—yet still they danced around them.

Shen Mu's heart sank. "They are corpses, not living men," he said in a low voice.

His Heaven-Bearing Gate could draw in the souls or primordial spirits of the living, yet these faces passed through the Heaven-Bearing Gate and came out unharmed—which meant they had no souls at all!

The scholar glanced at the Heaven-Bearing Gate behind him and said in surprise: "This gate of yours seems exceedingly profound."

He brought out a qin and plucked it twice at random. A muffled grunt came from the thick fog; the faces twisted and stopped spinning. Then a light of unbearable brilliance blazed in the fog, like two little suns born within the mist, sending out blinding radiance.

"Heh—so there is an expert here!" A stench of rot and brine came from near the two little suns.

The scholar hooked three strings and let them go with a sudden flick. The qin music swelled; three notes fused into a single line, and the two little suns went out one after the other. The splash of something heavy striking water followed, thud after thud.

The fog around them thinned by degrees, and everyone's sight grew clear.

Shen Mu and the Heavenly Worthy of Imperial Heaven looked about and saw a huge tentacle floating on the water, studded with suckers each more than a zhang across, and on those suckers hung gods and demons, one after another!

Those gods and demons were gasping for breath, yet their faces showed that they could not breathe. They wailed, their features shriveling at a speed visible to the eye, their flesh growing thinner and thinner, until at last they became shriveled skins!

The scholar on the donkey's back stuffed the qin away somewhere, poked at his radish, and the donkey chased the radish onward.

Shen Mu hurried after him. When they came to the place where the light had gone out, they saw floating on the sea a round head the size of a hundred-li island. Its skullcap had been blown off, and on that bald, enormous head the two eyes had been slit open by something sharp!

All across the surrounding sea lay the corpses of gods and demons, hanging from one immense tentacle after another, nothing left of them but skins.

Shen Mu and the others passed this colossal thing and looked up: they had come to the shore.

Ahead stood a divine mountain, two strands of baleful aura tangled at its summit.

Shen Mu looked back. The monster was slowly sinking into the sea, vanishing from sight.

"This demigod was exceedingly powerful, yet you killed him with a few plucks of your strings," Shen Mu said. "Your qin music has entered the Dao. Where does your qin rank in the world?"