Tales of Herding Gods - Chapter 246
Chapter 246: Seemed Real yet Resembled Fantasy
Translator: Ninetales Editor: DarkGem
Qin Mu looked at that Green Dragon Crescent Blade in the hands of the heaven king’s god statue and noticed that this blade was real and not made of stone.
When they had just come into the temple, Qin Mu had surveyed his surroundings. He clearly remembered that there was no blade in the hands of the heavenly king’s god statue, let alone such a huge one as Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
What was even more astonishing, the blade actually had some blood stains.
When Qin Mu stretched his hand out to check if it was really fresh blood, Blind’s cane lifted his wrist up, moving it to the side. With a bright smile on his face, Blind said, “Mu’er, don’t be so curious, you’ll die.”
Qin Mu was frightened and suddenly remembered what he and Village Chief had encountered when walking in the darkness. A droplet of devil blood had caused all the plants within a radius of hundred yards to wither instantly.
If it was real blood on the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, then the weird things that had happened last night would have also been real. This would mean that the heavenly king’s god statue had really slain East Sea Dragon King, and it would be his blood on the blade.
Blind seemed to know Qing Mu’s thoughts and said softly, “Divine blades are psychic, don’t provoke them recklessly.”
Qin Mu smiled. “I’m not Grandpa Cripple and won’t commit such an outrageous act like stealing the divine blade of the heavenly king. I only want to take the blood on the blade. This is the blood of the dragon king of divine dragons, so it can probably be used to refine medicine.”
Blind praised, “Mu’er is still the thrifty one in the household, knowing how to accumulate wealth.”
Qin Mu took out a jade bottle and carefully took that drop of dragon king’s blood on the Green Dragon Crescent Blade into his bottle, then screwed it tightly shut.
In the courtyard of the heavenly king’s temple, a huge dragon’s head made out of stone had created a huge pit in the ground. On the shattered pieces, there were some bloodstains which shone bright red.
Qin Mu fetched a box and transformed his vital qi tread into sword qi. He then carefully controlled it to scrape the blood stains into the box.
When he came to the neck of the dragon’s head, he saw that it had been cleanly cut off. It looked like it had been separated from its body by an incredibly sharp knife. From the cross-section, Qin Mu could imagine how overbearing and quick that sharp knife had been!
Even though the dragon’s head was from a stone statue, he could still feel the abundant and matchless desire within the knife, its realm.
‘If I sat here and observed this section of the dragon’s head, I could comprehend an extremely overbearing knife skill that wouldn’t be inferior to Grandpa Butcher’s Pig Slaughtering Knife Skill. However, there’s no time, we should be hurrying.’
Qin Mu felt that it was a pity. If he could comprehend the god realm contained in this knife skill, knife desire, and knife realm, just the aura alone could scare a bunch of people to death.
Old Ma hurried him, “Mu’er, it’s time to go!”
Qin Mu caught up with the others and called the dragon qilin over to get on him. The dragon qilin had been used like a steed by the heavenly king the whole night, so its body was weak and aching all over. The moment Qin Mu jumped onto him, he squealed like a pig being slaughtered.
Qin Mu immediately jumped off, and the dragon qilin said, “I must have been possessed, having been ridden by a stone statue the entire night. Elder Blind, you know fortune telling, so can you do exorcism as well?”
Blind shook his head. “I’m not a professional in this field, I only do fortune telling and exorcisms once in a while. I can’t exorcise you, but you don’t have to worry, you’ll be better after resting for a night.”
The dragon qilin was only half-convinced.
After walking a few thousand miles north, the terrain became lower. Qin Mu turned his head back and saw that they had walked down from a few mountain ranges, which left him bewildered.
Granny Si said, “This place is like a basin, so it looks like there are huge mountains all around it. But in truth, out there are the plains from which we entered. This basic is actually quite large.”
Everyone looked around, checking out the majestic mountains, thick forests, ravines, and chasms all over the basin. The geography here was quite different from the places in Great Ruins.
This basin was extremely vast, and when Qin Mu and the rest had walked past a foothill, they could see some red corals branching out. They were very mesmerizing, like rubies.
Granny Si plucked a red coral, planning to make it into a hairpin when a strange beast suddenly jumped out at them. It looked like a huge lobster, but its body was three yards long and had eight legs as well as pincers that it kept swinging at everyone.
“Lunch is settled!” Blind was elated.
During lunch, Qin Mu roasted the strange beast, and its fragrance assaulted their nostrils. Grease flowed out from golden yellow tomalley which heightened everyone’s appetite. Old Ma had fasted for a long time, so this time he also ate to his heart’s content, leaving only the lobster’s shell on the ground.
Qin Mu was bewildered. “Why was this type of strange beast here? There is no water around here.”
As he was saying that, the mooing of cows came from the distance, and the forest shook. A couple fish monsters had smelled the fragrance and walked out of the forest. They had fish-like upper bodies that were twenty yards long, while their lower half had six sturdy legs. This group of strange beasts then mooed like cows.
Qin Mu looked over in the direction of the noise and saw the fish monsters sprinting as if they were flying. Their legs seemed to have evolved from their fins and had huge scales which were incomparably hard. When they walked, the thousands of scales were like mirrors which reflected the sunlight that was shining on them.
“There’s no need for unnecessary killing once we filled our stomachs.” Old Ma released his aura and scared the fish monsters away.
His aura was astonishing. It not only scared away the cow-like fish monsters, but also the ‘birds’ in the forest. When Qin Mu raised his head, he saw a swarm of fish that had grown wings flying into the distance.
He opened his Green Heaven’s Eyes to have a look and saw black figures moving around on the mountain peaks far away. A couple huge octopi with eight tentacles shrunk their huge heads and retreated into their own territory, not daring to provoke them.
One of the octopus was startled enough to spew out a puff of black smoke which shrouded an area of seven hectares, turning the air there pitch black.
The four people then continued on their way and met a few fishmen who had fish heads and human bodies and were holding onto pitchforks for hunting.
“What a strange place,” Blind muttered.
Qin Mu had lived in Great Ruins ever since he was young. He had seen such strange living beings since he was young, so he thought that fish and prawns should be like this, running around everywhere. At first, he had been surprised a bit, but he didn’t put it to heart.
However, Blind and Granny Si hadn’t always lived around here, so they knew what fish and prawns were like outside, so they found it strange.
Granny Si looked around and muttered, “This place should have been a huge sea that had magical creations. Once the sea disappeared, the living beings in it could only move onto the dry land and change their habits and abilities. However, aren’t these changes a little too much…”
Blind also felt that it was outrageous, but the dragon qilin was the first to speak. He suddenly said, “I seemed to have come here before…”
Qin Mu was bewildered, but he still smiled. “You and Patriarch came here before?”
Dragon qilin shook his head. “No. What I meant was that the god had ridden me here last night.”
In time, they saw a village full of the abandoned people of Great Ruins. They all looked as if they didn’t know what to do next.
Qin Mu went forward to inquire about it, and an elder said, “Countless dragon king temples in the radius of hundreds of miles were destroyed last night. Many of the dragon kings that were worshiped in the temples actually had their heads cut off! We usually go to the dragon kings’ temples to give our offerings and pray for good weather, but now that they’ve been destroyed, everyone is at a loss…”
Qin Mu was greatly shocked and immediately asked for more details.
“Yesterday, the storm was heavy and everyone in the village was rudely awoken. When we went outside, we saw that it was pitch black, and there was water above everyone’s houses. That water just floated above, however, not landing down.”
Qin Mu was stunned. Water floating above the roofs?
“The sound of waves was very loud, and there was light coming from the water above. Many people even saw dragons! It was like a huge sea was hanging in the sky, with slaughter happening within it. I saw bolts of lightning streaking through all the time, only stopping when dawn came.
“After daybreak, the water in the sky vanished. Only the trees looked like they had been rained on the whole night; the tree crowns filled with water. We then discovered that quite a number of temples had been destroyed, and the people that live in the temples said that they saw the stone statues of the divine dragons flying out.”
Qin Mu stared with wide eyes. Stone statues of divine dragons flying out?
“A monk that lives in Divine Dragon Valley says that he saw a heavenly king carrying a blade and riding a plump monster. He barged in and slew the divine dragon king in Divine Dragon Valley, leaving with the head…”
After Qin Mu finished scouting out the information, he came back to tell Blind, Old Ma, and Granny Si. All of them looked at one another in dismay.
This incident was really too weird.
What happened yesterday night seemed real yet resembled fantasy—stone statues handing down decrees in the darkness, heavenly king’s god statue wielding a blade to kill dragons kings, and the dragon qilin being a steed for the entire night. The abandoned people of Great Ruins even talked about a sea hanging in the sky and the heads of the dragon kings and dragon god being severed.
If one linked these incidents together, then what happened last night had to be real.
“That stone statue that handed out the decree last night said His Majesty had sent his decree from Carefree Village, the main problem lies here,” an ancient voice said from Granny Si’s mouth. “I think…”
“Amitabha!”
Old Ma transformed into a huge buddha to suppress Granny Si’s heart. On the other side, Blind made a move to bind Granny Si in place. The two of them were nervous, but in the end they suppressed the devil nature of Granny Si.
Qin Mu also wiped away his cold sweat and hurried them, “Let’s go, let’s go. We should reach Great Thunderclap Monastery as soon as possible to prevent Cult Master Li from coming out to create havoc!”
As they hurried forward, they soon saw Divine Dragon Valley. There were countless sculptures of divine dragons that were surrounding a huge lake, and in the center of it was a sculpture of a dragon king.
Many of the divine dragon statues had collapsed, and all them seemed to have been severed by a single strike, from which they tumbled down to the ground. The divine dragon king’s sculpture in the center of the lake also stood with a severed neck, but its head was nowhere to be seen.
“My god…” Granny Si gradually woke up and moaned when she saw this sight. “This part of Great Ruins is so mysterious. Are these stone statues just god statues or have they transformed living gods? I really don’t understand…”
“Amitabha!”
Buddha rays shone brightly around Old Ma, and a white robe monk flew out from the heart of his brows and entered the heart of Granny Si’s brows in a flash, suppressing her.
With a grim face, Old Ma said, “No time to delay, I won’t be able to suppress him for much longer! Cult Master Li’s primordial spirit is fusing at an incredible speed with Granny Si, and her cultivation has already broken through to Life and Death Realm! If we delay any longer, I’m afraid it won’t be long before they will fuse completely and Cult Master Li will be able to finally take over the nest and become the owner of this body!”
Blind asked solemnly, “How long can you suppress him for?”
Old Ma shook his head. “I can still suppress him for now, but I might injure granny’s mind if I exert too much force.”
Blind said resolutely, “Hurry!”