Tales of Herding Gods

Under the cliff, two doors leading to two different kinds of worlds had opened, and each of them had their own restraints.

It wasn’t the first time the two people had met, and it wasn’t their first time clashing. They had fought in the past, in the period that High Emperor Era was about to be buried.

After that, they had fought numerous times, but it had been Founding Emperor Era by then!

At the mountain cliff, they had fought numerous times.

Both of them by then had left the desolate world, and it was merely their apparitions that were fighting. Their realms were too high and their abilities were too strong. If there wasn’t an opportunity, their true bodies couldn’t enter this world.

There were no more lifeforms in this world and nothing else that could survive here.

It was the Great Ruins of High Emperor Era.

A place that was even harsher than Founding Emperor Era’s Great Ruins.

Great Ruins at least still had stone statues of gods to protect the people, allowing lifeforms to survive. However, there was only a desert here, and when the darkness invaded at night, there was no place to hide.

There were no more lifeforms left since thirty to forty thousand years ago, only gods.

During the early period of Founding Emperor Era, the gods had left one after another. They went off to other worlds, and the two now fighting were the last two gods to have left.

“Woman of Bai Family from forty thousand years ago, are you here to find the person who left the writing?”

The one-armed god had a tall body, and the long knife behind him hummed. The knife will seemed to be able to penetrate through time and space, slicing into another world. He sneered and said, “Looks like you had also received news of him coming into being. I long knew your sword skills had problems. They surpassed High Emperor Era and even surpassed Founding Emperor Era, but I hadn’t considered that you were actually related to Heavenly Devil Cult Master!”

The body of the woman in the divine light trembled, and delight filled her heart. She was completely unconcerned about his enmity. “He really came? The him who had time traveled had really appeared here?”

“You can’t block me!” The one-armed god in the stone door was incomparably arrogant. “I want to kill him, and you want to stop me. We’ve fought for so many years, but it was all a mess after all. Neither of us could do anything to each other. The reason I left my broken arm as is was to be able to fight him one day and take revenge for my severed arm, to take revenge for the hatred of disgracing my path.”

“If I can’t break his sword skills with my knife skills, I’ll never find it easy to speak my mind, to let my knife path advance another step! For this day, I’ve already waited almost forty thousand years!”

The woman in the cliff’s divine light walked out of the rays and stood on the desert. She was just an apparition and said faintly, “Whatever you say is useless if you can’t come to this world.”

The one-armed god turned around, and his blood red cape trembled to cover the entire door. Suddenly, where the cape was trembling, a knife light sliced apart the barrier between the two worlds!

The knife will was boundless and incomparably terrifying. It had actually sliced open the barrier between the two worlds!

The knife light rang out and burst out from the stone door. Two sand waves were lifted into the air. In the center was a precipice that was raised three thousand yards high, and it stretched for hundreds of miles!

But when the man wanted to step into this world, an invisible force from heaven and earth bounced him back.

The young girl walked back into the divine light and vanished into the cliff. “With your strength, your true body will find it impossible to pass through, give up on this thought.”

The one-armed god in the stone door pulled back his knife and turned to leave. The stone door gradually crumbled. “I will return to this world, just a world barrier is no trouble for me!”

The dragon qilin carried Qin Mu and the chest to the cloud. It was clearly day earlier, but the instant they passed through the cloud, the sky became incomparably dark. The crashing of water could be heard in the dark night, and Qin Mu looked in the direction of the sound. He saw the scattered light on the broken cliff shining through the night.

They had returned to Great Ruins, to the source of Surging River.

It was still that heavenly moat that had stretched from east to west of Great Ruins and the cliff that had a huge drop in elevation separated Great Ruins into east and west. This was also the source of Surging River, and the waterfalls pouring down from the cliff, the water source was worth thinking about.

‘The water of Surging River may come from the other worlds and might even enter some others through the cracks. Maybe there is a different story here…’

Qin Mu looked at the broken cliff, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat. He saw a headless person standing at the crack!

Xing An!

His hair couldn’t help standing on ends. Xing An was guarding the entrance to the world he just left and waiting for him to walk right into him!

The world of the yellow desert was a world without any lifeforms, a world that was completely dead.

That fellow had actually plucked his head off and left his headless body to stay guard there. When Qin Mu thought about it, the other’s head and eyes were probably still flying randomly in the yellow desert in search of them!

The dragon qilin also noticed this and silently landed. The chest gave off faint light that forced the darkness back, protecting them.

When the dragon qilin reached the ground, Qin Mu crawled silently down his back, keeping himself low.

The dragon qilin tried his best to shrink his body size and climbed onto the chest. Qin Mu also got onto the chest which took wide steps to slowly get close to the river.

The river water here was the source of Surging River. Because the bed wasn’t too wide, the flow rate wasn’t too rapid, so it couldn’t be considered upstream.

The chest entered the river, and its legs gently pushed against the water as it swam silently downstream.

Qin Mu let out a sigh of relief. Xing An had left his head in that world so he would have lost the ability to monitor the surroundings of his body, making it easier for them to remain undiscovered. As long as they got farther, the chances of finding them would become extremely slim.

At that moment, there was a thump as the chest hit a reef. This sound wasn’t loud, but it sounded very ear piercing in the dead of the night.

They weren’t yet far from the waterfall nor Xing An.

Qin Mu turned back to look and saw Xing An who was standing at the crack without any change. His heartbeat calmed, and he smiled. ‘I’m too careful and forgot that Xing An’s head is not here. Without ears and eyes, even if we walked right in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to see or hear us.’

The dragon qilin let out a sigh of relief and smiled. “The sound of the waterfall is so loud, so we have no need to worry he will hear us… Cult Master?”

Qin Mu’s expression suddenly changed drastically, filling with astonishment. In the crack of the cliff, Xing An’s headless body suddenly turned, and his neck seemed to be very long. On each side of it, there was an ear.

His corporeal body was god-like so it was giving off divine light and was extremely eye-catching in the dark.

Xing An had cut off his ears and planted them on his neck!

At this moment, the two ears trembled in the wind and became even larger than the ears of Rolan’s Golden Elephant!

Qin Mu immediately made his decision and used his consciousness to transmit his voice. “Run! Don’t take the waterway! Onto the shore!”

The speed of the chest swimming in the water was much slower than sprinting on land. In the darkness, they needed to rely on the chest to defend against the darkness so its speed was their speed.

The chest was silent in the water, but its footsteps would make some noise when it went ashore. However, now that Xing An had already heard them, escaping for their life on land was the best choice.

In the crack of the cliff, the headless body suddenly flew up and pounced right where Qin Mu and the rest were!

At the same time, an eyeball hurriedly flew over from the crack. When it did so, it stopped in midair. Divine light burst forth from the eyeball and lighted up the surroundings so it could first determine its surroundings

A light pillar then shone down from the divine eye and lighted up a radius of seven hectares while moving forward!

“Crap…”

Qin Mu’s blood went cold. The chest could defend against the darkness, but its speed wasn’t very fast. Now that it was in the water and not on land, its speed was even slower, but they couldn’t abandon it and leave!

Thump!

The headless Xing An landed on the water, not too far away from them. He tilted the ears on his neck and stood motionlessly. The pair of ears became even larger.

Suddenly, the light in the sky shined down like a pillar on the headless Xing An’s body. It then swept forward and shone onto Qin Mu and the dragon qilin who was on the chest, looking extremely nervous.

Qin Mu smiled, and the chest beneath his feet also stopped, freezing on the spot. Qin Mu smiled and said, “Brother Xing An, if I help you break free of the hidden symptoms of your body, can you let me off alive?”

On Xing An’s neck, two ears suddenly began flapping, and the eye in midair also flew forward.

“Your shamelessness astonishes me. You still have the face to mention this?”

When Xing An’s voice came over, a head flew out from the darkness behind his body and landed on his neck.

At the same time, the two ears also flew over and stuck to his ear holes.

Another eye came flying, but it didn’t enter its eye socket. Instead, it remained in the air above Qin Mu, monitoring his movements.

Xing An raised his head and said coldly, “Now I can answer you, no. Great Divine Physician Qin is too crafty. When I wasn’t paying attention for a moment, you even stole my chest. I’m worried about letting you treat me, for you just might steal my life as well! Such a crafty person, only by turning you into a corpse can I be at ease.”

On the river, a wave of fog surged over to them. The water vapor here was very concentrated, and dense fog would frequently spread unchecked.

Qin Mu looked at the dense fog, and his heart shook slightly. He smiled and said, “Brother Xing An is too careful. Actually, you aren’t bad, you are just too attached to immortality. You haven’t been to Eternal Peace during this period of time, right? I have already patched the divine bridge and established its space algebra model. As long as you cultivate it, you will be able to patch the divine bridge completely. Literally, everyone knows about this in Eternal Peace Empire except for you who are still trying to extend your life with other people’s body parts.”

Xing An was about to get rid of him, but he was stunned upon hearing what he had said. He sneered and said, “You’re lying! If you really have this kind of technique, why wouldn’t you keep it to yourself and spread it instead? You’re Heavenly Devil Cult Master so you would naturally impart this technique to the followers of Heavenly Devil Cult instead, strengthening the abilities of your cult! Furthermore, Grandmaster was beside me for some six-seven days, so why would he not mention this to me?”

Qin Mu laughed and said, “Grandmaster wanted to borrow your hands to get rid of me and even wanted you and Shaman God Kui to suffer, so how would he tell you about this? Besides, keeping it for myself… You’re underestimating my breadth of mind.

“If you seek immortality, you can absolutely throw away everything in the chest and abandon the body parts of others. You just have to learn my three techniques: Secrets of Magpie Bridge, Secrets of Mysterious Guide, and Secrets of Divine Crossing. Once your divine bridge is formed, you will be able to cross it and enter the celestial palace, becoming an undying god. Truth be told, someone is already a step ahead of you. Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor has already become a god.”

The dense fog became thicker and thicker, drowning the both of them out.

Xing An’s eyes were still in the sky and getting closer. They continued to stare at Qin Mu and even with the dense fog, they could still see him clearly.

Xing An’s voice came from the dense fog as he sighed and said, “You are indeed remarkable to have such breadth of mind; I’ve underestimated you. However, you are also underestimating me by thinking I’m taking other people’s body parts just for immortality. My aim is to become a true god, so I will still kill whoever I have to kill, and I will steal seize other people’s body parts. Your divine bridge’s space algebra model is very useful to me so I thank you, but since you’ve already imparted this to everyone…”

Light shot out from Qin Mu’s eyes, and his body suddenly sank into the ground. His vital qi burst forth and transformed into countless runes, wrapping him, the dragon qilin, and the chest!

“What’s the point of leaving you?”

Light shone brightly from Xing An’s eyes and sliced apart the runes around Qin Mu. Yet the youth smiled and pulled out his knives, swinging them like a storm. With each knife, each and every rune that was shattered by the compression of space lighted up again.

Knife lights surrounded him from all directions, and even Xing An couldn’t help exclaiming in admiration. “Your abilities aren’t bad; you aren’t inferior to me in the past.”

His corporeal body rushed in to attack, but just as he was about to strike Qin Mu down, the world swirled and his expression couldn’t help changing drastically. “Crap!”

Swoosh!

His two eyes vanished. His corporeal body had been relying on them to see, so now that they were teleported away by Qin Mu, his sight became a rapidly spinning and moving world!

“Weurgh—”

Xing An opened his mouth to vomit while forcing his primordial spirit to suppress the confused vision. He felt his whole body spinning yet it was just a misperception brought by his sight!

“In the past? Xing An, you aren’t even fit to carry my shoes!” Qin Mu laughed loudly, and runes lighted up again around him.

Xing An heard his voice and immediately rushed over. The moment he moved, he instantly knew it had been a bad idea. A loud crash rang out the next moment as he rushed out dozens of miles into a cliff!

His divine eyes provided him vision, so now that they were spinning rapidly, his sense of space had vanished and he couldn’t determine the direction!

Qin Mu’s vital qi burst forth and runes appeared again. He executed teleportation divine art once more and disappeared with the chest and the dragon qilin!

‘I can teleport Xing An’s eyes dozens of miles away yet when I bring the dragon qilin and the chest along, I can teleport us four miles away at most. But as long as I don’t make any sound, I should be able to escape into the riverbed and slip away…’

Qin Mu who was in the mid of teleportation suddenly heard a loud rumble. His teleportation divine arts failed, and he crashed into a skeleton mountain that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Countless bones flew into the sky upon the collision.

This immediately stunned Qin Mu, leaving him at a loss.

A flailing skeleton flew past him while crying out, “Are you blind or something?”