Tales of Herding Gods

Qin Mu shrunk his head back and looked around. If he had not broken the rules of Great Ruins and been forced out by the strange beasts, he would not have barged into the darkness.

He had never thought before that the day would come when he could step into the darkness by himself. It was completely different from relying on the protection of the stone statues or the chest.

He felt as if he blended into the darkness like a fish in water. It was like he was part of the darkness.

In his eyes, it was no longer pure black, but similar to fog.

‘This isn’t truly darkness, but a special kind of substance.’

Qin Mu was astonished. He was always curious about the darkness in Great Ruins, but his cultivation had been too low to enter the darkness. But even with enough power to enter the darkness, he reckoned he wouldn’t be able to discover the marvel of the darkness because strong practitioners like Village Chief and Xing An were forcing it back and not letting it get close to them.

Forcing the darkness back made it difficult to discover the truth about it.

Qin Mu was, however, blending in with the darkness, so it was much easier for him to see it.

Village Chief had once guessed that the darkness of Great Ruins wasn’t truly darkness. Instead, it was a world that overlapped with Great Ruins, and he named it the dark realm.

It was later that Village Chief discovered that there wasn’t only one dark realm in Great Ruins but several.

He had also called Fengdu a dark realm.

However, as Qin Mu’s understanding of Fengdu increased, he discovered another secret. Fengdu could be called a dark realm, but it was only a corner of it, one which belonged to none other than Youdu.

That place was one of the dark realms in Great Ruins.

Youdu and Fengdu were moving and changing their locations continuously, so they didn’t cover the entire Great Ruins. The one that did it should be another dark realm.

When Qin Mu stepped into the darkness, he discovered another truth of Great Ruins—the darkness was some kind of strange substance.

‘When I entered another world through the broken cliff and realized that the day and night of that world were the opposite of those in Great Ruins, I had a daring guess.’

Qin Mu’s gaze flickered. He remembered what he had seen and guessed in the golden desert.

That world was the Great Ruins of High Emperor Era, where he had gone to avoid Xing An. There was also day and night there, and they were opposite to the day and night in Great Ruins.

Because of that, Qin Mu guessed that the darkness flooded over from the Great Ruins of High Emperor Era. When the sun set, the darkness flowed out through the cracks and went to the Great Ruins of Founding Emperor from the Great Ruins of High Emperor. When High Emperor Great Ruins started a new day, Founding Emperor Great Ruins went to night. When the sun rose, the darkness returned to High Emperor Great Ruins.

The two Great Ruins formed an hourglass, and the darkness was the sand inside, flowing to and fro.

This was Qin Mu’s guess.

However, he had been running from Xing An back then, and there was only Pangong Tso nearby, so he hadn’t voiced his guess to anyone.

When in the darkness now, he discovered that it was some strange substance, and it affirmed his guess.

‘If the cracks on the broken cliff stretching from north to south were blocked, could we lock the darkness in High Emperor Great Ruins? From then on, would there be no more invasions of darkness at night?’

Qin Mu blinked, finding this reasoning realistic. However, he didn’t know if it would succeed or not.

Besides, the broken cliff was very large and had numerous cracks, so it would be connected to more than one world. How to block the cracks was also another problem.

‘Blocking isn’t the best method to solve the problem. The best way to do it is to familiarize myself with the characteristics of the darkness that can swallow people.’

Qin Mu studied the dark substance which was like fog in detail. Black specks had shape, but not physical substance as they could pass through the skin.

‘Strange substance!”

Qin Mu was astonished. He mobilized a strand of vital qi and used it to fix a portion of the black substance in place. His palm passed through it without feeling any obstruction. He also didn’t feel like he had touched anything.

‘What substance is this exactly? What qualities does it have?’

Qin Mu was thinking about it when the dragon qilin’s nervous voice suddenly came from the ruin. “Cult Master, are you still alive?”

The sound seemed to have come from very far away, as though it had passed through a thick wall. “Don’t worry, I’m still alive. I’ll feed you tomorrow morning,” Qin Mu called back.

“Okay.” The dragon qilin made a sound of acknowledgment, then began to argue. “I wasn’t worried about food but Cult Master’s safety. But since Cult Master is fine, I can sleep now. Cult Master, come back once you’re done playing. We have a long day tomorrow.”

Qin Mu studied his surroundings for a while, but couldn’t understand what the dark substance was. At the moment he was about to head back, he saw a monster.

Whispers came from his surroundings. There were numerous monsters hidden in the darkness, shadows of rocks, and the forest watching him quietly. Scuttling sounds could be heard from time to time as black shadows moved around like phantoms, jumping from one patch of darkness to another at an extremely fast speed. Qin Mu found it hard to see their movements even when he activated his divine eyes.

Suddenly, he faintly saw real shadows walking through the darkness.

These figures seemed to be located between the void and reality, and they weren’t monsters but humans!

They were shadows of humans!

‘Why are there people in the darkness?’

Qin Mu’s heart trembled slightly, and he hurriedly rushed forward. Other than him, the only people that could walk in the darkness were existences that had the abilities of gods, for example, Village Chief, Xing An. Or it could also be some things that could give off divine light, for example, Xing An’s chest which was made from taotie’s divine bones and skin.

When they entered the darkness, they would give off divine light and force the darkness back.

But the shadows in the darkness didn’t force the darkness back. They were like Qin Mu, blending with it. What was even weirder about them was that they seemed to be formed from the darkness!

Qin Mu went after a shadow which seemed to be just as curious about him. It stopped and seemed to be waiting for him to come.

Qin Mu rushed over and examined the black shadow in front of him curiously. It had two long braids hanging down its shoulders as it examined him as well.

Before him was a girl. Even though he could only see her silhouette, he could guess that she wasn’t too old.

She stretched out her palm in what seemed like an attempt to touch him, and Qin Mu stretched out his hand as well. However, their palms passed through each other like there was nothing there.

The girl in the shadow seemed astonished and said something. However, her words were whispers beside Qin Mu’s ears that he couldn’t make out.

‘So strange!’ Qin Mu was puzzled and scratched his head. “Can you hear what am I saying?”

The girl seemed to be unable to hear what he was saying; their voices were warped by a strange power. Suddenly, the girl squatted down, he braids bouncing from the motion. She stretched out her hand and wrote something on the ground.

Qin Mu lowered his head to look, but he could only see black light flowing below. There was nothing written on the ground.

He also wrote a sentence, but the shadow girl shook her head, expressing that she couldn’t see what he was writing either.

An idea flashed in Qin Mu’s head. Pulling his sword out, he executed Sword Treading Mountains and Rivers, but the girl still shook her head, expressing that she didn’t understand what he was doing.

Qin Mu was out of ideas.

Suddenly, the black shadow girl ran forward and stopped after a few steps to beckon him over.

Qin Mu followed after her, and the two of them ran for a while. After some time, the black shadow girl stopped, but Qin Mu couldn’t stop himself and passed straight through her. His motion pushed him to an overhanging cliff that was thirty thousand yards high.

The girl tried to grab his hand, but she couldn’t get hold of him. Luckily, Qin Mu managed to stabilize himself and didn’t drop down the cliff.

The girl pointed forward, and Qin Mu’s mind trembled violently at the sight. Down the cliff stood a magnificent city that possessed a foreign mood to it. Qin Mu had never seen such a vast and majestic construction in Great Ruins before!

‘Strange, this city doesn’t exist in Great Ruins, so could it really be the dark realm overlapping with Great Ruins…’

Qin Mu frowned slightly. If the dark substance could flow between Founding Emperor Great Ruins and High Emperor Great Ruins, wouldn’t this dark realm also exist in the ruins of High Emperor Great Ruins?

Could he really block a world by blocking the cracks in the broken cliff?

‘The darkness of Great Ruins is much more complicated than I imagined. I’m afraid it can’t be blocked…’

Just as he thought that, that shadow girl leaped down from the mountain cliff. She sprinted diagonally down the air as though she was walking on flat ground as she descended into the city below.

Qin Mu also leaped as though he was flying and followed in her footsteps. After a moment, the two of them came to the city, and Qin Mu looked around. The place around him was flourishing, and there were many people bustling to and fro. However, in his eyes, they were all lumps of shadow.

If they were changed into true humans, then he would be visiting an incomparably flourishing city.

He also saw gods and devils in the darkness that were standing on tall buildings while looking around in alert.

Qin Mu was stunned. He felt that there was something wrong.

He had seen a similar sight before.

In Hundred Prosperities City from forty thousand years back in time, the gods and devils had looked around in alert just like this. However, the gods and devils back then had been guarding against the darkness outside the city!

In that case, what was this city in the darkness guarding against?

The shadow girl brought Qin Mu around the city, and all the black shadows in the streets turned their heads to look at them. In their eyes, Qin Mu’s form should have been very strange, for they couldn’t help casting sidelong glances at him.

The two of them passed through many alleys before coming to a mansion built with an extraordinary style. There, an incomparably towering figure slowly rose and opened up its four arms to protect the building. Qin Mu’s arrival seemed to have been what roused the god protecting this mansion.

The shadow girl leaped up onto the palm of that god. She jumped around as though she was flying until she came to the shoulder of the god and said something to him.

The god tilted his head and examined Qin Mu. He opened his mouth to speak, but his words were just whispers in Qin Mu’s ears. He couldn’t understand any of them.

After a moment, the god lowered his palm and signaled for Qin Mu to stand on it. Qin Mu hesitated for a while, but when he came over, he couldn’t step onto anything. He almost fell when trying to, and he hurriedly executed his divine art to float over the palm.

Thee dark god was astonished, and he raised another hand to poke Qin Mu with a finger. It passed right through as if there was nothing there.

The dark god scratched his head, not knowing what was happening.

‘This is too strange!’ Qin Mu’s heart trembled violently. ‘Even an almighty god can’t touch me!’

Suddenly, the city burst into a commotion, and the dark god placed down the shadow girl. He immediately rose into the sky and rushed toward the city gate.

Qin Mu hurriedly followed the shadow girl toward a high place. The space outside the city trembled as black holes suddenly appeared. Grotesque gods and devils crawled out from them, bringing countless soldiers to rush at the magnificent city.

A large scale battle erupted.

Not long later, the city was invaded, and countless devils flooded through the streets where everyone began fighting.

Qin Mu followed the shadow girl to hide while the city was in chaos. Divine arts and spirit weapons bursting forth with power flashed everywhere, and houses and palaces crumbled all around.

It was an extremely long night until the crow of a rooster rang through the air. Qin Mu’s heart trembled slightly at that moment. The darkness surged along with the city. The devil gods retreated back frantically with the monsters, retreating into space holes that vanished without a trace.

Qin Mu’s figure swayed from the moving darkness. He was about to grab the shadow girl beside him when she vanished along with the city!

A ray of sunlight shone down and lighted up the surroundings. Qin Mu looked around and saw towering mountains and precipitous ridges without any sign of a city having existed in their place.

“Cult Master! Cult Master!”

The dragon qilin’s cries came from a distance. Qin Mu looked toward the source of the sound and saw the ruin where they had been resting the day before. The dragon qilin held his basin as he rushed over to place it down. While wagging his tail, he said with a laugh, “Cult Master, it’s time to eat. You know it’s quite late already…”

Qin Mu looked around, feeling like the night’s events had been just a dream.

‘Great Ruins is too strange. Did I really enter another world last night?’