Chapter 425 — The Yin Capital of the Netherworld
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
And at the heart of Fengdu, a demon god seemingly made of darkness let his cloak hang aslant, spreading out on every side, taller and more imposing than the Ark itself. The Ark passed straight through his body, and Yan Jingjing did not see his face, only, in the darkness beneath the cloak, two eyes of fiery red. Whsssh— The world of Fengdu flickered past; the mist surged on ahead and vanished into the darkness.
The sun slowly recovered its brilliance, and everyone aboard looked down to find flesh and blood restored to them, leaving them with no notion of what had happened. "The mist of the world of Fengdu is surging toward the God-Sundering Mountains.
.
.
" Yan Jingjing raised her head toward the God-Sundering Mountains, where the Headman and his companions were intercepting and slaying the gods of the High Heavens. The fighting raged at its fiercest: some peaks of the God-Sundering Mountains abruptly grew taller, while others sank in an instant into the earth. Now and again sword-light and blade-light split the sky, shaking the heart, and all manner of sounds carried over, as though demons roared and gods whispered.
"My ox-herding brother has ridden the Flood-Dragon King to borrow the Soul Ark.
He says the Soul Ark lies far from here, and that he must sail from the Soul Spring into the Sea of Stars, and he asked me to hold them off for a while. I do not know whether he will be in time. .
.
What is that? " Yan Jingjing pressed on at full speed and suddenly froze again. On the side of the God-Sundering Mountains that faced the Wasteland, clusters of ghost fire surged; where those fires had come from she could not tell, they had simply appeared. "Pleiades Sun Star-Ring!
" Layer upon layer of firelight in Yan Jingjing's eyes became a star-ring, and she looked toward the ghost fire. Within it, paper boats were drifting out of an endless darkness, storm lanterns hung at their prows lighting the gloom, and many paper men on paper horses galloped madly, charging into the mist.
On boat after boat, old men in tattered black robes sat beneath the storm lanterns, steering their craft into the mist, and dimly within the mist could be seen towering figures like gods and demons, battling those old men. Eerie light pierced through the two worlds again and again, yet, strangely, these fluctuations never passed from those two worlds into the real one; the waves did not strike the Wasteland, nor have any effect upon reality at all.
"That is.
. . the legendary Yin envoys of Youdu!
" Yan Jingjing was astonished beyond words. The Yin envoys of Youdu were fighting Fengdu?
What was the meaning of this? She had no time to ponder it.
The Ark rumbled on, charging toward the God-Sundering Mountains, drawing ever nearer to the battlefield of Fengdu and the world of Youdu; and above that battlefield lay the field where the Headman, the Imperial Preceptor Jingping and the others fought the gods of the High Heavens, a battle no less magnificent, though it paled somewhat beside the war between Fengdu and Youdu.
All those fighting on the mountain were exceedingly powerful, each the match of a god or demon, possessed of vast divine powers; yet they seemed utterly unaware that beneath their feet another battle was unfolding, greater still in scale, more awe-inspiring still.
As the Ark traveled to the foot of the God-Sundering Mountains, before it had even drawn close, Yan Jingjing suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation of the heart.