Chapter 645 — The Primordial Creation Ring
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
Shen Mu stared blankly at the great fish — each with three heads and six fins — swimming through the ancient ruins on the seafloor. His mind reeled, and the words burst from him: "You mean these fish are the gods and demons of the Chiming Era?"
"Not only fish. Other sea beasts as well!"
The First Ancestor Human Emperor looked elsewhere, where colossal sea monsters also drifted — three heads, six arms, with great webbed membranes grown between the arms; as they swam, the membranes fanned up and down, driving them swiftly, and they moved through the water with extraordinary agility.
Beyond these sea beasts there were even sea-serpent demons with three heads and six arms — some with the heads of men, some of women — bearing arms and flat serpent tails, also swimming toward the ruins.
Shen Mu also saw walking plants, like coral, or like other sea-trees, each with three crowns, and the branches splitting from each trunk invariably numbering six.
And in the water drifted sea anemones, jellyfish, and other strange things, likewise three-headed and six-armed; some jellyfish even bore faces!
Their roots and tendrils swam, as though they had heard some call beyond all perception, and they came swimming toward the undersea ruins.
"They haven't kept their sentience?" Shen Mu said in astonishment.
These strange sea beasts and great fish paid them no heed, only wandering aimlessly through the ruins, giving out cries now deep and drawn-out, now short and fierce.
They did not take Shen Mu and the First Ancestor for intruders; surely they had not awakened their sentience, but were muddled and dim, come only in answer to a summons.
"They have no sentience."
The First Ancestor Human Emperor led him before one of the great fish. The creature, dull and dazed, measured the two tiny figures before it with its huge eyes, soon lost interest, and swam away with a flick of its tail.
"This is the only way they could escape the Heavenly Court's pursuit and slaughter."
The First Ancestor Human Emperor sighed. "Like those of the Kaihuang Era, they must have suffered a devastating blow, utterly defeated, with no strength left to resist. So they simply turned themselves into sea beasts and sea monsters devoid of thought or consciousness, showing the Heavenly Court that they posed no threat — and thus escaped the calamity."
The gods and demons of the Chiming Era had altered the form of their bodies; their primal spirits too must have been sealed, and they became living things of the sea. Stripped of their divine strength and divine abilities, they naturally posed no threat.
Thus they survived.
Another group of the Chiming Era's gods and demons had gone far away to foreign lands, seeking a place where they might dwell and multiply.
"The one calling them here is Chixi — he has come to this place! Could he have some means to restore these giant beasts of the Chiming Era to their true bodies and awaken their consciousness once more?"
Shen Mu mused, "No wonder he kept saying he had to return to the ancestral land. If all these giant beasts are gods and demons, then in an instant Divine Man Chixi could gather an army of gods and demons tens of thousands strong! Then Jingping..."
He could not help but shiver.
More and more strange beasts gathered in the sea, of every bizarre kind. If all these colossal sea creatures were to transform into three-headed, six-armed gods and demons and come ashore, Jingping would be the first to bear the brunt!
Jingping had no few gods and demons of its own, but since it had risen only recently, their number surely did not yet reach twenty, and at this moment most of them were in Taihuang Heaven warring against the demon race. One could well imagine that if the gods and demons of the Chiming Era came ashore, Emperor Yanfeng would weep and wail to heaven and earth.
Suddenly, rays of light burst forth from the center of the ruins.
Hum—