荒墟牧神 - 第765章 直搗九霄天闕 - 簡牘書房

He set his son and daughter on his shoulders, his wife, heavy with child, sat in the crook of his arm, and the family set out on the road. Achou raced the wind and chased the moon, leaving that place behind, but the road was far from peaceful; they were set upon by no few demon-gods, for demon-gods were growing ever more numerous in this world. People called the demon-gods primeval beasts; demon-gods ate men and slaughtered wherever they went.

Never before had there been so many demon-gods here, and now they had suddenly swarmed forth. Achou led his family, old and young, hiding here and dodging there; yet on this day his old mother's final hour still came. "Achou, I am dying," his aged mother said to him. "Take good care of your woman and your children.

You are so ugly, and your mother never cast you off; do not cast them off. Achou is not Tubo.

Achou is only an ugly child who looks very much like Tubo.

.

.

" With that, she breathed her last. Achou wept with a hoarse, wailing cry, striving with all his might to open the eye in his brow, striving with all his might to summon the power of Youdu.

As Tubo he had been able to bestow blessing and long life upon mighty late-born beings such as the Youdu Heavenly Worthy, letting them endure alongside the world itself; yet now he could not save his own mother. He cut open his brow with a knife, all dripping blood, but he could not find that eye, and he could feel no power of Youdu at all.

He was not Tubo. He still had a wife, still had children, still had ties that bound him to the world.

He buried his old mother and went on his way with his wife and children, fleeing those who hunted them.

At last his wife went into labor, and he had to stop and seek a midwife to deliver the child; but in this world the demon-gods ranged everywhere, devouring humankind, and living folk were hard to find. The human race of the whole world was all but extinct.

He searched for miles upon miles and found not one living soul, and so he found a cave, hid within it, and delivered the child himself.

After a long torment the child was born, a girl, with a pair of little horns on her head like his own, and a pair of tiger fangs from birth; she was very healthy. Achou was overjoyed. He went out to hunt, to nourish his wife's strength.

But when he returned, he saw demon-gods covering the hills and plains like a forest, blocking the cave where his wife and children were.

Several incomparably powerful demon-gods sat on the mountaintop, looking down at him, and beside them were his wife and children. He charged forward in a frenzy, smashing in the skulls of the demon-gods who blocked his way with his iron plow, pounding their chests to pulp with his fists, piercing them through with his ox horns, tearing at them with his teeth. He had gone mad, and he fought with all his strength toward the cliff opposite.

Those demon-gods had vast powers; they beat him black and blue, beat him into a blur of blood and flesh, broke his bones and snapped his sinews, broke his nine-coiled horns — and still Achou fought madly forward, more like a primeval beast than any of them. He killed for he knew not how long, until his strength was spent, but he had struck terror into them all the same.

He leaned against a tree, panting hoarsely, glaring savagely at the peak across the way.

Those few demon-gods still sat there, watching coldly, saying nothing, stirring not at all. Achou rested a moment, then fought on; severed limbs and broken arms lay everywhere around him, mangled demon-god bodies everywhere. His strength was all but inexhaustible, and yet the power of Youdu was still denied him.

"Kneel.

" A voice came from the mountaintop. Achou looked up and saw a demon-god gripping his wife by the neck, holding her at the cliff's edge; one loosening of that hand and she would fall and be smashed to paste. Achou halted and looked up at the peak in supplication.

The demon-god's hand opened; his wife fell from the cliff.