Chapter 1112 — Softly, a Word of Farewell
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
People fled in panic, dragging their families behind them, while those of the human race who commanded divine arts used their powers to carry those who could no longer walk, moving them onward to safety.
Down fell the Heavenly River. One after another, the deities of the human race raised it up upon their own bodies. Again and again someone could bear it no longer and was crushed to dust, and at once a new divine being would rush forward to prop the Heavenly River on his shoulders, buying those below a chance to escape.
At the same time, every divine being in the Xiaohan Celestial Court flew out, speeding upstream and downstream. Heavenly Venerable Yun, Heavenly Venerable Yue, and Heavenly Venerable Ling led them in straining with all their might to hold the Heavenly River aloft and stave off the great flood that would sweep heaven and earth.
Their cultivation was mighty, yet all they could do was delay the River's descent; they could not send it back into the sky.
Divine beings were crushed to death without end. Even the Heavenly Venerables' power could not withstand the River's weight, and all Heavenly Venerable Yun and the others could do was strive to the limit, to give the people more time to flee to the high ground.
"Someone must dig a channel!" Heavenly Venerable Yun shouted. "Yue, you excel in spatial divine arts—you open the riverbed! Once the channel is cut, and the Heavenly River poured into it section by section, the flood will be nothing to fear!"
Heavenly Venerable Yue lowered the Heavenly River from her shoulder, and as its weight pressed down, every shoulder beneath it lurched lower at once.
Fortunately, Heavenly Venerable Yue had already unleashed her divine art, splitting open the earth, and from the east she carved out a channel several hundred li wide.
The divine beings there at once guided the Heavenly River into the channel. The waters grew tame and flowed along the channel toward the Eastern Sea.
And the divine beings who had set the River down hurried upstream to help the others hold it up.
Heavenly Venerable Yue toiled without pause. The mountains that had blocked the Heavenly River she split apart; the earth was hewn into a vast riverbed; the channel stretched ever longer, until even she—a Heavenly Venerable of the Imperial Throne realm—was worn to utter exhaustion and had to stop and rest.
Her disciples took over at once and dug on without cease; one after another collapsed from exhaustion.
More than ten days passed, and they had dug nearly half the channel. Section by section, the Heavenly River was diverted into it and went rushing along its course.
"What of the upstream?" Heavenly Venerable Yue asked as she rested. "Which Heavenly Venerable is holding it up upstream?"
Heavenly Venerable Yun looked at Heavenly Venerable Ling, somewhat at a loss. Heavenly Venerable Ling was holding up the River too; clearly the one upstream was not her.
"I will go upstream and see," he said.
These days he too was utterly weary, and his speed had slowed greatly. Yet as he flew, he saw all too many of the human race's divine beings—their bodies pressed almost into the earth, their hands still raised high, holding up the Heavenly River, refusing to let the flood come down.
Some deities had already died of exhaustion and yet still stood there; even in death, their unyielding will held their bodies upright.
"Who is it upstream?" Heavenly Venerable Yun asked the fleeing people.
"We do not know. It is a divine being with three heads and six arms, but we do not know his name," they told him.
Heavenly Venerable Yun hurried on upstream. Then, far off, he glimpsed a towering figure holding up the Heavenly River with six arms. The god-devil was bent low, his three heads each tilted to one side, the skin of his whole body all but split apart, the divine blood streaming from him forming rivers—and still he held on, refusing to yield.
Heavenly Venerable Yun rushed over, his heart stirred beyond words.