Tales of Herding Gods

Chapter 426: On the Bridge of Helplessness

Translator: Ninetales Editor: DarkGem

Thump.

Village Chief’s stone statue landed in front of Moon Ship; it was missing its four limbs. It was a sculpture of an old man who had experienced many vicissitudes of life. The wrinkles on his face seemed to have been sculpted by hardships and formed by the erosion of time.

The stone statue was looking in Qin Mu’s direction with a relieved smile. At the sight of it, Qin Mu couldn’t help remembering the tender and loving smile of the elder who lay in his recliner while looking at him.

“Village Chief…” Qin Mu stared blankly at the stone statue as an indescribable sorrow suddenly poured out from his heart.

The darkness was around him and the ghostly glow given off from the stone statue didn’t cover a wide range, but it reminded him of the slightly stubborn elder who wanted to stubbornly protect him even after he was gone.

“Grandpa Village Chief…”

Droplets of tears that were like moonlight fell from Qin Mu’s eyes. They floated in the sky, glistening in the moonlight. Suddenly, divine flood dragon king’s miserable cries rang out, and Qin Mu shut his eyes to squeeze the moonlight within them out.

He had entered deep into Great Ruins with the protection of divine flood dragon king, barging into the place he had once mistaken for Carefree Village, the place where was the huge land ship constructed by Ministry of Heavenly Works. He then took Moon Ship to return.

He was trying to enter Moon Well when he met the other group of gods who were hurrying over from High Heavens. There weren’t many of them, just three.

Those three gods were not acting ostentatiously like Star Sovereign Qiao and the rest, transforming into starlight to hurry on their way. They were traveling on land with their dazzling divine light concealed, giving off only a faint glow to force back the monsters in the darkness.

When Qin Mu encountered them, one of the gods thought he was a peculiarity of the darkness and immediately said in the god language, “High Heavens is handling affairs, monsters be gone.”

After that, he immediately suffered a destructive strike from Qin Mu. He was caught completely off guard and hit by the broken moon up that came smashing toward him and shattered all of his bones!

Only then did the other two gods realize that they had met a strong foe.

Qin Mu was different from Yan Jingjing. She had to be careful not to damage the sun, but he had nothing to worry about and no consequences to take into account. He fought the two gods for several thousand miles until he managed to cripple the second god with brute force alone.

The reason why he had needed such a long time for it was mainly because Moon Ship’s moon was broken and inferior to Sun Ship’s son.

Sun Ship possessed a complete sun while the moon of Moon Ship had already extinguished and was even cracked. After battling for so long, Moon Ship was also was in a rather bad condition while the two chains holding onto the moon simply broke off.

However, at the instant Qin Mu saw Village Chief, he still fell into a daze. The sight of his elder turning into a stone statue and falling from the sky stirred up his emotions, causing a kind of indescribable sorrow to pour out.

The battle power of divine flood dragon king was similar to that of Dragon Rearing Sovereign whose abilities were inferior to the other gods of High Heavens. The instant Qin Mu lost focus, he was severely injured.

Qin Mu opened his eyes and raised his hand to loosen his grip on the divine pillars, wanting to touch that limbless stone statue that was smiling at him. His huge palm streaked past the front of the stone statue, but it didn’t land on it.

Whoosh!

His palm grabbed a chain that was hanging down and his hair fluttered with his anger. The chain whooshed through the darkness to bind the god of High Heavens who had severely injured the divine flood dragon king, coiling around him tightly.

Qin Mu’s other arms pulled the broken moon over and smashed it right on the god. The divine flood dragon king cried out in astonishment. He was right next to them, so if he was hit as well, he would either die or end up really close to that state!

He rolled and tumbled away in a hurry to avoid the strike, but the half moon still brushed past his body, scraping off a huge dragon scale. The divine flood dragon king gritted his teeth from the searing pain while tears rolled down his cheeks.

Kaboom!

The broken moon smashed onto the body of the god of High Heavens, and the mountains shook. The monsters in the surrounding darkness cried out in astonishment and fled in all directions.

Boom!

Qin Mu didn’t say a word and swung the broken moon up to smash it down again, and again, and again, and again. Chunks of rocks that were the size of a mountain broke off from the moon before being crushed to powder.

The god who had just been crippled by Qin Mu looked over with fear. He hurriedly ignored his pain and quickly hobbled away. His heart was flustered, and he could only hear the hammering coming behind him, knocking heavily on his heart. It made his scalp crawl.

‘This brat is crazy. He must be crazy… It isn’t worth it to pit my life against his! I’m just here to complete the mission assigned by the higher-ups; I don’t have to fight to the death!’

He hurried off into the distance when a loud crack suddenly came from behind him. The moon shattered from Qin Mu’s smashing, and chunks of rocks filled the sky.

Without the moon, Qin Mu instantly felt all his strength fading away as he returned to being a divine arts practitioner of Six Directions Realm.

If the crippled god turned back to look, he could easily kill the weak him with the raising of a hand, but that god was frightened out of his wits and never turned back.

Qin Mu sat on the worn out Moon Ship and gasped heavily for breath. The dragon qilin looked at him in fear while the other flood dragons were shivering as they hid behind him. All their gazes were filled with terror as they looked at Qin Mu.

Thick chains hung from the ship, but Moon Ship no longer had the terrifying aura from before. The rings of flowing moonlight had also vanished without a trace.

Darkness poured forth and soon drowned them out, but the monsters stayed far away, not daring to come near.

Qin Mu looked at the smiling stone statue in front of Moon Ship. It was a satisfied smile.

“You are still alive, you must be still alive! Divine flood dragon king!” Qin Mu struggled to get up and shouted, “Go lift that stone statue!”

The divine flood dragon king was covered in injuries, and it was a struggle for him to fly over. He exerted himself and lifted the stone statue. Qin Mu was extremely nervous and shouted, “Is it heavy?”

The divine flood dragon king quickly placed the stone statue down and replied truthfully, “Extremely!”

“Carrying a stone statue is equivalent to carrying a god, Grandpa Blind wouldn’t have lied to me… You are really still alive. You are living in some place, it’s just not this world! You are like the other stone statues in Great Ruins and will sometimes wake up in the darkness.”

Qin Mu laughed loudly, but as he did so, he suddenly began to wipe tears from his eyes. “I have seen a stone statue come back to life and ride the dragon qilin to quell the rebellion, so you must be able to do it as well! Right?”

Si Yunxiang looked at the young sacred cult master and suddenly felt that the heart of the incomparably crafty big boy that was acclaimed as the great devil king was actually pure. Not only that, it was also fragile. Or it could be said that underneath his firm and persistent cover hid a soft heart.

Qin Mu wiped his tears dry and shouted loudly, “You will come back, won’t you? If I cry, you will laugh at me, you will say I’m still a wimpy kid!”

He called the divine flood dragon king over and climbed on his back with the others. All the sorrow and joy on his face had vanished, leaving only an emptiness behind. “Let’s go! Go after that god who escaped. We definitely cannot let him enter Eternal Peace alive!”

The divine flood dragon king answered him and chased after the traces left behind by the crippled god.

Qin Mu turned back to look and Village Chief’s stone statue gradually disappearing into the darkness. He recorded the place in his memories.

“No matter where your soul goes, I will go and find you. You are my family, my kin…” He raised his head to look at the boundless darkness. “Even if you land in the hands of Earth Count, I will fight my way there and ask for it back!”

“Your Majesty, my injuries are very heavy right now, so even if we catch up to that god, we might not be his opponent,” the divine flood dragon king said carefully.

The corners of Qin Mu’s eyes wrinkled and he said, “I will refine pills to heal your injuries so you can be at ease. Besides, there are so many flood dragons around—he won’t be able to escape from my grasp.”

The divine flood dragon king was still slightly worried. ‘Hopefully, this god will pass by Surging River…’

.

In Fengdu, the living realm of the dead, the bird-headed god brought Village Chief past the stone tablet, and the old man lowered his head to see his body slowly recovering. His heart grew, followed by his head, body, and even his limbs.

Over there, he felt that he was still alive.

“The living realm of the dead, truly a wonderful world.” He looked at the bird-headed god and asked, “If I leave here, will I be dead or alive?”

The bird-headed god shook his head and said, “Of course you will be dead. But your luck isn’t bad, since you actually managed to leave a breath behind before your corporeal body died. But stop thinking about your old body. If you go past this boundary stone, your flesh and bones will melt. You no longer belong to the real world. Let’s go, there’s an old friend waiting for you.”

Village Chief followed him with his sleeves fluttering. He suddenly stopped again and said with a bitter smile, “I’m not used to having my arms and legs, too used to being crippled…”

He passed through Fengdu’s gates of hell and came to the first big city. It was one of many in Fengdu.

The place they entered seemed to have just undergone a huge battle as there were traces of war everywhere.

“Your old friend is waiting on the Bridge of Helplessness right in front!” The bird-headed god stopped and raised his talon while pushing his beak forward in a motioning gesture.

“You still hate me?” Village Chief asked with a smile.

“I hate the smell of a living person.” The bird-headed god flapped his wings to leave. “You still have a breath left in your corporeal body which makes your smell vile for me.”

Village Chief walked forward, and after a moment, he saw the Bridge of Helplessness. A tall and sturdy person was standing on it with his back facing him.

Under the bridge, everything was hazy, lacking clarity.

Village Chief was slightly stunned, feeling that the back was somewhat familiar.

He suddenly became excited and quickly walked to the Bridge of Helplessness. His footsteps became faster and faster as he hurried toward the person. “You…”

The tall and sturdy figure turned around and smiled. “You finally came. I’ve waited a long time for you. It’s been hard on you these years…”

Village Chief kicked the tall and sturdy man off the bridge while scolding him furiously, “You old bastard, tricked me to become the human emperor, to carry a burden I couldn’t carry at all while you hid here, living a free and happy life! Stop acting dead and climb up the bridge so I can beat you to death! Master, master? Are you still alive?”

The fog churned under the bridge, and there was a monster which tried to grab the tall and sturdy man to drag him down.

Shocked, Village Chief wanted to save him, but then stopped mid-action. After waiting for a moment, the man fought back the monster and climbed back onto the Bridge of Helplessness while panting heavily.

Village Chief raised his leg, wanting to kick him back in again, but the man immediately raised his hands. “Stop, stop. I’m really dead or else I wouldn’t have passed the Human Emperor’s Seal to you. My corpse and bones have already decomposed into mud, having been buried outside Hall of Human Emperors. If you don’t believe me, you can go and dig them up!”

Village Chief’s scalp crawled as he asked suspiciously, “You aren’t lying to me again?”

“What for? Those that come here are all basically dead,” the man said while smiling. “Let me bring you to meet your grandmaster. He died sometime before me.”

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