Chapter 376: The Severed River of Reincarnation

Xu Yuan saw a deep, distant river of golden water drifting at the edge of another world.

The golden water in the river was turbid, lacking any brilliance, and evoking no sense of nobility or splendor.

The golden water flowed and churned, evoking only a feeling of "heaviness and filth."

The lakeside of Qidou Village was in a state of boiling turmoil.

In this river of golden water, various pavilions, towers, cloud bridges, and palace halls surged up from the water; upon them stood divine beings, also entirely golden, yet emitting only intense dissatisfaction, disgust, hatred, and other dark emotions.

Yet from the general shapes of these divine beings' attire, one could still discern that they were certain true gods of the heavenly court from the ancient legends of the Ming Dynasty!

"Why have they become like this?"

Xu Yuan felt bewildered in his heart.

From their divine bodies to their ritual robes and magical treasures, everything on their entire persons had been dyed the same color and soaked into the same state by that golden water!

It was as if... the corruption of the living by evil spirits in the mortal world!

The palaces of those divine beings constantly sprouted various golden thorny branches from their eaves, pillars, doors, and windows!

Some resembled deer antlers, some resembled coral, and some resembled tentacles...

Ostensibly magnificent, yet undeniably hideous!

Ostensibly revered, yet filled with world-weariness.

This river of golden water was neither in the mortal world, nor in the underworld, nor in the turbid realm.

Xu Yuan did not know what world it was either.

These palaces and divine beings seemed to have originally been sleeping in the river of golden water but had suddenly been awakened.

For some reason, they were able to hear the sounds emanating from the void of Qidou Village.

Among those divine beings, one who sat high above emitted a grating voice with disgust.

Then he opened a birdcage beside him.

What was originally kept in that cage was unknown, whether a parrot or a canary, but what was released now was a terrible monstrosity that could not be described in words!

Its entire body was filled with various elements that induced fear, palpitations, and nausea.

As soon as this thing flew out and clawed at the space of Qidou Village—Xu Yuan could not even distinguish whether what it extended was claws, tentacles, whisker-eyes, pincers, wings, tumors, or fissures...

Rongrong, Li Shu, and the others were all snatched across the void by it into the river of golden water.

Then they sank into the river, and not a single sound remained.

Everything finally fell silent once more.

But the river of golden water rolled on—only to strike an invisible barrier somewhere.

The entire river of golden water was blocked and turned back.

Giant waves in the river rose to the sky, drowning all the palaces and divine beings.

Then the entire river of golden water flowed upstream, returning to its original position.

This strange world seemed to have completed a cycle.

It became utterly silent once again.

In Xu Yuan's right eye, it gradually blurred and faded, as if the entire world began to drift away, vanishing into the vast sea of void.

Xu Yuan suddenly realized: those palaces and divine beings in the golden river, once "awakened," had to endure the pain of the river reversing once more.

Therefore, after being awakened, they harbored boundless disgust and hatred toward everything that caused such commotion.

They would annihilate everything without hesitation.

This golden river seemed to be... the river of time.

Those divine beings and palaces were trapped within this segment of time.

They possessed none of the magnificent radiance of divine light, retaining only intense malice and hatred.

Repeatedly reversing and rolling back, they were ultimately completely shattered and twisted into monstrosities!

Those familiar to his own eyes... might truly be the true gods from the ancient legends of the Ming Dynasty.

In that turbid, viscous golden river lay countless ancient and dark secrets.

Now that strange phenomena were everywhere under heaven, although the "Door Gods" could still protect believers at night.

One still had to wonder if the path of the gods had already collapsed?

But if they were truly those "true gods," how could they be easily trapped in a segment of the river of time?

Many true gods should possess the ability to swim freely through the river of time.

Xu Yuan suddenly thought of another possibility: they had been ambushed.

Ambushed together with this segment of the river of time.

Not only were they trapped, but that segment of the river of time had also been severed and trapped.

For a moment, Xu Yuan did not even dare to recall the Leather Dragon.

He was even somewhat confused: logically, the Leather Dragon should have been taken away too.

The Leather Dragon was also one of the criminals who disturbed these divine beings.

The Leather Dragon slowly sank to the bottom of the lake.

Xu Yuan could not quite figure it out.

If those things in the golden river only reacted to living beings—why was the entire Qidou Village dug away by a single claw back then?

There were many inanimate objects in the village.

But since they did not snatch the Leather Dragon, Xu Yuan naturally felt extremely fortunate.

It did not matter if he could not figure out the reason.

The Leather Dragon was precious; although Xu Yuan had been prepared to lose this treasure from the very beginning, it was certainly better to keep it.

That expanse of space had already drifted away and vanished; Xu Yuan could no longer see it even with the "Yin-Yang Guillotine."

After the golden river reversed its flow, the palace and the divine beings sank, and tranquility returned.

Yet suddenly, several clusters of bubbles bubbled up from the river water, gulu-gulu.

It seemed that something beneath the water was conversing and deliberating.

Gao Guanzi fled in a wretched state to the agreed-upon location.

He rushed into the forest and ran for his life.

Using Lin Zi as cover, he ran several li in one breath.

Behind him, a large patch of bloodstains remained.

That mysterious existence in the lake seemed uninterested in him.

It merely caught the ringleaders, Rongrong and the others, and swept them all away in one go.

Even after the lake returned to tranquility, Gao Guanzi dared not linger for a single moment, running for his life.

By the time he reached the location agreed upon with Lord Xu, he was extremely weak.

There was no time to bandage his wounds; he had lost so much blood that he was already in a semi-comatose state.

After collapsing headfirst, he slowly exhaled a breath, feeling that he was likely done for...

In his dazed state, he suddenly saw the figure of Lord Xu appear before his eyes.

Lord Xu fed him a medicinal pill.

He felt somewhat better, but the wound on his neck continued to spurt blood incessantly.

Tian Jing took a look and said, "Endure it."

Then, a series of extremely fine root threads pierced into his neck, stitching and wrapping the wound on his neck to repair it.

The pain caused Gao Guanzi to faint immediately.

Tian Jing did not think his technique was too rough; instead, he said, "Fainting is for the best."

Tian Jing's methods were at least highly effective.

The bleeding stopped.

The wound on the top of Gao Guanzi's forehead was not a serious injury; it had already stopped bleeding on its own.

Just now, while sewing Gao Guanzi's wound, Tian Jing had quietly "examined" this fellow's body structure.

There was no brain inside the skull, but rather organs assisting the two ears and a vast network of blood vessels.

The brain was likely hidden somewhere in the chest.

With a mere thought, Tian Jing realized this body structure bore some resemblance to a certain evil spirit in the mountains...

Tian Jing understood the principle of "seeing through but not speaking out," so he kept this matter hidden within himself.

(End of this chapter)