Chapter 1006: True Plague Locust, Sichen of Beasts

Time jumped from stagnation to the next instant.

The wind chimes on the eaves of the Fish Bone Temple suddenly stagnated, the clanging sound as if something had choked its throat.

Zhao Tianli knelt before the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang's statue, his knees drawing two deep marks on the ground, his lower body almost embedded in it.

And the temple keeper holding the "Tai Yan Heavenly Merchant Oracle Bone River Map" suddenly felt his fingertips burn—between the cracks of the bone armor, the charred traces of a thousand years were reignited, and dark red embers burned in the cracks and divination words.

He retreated in a panic, only to see the incense candles on the offering table ignite without fire, and the green smoke twisted into faces of people wailing in pain...

Looking at the bone armor with cracks spreading again, looking at the ancient divination words on it changing again.

The temple keeper raised his head and looked outside the door.

"It's here!"

The two helmsmen of the Wei and Lu Grain Transport Gang turned to flee, but the temple door closed with a 'bang'. The hot wind seeping through the door cracks carried a sulfurous, fishy smell, extremely dry and hot. Wherever it passed, the century-old fish bones on the beams weathered at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the debris fell with a rustle.

The tiles on the hall roof "cracked" and exploded, and the broken tiles turned into powder before they hit the ground.

The next moment, the temple door was burned to ashes in the hot wind, and the fire-red red wind blew toward everyone.

The temple keeper's face shriveled bit by bit, and the skin on his body gradually carbonized. His eyes burned into cloudy glass, but he still stared dead at the eastern horizon.

Zhao Tianli, kneeling before the statue, had all the moisture in his body evaporating. His muscles became more and more obvious, and tens of thousands of muscle groups were slightly evaporating white water vapor. But relying on his cultivation far exceeding that of the temple keeper, he stubbornly resisted the burning wind and turned his head bit by bit.

He only saw a golden flame lotus blooming in the direction of Zhigu City!

The lotus petals falling turned into boundless burning wind, turning heaven and earth into a fire house...

The temple keeper rushed toward the statue.

Only to see the mother-of-pearl statue peeling off piece by piece, revealing the charred wooden fetus inside.

The offering table "cracked," the incense burner tilted, and the incense ash was rolled into a vortex by the hot wind before it hit the ground.

The entire Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang Temple was peeling off and burning in the hot wind. All wooden structures turned into charcoal, burning with dark red embers, and all shells and fish bones were peeling off, turning into white powder in the hot wind.

A shrill cry of a crow came from outside the hall!

Old Zhou looked over through the temple that only had a frame left, only to see the ancient locust tree in front of the temple wither instantly, its bark peeling off like a snake molting.

And the Yu Well beside the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang, "gurgled" and bubbled, and the well water evaporated into white steam before it surged out of the wellhead.

In the distant farmland, the wheat ears turned scorched yellow at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the wheat awns "cracked" and exploded, bursting with spots of fire.

The hot wind suddenly turned and headed straight for the Yu Cave ancient well.

The blue stone at the wellhead "cracked," and the well water boiled like magma!

At this time, the fire lotus in the sky had fully bloomed.

Waves of hot wind struck, and the Dragon and Phoenix Rivers flowing on both sides of the temple dried up completely in just a few breaths. The fish and shrimp at the bottom of the river were all dried corpses, the river mud cracked, and the green of heaven, earth, and mountains faded, replaced by withered yellow.

"Drought Demon appears, where is the stone man?"

The temple keeper held the oracle bone tightly, his completely blind eyeballs staring at the sky.

He sat down slowly, feeling the cracks and divination words on the oracle bone with his hands: "Drought Demon appears, Ying Long joins! Stone man one-eyed, Great Gun turns over! Four demons gather, Five Gods Xing Tian! The Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang's layout is complete, but she is no longer afraid of the Sect Master knowing these!"

"Although the subordinate fell completely into the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang's calculation, I still shoulder the mission. Here, I have to make a final struggle..."

The temple keeper turned his head slowly. In the ashes of the mother-of-pearl statue peeling and burning, a goddess statue with a ferocious face, snake tail, and sharp teeth, like a heavenly ghost and pitch black, was revealed along with the dark red embers.

The thousand-year-old round bone she stepped on was already covered in cracks, and the cracks were full of secret history.

With just one glance, the temple keeper pierced through those secret histories.

With his last bit of strength, he brought back a segment of secret history.

On the roof of the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang Temple, in the cracked fish bones, a divine bow slowly fell, and the bowstring that had been dusty for ten thousand years slowly pulled open...

An old man with a face full of wind and frost, gray temples, rolled-up trouser legs, and no hair on his feet, like a hardworking old farmer, slowly gripped the divine bow.

His skin was dark, and the salt stains condensed by sweat soaked through the coarse cloth clothes on his body, only a pair of eyes, carrying the compassion of a saint and the majesty of an emperor.

His dry and thin arms slowly pulled open the bowstring.

Mounted a dragon bone arrow...

One of the three Heaven-Shaking arrows left by the Yellow Emperor in the past, which shot and killed the Wind Master and Rain Master under Chi You, aimed at the firmament.

The edge of the arrow pointed directly at the dim yellow, blood-colored setting sun!

Ding!

A sound of the string like tearing silk.

The temple keeper saw the divine arrow flying into the sky like a golden rainbow, finally lowered his head, knelt on the ground, and muttered silently with his lips: "Sect Master! I did my best!"

Yellow River embankment...

The firmament was like an inverted copper pot, and the thunder rolled in the clouds, the echo of Gonggong hitting Mount Buzhou in ancient times.

Out of Taihang, on the boundless plain, the great river surged.

Old ferryman of Mengjin, the ancient ferry, squatted on the threshold of the River God Temple and knocked his dry tobacco pot again and again—the river god mud statue worshiped on the incense table suddenly oozed black blood from its right eye.

On the ancient River God Temple's painted beams and carved pillars, and on the dragon pearls spat out by the Four Sea Dragon Kings, spots of black blood oozed out, dripping onto the "Wind and Rain" plaque along the mottled paint!

The old ferryman who saw all this dropped his tobacco pot, and a trembling sentence was squeezed out of his wide-open mouth.

"The sky is going to change..."

Before the words fell, a dull sound like bone dislocation suddenly came from the thousand-mile river embankment of Mengjin.

The children catching locusts in the wheat field suddenly screamed—at the end of the horizon, the muddy yellow wave was higher than Mount Mang, and countless coffins floated in the waves, and stone men from the broken river embankment broke free from the earth!

"Run! The River God is coming to collect offerings!"

The fleeing crowd knocked over the incense burner of the River God Temple. The old ferryman picked up the peach wood oar and wanted to run to the ferry, but saw the Yellow River, which was unruly in the past, had now turned into a nine-headed demon dragon, completely breaking free from the constraints of the river channel.

When the waves hit, the ten-thousand-year-old cypress at the ferry was uprooted.

In the muddy flow, nine huge iron oxen for suppressing the river rolled like children's rattles, and the divine titles of the gods branded on them, branded by the imperial seals of past dynasties, emitted divine light, like mountains and peaks, wanting to suppress the nine-headed angry dragon.

The iron oxen and stone oxen were suppressed by the eyes of the stone men struggling out of the river embankment!

In the Longmen Grottoes, the mountain peaks suppressed by the thousand Buddhas trembled faintly.

The monks hurriedly opened their kasayas, wanting to drape them over the Buddhas, only to see a "clatter," and the head of the Dharma-protecting Vajra beside the Buddha shattered and fell into the dust.

On all four sides of the Buddha cave, the stone walls depicting exquisite murals cracked with a roar.

The water droplets seeping from the stone walls flowed through the cinnabar red depicting the murals, and slipped from the eyebrows of the Buddhas, like drops of blood-tears.

The tombs on Mount Beimang collapsed, falling into the surging Yellow River with the cliffs, and countless coffins floated on the crest of the waves...

The old monk of Baima Temple rang the copper bell in the mountain collapse and river decision!

The surging Yellow River crossed the top of Mount Beimang and crushed toward the thousand-year-old Luoyang City. The old monk ringing the bell in Baima Temple shouted, shouting at the little novice: "Hurry and invite the Golden Body of the Lotus Master!"

The words stopped abruptly. The novice watched helplessly as the copper bell branded with a lotus and a tree shook without a hammer, making a loud roar.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

In the huge vibration, the bell body began to deform.

But the bell sound was still one sound pressing another...

The muddy wave peak higher than Mount Beimang carried half a stone tablet, vaguely visible with the four cinnabar characters "River Clear and Sea

The Daoist holding the statue of the Yin-Yang Great Dao Lord floated down from Mount Mang. He suddenly screamed—his legs were being entangled by countless transparent tentacles, which, upon closer inspection, were actually water snakes formed from the resentment of thousands of drowned people.

Before the word "Save..." could leave his mouth, his entire body had turned into white bones, and a strange fish with scales shimmering with bronze rust crawled out of his skull!

Dense swarms of water snakes entangled countless coffins in the Yellow River, and strange fish with scales shimmering with bronze rust swam out of the coffins.

The muddy current ruthlessly swallowed the villages and towns on both banks of the great river, and segments of secret history sealed in North Mang were washed out along with the graves by the Yellow River.

"The fifth year of King Ding, the river shifted!"

"The surging flood waters were cutting, washing against the mountains and covering the hills; the vast and torrential waters made the common people groan."

"In the fourth month of summer, heavy rain fell for more than ten days, and the river breached the Golden Embankment in Dong Commandery... The river indeed breached at Guantao and the Golden Embankment in Dong Commandery, flooding Yan and Yu, entering Pingyuan, Qiancheng, and Jinan. It flooded a total of four commanderies and thirty-two counties, with the water reaching a depth of three zhang, destroying nearly forty thousand official pavilions and houses."

"The river breached Pingyuan again, flowing into Jinan and Qiancheng, destroying half of what was destroyed at the beginning of the Jian-Shi era."

"The waters of the Bohai, Qinghe, and Xindu rivers overflowed, flooding thirty-one counties and destroying over forty thousand official pavilions and civilian houses."

"Chong was the Tokyo garrison commander. When the Jin troops arrived, Chong was afraid and breached the Yellow River from Si into the Huai to block the Jin troops. The river breached, the water arrived in great force, civilian houses were washed away, and the number of dead was countless."

"... The Yellow River overflowed, the water on flat ground was two zhang deep, breaching the White Mao Embankment and the Golden Embankment. Cao, Pu, Ji, Chong, and other prefectures all suffered disaster, and the water force invaded Anshan to the north..."

"... Over forty commanderies were washed away, the people ate each other and sold each other as slaves..."

"... The flood waters arrived one after another, and all property and fields were surrendered to the flowing water. The common people either buried their bodies at the bottom of the water, were displaced, or died of cold and hunger..."

In the vast and muddy flood, the yellow soup, seven parts sand and three parts water, was like flowing land. Countless corpses floated out from it, dense and numerous, like a school of fish, boundless and endless, like locusts.

Those thin, those bloated, those torn apart, those pierced by swords and spears, those as thin as firewood but with large bellies—countless corpses floated out from the secret history, accompanied by the corpses drowned on both banks of the great river, like the origin of the Yellow Springs under the earth, flowing across the plains.

"Western Kunlun Mirror! The Five Heavenly Punishment Weapons of your master, the Wang Mu of the West, are already outdated!"

The one-eyed stone man in the Yellow River raised its head, its single eye stirring the boundless, deep, and bitter disasters and corpses in the secret history, causing them to completely float out of the Yellow River.

Its single eye burned with golden flames, reflecting the vast river of secret history.

"For you humans, locust plagues may be disasters sent by the Heavenly Emperor to punish you, symbolizing the retribution for your greed in endlessly taking from nature. It is the embodiment of the greed of grass and trees and the thief of the Five Elements. In the past, the Wang Mu of the West forged the Five Heavenly Punishment Weapons to resist the Heavenly Emperor and represent all living beings in your human race to rebel against Heaven!"

"But there is more to the world than just your human race!"

"Do locusts represent greed?"

"Do the Primordial Plague Locusts represent the ultimate disaster?"

"Haha... What do the Primordial Plague Locusts count for in front of your human race? You are the most terrifying, disastrous, and greedy locusts in the countless realms of the cosmos. Wherever you go, you endlessly take from Heaven and Earth and from all living beings!"

"Locusts gnaw on grass and trees because they are hungry, but you humans, whether hungry or wealthy, whether weak or strong, are always endlessly greedy!"

"Even the virtue of the Heavenly Emperor cannot satisfy you!"

"Compared to the Primordial Plague Locusts, you naked ape humans are the true manifestation of greed, the embodiment of cosmic disasters, and the Heavenly Punishment Weapons that bring endless disaster to all living beings!"

The one-eyed stone man looked toward the east, as if crossing endless space-time, and met the gaze of Qian Chen in the Luomiao.

The corpses floating out of the Yellow River and the countless human figures pulled from the secret history on both banks spread across the plains.

The disaster victims in rags pulled up grass roots, gnawed on tree bark, and even dug up the chalky soil from underground to stuff into their mouths. Their limbs were as thin as firewood, but their bellies were bulging high as if pregnant.

Some had blood-red eyes, gnawing on the bones of their own kind, while others desperately stuffed everything edible into their mouths...

Hunger, hunger, hunger!

Greed, greed, greed!

The fat man in silk and satin stretched out his oily hands to embrace the gold and silver around him. The hypocritical scholar held a book, his eyes revealing a man-eating look from between the pages. Princes, nobles, Daoists, monks, saints, and mortals were all devouring everything around them!

The thin limbs of the disaster victims gradually became thinner and thinner, until they were like hemp stalks, with skin sticking to bones.

Their bulging bellies sagged, and they crawled on the ground with their limbs. Their limbs became increasingly deformed, until they finally looked like large locusts crawling on the ground with their abdomens raised!

In the Yellow River, strange fish with bronze rust scales leaped out of the river and transformed into large locusts...

The 'people' dragged out of the secret history by the one-eyed stone man were also completely swallowed and submerged by suffering, hunger, greed, and despair, transforming into huge Primordial Plague Locusts.

False Primordial Plague Locusts—formed from the qi of punishment and plague, true primordial fierce insects. Once they become a plague, they fly in swarms, stirring up boundless plague qi. Even True Immortals can be gnawed into white bones, and mountain gods and earth deities can be poisoned to death in droves.

True Primordial Plague Locusts—weak and inconspicuous, the naked ape race. Their reproductive ability is not extraordinary, but they have endless greed, ambition, and desire in their hearts.

In their ordinariness, endless demonic nature is bred. Once they gain momentum, they will submerge the countless realms of the cosmos, stir up boundless killing disasters, and devour all living beings except themselves. They slaughter all living things, including themselves.

They stir up boundless disasters and shatter the old Heaven.

They exterminated countless races, and they overturned countless Heavenly Courts and Divine Courts, even those they built themselves.

They gnaw on gods, they incarnate as gods, and wherever they go, there is prosperity, reproduction, wasteland, and ruins!

They are the true cosmic locusts!

The voice of the one-eyed stone man echoed in the secret history: "Today, I will vindicate the Primordial Plague Locust race!"

"From now on, among the Five Heavenly Punishment Weapons, the disaster representing greed, plague, hunger, and taking will no longer be the Primordial Plague Locust, but should be you 'humans'!"

The dense corpses floating up from the secret history each transformed into locusts, flying in all directions along with the Yellow River, covering the sky and the earth.

Wherever they went, everything was gnawed away and plundered. People on the ground fled and hid, but were caught by those huge locusts and flown into mid-air.

Then their skin crawled, wings violently drilled out from the skin on their backs, and their white bones were squeezed out of their human skin, becoming the exoskeleton of the locusts.

Countless things appeared in their eyes—money, fame, women, food. Overlapping shadows were reflected in their eyes, making their eyeballs larger and larger, and countless compound eyes were densely squeezed together.

The greed, hunger, despair, and 'plague' gathered by the endless 'Primordial Plague Locusts' did not condense into the shape of a flying knife with eyebrows and eyes.

Instead, they condensed into one-eyed stone men, heading toward Zhigu in the east.

The Yellow River surged like a nine-headed evil dragon, countless starving people turned into locusts, and the one-eyed stone man drove the two great Heavenly Punishment Weapons. The strike was already a fatal blow.

In a dilapidated temple of the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang, the muddy current gushing out of the Yu Cave Stone Well was half silt and half yellow water. The Yellow River spread wantonly across the plains, its huge body like a coiled nine-headed dragon snake.

The dragon heads tore apart all the suppressing objects, overturned all the temples suppressing the Yellow River, and came toward the ancient Yu River channel.

The Yellow River finally collided with the endless burning wind blooming from the Female Demon of Drought's red lotus. The nine-headed evil dragon raised its heads on the earth. The increasingly muddy water flow, concentrating despair and suffering, the endless bitter Yellow Springs, and the endless yellow soil and silt emitting evil qi, tore open a corner of the burning wind, and one head dived down.

The burning wind was like a knife, carrying endless drought, and cut off one of the Yellow River's dragon heads at the neck.

Endless flame qi was like being held in the hand of the Female Demon of Drought. The two sides exchanged a move from thousands of miles apart, and the Female Demon of Drought cut off one head of the Yellow River.

But at this moment, in the Yu Cave, the Yellow Springs surged into the sky, and one head of the nine-headed evil dragon drilled out from the underground river, biting toward the bottom of the fire lotus where the Female Demon of Drought was born...

At this time, in the red sun covered by vast yellow sand in the sky, a point of divine light bloomed.

A red star crossed the great sun above the nine heavens, tearing a trace like a vertical pupil in the sky. Like a meteor, in an instant, it broke through the firmament, pierced straight from above the nine heavens to below the nine earths, and instantly pierced into the Yu Cave.

At this moment, the secret history of ten thousand years ago and the present world finally overlapped.

The temple keeper put down the divine bow in his hand. Behind him, the shadow of that emperor also put down his bow. They both looked at the place where the arrow fell—the Yu Cave.

A mournful cry of the sun came from the sky. A crack appeared in the great sun, which was a huge mirror, reflecting everything on the ground. In the water eye where the one-eyed stone man sat among the nine-headed evil dragons formed by the Yellow River, another head grew out, which was a bird head bathed in sunlight.

The Yellow River transformed from a nine-headed evil dragon into a ten-headed monster, resembling both a dragon and a phoenix.

The Heaven-Shaking Arrow falling from the sky pierced one of the monster's necks. That phoenix-like strange head was shot down from the huge body of the Yellow River and nailed to the earth.

A long, infinitely sacred dragon roar came from the Heaven-Shaking Arrow.

A pair of dragon wings unfolded in Heaven and Earth, obscuring the sun and moon!

In the Yu Cave, like a bottomless abyss, it sucked in all the Yellow River flooding the plains. The nine-headed evil dragon seemed to be grabbed by the tail and swallowed bit by bit, helplessly sucked into the Yu Cave.

The next moment, clear water gushed out, and a divine dragon carrying two wings flew out on the endless wind and rain!

Rolling rain clouds surged between its wings, and its tail was wrapped around the source of the rivers...

The temple keeper put down his divine bow and opened his arms to the divine dragon.

The wind and rain sprinkled on his face, the endless hot wind and drought were evaporated, and the flooding river flood stopped.

Between the river demon stone man and the Drought Goddess Female Demon of Drought, this sacred being used its own power as a screen to block the expansion of the disaster.

"Ying Dragon!"

The Female Demon of Drought spoke in a low voice.

"Ying Dragon!"

The stone man roared at the sky: "Great Yu, Nuwa, you took away my disaster of flood and cut off most of my authority over the Yellow River. How could you create that weapon of the flood demon? Creation, it was you who proposed forging the Five Weapons of Xing Tian! Why did you incarnate as Nuwa to assist Great Yu and summon the Ying Dragon incarnation?"

In the Luomiao, Qian Chen was slightly stunned: "So it was the Timekeeper of Beasts! Sure enough, there is a rebellious bone behind the head. As soon as it is mentioned to kill me, you are the one who jumps the most happily!"

In the temple of the Heavenly Tianhou Niangniang, the ferocious statue like a ghost mother held a piece of scorched wood in her right hand, as if holding an axe upside down.

She glared angrily, looking at the Yu Cave, as if she might swing an axe at any time.

In the Yellow River, the stone man gave a muffled groan, its single eye almost split open by an axe.

It hid in the Yellow River and said in a muffled voice: "Creation, I was impulsive. You and the Mountain-Opening Axe, don't be excited!"

"The Primordial Plague Locust... no, the Primordial Stone Man has already been forged! The Female Demon of Drought has also been born, and the Ying Dragon has been torn from me by you. At this time, it is the best time to go all out and kill that guy Dao Chen. Don't ruin the big event for a moment of anger!"

The Five Weapons of Xing Tian have already been forged into three.

The stone man, the Ying Dragon, and the Female Demon of Drought faintly surrounded Qian Chen from three directions, leaving only a gap in the east facing the ocean at Tianjin Port.

But Qian Chen stood in the Luomiao, indifferent, while the rolling disaster qi between Heaven and Earth almost boiled.

It was as if it was about to be forged into a fierce weapon to pierce through the will that shrouded the entire world, to kill the Heavenly Dao!

"Among the Timekeepers, this guy Beast should really want to kill me. So while Mother Ding was forging the Five Weapons of Xing Tian, it wanted to fuse the five weapons into one to create a God of War—Xing Tian—who could truly slay the Heavenly Emperor."

"But it only fused the Flood Demon and the Plague Locust before being stopped by Mother Ding! It even tore off the Flood Demon again and transformed it into the Ying Dragon!"

"The rough embryo of the God of War Xing Tian also only became a stone man..."

"In the hearts of the human race we represent, water, drought, locusts, plague, earthquakes, and war each have the forms of fierce gods and evil beasts, but I didn't expect that in its heart, all disasters are human-shaped, and all true forms representing disasters are human!"

"Supreme Being, what exactly did you do before to make the demon race have such a big misunderstanding in their hearts?"

Qian Chen sighed: "According to the plot, most of the four demons have appeared. Where are the three gods who subdue the four demons?"

"Don't tell me the three gods are really three mortals!"

"A half-baked Xing Tian, Ying Dragon, Female Demon of Drought—Creation, Western Kunlun, Great Sun, you really think highly of me. What virtue or ability do I, a Dao Dust Pearl worth only 30 million, have to make you all plot against me together!"

?? The New Year is over, resuming updates.

? (End of this chapter)