Chapter 1012

Lead-gray clouds pressed from the north toward Zhigu City. The moment the last glimmer of the North Grand Canal was swallowed, the dark green spine of a dragon pierced the surface of the river, stirring up shimmering waves.

A salty, fishy mist seeped from the gaps in the beast's scales.

Every opening and closing of its reverse scales was like a fish-dragon shaking its scales, the scales emitting a rustling, trembling sound that caused the calm water surface to quiver slightly.

Clay-Figure Zhang sat hugging his legs against the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge, appearing to doze, the soles of his thousand-layered cloth shoes rubbing against the railing, scraping off a thick layer of dried mud.

Huge waves surged on the river surface as the giant creature's back broke through.

Water ripples spread for dozens of zhang, churning up great waves on both banks. The water level rose incessantly, and the dark green dragon head, glimpsed for a fleeting moment, was already the size of a carriage.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard followed the Great Stack Road eastward; it was a Skanda Temple!

At this moment, the Vajra Pestle in the hands of the painted clay Skanda statue at the temple entrance was held level, pointing straight at the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge.

Accompanied by the rapid clanging of the copper rings at the end of the Vajra Pestle, the green dragon, which had already arrived silently beneath the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge, suddenly thrashed about, its massive body rolling and kicking up giant waves.

It was in great pain, and as the sound of the Vajra Pestle in Skanda's hand grew more rapid, its head suddenly lunged out of the water!

The river surface suddenly collapsed into a three-zhang whirlpool, and the dark green dragon spine pierced the water like a broken cliff. The murky waves stirred up by the beast's thrashing were filled with broken masts and oars, and the silt deposited on the riverbed for a hundred years was churned into a sulfur-colored toxic miasma.

Wherever the dragon's tail swept, the weeping willows on both banks snapped like wheat stalks.

It slammed heavily into the stone bridge, causing the entire structure to shudder. Gravel and dust rained down, and the stone lions on the bridge suddenly turned their heads, their eyes, dotted by Clay-Figure Zhang, looking majestically in all directions.

The beast's green pupils shifted, fixing on a fishing boat drifting from upstream.

Knowing it was wrong but risking his life to save his only livelihood, the fisherman stood dazed on his boat, looking at the dragon beneath the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge that resembled a fierce beast.

The dragon lunged, its whiskers whipping out like steel lashes toward the fisherman on the boat.

At this moment, Clay-Figure Zhang on the bridge tapped the bridge pier beneath him, and the Dragon-Slaying Sword suspended in the center of the bridge suddenly fell.

In the rain curtain mixed with a fishy stench, a bolt of lightning suddenly tore through the gray, hazy sky.

The fisherman was shocked to see that the Dragon-Slaying Sword, which hung beneath the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge and looked like a rusted, broken piece of scrap metal, now appeared like a divine weapon, piercing through the dragon's reverse scales...

Pierced through its vital spot by the Dragon-Slaying Sword, the dragon was pushed by the floodwaters past the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge.

Its corpse floated on the water, the twenty-zhang dragon body occupying most of the river channel.

But on both banks, snakes, insects, rats, and ants were still fleeing. Braving the heavy rain, they crawled out of the civilian houses along the shore, crowding the streets in dense masses, fleeing behind the fisherman, away from the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge!

Clay-Figure Zhang took off his melon-skin cap. Upstream of the North Grand Canal, a thunderous roar suddenly exploded, and a murky, yellow torrent surged down from the upper reaches like a giant dragon.

The weeping willows on both banks, as thick as bowls, were uprooted, rolling in the waves like snapped toothpicks.

Amidst the murky flood peak, the spines of silent mud dragons were churning.

It seemed that from here on up, the mud dragons in the mountains, the great snakes in the water, and the giant pythons in the fields were all gathering along the flood, surging forward in a mighty, unstoppable force, carrying the mud-filled flood peak straight toward Zhigu City!

The clay Skanda in the Skanda Temple finally slammed the Vajra Pestle in its hand heavily onto the ground.

At the head of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge, twenty-four stone lions let out a collective roar, leaping one by one off the bridge head, shaking their bodies and transforming into lions as large as those at the gate of a prince's mansion, cutting the river channel in half.

Clay-Figure Zhang's hands were tucked into his sleeves, moving rapidly.

The flood peak had reached the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge. The stone lions charged forward first, their great mouths tearing at the pythons and dragons in the flood. The mighty flood peak, upon reaching this point, was inexplicably pressed down by three feet.

The entire Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge, along with the Skanda Temple to the east and the Jade Emperor Pavilion to the west, had forcibly suppressed this section of the river channel!

Clay-Figure Zhang flicked his hand from his sleeve.

A divine general, drunk with a face like a rosy sunset and intoxication reaching his brows, stood unsteadily at the bridge head, holding a pair of whips.

This was Qin Shubao, whom he had molded by mixing Zhigu distilled spirits' dregs with the mud from the bottom of the Ziya River.

Beside him was Yuchi Gong, who was even more intoxicated.

The two divine generals each held a pair of whips. Yuchi Gong's pair of water-polished bamboo-joint steel whips danced wildly in the wind, and as they spun, a fierce wind swirled around them. It seemed as if white wind-qi was entangled on his whips, stirring up a great gale that rotated around him. Qin Shubao's golden mace, shaped like a roof tile, was constantly colliding and rubbing, with wisps of electric light entwined around the pair of maces...

It was just that the clay figures were only the size of dolls, so this display of power looked somewhat comical.

"Today, I must ask you two old immortals to lend a hand."

Clay-Figure Zhang bit his tongue and sprayed blood onto the two clay figures.

When he molded the Qin Qiong statue with his left hand, he mixed in ash from the incense burner of the Tianhou Palace; when he molded Yuchi Gong, he mixed in strips of blood-stained cloth from the Boxer Rebellion.

As his hands, with veins bulging, flew within his sleeves, the two clay figures had already taken human form: Qin Qiong's phoenix eyes held majesty, and the pair of maces at his waist were embedded with sarira from the Dabei Temple; Yuchi Jingde's bristly beard stood on end, and the iron whips in his palms were tempered with the cold light of the Old Dragon Head railway tracks.

Once the tongue blood touched the palm-sized clay statues, the bodies of the two divine statues grew rapidly as if performing the "Law of Heaven and Earth," soon recovering to the size of eight-foot-tall men, yet they continued to surge in size.

The storm stirred up by Yuchi Gong's pair of whips had formed a massive tornado that connected to the clouds above, churning the sky full of dark clouds, and connected to the North Grand Canal below, sucking up ten thousand tons of water.

Qin Shubao leaped up and flew into the tornado.

The electric light from the pair of maces instantly spread to the entire tornado, like a wild dragon coiling and dancing within it.

"Ha!"

The pair of maces, entwined with golden thunder, were like the two mallets of a drummer jumping up and striking heavily; the entire surface of the North Grand Canal became the drumhead.

The thunder-mallets struck the drumhead heavily, and the electric light spread for dozens of miles across the river surface in just an instant.

Hundreds of dense, packed dragons turned their bellies up!

Three single-horned dragons, carrying the malevolent qi of the flood peak, turned the evil water into blades, spears, swords, and halberds, lunging toward Qin Shubao.

The Yuchi clay statue roared, swinging his iron whip in a circle to strike the vital spot of the leading dragon.

Where the whip tip swept, the anchor chains of sunken ships on the riverbed actually sprang up from the bottom, entangling the beast's neck and dragging it down by three zhang. A "crack" of bone breaking pierced the rain curtain, and the pair of whips struck a dragon each, with large amounts of dragon blood spraying from the broken spines...

The Qin Qiong clay statue struck his pair of maces together, sparking thunder-fire talismans the size of wedding invitations.

The electric light traveled along Yuchi Gong's iron whips, forcing the remaining dragon pack to the river surface. Clay-Figure Zhang took the opportunity to open his sleeves, and hundreds of clay figures shook out, each lifelike, transforming into heavenly soldiers and generals, and guardian deities, falling toward the river surface.

In an instant, the clay figures falling into the river grew with the wind, transforming into the size of normal humans.

They held weapons and began to fight with the dragons in the river.

For a time, countless scales, dragon horns, and dragon whiskers were scraped off and floated on the river surface. Gushes of dragon blood surged up, and the severed limbs and arms of the clay figures, along with murky yellow mud, also surged up incessantly.

Clay-Figure Zhang looked on with heartache at the clay figures dissolving in the river; these were the ones he had spent countless days and nights selecting clay for, meticulously molding, and accumulating.

"Using them here, it's not considered a waste!"

He could only console himself this way.

"Not bad!"

From the rain curtain opposite, a somewhat surprised voice suddenly came: "I didn't expect that in a Samsara world, I would also see a fellow traveler of the Path of Creation."

"I thought that apart from our Fangxian Dao, there were no longer any cultivators in the world who had attained such accomplishments in creation!"

Opposite, a fangshi wearing ancient feathered robes stepped on an iron dragon and slowly approached.

That iron dragon used steel as feet, its body carving two deep tracks on the ground. Its body was segmented, exhaling thick white mist. In the heavy rain, the white mist from the iron dragon's mouth and nose mixed with the heavy rain, turning into a curtain that covered the sky.

Its giant eyes emitted a candlelight that pierced the rain curtain, and a dull sound of steel colliding came from its body.

The fangshi stood in the iron dragon's eyes, looking down at Clay-Figure Zhang.

He looked at those clay-molded things and smiled: "They look a bit like the creations of the Yellow Mud Dao, fusing some of the divine arts of 'scattering beans to become soldiers' and 'cutting paper to become people.' Hmm, our Creation Dao also seemed to use clay-molded figurines as battle soldiers in the past, but such ancient technology has already been phased out."

"Nowadays, even the Battle Soldier Dao uses steel as armor and iron as weapons, and has renamed itself the Mecha Dao."

"Our Mechanical Dao has long since established the foundation of the machine soul and qi heart, operating the Great Dao with gears, mechanisms, and steam."

Looking at the clay figurines that were beginning to melt under the impact of the water flow.

The fangshi sighed: "Old thing, your clay figurines are too backward; they are already useless!"

Clay-Figure Zhang looked at that iron dragon creation and at the fangshi who looked at him with pity.

He frowned blankly: "Are you one of those cultivators from the Western Continent who practice 'alchemy'? The Heavenly Empress molded clay to create humans; what nerve do you have to speak such nonsense? Just because of the train behind you?"

The fangshi was momentarily speechless and said helplessly: "Alchemy and mechanical creation are still different. You natives won't understand the achievements of one of the seven great Dao fruits of our Creation Dao."

Clay-Figure Zhang tilted his head: "Is that 'seven great Dao fruits' comparable to the Goddess Wa molding humans?"

Hearing this, the fangshi no longer wanted to speak.

"I don't want to talk to you natives who have the orthodox history of the Primordial Era; we are talking past each other. The Goddess Wa we speak of is fundamentally not the same existence as yours, and the clay figurines you mold are fundamentally not the same thing as the ones the Goddess Wa molded."

"Without even a divine treasury, you dare to say that what you mold are humans?"

"The clay material for creating humans researched by the Yellow Mud Dao is divine material containing endless essence, qi, and spirit, nurtured by the five elements, and generated by yin and yang, while your mud is just rotten mud."

The fangshi opened his hands: "Let me help you understand the gap between them!"

Having said that, several huge cannon muzzles protruded from the iron dragon's body behind him, and the gunpowder inside had already been loaded.

This gunpowder, which even Creation Dao cultivators had to carefully refine and which contained terrifyingly rigid and yang power, suddenly erupted with a terrifying roar.

In just an instant, Clay-Figure Zhang only had time to hear a whistle, and the red copper blood-steel divine thunder cannonball wedged into the third arch of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge with a sharp scream.

The bridge body shook violently, and the black iron bridge foundation poured during the Yongle era disintegrated like shortbread. Twenty-four pillars collapsed one after another, and the town-river objects on the bridge shattered with a bang at that instant.

Not far away, the Vajra Pestle that Skanda was leaning on also exploded, along with the Skanda statue, which was smashed to pieces.

Clay-Figure Zhang watched helplessly as the head of the town-river stone lion fell in front of him and then rolled into the North Grand Canal, stirring up murky waves a zhang high.

Half of the bridge became powder in the blink of an eye, and the broken stones and bricks fell as far as nearly a hundred zhang away.

Clay-Figure Zhang's mind was still shrouded by the roar of that huge thunder, and he couldn't even react.

But as several fireballs suddenly exploded on the iron dragon's body, the clay figures fighting hard against the dragons on the surface of the North Grand Canal shattered one by one under the artillery fire.

Qin Shubao once again raised his pair of maces, and Yuchi Gong's strength was heavy and deep, directly smashing through a small mountain.

But the fangshi just shook his head and sighed.

On the iron dragon, the machine soul roared. In that steam engine forged from Heavenly Fire Purple Copper and Nine-Fire Divine Dragon Steel, the Thunder-Fire Yuan Copper Gang and the Profound Water Yuan True Sha were completely compressed together under the huge pump force. Suddenly, the gang and sha merged, and a huge power of heaven and earth combined erupted. Rolling thunder-fire steam erupted from the machine heart.

Two steel rails fell from the void out of thin air, and then the iron dragon soared into the sky in an instant.

Facing that terrifying power and speed, the two divine generals were smashed into mud in just a split second, and then even the clay material was evaporated by the iron dragon's head.

"Old thing, for the sake of us both being of the Creation Dao, you step aside, and I won't make things difficult for you!"

The fangshi remained "polite": "Our Boundary Sea Great Wall doesn't bully old antiques... You go back and study for a few more years, think carefully about the Dao of Creation, and maybe you'll make some progress!"

Clay-Figure Zhang looked at the destroyed clay figurines and clay statues, looked at the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge that had collapsed for the most part, the row of blood footprints on the bridge had been interrupted, and on the iron lotus flower behind, the chains were making a creaking sound of being unable to bear the weight.

The Xuanzhen sect members pulling the iron lotus flower were dragged forward bit by bit by the iron chains in their hands, and the blood footprints under their feet could only draw two bloodstains on the ground.

"Already lost?"

Clay-Figure Zhang sighed and closed his eyes, but at this moment, he heard the sound of surging waves beside his ears.

Opening his eyes, he saw that upstream of the North Grand Canal, the flood peak had risen several zhang, crossing the roofs of the houses on both sides of the river, and was surging toward the ruins of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge where he was.

It was heading toward Zhigu City, where the streets and alleys were crowded with fellow villagers who had rushed into the city from ten miles around.

The middle gate of the Tianhou Palace opened, and the old senior brother was busy settling the people who had poured into the city and had nowhere to hide.

At this moment, the old senior brother raised his head slightly, looking worriedly in the direction of the North Grand Canal outside the city.

"Knowing it cannot be done, yet doing it!"

Clay-Figure Zhang raised his sword fingers, standing in front of his chest, still standing on the broken bridge, facing the surging flood peak. The surviving dragons merged into the mighty flood, wanting to control that boundless evil water and rush into Zhigu City to eat people at will!

"Your iron and fire are indeed a boundless great power, but our blood and mud may not lack spirit!"

A clay doll climbed onto Clay-Figure Zhang's shoulder; this was what the people of Zhigu called "Grandpa" or "Brother," a clay doll brought from the temple of the Tianhou Palace by a woman who had just given birth to a child.

Grandpa Clay Doll, who feared water qi the most, stood on Clay-Figure Zhang's shoulder, looking at the water-suppressing bridge that was already broken walls and ruins beneath his feet.

It tied a red thread, leaped down from Clay-Figure Zhang, and jumped into the rolling river water.

Immediately, a clay doll crawled out, then a second, a third. Soon, both banks of the canal were covered with dense masses of clay dolls. The clay dolls from the Doll Mountain of the Tianhou Palace and the Grandpa Clay Dolls worshipped by the families of Zhigu all appeared here at some point.

Millions of clay dolls stood on both banks of the river.

Countless red threads connected them, connecting the land on both banks.

The clay dolls leaped into the canal one after another, and red threads flew out in streams. Thousands and tens of thousands of dense red threads on both banks of the canal built countless red bridges.

In the rapid current, the small clay dolls hugged each other one after another.

The mud quickly piled up into a dam, intercepting and interrupting the murky flow of the canal, building a mud bridge over the North Grand Canal.

"Are you crazy?"

The fangshi was puzzled: "Water flows downward; it only flows from high to low. Even if you pile the dam higher, what's the use? Can you really cut off this surging water?"

"I advise you, if you practice the Creation Dao, first understand the philosophy of the Great Dao; don't play jokes that go against the laws of the Great Dao!"

Looking at the mud bridge piled up by the clay dolls that cut off the North Grand Canal.

The fangshi pointed at the surging flood peak: "At worst, it will overflow the river channel and cause even more flooding. Can you really stop all the water flow?"

The dark, heavy cloud layer suddenly split a hundred-zhang gap. The surging flood, carrying countless withered branches and broken wood, with millstone-sized rocks mixed in, was already higher than the civilian houses on both banks just from the first wave peak. The water dragon swept away everything, rushing forward with the power to destroy mountains and break cliffs.

Countless dragons were mixed in the flood peak, drilling toward the mud dam.

But dense, small hands grabbed together; they grabbed the dragons' scales, preventing them from penetrating deep inside.

Clay dolls kept pouncing down from both banks; they crawled all over the dragons' bodies, making the mud dam wriggle and submerge the dragons.

The flood peak finally collided with the dam. At that moment, Clay-Figure Zhang only felt a pressure like the sky tilting.

But the dam beneath his feet was still growing. It crossed the river channel and spread toward the east and west. The impact of the first wave of the flood did indeed shake it, but it could not shake the clay dolls that came one after another.

The dam was growing at a height of one zhang per breath.

Clay-Figure Zhang was lifted higher and higher by them.

They extended toward both banks, the dam like arms reaching out from the flood, guarding Zhigu.

"The flood is surging to the sky; Gun stole the Emperor's breathing soil to block the flood!"

Clay-Figure Zhang said blankly: "So, this is breathing soil..."

The fangshi driving the iron dragon also finally fell silent. Before his eyes, the breathing soil appeared as if it had manifested from mythology, growing higher and higher.

Those clay dolls clearly had only the most ordinary mud on their bodies, and he had already seen too many spiritual materials called "breathing soil."

Some were created by fangshi imitating mythology.

Some were the breathing soil bodies cultivated by the Yellow Mud Dao, the immortal divine soil.

Some were spiritual materials of extremely high rank with earth attributes.

There was even breathing soil, a spiritual material created by the Lord of Samsara from the Heavenly Realm.

But none of these were like those ordinary yellow mud clay dolls, which, one after another, piled up a dam that looked more like that legendary breathing soil.

"Alas, Four Mountains, the surging flood is reaching the sky, vast and mighty, embracing the mountains and hills; the lower people are worried. Is there anyone who can govern it?"

"Gun can!"

At this moment, a thought flashed through the fangshi's mind: "Who said clay dolls have no divine treasury? This is the clay doll's divine treasury!"

The mighty flood peak was finally cut off by the breathing soil. Now, even the Heavenly Thunder Extinguishing Fire Divine Cannon on the iron dragon could not harm the mud dam in the slightest.

But the fangshi knew that this was only temporary...

Even Gun, who stole the breathing soil, was still killed by Zhurong under the Emperor's order at Yujiao. The endless breathing soil would ultimately only bring greater disaster.

"Blocking is not as good as dredging!"

The fangshi said loudly: "You should know this principle."

"Without blocking, where would dredging come from?" Clay-Figure Zhang's eyes were shining, and he said calmly: "Without Gun, where would Yu come from?"

The mighty flood was thus cut off by Clay-Figure Zhang at the Embroidered Uniform Guard Bridge. As the breathing soil grew higher and higher, even in Zhigu City, one could see the breathing soil dam piled up into a mountain range in the north.

But just as Clay-Figure Zhang blocked a vast ocean at the North Grand Canal.

The endless wind and rain in the sky spread its wings.

A pair of golden eyes in the boundless dark clouds stared at the earth like the sun and moon.

The dark clouds covering most of the north were like its wings, and the rain curtain filling the sky was its drooping wings.

Its tail fell on the earth, becoming rivers.

It spread its wings, and the dark clouds split overhead, sunlight spilling from the huge gap in the middle.

Its scales streaked across the sky, like bolts of lightning dancing!

Accompanied by a roar that could be heard throughout Zhigu City and even as far as Shandong, the flood blocked under the mud dam began to retreat rapidly. A mighty long river meandered from the north, flowing toward the sky!

Countless rivers and countless floods roared, actually flowing in the sky, gathering into a Heavenly River.

That was the dragon body.

The dark clouds and heavy rain in the sky were its wings, the bright eyes like the sun and moon in the sky were its eyes, and the rivers rushing from the earth to the nine heavens and flowing in the sky were its dragon body. That was—Yinglong!

The first to despair was not Clay-Figure Zhang.

It was the Samsara traveler—the fangshi.

He stared dumbfounded at the gargantuan ancient god in the sky, muttering to himself: "This is a 'Demon'? Three Gods fight Four Demons! That opposite is the 'Three Gods,' and this is one of the 'Four Demons'? Is the Lord of Samsara's brain broken? What are they using to fight this 'Demon'?"

At this moment, all the Samsara travelers who could look up had such a doubt in their hearts.

"Stop it!"

Clay-Figure Zhang only had this one thought in his heart: "Give me a hand!"

He asked the surrounding clay dolls for help.

A high tower suddenly rose from the dam beneath his feet, shooting straight into the sky. All the breathing soil gathered together, lifting Clay-Figure Zhang up. The mud tower shooting into the sky was like a stick, poking straight into the nine heavens.

Clay-Figure Zhang, as small as an ant, stood in front of Yinglong...

"Want to enter Zhigu..." he shouted loudly, his voice blown away by the wind, as small as a mosquito's: "Then step over my body!"

Yinglong lowered its eyes, staring at Clay-Figure Zhang.

It only needed one claw, and the flood descending from the sky could easily destroy Clay-Figure Zhang, or even destroy Zhigu City. But there was no tyranny in Yinglong's eyes, no bestiality, but compassion, integrity, wisdom, and courage.

Clay-Figure Zhang saw its eyes. In despair, he suddenly realized the key.

"You are Yinglong, the god of intelligence and integrity! Why do you want to control the flood and destroy everything?"

Yinglong was silent, but its eyes looking at the iron lotus flower at the Sancha River mouth were very gentle...

Clay-Figure Zhang smiled: "Then if you want to pass, there is only one choice!"

"Kill me!"

Clay-Figure Zhang's eyes were firm, and the breathing soil covered his body. Gradually, he performed the "Law of Heaven and Earth," his height reaching a hundred zhang, blocking Yinglong's path.

He laughed firmly, with only one thought in his heart.

"Sect Master Xuanzhen, you calculated correctly! I fight Yinglong, I'm bound to win!"

Below, the fangshi, as small as an ant, was disheveled in the wind.

"How does he dare?"

(End of chapter)