Chapter 874: God of Taishan Mountain (1/2)

“How dare you!” The being in the darkness flew into a rage and loudly denounced Lu Yun.

“How dare me? Oh, I dare indeed. I’ve already turned Fuzhu into minced meat.” A nasty leer played at the corners of Lu Yun’s lips and he walked steadily ahead, the white lotus blooming gracefully over his head.

“This is the dao arena of Patriarch Darkriver! Lie Shan of the human race, aren’t you afraid of attracting trouble for your race?!” The mysterious being in the darkness seemed to be backing up and didn’t dare come face to face with Lu Yun.

“The human race has Leize, Huaxu, Fuxi, and Wahuang as its protectors. Whoever dares provoke humanity will face their combined wrath and be diced into minced meat. Are you looking for trouble with these words, or dragging down your Patriarch Darkriver with you?” Lu Yun sneered.

“You… will depart with all due haste before Patriarch Darkriver is enraged! He will tear you to shreds when that dire moment comes!” the unknown being snarled loudly.

Hummm.

The white lotus of a hundred and eight ranks abruptly unfurled into full blossom and cast a stark white light over the premises. Lu Yun saw a snake, an enormous snake as large as a mountain. It was pitch-black with scarlet red eyes, its scales flared out as uniformly keen blades. It seemed ready to attack Lu Yun at a moment’s notice.

“Bashe.” [1] Lu Yun’s eyes narrowed when he saw the snake.

He’d learned a bit about the netherdark from the little fox before making this trip. Bashe was a connate demon god in the netherdark roughly on par with Dusk Snake and Huashe. But when physically located in the netherdark, he was stronger than both of them.

He was currently coiled around a mountain, large head slightly dipped downwards and eyes fixed in a deadly stare at Lu Yun. The human’s reputation was too renowned as of late. He’d slain Dusk Snake, Fuzhu, and Huashe; there was no one who didn’t know him in the three realms of the great wilderness.

Mount Buzhou was a path that led to the netherdark, but one only for ordinary lifeforms. For connate demon gods, the three realms of the great wilderness were their oyster. It was just that denizens of the netherdark rarely voluntarily visited the great wilderness or the cosmos.

Bashe naturally knew about Lie Shan killing Fuzhu and Huashe, so he was momentarily frightened out of his wits to see the infamous human arrive in his home. Of the three connate demon gods dead at his hands, two of them were snake demon gods. This human was a veritable snake killer!

“Lie Shan of the human race, this is the netherdark, a place where you have to toe the line and follow the rules!” Bashe roared, trying to spread word of what was happening here.

“This isn’t the real netherdark yet, just the intersection between the great wilderness and the actual netherdark. Only once we pass this mountain do we enter the real world of the dead.” Lu Yun smirked coldly at Bashe. “Do you think so little of me that you would bar my way here?”

He absolutely had the right to throw his weight around now. He’d been barehanded when he fought Fuzhu and Huashe, but now he had a treasure in his hands that clocked in at a hundred and eight ranks!

“You…” Bashe’s inky-black scales turned stark white as humiliation rose in his heart. How long had it been since someone dared speak to him like this?? Even Patriarch Darkriver treated him with utmost respect.

“Piss off if you don’t want to die!”

Hummm.

Lu Yun’s lotus erupted with blindingly sharp light with his roar, illumination that shot toward the heavens.

No response was forthcoming from Bashe; he turned into a shadowy mass and disappeared.

“That Bashe dared provoke me means he was protecting something. If my guess is right, the mountain is holding a treasure!” Lu Yun murmured to himself as he looked at the dark landmark ahead of him.

“That’s Mount Tai, the mountain that marks the intersection of the great wilderness and netherdark. You’ll be in the world of the dead once you pass Mount Tai,” the little fox whispered, popping her head out of Lu Yun’s robes.

“Mount Tai? The Mount Tai of the Eastern Mountain?” Lu Yun blinked. “What’s Mount Tai doing here? Ah, well, I suppose the Five Great Mountains don’t exist in the great wilderness yet, but what is Mount Tai doing here?”

“Have you never heard of souls returning to Mount Tai?” The little fox curled her lip. “In the future, Mount Tai will be the boundary between the realms of yin and yang. It will be hailed as the mountain of the realms, which is why Mount Tai is the foremost of the Five Great Mountains and the grounds upon which emperors are coronated!”

“Will Mount Buzhou be destroyed at some point?” Another legend occurred to Lu Yun.

Gonggong would body slam Mount Buzhou to pieces at some point, but looking at the mountain now, a hundred, no, a thousand Gonggongs would be powerless before it, to say nothing of a single one.

“Have you seen Mount Buzhou at any point in time in the future?” the little fox asked him in return.

“That’s Wahuang’s lines!” Lu Yun’s expression was dark.

The little fox stuck her tongue out at him, then continued in a mystified tone, “I don’t know either. I really don’t know how Mount Buzhou vanishes… but I know that if it doesn’t, Mount Tai will forever be suppressed beneath it.”

“Perhaps…” Lu Yun sighed and headed toward the legendary mountain. “Hmm?”

He suddenly paused. Mount Tai towered majestically above, and though it wasn’t as grand as Mount Buzhou, the two were about the same. He’d felt a faint thought ripple the moment he set foot into Mount Tai, as if something were… crying out for help?

“It’s him!” Lu Yun set out in a certain direction and headed into the depths of the mountain. A stone fetus roughly one meter tall and depicted with nine orifices lay quietly on the ground. It’d taken the rudimentary form of a human and was about to come back to life.

“It’s an image affected by the primitive great dao, which in turn is affected by me. Therefore, the beings taking other forms now will mostly be human-shaped…”

Lu Yun had fully released himself in his battle against Fuzhu and Huashe. Thus, the great dao within him had begun to influence the primitive great dao, steering it in the direction of human dao.

It was also because of this that Lu Yun’s figure slowly became the mold for the future human dao. One must first take human form to train in the human dao, and lifeforms born beneath the human dao, whether connate or of nature, would ultimately take human form as well.

Lu Yun’s effect on the primitive great dao wasn’t that much yet, but the trends were clear to see.

“Bashe wants to eat me, please save me, milord!” A small thought ripple emanated from the tiny stone fetus.

“Who are you?” Lu Yun waved a hand and took the stone figure in hand.