Rise of Humanity

by <unknown>

  It was at this moment, that the sudden resonance of a zither string effused through the air. The monster wolf’s expression would forever be etched with stupefaction as a thin line of blood extended from the top of its head to the bottom of its body until it directly split into two halves that fell away from each other. Not even the saber was spared from the severing intent of the zither string as it split into halves down its spine and stabbed into the ground harmlessly by the sides of the Jiao Dragon.

  The silhouette of a human fell from the sky – Dong! The ground was stomped and shook vigorously, and a pit of a dozen feet in radius was formed.

  “Manggg—!!”

  A fearsome dragon whistle could be heard as a Jiao Dragon crawled out from the pit, Zhong Yue stood on the dragon’s head and gazed at the surrounding monster hyenas and monster wolves.

  Zheng zheng zheng zheng——

  Sounds of metals colliding could be heard as Sword Qis slashed incessantly; the scarlet Coral Tree quivered and 18 rays of Sword Qi shot out from its branches. The fiery Xiang Dragon Sword Qi compressed into a thin thread of sword silk that brandished about at a speed even faster than the zither string sword silk.

  Meanwhile, the Wooden Sword Qi turned into a small sapling and landed on the ground, annexing its territory in the soil.

  Krong!

  The monster beasts rushed over, a flurry of sabers waved and slashed about as their saber lights interweaved into an inescapable net that engulfed Zhong Yue.

  A cacophony of dragon whistling, wolf howls, hyena barks, and Sword Qi clashing with the sabers reverberated in the air. Slowly, the ferocious sounds of weapons colliding and the enlivened battle cries of the beasts become infused with intermittent wails of pain accompanied by the sounds of splitting muscles and the cleaving of bones. Zhong Yue stood at the epicenter of the fray as he battled off the onslaught of attacks of the innumerable monster beasts. Sword Qi revolved around and the zither string loomed over the monsters like a portentous specter; blood blossomed on the ground like red spider lilies and severed limbs splattered in the air with blood spurting out like sanguine fireworks.

  One after another, the huge barbarous heads spurted into the sky as they each launched a fountain of red. Blood-rusted and broken sabers were pierced into the ground, their upturned hilts quivering from the residual violence that killed their former owners.

  In the middle of the battlefield, Zhong Yue stood atop the Jiao Dragon’s head staunchly, his stalwart figure not moving an inch at all in the face of such adversity.

  “Aohhhh——”

  The howl was filled with grief and despair and was ruthlessly cut abruptly as the final wolf has succumbed to the same fate as its other brethren.

  From start to end, Zhong Yue had not moved even a single inch. Severed limbs, wolf heads, hyena heads, and broken swords scattered across the ground. The warm blood of the beasts trickled into streams that deluged the trenches left behind the wanton destruction wreaked by the Sword Qi. The scene painted a vicious yet disquietingly beautiful landscape that was stained in wicked crimson.

  A cold breeze blew past, bringing a surge of frosty sensation that could even rattle the bones, and yet, Zhong Yue remained fixed to his position – steadfast and immutable.

  “*cough *cough*, Junior Martial Brother Zhong, are your injuries heavy?” The Jiao Dragon turned around with Jun Sixie on top of it as she gazed at Zhong Yue who held up a solemn face.

  “Heavier than ever.”

  Zhong Yue dared not move a single fiber of muscle and cold sweat rushed down his forehead, “I don’t even dare to breathe freely, any harder and my broken ribs will torment my nerves.”

  “We should leave, the further away the better.”

  Jun Sixie was obviously in a better condition than he was, she said, “Bei Shisong was considered to be a well-known figure in Gu Xia City, and here he is, dead. The other Qi Practitioners will be arriving anytime now; and with your current state, you simply can’t afford to run into them anymore. If another monster Qi Practitioner comes, you and I ... both of us will be dead for sure!”

  “May senior martial sister please wait for a moment, I need to clean up the battlefield.”

  Although Zhong Yue could not move, his psyche was not under the same condition, unlike Jun Sixie who was currently bereft of all her prowess. He erupted his psyche and turned it into tens of little Jiao Dragons disorderly crawling on the ground.

  Jun Sixie could still move her body, she cast a gaze at the Jiao Dragons and moments later, the young lady’s face darkened; the Jiao Dragons were collecting the broken sabers!

  “Junior Martial Brother Zhong, is this necessary? There are so many sabers here and all of them were broken by you, they don’t contain much power in it anymore, you can’t even sell it off.” Jun Sixie said cluelessly as she was lost on whether to laugh or cry?

  Zhong Yue blushed with shame, his Yuan Shen controlled the Jiao Dragons and plundered all the sabers away, only then was he willing to leave, “Senior martial sister, you are from one of the top ten clans and moreover, an innate spirit body holder. You are the pearl of Swords Gate; you can simply point at any treasure or medicinal pellet and they will come to you automatically. But I am a nobody, born from nothing, and brought up with nothing. If I want to continue on cultivating, I will have to find my own resources. These sabers are all soul weapons of high quality, I can extract Gold Qi from them and save myself an uncountable number of Jinyuan Pellets.”

  Jun Sixie said, “Junior martial brother, you have made a big mess while fighting with Bei Shisong, surely the other monster Qi Practitioners will be aware of it. Junior martial brother, we can’t afford to leisurely proceed anymore, we need to get back to the Great Wilderness as fast as possible! So long as we’ve reached the Great Wilderness, we would have nothing to worry about anymore!”

  Zhong Yue stiffened up his face and answered, “Give me half a day’s time, I will definitely bring us back to the Great Wilderness!”

  He stood on the Jiao Dragon’s head, while Jun Sixie was on another Jiao Dragon’s back; all of a sudden, the two Jiao Dragons were slowly transmuting, they turned into two Xiang Dragons, shaped like steeds with the heads and tails of a dragon, the furs of a horse, and emblazoned with tiger stripes. She was amazed at the transformation.

  The two Xiang Dragons galvanized all their strength and bolted out — Krong krong krong — they sprinted towards Great Wilderness in great haste!

  Chapter 89: Totem Network |

  An hour later, a patch of monstrous clouds overlaid a land of a hundred miles; a few indiscernible silhouettes stood in the midst of the clouds. Their eyes glared like lanterns, looming in the clouds as their sights scanned the Savanna Wasteland entirely, looking for traces of Jun Sixie.

  “Lord Gu Hongzi, I’ve spotted something!”

  Those glowing eyes stopped abruptly and a sonorous voice came from the middle of the clouds, “The corpses of Bei Shisong’s monster beasts are in front of us.”

  “Corpses of Bei Shisong’s monster beasts? How many of his monster hyenas and monster wolves are there?”

  “Reporting to the great city lord, a total of fifty-six of corpses.”

  “Fifty-six? Not a single one escaped? That means….”

  The monstrous clouds had an upheaval as it dived down from the sky and contracted abruptly, Gu Hongzi’s figure slowly appeared with the resolution of the clouds. He stood in front of the dead bodies with a baleful look, his face was darkened. All of a sudden, he walked forwards and reached a clump of mashed meat.

  “Bei Shisong is also dead.”

  Gu Hongzi lowered his sights and looked at the minced body, he closed his eyes slowly only to open them a few moments later, “Although Bei Shisong is not very strong, he is smart and brilliant, a sly and cunning monster. It wouldn’t be easy to kill him even if was facing against an opponent stronger than him. But the one who felled him was actually weaker than him. The murderer must have lulled Bei Shisong into believing that succ
ess was within his grasp, the murderer must’ve been able to destroy his Sabre Blade Array through an opportunity presented to him in Bei Shisong’s complacency. A little leak would sink a great ship, a moment of negligence could inflict huge damage; Bei Shisong was defeated and now is just a pile of dead meat.”

  By just looking at the corpses, he was able to surmise nearly the whole sequence of the battle, it was indeed true that Zhong Yue had lulled Bei Shisong in complacency only to seize a chance to attain an opportunistic victory.

  “Whoever killed Mister Bei is very smart ... and very sly.”

  Behind Gu Hongzi stood a few monster paragons, they were also measuring the battlefield with their eyes, trying to deduce the development of events that led to this tragic conclusion. One of them lamented, “Mister Bei was an intelligent monster, who knew he would die in the hands of a nobody of the human Qi Practitioners. Lord, shall we follow the tracks?”

  “This person has been gone for at least an hour, from the footsteps the murderer left behind, it wouldn’t be easy to chase up anymore.”

  Gu Hongzi examined the dragon claws left behind by the Xiang Dragons along with the surrounding soil, he estimated the time since Zhong Yue had left, shaking his head and saying, “It’s is likely that this person is aware of us chasing from behind. He wouldn’t be wasting time in his escape; he must’ve traversed quite a distance already. At this rate, even I wouldn’t be able to catch up before the murderer reaches the Great Wilderness. All of you can choose to chase after the murderer if you like, but my cooperation in the matter ends here.”

  The monster aces looked at each other before abruptly dashing out in unison, riding the monstrous clouds towards where Zhong Yue has headed.

  “Idiots, even if all of you manage to enter the Great Wilderness, there’s still nothing any of you can do.”

  Gu Hongzi shook his head, he turned around and headed back to Gu Xia City as he whispered lowly, “The Great Wilderness is filled with talents; whoever killed Bei Shisong and saved Jun Sixie, I’m afraid his attainments would not be in the least bit inferior to the Swords Gate four young successors. Great Wilderness, Hei-hei, it is indeed the fated nemesis of the monster race. Thankfully, these humans can’t maintain peace for long, they will always be plagued with internal struggles for power, even in times of peace. If it weren’t for their unquenchable thirst for conflict that would even lead them to turn on themselves, their collective power would’ve most likely continued to grow unbridled until they eventually became a waiting calamity for the monsters..”

  Zhong Yue’s Yuan Shen, the Great Sun Golden Crow controlled the two Xiang Dragons and bolted out, the dragons’ speeds were getting quicker and faster, even comparable to flying in the air.

  Jun Sixie was curious, she kept furtively glancing at Zhong Yue while thinking to herself, Junior Martial Brother Zhong hasn’t eaten anything for days, not any food nor any medicinal pellets. Plus, he had just survived such a through a bone-rattling battle, he should be on the brink of exhaustion and his psyche should be seeing depletion. But how is his psyche still so abundant, it even seems as if he is still in his peak form?

  A sturdy body was the foundation for a strong psyche, hence, one must consume enough nutrients from meals to sustain the state of their bodies. Other than a good visualization art, medicinal herbs and pellets were indispensable in strengthening the psyche.

  To the Qi Practitioners, whether it be tedious legwork or intensive combat, their psyche would be greatly consumed; especially for individuals like Zhong Yue, after going through such an arduous battle, he still had to continue visualizing the Xiang Dragons in escaping for his life; the consumption of psyche would undoubtedly be immensely vast.

  For someone who had just cultivated to the stage of Rebirth Qi Practitioner, it would be impossible for his psyche to be able to sustain the consumption rate.

  Even for the strong and formidable cultivators like Jun Sixie, successively going through countless fights would fully deplete her psyche and leave her at the brink of despair. In fact, this was the exact situation she found herself in when she was ambushed and forced to fight until her psyche was entirely depleted.

  Despite Zhong Yue having just survived such a vicious battle and still traveling a great distance in his escape, but his psyche still remained at its peak. Jun Sixie could not help but feel curious.

  No wonder he says that he doesn’t need any medicinal pellets.

  It was not even half a day’s time before they’d already entered the Great Wilderness; mountains stood aloft and high like time-frozen sea waves, forming a natural barrier that demarcated the Savanna Wasteland from the Great Wilderness.

  Zhong Yue released the Xiang Dragons and visualized the Jiao Dragons, after all, the maneuverability of the Jiao Dragons were much better suited to the woods and mountains and between the ridges and cliffs. Although the two of them had entered the Great Wilderness, they dared not let their guards down, Swords Gate was located at the center of Great Wilderness, a distance that was still fifty thousand miles away from them.

  The surroundings comprised of mountains terrain, it was natural for their speed to be slower than on the flatlands. In addition, the boundaries of the Great Wilderness were relatively feeble, if the monsters were to invade, even the Four Ken Beast of Swords Gate would probably not notice them.

  “Monster aces are here, in the Great Wilderness!”

  Zhong Yue could sense the indistinguishable aura of the monster race pervading area behind him. He furrowed his brows in consternation as he sensed that they were strong ... way stronger than Bei Shisong – they must have been the aces of Gu Xia City.

  “They even followed us into the Great Wilderness, how audacious are these monsters!”

  He continued on deep into the mountain woods, slowly, traces of human activity emerged in the surroundings; it was a small tribe among the three thousand human tribes inhabiting the area. The one they encountered appeared to only be a relatively smaller one, having a population of around a few ten thousand.

  “Junior martial brother, slow down.”

  Jun Sixie opened her mouth abruptly and said, “This tribe has a totem and an altar, let us head in and pay our respects to the totem.”

  Zhong Yue was curious; although he could not understand why he followed her instructions regardless. The two of them dismounted the Jiao Dragons and entered the human tribe; the tribal chief quickly came forward and welcomed them into the tribe’s stronghold.

  “It’s Goddess Sixie, why is the goddess so heavily wounded?” although the tribal chief was not a Qi Practitioner, he recognized Jun Sixie and rapidly inquired in concern about her sorry state.

  Jun Sixie explained to him her purpose in coming and the tribal chief was shocked, he quickly ordered his men to prepare the altar. The altar was placed in the middle of the stronghold, on the platform, a totem pillar made of wood that could only be covered with six men wrapping their arms around stood tall in the center of the altar, it was engraved with fantastical totem carvings all around.

  As Jun Sixie struggled to get up, her wounds reopened and blood squirted out again. Immediately, the tribesmen came forward to support her by the arm and sent her up to the altar.

  Jun Sixie bowed at the totem pillar and paid her respects, the marvelous totem carvings on the pillar started to move, slowly formed into a specter with a nose, eyes and ears until a human face could be discerned, with the exception of the fact that it was engraved with elegant carvings. The totem pillar had turned into a human head capable of speech, it opened its mouth and solemnly inquired, “So it’s Goddess Sixie, what do you seek from me?”

  Jun Sixie bowed in response, “I’m severely injured, and the paragon figures of the monster race are in pursuit. They have now infiltrated the Great Wilderness and are not far behind. May senior martial brother notify the elders to send some men over and stop them down.”

  The countenance on the totem pillar suffused in shock, he quickly answered, “Please, shall the godd
ess continue on moving in avoidance the monsters, I will now notify the elders, they will rush over very soon!”

  Jun Sixie expressed her gratitude and continued, “Thank you senior martial brother. May senior martial brother also notify the tribal Qi Practitioners of Jun Shan Clan, and tell them to rendezvous with us at the Weiyang Lake.”

  The shock on the totem pillar’s face faded away, Jun Sixie and Zhong Yue once again mounted atop the Jiao Dragons and left immediately. Jun Sixie smiled and explained, “Junior Martial Brother Zhong, we can communicate with Swords Gate from any tribe of the Great Wilderness, so long as there exists a totem pillar. Reach out to the totem pillars and get in touch with the master of the totem pillar, you can then spread the word out. Now Swords Gate is aware of our situation, it shouldn’t be long until the elders assign reinforcements over to block the monsters’ advance.”

  “So the totem pillars can also be used like this?”

  Zhong Yue was amazed, as his “cultivation speed was too quick”, he was unfamiliar such seemingly rudimentary matters such as this, he said, “There are three thousand clans scattered all around in the Great Wilderness, even if not every one of them was to have the totem pillars, but it was still incredibly amazing. We can form an efficient and widespread network for communication with such a system in place.”

  As of now, Jun Sixie had relaxed by a lot, she smiled and responded, “Some of the big clans have more than one Qi Practitioner, hence, the more Qi Practitioners a clan has, the wider their networks can extend. There will be no less than ten thousand totem pillars spreading across the Great Wilderness! In addition, there are some temples in the Great Wilderness with altars and totem pillars in them, they can be used in times of emergency. The network in Great Wilderness can definitely cover the whole hundred thousand miles of land! Junior martial brother, if you have any troubles, you can just approach any of the temples and get in contact with Swords Gate.”

  Zhong Yue was surprised, these were things whose existence he was never even aware of until today, it was only now that he finally attained an elementary understanding of the magnitude of Swords Gate’s strength within the Great Wilderness.