Chapter 578: Dance for a God; the Skilled are Praised, the Unskilled Die!
Xu Qing’s sense of vertigo grew more intense. However, after experiencing it so many times, he was getting used to it. He glanced around, then focused on the peach in the Captain’s hand. He laughed.
“I figured out some,” he said. “Everything in the Unfinished Mountains is part of a show.”
The Captain’s eyes gleamed with admiration. He laughed heartily. “Yes, definitely a show. Little Junior Brother, all of this is a show put on for Crimson Mother. The two of us are lucky to be able to perform!”
Xu Qing nodded. He had taken special note of what the Captain said about the show being put on for Crimson Mother.
“In the Moonrite Region,” the Captain continued, “locations where Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sects exist are places where the dream power of Crimson Mother is strong. The sect scripts out dramas there that serve as the dream of a god.” He grinned. “This is the ‘sacrificial dance’ of the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect.”
In all of Xu Qing’s speculations, he hadn’t thought to connect any recent events with the ‘sacrificial dance’ that he had heard about before.
“The dancing butterflies...?” Xu Qing asked, looking at the Captain.
“The dancing butterflies?” the Captain replied. “When the dancers use the dream power of a god to affect other living beings, the resulting friction brings dream animals to life.”
The Captain continued to eat his peach as he dragged his past-life body toward Xu Qing one step at a time.
“The butterflies are illusory, as they’re part of the dream power. They record the story of what’s happening, and when the god awakens, they’re like mediums to transfer that information.”
Xu Qing inhaled sharply. What the Captain was saying seemed absolutely outrageous, and yet it did make sense.
“Before the god awakens, the dancing butterflies cannot return to whence they came. They have no way to relate the events of the show. I knew all of this, yet still chose to come here. Do you know why, little Junior Brother?”
The Captain was looking very pleased as he came to a stop in front of Xu Qing.
Xu Qing looked at the Captain’s past-life body, and the answer occurred to him.
“You never lost your past-life body. That tomb we went to wasn’t even real. As you yourself said, Eldest Brother, in order to stave off tomb raiders, you set up a number of facade tombs. The place we went to... was actually one of the facade tombs.
“Ning Yan even asked you about what the final two facade tombs were like. You just laughed and didn’t answer the question, the reason being that the tomb we went to was the eighth facade tomb. The reality is that the Unfinished Mountains... are the ninth facade tomb! How many people have you offended, Eldest Brother, and how many big jobs have you done, that you’re so worried about people stealing your past-life body?”
The Captain was initially surprised by Xu Qing’s assessment, but toward the end he started laughing.
“Just what I would expect of my little Junior Brother. Hahaha! You’re right. That tomb we went into was the eighth facade tomb. And the Unfinished Mountains are the ninth!”
Xu Qing frowned. “Eldest Brother, you picked up some bad habits from Bai Xiaozhuo. It’s bad form to give the answer ahead of time.”
The Captain chuckled darkly. The truth was that he had learned this little trick from Bai Xiaozhuo. It seemed really badass to be able to reveal your plan secretly ahead of time. [1]
“Want to know where the real tomb is?” the Captain said, his eyebrows dancing up and down enticingly.
Seeing that familiar facial expression, familiar attitude, and familiar style made Xu Qing feel a bit more relaxed. Looking expressionlessly at the Captain, he said, “It’s the dream.”
He wasn’t interested in playing along with the Captain’s games.
The Captain’s eyes went wide. This whole reveal wasn’t exactly going as he had planned. You used to be a lot more charming than this, little Ah Qing!
Noting that Xu Qing seemed to actually be getting angry, the Captain laughed heartily, threw his arm around Xu Qing’s neck, and then lowered his voice.
“You’re incredible, little Junior Brother. I can’t believe you even guessed the part about the dream.
“You see, there was a very mysterious High God years ago who took my past-life body and put it into Crimson Mother’s dream... and even destroyed some of the dancing butterflies in that dream.”
Xu Qing’s gaze sharpened. He was particularly interested in this High God that had been mentioned.
Meanwhile, everything around them was changing. The guests’ facial expressions were turning from blank to vicious. Even the plants, rocks, and other terrain features seemed to radiate a sense of malice. That malice seemed to grow stronger and stronger, emanating from the Unfinished Mountains until it formed a voice.
“Get the hell out of here!”
The sound of it shook the Unfinished Mountains, causing the ground to quake and rocking the cities at the bases of the mountains.
The Captain chuckled. He didn’t go into an explanation of the mysterious High God he’d mentioned. Nor did he seem worried about what was happening around them. Instead, he went into some more detail about his past-life body.
“Getting inside is easy. You just have to join the dream. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you in the beginning. Everything was for the sake of conforming to the requirements of the dream. That’s the only way I could truly be a part of the show. That said, I did give you a warning earlier, right, little Junior Brother? So... calm down and don’t get mad.” Smiling ingratiatingly, he held up the hand of his past-life body.
“See? He really was my goal all along. He’s the key to unlocking my real past-life body. Now, I bet you can’t guess what this fellow really is!”
With that, the Captain waved his hand, and his past-life body melted into a puddle of black liquid. And right in the middle of that liquid... was a rotting butterfly! It emanated a sense of ancient time, making it clear it was very old. It also seemed to have a very high level of personhood hidden so deeply in it that Crimson Mother had overlooked it.
This was the key. The moment it appeared, screaming winds swept through the Unfinished Mountains, and everything shook violently. Looks of ferocity and pain appeared on the faces of all living beings. Boulders cracked, and plants wilted. At the same time, shocking fluctuations rolled out from the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect, along with a furious shout.
“Awaken. Awaken!”
The living beings in the area began to tremble. From the look of it, the sacrificial dancer that had created this show was ready to end the dream to stop the Captain’s plan.
“Too late.” The Captain laughed heartily as he picked up the ‘key’ and then waved his hand toward the sky. “Open!”
Thunderous rumbling sounds filled the dome of heaven. The clouds seethed, and it seemed like the cosmos itself was being split open. Then a rift appeared overhead. It didn’t start out very large, but it rapidly expanded, accompanied by deafening ripping sounds.
It looked extremely ghastly. A sense of decay emerged from the rift, filled with ancient time. The sky changed color, and the lands seemed like they might shatter, as a blue coffin emerged from the rift.
It was a coffin made, not from wood or metal, but rather, blue ice! Inside the ice coffin was a body wearing an extravagant blue robe embroidered with golden thread. He emanated terrifying pressure, but at the same time, seemed incredibly majestic. In his hand was a scepter!
The sky seemed to explode, and the land quaked violently. At the same time, a howl of grief erupted from within the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect.
“The original scepter of the sacrificial dance! You used to be the Grand Dancer!!”
As those words rang out, the old man in the five-colored robe in the cave temple had a look of abject terror in his eyes. With almost frantic anxiety, he was severing all of the threads connecting himself to the projected image of the Unfinished Mountains. He knew full well that as a sacrificial dancer, he looked strong, but was actually weak. The strength came because of the power to create dreams for a god; but that was also a source of weakness.
If the created dream ended normally, it counted as the conclusion of the sacrificial dance. But if the process was interrupted, it would result in a backlash. The so-called sacrificial dance was actually a very unique ceremony. There was a massive difference between that ceremony being interrupted actively versus being interrupted passively.
He was actively interrupting it to awaken everyone in the dream. Although there was a backlash, it wasn’t too much for him to deal with. That was why, when he realized something unusual was going on, he had taken the initiative to call out to all the living beings and prematurely end the creation of the dream.
For the dream to have been passively interrupted would be a totally different matter. He would have been affected by the decay of all living beings, the karma of all entities, and also the backlash of a god’s dream power.
Not even someone in Void Returning could survive that! It wasn’t something that any person could easily do.
The moment he spotted the scepter that represented the Grand Dancer, he was struck with absolute terror.
Sadly for him, he didn’t have the time to fully interrupt the dream. The moment the coffin appeared, the Captain’s eye shone with a strange light, and he shouted, “Show how strong you are, little Junior Brother! Send your power into that scepter. Awake all the living beings here whose fates have been transformed!”
The Captain didn’t explain anything else. Xu Qing knew what he meant. The Captain wanted him to use the power of the violet moon. Fighting against the vertigo, Xu Qing walked over to the coffin.
He reached out in the direction of the scepter. The power of the violet moon erupted within him, causing the ice to start turning the same violet color. At the same time, the Captain performed an incantation gesture, using the power of the coffin to guide the violet light into the scepter. A tremor passed through Xu Qing as he sensed a majestic power bolstering his soul. The vertigo vanished, and his mind cleared. Everything around him suddenly seemed like it was covered with a gauzy veil.
He saw threads rising up from everyone present. And those threads connected to the mountains of the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect. On each thread was an illusory butterfly. Some were large and some were small, but all of them were growing.
“Wake up!” Xu Qing said calmly, his eyes glowing violet.
Those two words were like 10,000,000 lightning bolts all exploding at the same time. The threads were all severed as the words echoed in the minds of the living beings in the Unfinished Mountains.
Countless cultivators and mortals shivered as they woke up. They looked around blankly for a moment before starting to subconsciously edge backward. Daoist partners looked at each other in terror, not even recognizing each other! Close friends shivered as they suddenly realized they actually hated each other. Entire families including parents and children all of a sudden came to the realization that they weren’t related. There were also some people who went back to what they were doing before. They were now awake and remembered everything. It was the same with all the sects.
Not even the Yin-Yang Betwixt Flowers Sect could escape the effects of the show. There were some disciples in the sect who weren’t even from the Unfinished Mountains. They had just been passing through, and the next thing they knew, they were disciples. Mistress Rosyclouds shivered, her hair in complete disarray as she looked up at the mountain summit. In reality, she wasn’t the sect leader, and she wasn’t the daughter of the sect’s patriarch. It was actually the opposite. He was her mortal enemy!
As the living beings in the Unfinished Mountains woke up, and the threads were severed, the dream came to an end. All the karma that resulted from severing the dream of a god, all of the backlash and the malice, converged back on the sacrificial dancer.
A miserable, agonized shriek echoed into the sky.
The old man in the cave had a look of despair on his face. He struggled, all in vain. As the threads snapped and turned into butterflies, they lunged toward him ravenously. They seemed to flit back and forth between illusory and corporeal as they covered him and started eating him.
He began to rot out of existence. To his utter despair, it was simply impossible to resist the backlash of the severed dream of a god. As he was being devoured, the curse within him erupted, filling his body and soul with agony, and driving him into madness. Even if he dropped to his knees and begged the god for help, it wouldn’t do any good.
After a few breaths of time passed, the dancing butterflies and the power of the severed dream had reduced him to a pool of blood on the floor of the cave temple.
When dancing for an emperor, the skilled are praised and the unskilled die!
That’s even truer with gods.
1. Just in case anyone forgot, Bai Xiaozhuo is the old lieutenant governor of Sea-Sealing, and before that, the actual governor of Sea-Sealing, also a Torchlight agent. He revealed his entire plan in his lecture to the new swordsages inchapter 401 . ☜