Chapter 975: Play the Music
Dawn would soon come to the Forbidden Sea, but right now it was still night. Darkness covered everything, like a hidden god sending godly power out. The water was black, as was the sky. In the end, it was hard to tell if that god was overhead or under the surface of the water. Was the color of the sea invading the sky, or was the sky crushing down into the sea?
In the end, it didn’t matter to the various species that inhabited the Forbidden Sea. Day and night were the same to them.
On the surface of the black water, boats could be seen bobbing up and down. In the sky, birds soared through the darkness hunting for food.
And on the seafloor... the severed hand was moving at top speed. Occasionally, it was clearly visible, and occasionally it would become a blur. Whenever that transition occurred, it was when the hand was teleporting a great distance. Any sea beasts it encountered would wither in an instant as their godliness and life force was absorbed like nutrients by the hand, lending it additional speed.
Additionally, everywhere it went, everything went silent. All sound was suppressed by its godly authority. It knew that though sound was its own weapon, it was also the weapon of its pursuer.
Unfortunately... no matter how much it accelerated, that gruish pursuer who could take away sound was always there. No efforts to shake him amounted to anything. And the distance between the two of them was decreasing. That was because Xu Qing wasn’t just using the godly authority of sound to boost his speed.
Misfortune could aid him as well, plus the violet moon. In fact... the mutagen in the Forbidden Sea itself was an aid to Xu Qing, at least to a certain extent. His fleshly body was terrifyingly shocking.
Therefore... after another incense stick’s worth of time passed, the sea water around the severed hand suddenly filled with vines made of water. The vines swept out noiselessly to block the hand’s path forward, and its path of retreat. The hand turned to flee in a different direction, but the water vines shifted to block that route as well. In the blink of an eye, every path was obstructed. Endless vines made of water appeared, encircling the severed hand and fusing with each other.
The hand tried to break free, but there was no end to the vines, and eventually it had to stop moving. As a result, it was quickly surrounded by so many vines of water that it became like a cocoon on the seafloor.
A sealing.That only lasted for a few breaths of time before the hand finally managed to break free. The vine cocoon collapsed, and a rumbling sound echoed out for the first time during the chase. The boom only lasted for a moment before the hand took the sound away. Unfortunately, it was too late.
Almost as soon as the rumbling occurred, Xu Qing stepped out of the sound in bizarre fashion to stand right in front of the severed hand.
The sageheaven god vine emerged from the vines of water, sending out emotional fluctuations to indicate that it had succeeded. Then it became another host of water vines that sealed the hand. Little Shadow wasn’t willing to fall behind, so it spread out to cover the seafloor in all directions. The poison of Xu Qing’s god curse then emerged, making the seawater even blacker than before.
Having accomplished these things, Xu Qing looked at the hand with gleaming eyes. This hand was critical to his goal of calling to the dragon chariot.
Stepping forward, he stomped his foot onto the hand. As he did, the hand’s eye flashed with red light, and ghostly figures flew out into the open. Once again, the howl of evil ghosts echoed out. At any moment, deadly music would erupt.
“I’m the only one allowed to make any sound here,” Xu Qing said calmly. The moment he spoke the words, the howling of the ghosts stopped. The sound had been taken away and crushed.
The severed hand shivered. Then its eye became even redder than before, and a teardrop of blood emerged from it. Terrifying might pulsed off it as it shot toward Xu Qing like an arrow. The teardrop caused the water to boil around it as it bore down on him with venom, madness, and boundless hatred.
Xu Qing shimmered with light and prepared to unleash immortal light. But then his eyes glittered. Dispelling the light, he advanced, allowing the red teardrop to slam into him. It made no sound.
Xu Qing shivered as a stabbing sensation filled him. But nothing else happened. Nothing short of an Imperial Sovereign could do anything to shake his fleshly body, or make him feel like his soul and body were being separated.
He lifted his foot and again stomped down onto the severed hand. He let the red light surge, and allowed the evil ghosts to appear around him. He even let the hand perform an incantation gesture with its fingers.
Clenching his right hand into a fist, he launched a fist strike. The fist seemed Undying, but the reality was that Xu Qing had altered it. By adding Within the Nine Springs, which Master Seventh had taught him, it made the blow even more of a combination of illusory and corporeal. As before, there was no sound.[1]
The hand tumbled backward. The reality was that its battle prowess wasn’t on the same level as its sound-manipulation powers. Using Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon to summon the rotting moon was the most formidable thing it could do.
Maybe if Xu Qing didn’t have the godly authority of sound, then facing this gruish severed hand would have been very challenging, and would have required much more brute force. But right now... the hand was like a toothless snake. It was being forced to use methods it wasn’t skilled at to engage in combat.
It was easy to predict who would win and who would lose. After enough time passed for an incense stick to burn, Xu Qing’s powerful fleshly body and sound-seizing abilities overwhelmed anything the severed hand could produce. He just kept advancing and launching blows.
The severed hand was being knocked back over and over again. Its evil ghosts were constantly being dispersed, its tears were being shattered, and everything it did failed. As it fell back, it got dimmer and dimmer, and the eye on the palm continuously seemed like it would collapse. Its aura was getting weak.
Eventually, Xu Qing’s hand stopped only a few inches from the eye itself. He didn’t complete the blow. He didn’t want to wipe the severed hand out of existence. He wanted to control it. After damaging it severely enough, he sent his god perception out, surrounded it, and then suppressed it fully, from godsource to god perception to godly authority to personhood.
The hand shivered. Clearly, it had been fully suppressed. However, the blood-red eye in the palm was glaring at him madly. All of a sudden, fluctuations of self-detonation began to rise up in it.
That was not the result Xu Qing wanted.
The moment the hand revealed that it planned to self-detonate, Xu Qing sent out the sound of the golden crow. It was a crisp, clear sound that echoed in all directions. A black sea of flames sprang up with Xu Qing at the center.
Within that sea of fire was the golden crow, which circled about over Xu Qing’s head. It had a black body surrounded by black fire, as well as countless feathers that were like fiery snowflakes. The black color it emanated was starkly beautiful. The severed hand trembled.
The golden crow circled one more time, then flew to Xu Qing and fused into him, becoming an imperial robe and crown. As of this moment, Xu Qing stood there looking very much like the young man who was the golden crow. He even had the same aura!
The severed hand’s eye saw all of this and shook even harder. It was even possible to hear a piercing chant coming from it. This time, Xu Qing permitted the sound to come out.
Xu Qing didn’t care exactly what it was trying to say. He just looked at the hand and calmly said, “Play the music.”
He backed up the command with a blast of god perception. This time, the addition of the golden crow resulted in the hand’s struggles growing weaker.
Next, Xu Qing completely enveloped the hand with god perception. The eye in the palm closed. Blood oozed out of the severed part of the hand, swirling around until it formed a shadowy figure.
It was a woman. She wore a white robe and had her head bowed so that her facial features weren’t possible to make out. In her arms she held a zither with its strings severed. The only part that was crystal clear was the right hand, the fingers of which were moving rapidly over the formless zither.
Music drifted out. Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon . It was the real version of the song. Back when Xu Qing changed the howling into the real Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon , it was like this. But this version was different substructurally.
On the surface, dawn was coming, and the darkness of night was disappearing. Normally speaking, sunlight should have been spreading. But strangely, it was late.
Deep down on the seafloor, as the musician played her music, waves kicked up on the surface of the Forbidden Sea. It was almost as if something was about to emerge from the water.
Eventually, an illusory rotting moon appeared. Shē rose from the seafloor, broke the surface of the water, and in the moment that the sun should have risen, replaced the sun to shine down on all living things. It looked as if the face of the young woman would soon open hēr eyes.
Unfortunately, the moon that would normally have ascended into Revered Ancient’s canopy of heaven upon the playing of Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon had long since perished. That moon only existed in times past, and the version here was just a projection. Shē could not truly rise into the sky. This moon would eventually disappear as surely as a popped bubble. The eyes that opened would eventually close.
Before it disappeared, though, a soft voice echoed out, speaking to the sun that was about to rise.
“Brother....”[2]
The voice echoed out of time and into the Forbidden Sea, and was carried by the sea breeze to the outer sea….
***
In the inky waters of the outer sea, where the seafloor was much more terrifying than the inner sea, there was a giant slowly walking forward. Its footsteps thumped loudly through the water. It had a corroded chain draped over its shoulder, on the other end of which... was a rundown bronze chariot.
The chariot suddenly trembled and stopped moving, and no matter how the giant pulled it, it wouldn’t budge. Inside the chariot was carved the golden crow’s magic, which currently glittered with shining light. The magical symbols rippled and flowed, eventually turning into a golden crow. The crow’s eyes opened and shifted to look toward the inner sea. Eventually... the crow faded away.
As for the giant, it shifted directions. Instead of continuing into the depths of the outer sea to find a sleeping spot, it started dragging the bronze dragon chariot... toward the inner sea. As it moved, huge waves rolled out over the surface of the sea, carrying with them the sound of breathing.
***
The breathing echoed into the inner sea.
Xu Qing sat cross-legged on the seafloor, meditating. In front of him was the severed hand embodied as the musician, still playing Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon . The music was elegant and soul-stirring.
As Xu Qing listened, he could sense that his godly authority of sound was more dazzling than ever. At the same time, he felt a sensation of regret within the music as the rotting moon faded away.
Time passed. In the blink of an eye, more than half a month went by.
During those twenty days, Xu Qing remained in place on the seafloor. Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon didn’t play continuously. Instead, the music drifted out every day when the sun set. It happened over and over again.
Eventually, Xu Qing could sense that the water was changing. It was colder than before, and the currents were stronger. It seemed like some colossal entity was approaching. When that happened, he knew that he had succeeded. The bronze dragon chariot was approaching from some unknown direction.
Xu Qing kept waiting patiently.
In contrast, Little Shadow was getting very anxious. When the god vine showed up, it sensed danger. When the broken hand showed up, that sensation grew more intense. Therefore, it took the initiative to emit some crunching sounds during the daytime whenever Natural Sounds Welcome the Moon wasn’t playing.
Seven more days passed.
***
As the temperature dropped and the waves grew bigger, organizations that operated in the area could sense that something was happening. For safety’s sake, most of them refrained from going out onto the open sea.
And yet... there are some types of danger that will come whether or not you try to avoid them....
There was a species called the Seaspirits who lived on a specific island in the Forbidden Sea. They had a population of only a few thousand, which meant that they had no other option than to be a subsidiary species to one of the larger species on one of the larger islands. At the moment, the fire of catastrophe was burning on their island.
The fire was red. Blood stained the ancestral land of their species. Corpses of their species were piled everywhere. They included men and women, old and young. There were even newborn infants among them. All were dead.
The son of Floating Fiend from the Vivifiend holy land sat on a stone hut, enjoying the scent of blood in the air.
“Smells lovely,” he said.
His nine dao protectors were currently extracting the hearts from all the corpses. Seaspirit hearts came in the form of a type of crystal. The Vivifiends had marked that crystal as an excellent material, and a few thousand would be worth quite a hefty sum. Before long, the crystals had all been collected. Fire raged, and the entire area crumbled into ash. No evidence was left behind.
Floating Fiend’s son stood, took out a map to check where the next set of materials could be obtained. That was when his palm suddenly flickered. He looked at it, and his eyes flashed aggressively, all while a smile broke out on his face.
“That fast? I already found the killer? Well, let’s go take a look. I’m curious what he looks like.”
Floating Fiend’s son smiled, stood, and headed over the horizon. His nine dao protectors followed wordlessly.
The wind grew stronger.
1. Xu Qing got Within the Nine Springs in chapter 217. It was previously mentioned in chapter 809, but before then, it hadn’t been used since chapter 417. ☜
2. The word spoken here is an imperial form of address, indicating that both the speaker and the person being spoken to, the brother, are members of the imperial family. He could be a prince or an actual emperor, that much is not clear just from the form of address. In the ‘imperial capital’ arc, the imperial family members would often address each other in this manner. ☜