82: Chapter 82 The Human World Falls into the Abyss

records of the mountain and sea official appointments, Chapter 2, Section 3 records:

In this world, there are the Nine Heavens and the Nine Abysses; between them lies the Mountain and Sea, also known as the Mortal Realm.

Since A Fan resigned from his post, people saw the rising morning sun shredded by a black tide, with a green-faced child sitting atop the waves.

Those were water spirits driven by the Flood Dragon's kin, chanting prayers for passing Souls in tender, childlike voices.

They had come to seek revenge for that wicked Flood Dragon.

But A Fan knew that revenge was merely an excuse.

An excuse for the Yao Race to find sacrificial food.

Then, the rivers across the entire continent surged simultaneously; the floods were like vicious beasts finally breaking their chains, pouncing from every river valley toward the Mortal Realm.

A Fan dove down from the clouds, arriving in the Mortal Realm.

He saw the dams he had built to manage the waters years ago crumbling like toy blocks.

The Mortals were huddling together as vast swathes of houses drifted away in the flood like withered leaves.

"The cycle of Karma..."

"Never mind. Since I set this in motion, I shall be the one to resolve it."

A Fan whispered.

Transforming into human form, slaying the Yao.

Wrapped around his feather robe were no longer soft wisps of clouds, but chilling wind blades.

He decapitated the harmful green-faced water spirit and crafted a mask for himself, modeled after its face.

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The mask was azure in color.

He called it Qingming.

Wearing it on his face, he used the water spirit's Demonic Qi to mask his own mana aura, hiding his origins as a Small Bird.

The battle lasted for nine days and nine nights.

A Fan's feather robe was soaked in Dragon blood, turning from the color of azure clouds to a deep black.

For every Dragon he slew, he took its reverse scale and pressed it to his chest, transforming it into feather robe armor.

During this battle, he sensed powerful auras within the territory of the Human Race.

But those people lived on distant mountains and never came down.

Even as the floods reached the heavens, those Cultivators did not cast a single glance downward.

"Are they also humans? No..."

"Immortals. They are Immortals."

After a moment's thought, A Fan categorized these two similar-looking Ying Insects separately.

After all, no race in the Mountain and Sea would stand by and watch their kin in peril... As the battle dragged on, A Fan's armor eventually covered his entire body.

But gradually, he began to feel his strength failing.

Not just Flood Dragons, but also harmful Yao Beasts like the mythical serpent, Fei, Qiongqi, Mythical Birds, and Jiuying appeared.

Helpless, A Fan had no choice but to retreat from the front lines for a while.

Leaving a mana Clone to draw attention, his true self went to recover his mana and heal his wounds, while also checking the situation in the Human Race's rear... In the rear, floods swallowed cities, and people floated like straw stalks.

In the nearest small city, A Fan struck down a Hornless Dragon that was stirring up trouble.

"Strange, why are there Yao in the rear?"

Amidst the waves churned up by the Dragon's corpse, he saw a young girl in purple clinging to a door plank, being pushed toward a whirlpool.

When he scooped up the child, he found a straw rope tied around her waist.

The other end of the rope was connected to her mother, whose body was already stiff.

The woman's fingers were bloody and mangled; before she died, she had gritted her teeth and torn her clothes into strips to braid this lifeline.

A Fan frowned; his mana circulated, and he evaporated all of the raging floodwaters.

As the water level receded, a dilapidated temple was revealed.

Looking at the statue inside the temple, A Fan was stunned.

"This is my... temple?"

During these three years of battle, the Mortals on this continent had come to worship A Fan, who fought on the front lines, as a deity.

He hastily spread his spiritual sense, looking across the entire Mortal Realm and reviewing the time that had passed over the last three years.

Though he blocked the mountain passes, many minor Yao had still crossed his defensive line.

Just a few minor Yao of the One-Tribulation level had turned this Mortal Realm into a living purgatory.

A Fan withdrew his spiritual sense, his pupils trembling violently.

"Stupid! So stupid!"

"Why... why is there such a stupid race in the Mountain and Sea?"

His Sea of Consciousness was shaken by what he saw, and he repeatedly murmured... "They can't win. Humans cannot defeat those demons..."

Soldiers huddled inside the city gates.

"Bastard! How can you say such discouraging things!"

The general clad in heavy armor was furious.

"This wave has passed, but what do we do about the next?"

"Where are the reinforcements?"

"..."

"General, let's retreat. Yue City is beyond saving. If we keep defending, the flood will come."

"There's simply no point in holding out like this!"

"Meaning? I don't understand that at all!"

"The monsters are coming!"

"Form ranks!"

The soldiers formed ranks, looking at the dark mass of the low-level beast tide in the distance with varying expressions.

"They're here! They're here!"

"We're dead. We're dead for sure..."

"Divine Lord Qingming protect us..."

As the battle began, the general at the very front looked at a young soldier in the vanguard and asked casually:

"I remember you were a scholar, weren't you? Why did you come to the front line to throw your life away?"

"We cannot retreat! Behind Yue City are the tens of thousands of homes of my Mortal Realm. Abandoning the city and fleeing, the matter of falling into the Nine Abysses—I cannot do such a thing!"

The young vanguard's words were forceful and resonant.

"Well said!"

"Good lad!"

The young vanguard's spirited words caused the soldiers whose legs were trembling to straighten their backs slightly.

"Prodigy! Come on!"

Swish.

In the next moment, that young vanguard was trampled into the dirt by a hoof falling from the sky.

It was a One-Tribulation young Fei; its hooves were larger than millstones.

Its bony back was hung with the broken armor of soldiers, and the breath from its throat instantly melted iron spears.

As the young Fei moved on and lifted its hoof, the young vanguard remained stuck to the bottom of its foot for a good while before falling off.

The soldiers swarmed like locusts toward the young Fei's toes, hacking fiercely at the horny layer of its ankles with blades that had already lost their edge.

Before some were stepped into meat paste, they still struggled to thrust their long spears into the gaps between the scales.

"No... I have to stand up... My family is waiting for me in the rear!"

With a resilient will, the young vanguard soldier tried to prop up his broken body.

Crack!

A Mythical Bird dove from the sky and swallowed him whole.

"Choke that beast to death!"

"Gunpowder! Where's the gunpowder?"

"Blow it up!"

Soldiers charged at the Mythical Bird with Firelocks.

Some even swallowed poison, turning their own bodies into venom before being devoured by the Mythical Bird.

They attempted to trade for victory in the most tragic way possible.

The moment sharp claws tore open the soldiers' chests, poisonous blood splashed into the Yao Beast's eyes.

Smoke filled the air. As the Mythical Bird rolled in agony, it crushed half a watchtower; the mythical serpent that had swallowed the poisoned soldier was also in unbearable pain.

Meanwhile, only the broken limbs and blood of the soldiers remained piled on the scorched earth.

Night fell, and the beast tide temporarily retreated.

Survivors dug through the piles of corpses for comrades who still had breath, using spear shafts as stretchers to carry them away.

"Where is the general?"

"Trampled to death."

"How many people are left?"

"Two million before the battle. Now... less than two thousand."

The Centurion sat on the scorched earth with another ordinary soldier, chatting about this and that.

"What was that vanguard's name?"

"I don't know."

Such battles were happening everywhere in the Mortal Realm.

The stories of nobodies were nothing new.

Yet misfortunes never come singly.

The flood had washed away the granaries.

Famine had arrived.

"The rations aren't coming."

An old soldier smiled as he opened an empty grain bag; the lining had a crude map drawn on it with charcoal.

The marked human cities were covered with dense clusters of arrows.

"We won't survive the next beast tide."

"I will die, you will die, everyone will die."

"When this thought completely occupied my mind, I subconsciously wanted to know the meaning of my current existence."

In a broken temple within the city, by a campfire, the Centurion spoke before a group of soldiers.

"I've decided. I'm going to die in this city."

"Whatever the case, we cannot let the Yao Beasts cross this city before the flood arrives."

"That is my meaning."

"So..." The Centurion's tone shifted.

He snatched a wailing baby girl from a woman in the city and licked his parched lips.

The military knife in his hand wavered.

"She's only going to die a few days before us anyway," the Centurion hypnotized himself.

"The meat will be shared with everyone to ensure we have the strength to slay those beas—"

"Centurion!"

Beside him, by the campfire, an ordinary, thin young soldier stood up.

"We cannot eat people! Eating people is wrong!"

The young soldier shouted, the childishness not yet gone from his gaunt face.

The other soldiers stopped, including the Centurion; perhaps out of a remnant of conscience, they listened quietly.

"I will not eat human flesh."

"Eating living people raw—what difference would there be between us and the Yao Beasts?"

"But if you don't, you'll collapse on the eve of the Yao Beasts' arrival. Are you okay with that?" the Centurion said helplessly.

The plague left by the Fei had not yet dissipated, and almost all the soldiers had fallen ill. If they didn't eat something to warm their bodies, they wouldn't survive tomorrow.

"It doesn't matter. I came to this world, I fought, I have no regrets. And after I die..."

The thin youth's eyes shone brightly.

"My Soul will undergo Ascension to the Nine Heavens! I will become a star in the sky!"

The youth pointed to the sky, and everyone followed his gaze to see the sky full of stars.

"Above the Nine Heavens, there are heavenly palaces and Immortals!"

"After becoming a star, I'll be clear and bright, watching over the Mortal Realm, and there will be no more worries or pain."

"If we eat people, then we can only fall into the Nine Abysses! That is the deepest, darkest underground, where there is molten iron and ghosts that pull out tongues. We would suffer endless misery and never, ever get out!"

The atmosphere became silent.

Only the campfire flickered.

In the temple, the corners of the eyes of the Qingming statue cracked open.