203: Chapter 203 The Gods Across the Sea

The door on the sea finally vanished, and with it, the threat to Ryukyu Island dissipated into thin air.

Although Mr. Fujimoto was terrified at this moment, unsure of what punishment the deity in the shrine might inflict, he knew how to prioritize.

For now, he still needed to entertain these distinguished guests from the Jiantian Bureau, as they had, after all, helped solve Ryukyu's trouble.

When he heard that Fujimoto wanted to host everyone, Gu Xiao had intended to find an excuse to leave; he personally disliked all those convoluted, fake pleasantries, and furthermore, he felt that Li Xiuyuan would not want to attend either.

But to Gu Xiao's surprise, Li Xiuyuan actually agreed.

"Don't you quite dislike that set of hypocritical human customs?" Gu Xiao asked curiously.

Li Xiuyuan shook his head and said, "It's not for those reasons, but rather because of that so-called deity."

The reason he was interested in that so-called deity was because Li Xiuyuan had sensed a familiar aura from the depths of the shrine.

The location for the reception was set in the side hall of the shrine.

Although the shrine was not yet fully completed, the side hall was mostly finished.

The air was filled with the scent of sawdust mixed with varnish. Fujimoto had specifically ordered people to bring over several low tables and cushions, and had prepared several plates of local snacks and sake full of Spiritual Qi, filling the table.

Several young women dressed in red and white shrine maiden robes knelt on both sides of the corridor, heads bowed, their postures respectful and restrained, fingers tucked into their sleeves; they were clearly called in temporarily to make up the numbers.

Actually, in the eyes of Gu Xiao or Zhou Chuanfeng, this level of hospitality was quite shabby, but considering the local circumstances, they said nothing more.

And the reason Fujimoto chose to arrange the reception in this place was because he had a little ulterior motive; he wanted to let the 'deity' in the shrine know that the collapse of the torii gate was not intentional.

At this moment, the reception banquet had begun. Fujimoto sat kneeling, facing the group, his back held very straight, his hands resting on his knees, his expression still carrying a lingering stiffness.

He hadn't touched the sake in front of him, but his gaze swept several times over the ruins of the torii gate in the distance, which had been cleared. The broken wood had been removed, leaving only a few shallow grooves and upturned flagstones.

Fujimoto coughed, cleared his throat, and began: "The collapse of the torii gate was not our intention, nor was it disrespectful to the deity. I am sure you all know the reason for this; there was a great disturbance on the coast, and our capabilities are limited; we were truly powerless to stop it. I hope... I hope the deity will see clearly and not visit punishment upon us for this."

Fujimoto spoke with a tone as if he were reporting to someone. The shrine maidens to the side kept their heads bowed, with no one speaking; only the wind under the corridor occasionally blew past, causing the bells on the eaves to emit a few faint, tinkling sounds.

After finishing, he picked up the sake cup in front of him, raised it slightly toward Gu Xiao and Zhou Chuanfeng, and then turned to Li Xiuyuan, bowing lower than before. As if he didn't know how to address him properly, he simply skipped the honorifics and just said, "Please enjoy."

Seeing his deliberate actions, Gu Xiao chuckled to himself for a moment, but he gave Fujimoto some Face and took a sip from his sake cup.

Having lived for several decades, he was quite experienced and knew who Fujimoto was directing these words to with such deliberation.

But out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Li Xiuyuan sitting there with a calm expression, neither raising his cup nor declining; he was just sitting casually on the cushion, his gaze fixed on a certain direction between the pillars.

Following Li Xiuyuan's line of sight, Gu Xiao saw nothing.

But what he did not know was that within Li Xiuyuan's field of vision, a figure formed of Spiritual Qi was coalescing in the shadows between the pillars.

The figure was translucent with soft contours, almost blending in with the surrounding wooden pillars and stone steps; if one didn't look carefully, one would only think it was light and shadow refracted through the eaves.

It was snow-white all over, with slender limbs, its tail tip drooping over the edge of the stone steps, its posture as quiet as a stone statue forgotten in a corner.

But those vertical pupils, from several yards away, met Li Xiuyuan's gaze from afar.

This was the deity in the shrine, the white wolf with Sixth Realm cultivation.

"Have you lived in the Xia Kingdom before?" Li Xiuyuan asked.

The white wolf's vertical pupils flickered slightly, as if it hadn't expected the other party to ask so directly.

After a moment of silence, it swept its tail gently across the stone steps and answered, "That's right. Before the resurgence of Spiritual Qi, I lived in the mountains of the southwest in the Xia Kingdom. Later, a mountain flood washed me away, and I drifted along the waterway to the sea, eventually ending up on this island."

"You have an aura about you that I find familiar."

"There is a Mountain Wolf on Yunfeng Mountain named Ao Wu. Its aura is very similar to yours," Li Xiuyuan continued.

The white wolf's ears twitched slightly, and it turned its head, its gaze pausing in the air for a beat: "Yunfeng Mountain? Since I have had memories, I have never stayed at Yunfeng Mountain."

Although that was the case, Li Xiuyuan did indeed sense an aura from the white wolf that shared the same origin as Ao Wu.

Perhaps it was because they were both wolves?

"Lord Dragon Lord, I wonder if you have noticed? Across the sea, on that island, there is an ancient existence from a thousand years ago that is awakening," the white wolf asked.

After hearing this, Li Xiuyuan looked in a certain direction, where the Sakura Island Nation lay across the sea from Ryukyu.

"Yes, I have noticed it," he said.

Previously, when he was inland, Li Xiuyuan's Spiritual Sense could not extend that far, so he was unaware of the situation overseas.

But this time, when he accepted that door, Li Xiuyuan sensed something unusual through the cracks of the door.

At first, Li Xiuyuan thought it might be some Yao Beast that had obtained an Opportunity during the wave of Spiritual Qi resurgence, because Li Xiuyuan had sensed a very intuitive aura of the Yao Race, only that the aura was a bit more mellow.

But later, Li Xiuyuan felt that was not the case.

Because that existence carrying a rich Demonic Qi actually carried quite a bit of incense, and many people on the island were worshipping it.

"Do you know what is going on there?" Li Xiuyuan asked.

The white wolf said, "I don't know it particularly well, but I have asked some shrine maidens and others, and the summarized answer is that that ancient existence is a deity of that island nation, existing in their myths and passed down for thousands of years."

"However, that deity should still be in the early stages of awakening; its aura possesses deterrent power, but its own strength has not recovered much."

The white wolf's words settled in his Spiritual Sense, and after a moment of silence, it raised its head, its gaze passing through the gaps between the pillars, falling toward the distance in the direction across the sea from Ryukyu.

The mist on the sea had not yet dissipated, and the silhouette of that island nation was looming in the twilight.

"There is one thing I have never been able to understand."

"Spiritual Qi has been exhausted for so long, why would those deities that should have completely disappeared from this world appear again? Is it just because Spiritual Qi has resurged that they can come back to life? Or is it that... they never truly died?"

"The existence awakening on that island is a deity passed down in their myths for thousands of years. Although I have not seen it with my own eyes, I can sense that aura from across the sea; it is definitely not something that a normal Rising Beings could emit."

"Within the Xia Kingdom, there should also be similar situations, right?" the white wolf asked.

Li Xiuyuan said, "That is correct. After the resurgence of Spiritual Qi, those existences that were once recorded in myths and ancient books are slowly awakening."

It is not just the Xia Kingdom that has this situation; it seems that all parts of the world are the same.

"Then do you think they count as deities?" the white wolf asked again.

"They do," Li Xiuyuan said.

He was initially a bit confused as to why the white wolf would ask this, but upon remembering that he was currently in a shrine, he immediately understood.

This white wolf, perhaps, also wanted to replicate that method, through people's worship, to achieve the goal of becoming a deity.

It was also similar to becoming a deity through incense, but this process was extremely long and deeply bound to humans.

Once the incense is cut off, the divine status dissipates.

Li Xiuyuan did not offer any advice or evaluation, because this path of becoming a deity through incense was not as simple as it appeared on the surface.

...

The banquet ended in the twilight.

When Fujimoto saw them off, it had already turned completely dark.

Gu Xiao and Zhou Chuanfeng briefly said their goodbyes, confirmed the handover matters for the subsequent follow-up work, and then immediately returned with Li Xiuyuan.

When the two left Ryukyu Island, the twilight on the sea had been completely swallowed by the night.

Gu Xiao took out his communicator and glanced at it; it contained the message and coordinates sent by the Bureau Chief, marking the location of the last artifact, which was in a dense forest deep in the northeast of the Xia Kingdom, where few people set foot.

"The last one."

"Estimate we can arrive in an hour?"

Gu Xiao told Li Xiuyuan the location, and the latter said nothing, pulling in clouds and mist to take flight.

After Li Xiuyuan and Gu Xiao left Ryukyu, a gust of wind suddenly swept over the sky above Ryukyu without warning.

At some unknown time, a thin layer of purple mist had risen on the surface of the sea.

The purple mist seeped out from where the sea met the sky, like ink diluted by the night, shimmering with an unnatural glow under the moonlight.

It was spreading toward Ryukyu Island at an extremely slow speed; although the speed was slow, it revealed a heart-palpitating feeling.

Zhou Chuanfeng was still organizing the follow-up work with the members of the attendance team, and when they saw the mist permeating and surging, several team members stopped their work.

"What is that?" A teammate's gaze fell on the approaching purple mist.

At the same time, in the shrine on Ryukyu Island, the white wolf stood up abruptly from the shadows of the offering hall.

It had originally laid down to rest, but the moment it sensed that unusual aura, it sprang up as if pricked by a needle.

Its vertical pupils contracted suddenly, and its gaze passed through the door of the offering hall and the stone path in the courtyard, locking tightly onto the purple mist approaching on the sea.

The aura carried within that purple mist made it feel an instinctive trembling from the depths of its Bloodline.

"Is it them?!" The white wolf's heart tightened; it was very familiar with this aura, which was exactly that of the ancient existence awakening on the small island across the sea.

The deity on that island had actually taken the initiative to cross the sea and come over!

The white wolf did not hesitate; its Spiritual Sense immediately turned into a sharp signal, piercing through the walls of the offering hall and slamming into Fujimoto's Spiritual Sense: "Immediately have all the shrine maidens return to the main hall! Set up a barrier together!"

Fujimoto was at the entrance of the shrine, talking in low voices with several shrine maidens about the arrangements for the subsequent repairs of the torii gate, when he was shocked stiff by the voice that suddenly poured into his mind.

He subconsciously looked up toward the direction of the offering hall, his lips trembling: "Lord Deity, what is wrong?"

"Do not ask! Hurry!"

Although Fujimoto did not know the reason, the white wolf's tone made him dare not hesitate in the slightest.

He turned around abruptly and shouted at the shrine maidens behind him: "Hurry! Everyone return to the main hall!"

The shrine maidens were stunned for a moment, then, as if awakened by something, they lifted their skirts and ran quickly toward the direction of the main hall.

Footsteps on the stone steps were hurried and chaotic, and the rustling sound of robes rubbing together rang out in a chorus.

At this moment, the purple mist on the sea was closer than before, spreading along the surface of the sea, its edges already beginning to touch the shallows of the north coast of Ryukyu Island.

When the shrine maidens returned to the shrine, the purple mist had already overflowed the low wall around the shrine, and the aura it carried brought a sense of oppression that made people instinctively want to flee.

The white wolf stood on the stone steps in front of the main hall, its four paws firmly planted on the cold stone surface, and just as it was about to mobilize the Spiritual Qi in its body to set up a barrier, the purple mist had already arrived one step ahead.

In less than a breath's time, the entire shrine was enveloped within it.

The white wolf's pupils contracted violently.

It didn't even have time to condense the Spiritual Qi into shape before it felt a swift force pressing in from all directions.

"Boom!!"

The shrine that was still under construction was crushed into ruins by that force.

Several shrine maidens who had just run into the main hall had not yet had time to stand steady when they were pressed to the ground by the force pressing down from above. Their bodies fell backward, and their robes were pressed into the ruins along with the debris.

The white wolf barely managed to hold on for a while on the stone steps, but that was all; the next moment it was lying on the ground.

...

The purple mist had not yet completely dissipated, and the shrine was no longer a shrine; only ruins remained.

Several shrine maidens lay in the ruins near the entrance of the main hall; the closest ones were already motionless, mostly covered by robes and ruins.

Mr. Fujimoto lay on his side among a pile of broken wood in the direction of the side hall; his lower body was tightly pressed by a broken beam, and it looked as if his lower body had been completely crushed.

The white wolf lay prone at the junction of the main hall ruins and the stone steps, already dead in a pool of blood; although the crushing force in the purple mist had not been able to completely grind it to pieces, it had instantly taken the life of this Sixth Realm Rising Beings.

When Zhou Chuanfeng arrived from the coast with several team members, this was the scene he saw.

He was about to step forward to check the situation of Fujimoto and the shrine maidens, but his footsteps were blocked by an invisible resistance the moment he took a step.

Alarm bells rang in Zhou Chuanfeng's heart; he mobilized the Spiritual Qi in his body, trying to break through that restraint, but as soon as the Spiritual Qi surged out of his Meridians, it was pressed back by a more sluggish force.

He raised his head, his gaze passing through that layer of invisible barrier, falling deeper into the shrine ruins.

In the remaining thin mist of the purple fog, a man with an extremely tall figure, broad shoulders, thick back, and rugged contours appeared before Zhou Chuanfeng, and beside that tall man, another even more massive figure was slowly wriggling; it was a monster with eight heads.

The moment Zhou Chuanfeng's gaze met the tall man's, he felt his vision go black.

Immediately afterward, only pure darkness remained in his field of vision.