Tales of Herding Gods

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“What’s stranger is that when I was executing Soul Guide, words of the devil language that I had never learned before appeared in my mind…”

Qin Mu frowned. The sudden knowledge in his head was still there, and it was a kind of extremely ancient language.

His heart stirred slightly, and he took up Saturn Sovereign’s True Form. Gate of Heaven Influence appeared behind him, and the apparition of an ancient book took shape in his hand.

Qin Mu composed himself and stretched his hand to open the ancient book. When the writing entered his eyes, he immediately felt like the scribbles were rapidly reforming themselves. Every one of the incomparably strange symbols immediately gained meaning as though he had memorized them by heart!

Qin Mu was in a daze. The book had been written in Youdu language, and he had absolutely no knowledge about its writing system!

Dutian Devil King had known a little and taught him a phrase which was Gate of Heaven Influence. But he had even lied to him, which almost resulted in Qin Mu dying in Youdu.

As for the writings in the book, Dutian Devil King had never taught him them.

Yet now he understood all of them and was fluent in the language without studying as though he’d always known it!

‘This ominous land is indeed extremely strange. I couldn’t even recognize the words in this book yet now I can actually read them! The writings on the first page look like a technique yet they’re not like those of a cultivation technique. They might contain some strange knowledge regarding the soul, but it doesn’t seem like it either. They’re like a divine art…’

Qin Mu was astonished to no end. The Youdu language in the book was just too strange. It was the first time he had encountered such weird writing that was like those of a technique yet not, like simple knowledge yet not, like a divine art yet not one either.

He hesitated for a moment, but he couldn’t resist it. He began reading aloud what was written on the first page. His tone was cryptic and profound, with a wonderful rhythm to it.

The writings couldn’t be expressed with his language because humans simply didn’t have similar phrases. Even the meaning was impossible to express, so he could only use Youdu language itself to do so.

Qin Mu had just read the first sentence when his soul began palpitating. The vital qi in his body changed, turning into devil qi. Suddenly, waves of sinister wind blew past and gloomy clouds came to hang above his head. The swamp started to churn around him.

Qin Mu immediately stopped and looked around. Everything turned back to normal.

He continued to read, and the wind returned. The water in the swamp also churned once again like a boiling pot. The gloomy clouds gathered above his head and turned into a swirling whirlpool which attracted devil qi from all directions. A portion of it was like a flood dragon with its tail hanging down as it floated in the center of the whirlpool.

Qin Mu’s mind trembled. The devil qi had already entered his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure from the heart of his brows and started to merge with the spirit embryo with the power of his voice. The spirit embryo then returned the favor, and the devil qi flowed grandiosely through his Five Elements and Six Directions Divine Treasures. Even the sun, moon, and stars were tainted by the devil qi and became dim.

As Qin Mu continued to read the ancient book, skeletons stood up from the swamp around him. There were also quite a number of corpses that climbed up from beneath the water.

He stopped in a hurry from astonishment. He closed the ancient book and dispersed his Saturn Sovereign True Form to look around carefully.

The moment his voice stopped, the corpses and skeletons collapsed back down.

“Too strange, this ominous land is too strange…”

Qin Mu composed himself and decided to leave as soon as possible.

‘Maybe if I leave this ominous land, the Youdu words in my head will vanish and I won’t recognize the writings in the book anymore. Eh, my cultivation seems to have risen slightly…’

He examined his cultivation and couldn’t help becoming astonished. In just a short while, it had actually increased by quite a bit!

He had established access between Six Directions Divine Treasures and Seven Stars Divine Treasure, which made his cultivation extremely dense and not any weaker than that of an expert of Celestial Being Realm. However, the density of his cultivation also caused him to become slightly slower in advancing through his realm.

Yet in just a short while, he felt like his cultivation had actually increased by a lot. This kind of advancement could only be described as terrifying!

“Something is wrong, something is wrong… There’s definitely something wrong with this place. There’s definitely something strange about the ancient book as well…”

Qin Mu examined himself in detail and finally found what was wrong.

There was actually a shut door in his body!

It stood opposite of his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure!

It was another Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure!

“This doesn’t seem to be right. Isn’t it said that everyone only has one Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure? Why do I have a second one? I’m also not two people… I think no one has told me that humans are not able to have two Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure. Yes, that’s definitely the upside of having Overlord Body…”

Qin Mu pushed the explanation of another Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure to his Overlord Body and stopped worrying about it.

He roused his vital qi to bombard the door, and a gap opened up. Pure devil qi poured out and merged with his vital qi. Moments later, strange devil voices came from the door and pushed back his cultivation.

He immediately stopped.

‘This spirit embryo is the divine treasure of the devil path and not the god path. I have once heard a mysterious god voice and now it’s the devil voices that pushed back my cultivation, not letting me open my Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure… I should ask Village Chief since he understands Overlord Body the most. He will definitely be able to answer my doubts!’

Qin Mu temporarily put away this matter and raised his head to look around his surroundings. The Provincial Governor who had pointed out the direction for him had said that he only needed to walk toward the east to get out of the ominous land. The problem with that was that the vastness of the swamp surpassed Qin Mu’s estimation.

He oriented himself once more and began walking. After some time, he had covered a thousand miles yet he still wasn’t out the huge swamp.

In that time, he saw over a hundred lakes of all sizes. They were traces of ancient battles.

When Qin Mu had approached one, he’d felt a terrifying vibration coming from the water

“These lakes are traces of fights between the gods and devils.”

Qin Mu was careful and didn’t go closer. The power of the ancient gods and devils’ divine arts was still around, resting at the bottom of the lake. It was very unstable, and terrifying things would happen if he stepped onto the lake.

But right then, he saw an even stranger sight. Multi-colored lights rose from the lake, and a tinkling came from It. The sound reminded him of treasures colliding, which was a very pleasant noise.

Qin Mu stopped walking and looked around. He saw the multi-colored light becoming thicker and thicker. He could faintly see lotus petals swirling within it, and a huge lotus throne rose from the lake. However, it looked like it had been destroyed for the petals had fallen off. Yet the lotus throne still had a strange force of attraction which made the petals swirl around it.

Meanwhile, in the center of the light, there were weapons colliding with one another like flood dragons.

Qin Mu turned and walked along the lakeside.

At that moment, peals of laughter came from the lake, and he looked toward the source of the sound to see a couple of girls covered only in veils. They were playing near the lake, and some of them jumped into the water. Others sat on the surface and played around with each other.

Qin Mu’s eyes lit up, and he took out his brush, ink, paper, and inkstone to start drawing. After a moment, he finished a painting of a lake and girls bathing. It also had the lotus throne.

He then jumped into the painting and began to play with the girls there with satisfaction.

The painting was erected beside the lake. In it, the youth was as pleased as Punch. He sat on the lotus throne while the girls leaned against it. He hugged them left and right, and even put the extraordinary spirit weapons into his taotie sack. He was truly at the peak of his life!

Light surged on the lake, and suddenly everything disappeared. There seemed to be some huge monster moving under the lake, closing in rapidly. It looked like a small island was moving.

Whoosh.

The lake split apart, and a huge eyeball jumped out from the water. Flames covered its body, so it was probably an eye of a devil god.

Its consciousness could have awakened as time went by, or maybe it had been possessed by some broken soul. Yet what was even weirder was that it had actually grown arms and legs. It had four of each. Behind the eye were even two pairs of small wings. The creature came to the painting and looked inside, jealousy for Qin Mu growing within it.

“Kuku!” The devil eye was beyond excited.

Suddenly, it shrunk its body to the size of a face basin and flapped its wings to rush into the painting. It entered with a pop.

The moment the devil eye entered the painting, its eye opened up and revealed a huge mouth. It was filled with razor-sharp teeth. “Kuku!” the monster roared.

Qin Mu scrambled down from the throne in utter fear and fled for his life.

The devil eye was pleased with itself and jumped onto the lotus throne. It pulled the girls to him and embraced them left and right, instantly feeling like it was at the peak of its monster life.

Qin Mu jumped out of the painting and wiped away one stroke. The girls and the devil eye monster were instantly fixed in place.

‘What a truly interesting monster. Its abilities are much stronger than mine, but it’s a little stupid and doesn’t know how treacherous the human heart is. It tried to use treasures and women to tempt me, yet it was enticed by me and delivered itself into the trap.’

Qin Mu took out his seal and breathed hot mist onto it. He stamped the lower right corner of the painting and sealed it. He then rolled up the paper and placed it in his taotie sack.

‘The abilities of this monster are no small matter. If I meet an enemy I can’t fight, I can release it to fight in my place.’

Qin Mu continued to walk forward filled with anticipation. ‘If I could find even more ominous objects in this land, I could make great use of them! They’re all remarkable treasures. If it was Xing An, he would definitely love this place. Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I met him…”

He finally walked out of the swamp and came to the ruin of a city. There were collapsed buildings everywhere, none of which looked like they had been disturbed in a long time. Shattered bones lined the worn down street. A cold wind blew by, and broken skulls clattered, rolling around.

Suddenly, the street cracked open from a long backbone that rose like a dragon. Its ribs acted as legs that sprinted furiously to attack Qin Mu!

The tip of the backbone was a fierce-looking skull which should once been the head of a devil god. Its top was filled with bone spikes without any sign of hair. The resulting creature looked incomparably fierce, and it opened its mouth wide when it pounced over.

Qin Mu chose to run. As he did so, he saw a battlefield in front of him where countless skeletons were fighting. All kinds of broken spirit weapons clashed, raising sand and dust.

Qin Mu wanted to take a detour, but the huge backbone rose into the sky while stepping on devil fire, so he could only grit his teeth and rush into the battlefield.

The moment he did so, he knew it had been a horrible decision. Each skeleton that was extremely strong. The weakest one was not much weaker than him!

Thud, thud, thud!

The sound of drums rushed through the battlefield when two white bone giants that were three hundred yards tall pulled out thigh bones and shook their heads with excitement. They used their bones to beat the battle drums. Each hit made a noise like thunder, and the skeletons fighting nearby went into an even greater frenzy.

Qin Mu rushed through the fighters while sneaking glances at the devil god’s skull with backbone which was crashing through everyone to reach him.

“Wei Liao is here. Mere demons and ghosts, forget about being savage!”

Qin Mu looked toward the source of the voice and saw Seven Kills Star Sovereign with his battle-ax in lead of countless corpses and skeletons. With a loud noise, the new army flooded the battlefield, and wherever they passed by, countless shattered skulls flew into the sky.

Wei Liao swung his battle-ax and smashed the skull of the devil god chasing Qin Mu. He then shouted out loudly, “Live as a hero, die as a heroic ghost! Eradicate these devils and conquer this ominous land! We’re going to become the new rulers here!”

Qin Mu stared with eyes wide open as Wei Liao led everyone through the battlefield. In no time, bones were lying everywhere while the victorious army was grinning. They chose complete bones on the ground to replace their own shattered ones.

Wei Liao walked over in large strides and said, “The ominous land is extremely dangerous, little friend. Let us send you off!”