CHAPTER 31: CHAPTER 28: QUESTIONS

The morning of the second day.

The sun had just risen.

The people on the deck noticed the color of the sea beginning to change dramatically, with huge black shadows swimming below, slowly approaching the ship.

All the Witches turned pale, feeling those four terrifying auras, only to feel a chill down their spines. Someone couldn’t help but scream in terror, "Sea beasts! Giant sea beasts!!"

"It’s the Black Copper Cloud Crab God."

Emperor You You’s expression was grim.

This name was what those terrified fools of the sea domain called it, and they even erected a statue back in the day to worship it, offering live sacrifices. The name fit, it’s a gigantic crab with black copper-like cloud patterns.

Boom!

Boom boom!!

The next second, what terrified Emperor You You even more was the remaining three giant sea beast shadows slowly emerging from three other directions.

"They’re all here!"

"They’re surrounding us, as if mocking us for walking into their trap."

Emperor You You showed a look of astonishment.

The whipping winds,

The roaring waves,

The beasts’ low growls, like the muted roars of whales!

Even though they hadn’t yet approached, the waves stirred up by those terrifying sea beast kings made the entire ship tilt violently, causing many ordinary crew members to tumble and roll on the deck.

"We’re in trouble."

Emperor You You and the Bronze Emperor exchanged glances, involuntarily looking towards Stone Light True Emperor, the mysterious and terrifying man who had defeated the two of them, who was the key to this epic battle.

Even they didn’t know how powerful this man truly was!

Although his aura consistently felt like that of a mortal, so old, so powerless.

But in the next second, an even more terrifying event happened.

Boom!

Massive tentacles slapped against the horizon of the coastline, as if trying to swallow the rising sun.

People saw an even more terrifying aura shadow, making their skin crawl with goosebumps, a shadow in the shape of an octopus, constantly waving its tentacles, yet giving off an even stronger sense of dread.

Seeing it for that one moment, it was as if humans were staring straight into the abyss.

Everyone on the ship felt like the world was spinning, as if they were caught in a blender, rolling and shaking with the ship.

Emperor You You and the Bronze Emperor completely changed colors!

Is this the Sea Beast King that was only heard of in the early stages?

This power was dozens of times stronger than theirs.

"On the tentacle’s suckers, there are heads, it has stolen human intelligence!" They felt that in front of such a genuine monster, including themselves, humans were all too fragile, that power almost like a deity made these two strongest human emperors show despair.

But the next second.

Something inconceivable happened.

"I see, so it’s the one controlling those four beast-like creatures to attack humans?" Stone Light True Emperor stood on the deck and slowly raised the longsword in his hand, slashing towards the sea.

Rumble!

Like mountains collapsing and the sea overturning.

There was no trace of aura fluctuation from Stone Light True Emperor, yet he carved a terrifying crack in the sea. That extremely terrifying King of the Ocean let out a shrill wail and fled.

Poof!

And unbelievably, the other four giant beasts were also shattered by this sword strike, their shells splintered, blood dyeing the ocean, and they sank into the depths, disappearing without a trace.

"Just like that, we won?"

Everyone was dumbfounded, this was a scene that was miraculous to the extreme.

They looked at the unimaginable emperor, who stood on the deck bathed in golden sunlight, like a War God, was this not the man closest to being a god?

Perhaps he was already near God!

People gazed with both fear and yearning at this magnificent figure, a moment in history that will be remembered forever.

Only Stone Light True Emperor remained calm, slowly sheathing his sword, his gaze sweeping around, "Everyone, into the sea, retrieve the Immortal Herb."

Everyone then reacted, quickly mobilizing on the deck.

"Hurry! Scholars from Jingshan Temple, take blood samples! Collect the remnants!"

"Divers from the Seaside Ghost Kingdom, put on your diving gear and dive down!"

"Quick, quick, quick!"

...

Three days later.

"A great victory!"

"The greatest victory in the history of humanity!"

"We finally conquered the greatest fear of humankind, the deep ocean vastness."

"Praise the great king!"

Taverns, temples, castles, villages, towns, deserts, all the people are recounting the deeds of this great king!

The people begin to praise this great human hero king.

People start writing poems, biographies, and composing songs for him.

People come to realize that his past atrocities were necessary sacrifices, not tyranny!

And at this time,

In the Hundred-Stone City, an elderly renowned painter is creating an oil painting.

He stands on a residential rooftop, dips into the fuel, and remains calm,

"Luckily, I acted swiftly, built a giant ship to find the deep-sea lair; if I had delayed for years, I might not be its match anymore."

"History is the past and also the future, my dear brother, I have a small question... I’d like you to answer." He wore an inexplicable smile as the painting he was working on gradually took shape.

The painting before him is passed down and remembered by the people in the distant future.

In the third century AD, the famous painter Copper Cloud’s "Emperor’s Sea Patrol Map," depicts a great human ancient ancestral emperor, known as the most gifted heroic emperor in history, leading all of humanity’s hopes to defeat the terrifying ocean deity, seeking the Immortal Herb to return to the continent.

This scene is etched into eternity.

The painting inscribes human courage and the beginning of the formal rise of the Human Race.

Later generations recorded it as:

[Year 354, the immortal gives a dream, Shiguang Emperor builds a giant ship, expeditions the sea, seeks the Elixir of Immortality, defeats the four great sea beasts, defeats the Lord of the Ocean, bathes in blood, captures the Immortal Herb and returns, humans first enter the Qi Cultivation Longevity Sect]

...

...

Year 358

Time flies, human civilization fully erupts!

The emperor returns bearing the Immortal Herb, humankind passed the god’s trial, received the divine gift, granting hope for long-lasting immortality!

Hundred-Stone City becomes the capital.

In the center of the desert giant city, a human miracle source "Cloud Mist Qi Sea" was built, where 608 Ocean Immortal Herbs are planted, wisps of qi diffuse in the water.

It is the Jadescent Nectar, able to aid in cultivation.

This place, already the origin of all human civilization, begins to exclude all mortals, commoners.

This is the land of human royal authority, the homeland of human heroes, welcoming only the qualified, strong, wise, and various formidable persons to reside here, as selected candidates, possibly consuming that once-eaten, one-less Immortal Herb.

Anyone emerging from the heroic homeland "Hundred-Stone City" is a great power that shocks the world!

In front of the greatest monarch emperor in new human history, the world thrives, one genius after another dazzles this era.

Year 369

From this point, humans begin shedding the extraordinary!

One by one, Ancestral Witches who swallow wind and eat qi, begin walking the earth, reconstructing palaces, enlightening all beings.

They start formulating a concrete framework for cultivation, establishing various levels of practice.

On the entrance stone tablet of the capital Hundred-Stone City, these words are engraved:

——I always believed that the despair of mortals mostly stems from their incapacity, but the despair of the strong mostly is constrained by the impotence of the era, so I must change the impotence of the era.

Year 370.

Shiguang Emperor announces the candidates for the next Great Emperor.

Everyone is astonished: "Is the Great Emperor going to fall?"

"He’s just over a hundred years old."

"Such a powerful being, how could he possibly only live a mere century? He is a near god capable of easily defeating the Lord of the Ocean!"

...

Speculations abound.

Perhaps due to the great battle at the time, he has suffered immense hidden injuries.

But everyone knows, this great king’s life might indeed be nearing its end.

Year 361, New Year.

Everyone notices Shiguang Emperor visibly aging, his vitality dwindling, his gaze losing luster.

Everyone knows what this omen means.

In the last moments as life gradually approaches extinction, seated on the throne, this great ruler of the Slave Dynasty, Shiguang Emperor commands to build a lavish Divine Hall and erect a statue of the god in the capital, Hundred-Stone City.

On the statue is a man with a tear mole.

In the same year’s March, Shiguang Emperor announces the holding of the "Feng Chan Ceremony."

Feng Chan is a ritual where the ruling emperor worships the heavens and earth, known as "Feng", meaning erecting an altar to worship heaven, and "Chan", meaning to worship the earth.

On this day.

Hot air balloons soar, women continually scatter petals among the clouds, breathtakingly beautiful.

Shiguang Emperor, accompanied by the still-young Emperor You You and Bronze Emperor, along with over seventy palace ministers, holds the Feng Chan Ceremony at "Cloud Mist Qi Sea."

This king, wearing the imperial crown, first pays homage to heaven, then to earth, and finally worships the statue of the god, gazing at the statue of the man with a tear mole, past memories surge forth, sincerely and earnestly saying:

"History is the past and also the future, oh great deity, I have a small question... I wish for you to descend in the mortal world to answer."