Guardians of Mountain and Sea - Chapter 10

After a brief moment of disorientation, Apu stood firm and found herself in an entirely different world.

In the quiet night sky, a crescent moon of crimson red hung high, adorned by countless stars. The red moonlight bathing the ground did not feel eerie; instead, it offered a soft sense of tranquility.

The girl’s feet rested on a jade surface. This was a massive, flat white jade plaza. From a cylindrical high platform at the center, mysterious yet familiar black patterns extended in all directions.

Looking into the distance, a thin white mist obstructed her vision, only faintly revealing the gray, massive outlines of a continuous mountain range. These mountains formed a circle, enclosing the white jade plaza.

Although it was her first time here, this was undoubtedly a new ritual ground, originating from the same source as the Mang Mountain ritual grounds.

Not far from Apu, green mist gathered and thickened, sketching the graceful silhouette of a woman before rapidly solidifying into a familiar figure. The woman in yellow opened her eyes.

Before the girl could ask anything in her surprise, the True Lord’s figure blurred. She instantly shifted behind the girl to protect her, her right hand gripping her sword in a defensive stance.

“I was wondering how a little girl could have progressed so much in her cultivation to open the Peace Lock and enter this realm so quickly. It turns out a fellow Daoist met with disaster, and her dissipating Primordial Spirit accidentally triggered the formation.”

Apu was overjoyed to hear that voice. She turned around to see the beautiful white-haired woman in the silver-furred cloak standing across from Mo Xianjun, smiling as she nodded to the True Lord.

“Priestess Granny!”

The girl rushed to the woman, hugged her, and hopped up and down happily. She then stepped back to observe her for a few moments. Seeing that the woman’s old, wrinkled face had returned to its youthful state, she surmised that her injuries had healed, and her heart felt completely at ease.

She then took the woman’s hand and brought her before Mo Xianjun, introducing her: “True Lord, this is my elder from home.”

She looked back at Priestess Granny. Only after the woman nodded with a smile did she continue: “She is also the Divine Priestess of Great Mang Mountain. Everything I know about the etiquette and the cultivation world was taught to me by Granny.”

Mo Xianjun held her sword and offered a formal salute. “I assume the great power protecting the humans of Mang Mountain is you, Fellow Daoist. I thank you for the rescue.”

The True Lord’s lifespan had been exhausted, and because of the demon ghost smuggling in the Chaos Sea, she had dissipated her own physical body to become a coastal barrier. Her soul should have been annihilated. Now that her Primordial Spirit had re-solidified in this world, she was mostly certain that the white-haired woman before her had assisted.

The woman waved her hand. “It is merely a matter of karma and opportunity; no full thanks are required. I originally set this formation so that once Apu’s cultivation was profound, she could provide spiritual power to unlock the Peace Lock herself.

As it happened, the True Lord was willing to accept this little girl into her sect, harboring a protective care that created a karmic tie. When your Primordial Spirit brushed against the Peace Lock, it happened to trigger the formation, and you were sent here together.”

Priestess Granny’s original plan was for Apu to reach a cultivation level one step below Mo Xianjun, the Heaven Rank Voyage Realm, at which point she would have the ability to protect herself and be qualified to know the tasks Granny had to entrust to her.

However, the world is ever-changing. Mo Xianjun had proactively dissipated her power and soul due to the demon ghost smuggling.

The True Lord’s thought was that this young disciple, who had just left the secular world, faced a long and dangerous journey from the Eastern Lands back to her sect. Thus, she used her final soul power to grant her a protective talisman.

As for her dissipating Primordial Spirit brushing against Apu, it was a useless but sincere blessing of intent toward the last fellow sect junior she saw before death.

Coincidentally, this protective thought perfectly met the conditions. Bound by karma and the fact that the True Lord was in the Heaven Rank Leisure Realm, the formation recognized the connection and transported both the girl and Mo Xianjun’s Primordial Spirit here.

In this world, they were not under the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Dao’s rules of the Lingqi Continent. Mo Xianjun’s Heaven Rank Primordial Spirit repaired itself naturally, thereby escaping its fatal tribulation.

The white-haired woman stroked the girl’s head.

“I intended to tell you when your cultivation was sufficient, but my lineage worships the gods and focuses on the world’s laws of fate and the intertwining of karma, all directed by the gods. Now that the Peace Lock has opened just as you left Mang Mountain, I fear the situation is worse than I imagined.”

She turned toward Mo Xianjun. “The True Lord should know that Divine Priesthood is not a lineage founded in this current era.”

Mo Xianjun nodded. “The path of Divine Priesthood has withered, and its records do not exist in the world. Rumors say it is a lineage from the Lingshi Era of the previous age.”

She hesitated for a moment before adding, “But strangely, even if other lineages of the Lingshi Era have declined, there are written records as evidence. Only the path of Divine Priesthood has not a single word remaining; it exists only in legends.”

Priestess Granny gave a mocking smile. “Of course Divine Priesthood is different from the other lineages of the Lingshi Era, because they did not exist in the same era at all.

The Lingshi Era was the first era of this continent, where various lineages flourished. Divine Priesthood was a product of the second era, the age when gods ruled the continent, and the path of Divine Priesthood stood alone and supreme in the human world.”

Mo Xianjun’s expression became grave.

“But the current understanding in the cultivation world is that the Lingshi Era was the first era, followed immediately by this current era. The Age of Gods is not recorded in any annals, nor have any traces been left in the world.”

Priestess Granny waved her hand. Under the red moonlight, the hazy mist in the distance dissipated, revealing the appearance of the mountains. Apu then realized that those towering, continuous peaks were not mountains at all, but a series of massive divine statues surrounding the ritual ground.

The statues were majestic and tall, their full forms hard to grasp. However, the instinctive emotion Apu felt upon looking at them was one of profound awe, respect, and closeness. A certain intuition told her that these were native gods born from the same source as her own continent, gods that had at least existed once.

“In my time, different Divine Priests served different gods. These stone statues are the gods who ruled the continent during the second era.”

In that age, the link between the gods and the human world was the priesthood.

Whether it was birth, old age, sickness, death, spring planting, autumn harvest, natural disasters, or maritime accidents, as long as a priest prayed to their god, there would be a response regardless of the outcome.

Although the world then did not have various lineages like the first era, nor the many kingdoms of this current era, each god’s jurisdiction was like a nation, and the god was a wise and loving sovereign.

Apu looked around and silently counted the towering statues. She asked, “Priestess Granny, were there only dozens of gods in that era?”

For a vast and boundless continent, if the rulers were to answer every prayer, dozens would be far too few.

Priestess Granny answered in a heavy voice, “No one knows the total number, but there were millions of priests, and at least ten thousand gods.”

“But the statues around here do not even number a hundred.”

Priestess Granny did not answer that question directly, but shifted her tone. “When a Divine Priest cultivates to a certain level, they can cross their tribulation and become an immortal. At that point, they could choose to ascend or remain on the continent as a new god to bless a region.

Thus, the number of gods was gradually increasing. New gods, new priests, and new believers appeared at regular intervals. Because the gods were all original inhabitants of the continent, even if there was friction between them, they collectively agreed not to involve the human world.

Sometimes, when a new god was born and their priest awakened, seniors like myself would teach our experience to the juniors to help them communicate with the god.

Therefore, in that era, the ruling gods did not interfere with one another and lived in peace. The people of the world lived in industrious stability; great masters emerged, techniques were refined, various classics were formed, and literary schools stood tall. It was an era of flourishing civilization.

And then, the priest of the White God appeared.

When the preaching first began, no one took it to heart, thinking it was just another newly born god.

But suddenly one day, except for the White God, all other gods stopped responding to their believers.

At first, people only discussed it in unease. But ten days, ten months, ten years, there was still no word from the gods. This continued for the next two hundred years. After unceasing plagues of locusts, tsunamis, floods, droughts, and epidemics, the faith of the entire continent collapsed, and almost everyone turned to the White God, the only one who responded to believers.

After another two hundred years, only Granny and a few other priests remained stubbornly loyal to their own faith, communicating daily with their respective gods but never receiving a response.

They nearly fell into despair, and people gave up one after another.

Finally, one day, my god responded to me.” Priestess Granny’s voice was low. “He said that all the other gods had been slaughtered, and He was also gravely injured and on the verge of death.”

Mo Xianjun sat upright and asked with a frown, “The White God?”

“Yes. He told me that the White God is a demon who accidentally came here by tearing through space.”

Priestess Granny gently stroked the cheek of the girl leaning against her and continued, “For the gods who chose not to ascend and remained on the continent, their power no longer relied on spiritual cultivation, but on the faith of the human world. After the White God began preaching, He first intercepted the channels of communication between the gods and the human world.

Just two hundred years, two hundred years of natural disasters were enough to make the entire human world hate the gods who once protected them. Another two hundred years, and there was only forgetting.”

“The gods lost their faith, and their power weakened as a result. They were slaughtered one by one by the demon.”

Having said this, Priestess Granny turned toward the True Lord with a strange smile and asked, “Can you guess what the demon’s purpose was?”

Mo Xianjun’s expression grew increasingly solemn. She replied, “Since the gods were both the rulers and the guardians of the continent, by killing the guardians and erasing all traces of that era, His purpose was an entire civilization?”

The white-haired woman’s hand was as cold as iron, and Apu felt a shiver run through her.

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