Quinn Shepherd quickly mastered the art of steering the paper boat. In Youdu, it was easily the fastest thing around; with this boat, he could finally seek out his mother, who was imprisoned somewhere in the Netherworld.
"By the time Tu Bo and Nether-Venerable realize, it'll be too late!"
He stood at the bow, gazing into endless darkness; the little boat drifted through the gloom, lonely and adrift.
But Youdu wasn't pure darkness. Rivers of lava, blood-red, streamed across Tu Bo's skin. Tu Bo was so vast that his flesh seemed like armor made of rock; the cracks between those stones were like skin's texture, and fiery, blood-red magma flowed through them.
Quinn piloted the boat closer. From afar, Tu Bo's rocky flesh looked ordinary, but up close, it was a forest of jagged peaks—like blades, spears, swords, and halberds, rough and imposing. Massive demon-gods or fiends carried palaces on their backs, weaving through the mountains.
Countless green-skinned goblins swarmed around the palaces borne by those demon-gods and fiends, squabbling and brawling with rival goblin gangs, until rivers of blood ran through the chaos.
These green-skinned goblins were unique to Youdu, though similar ones could be found in Nether City. Blue-faced, tusked, some towering three to five times taller than a man, others no bigger than a calf, all darting about at incredible speed.
Among them were goblin kings, their power on par with gods and demons.
Such battles were everywhere in Youdu; even demon-gods and fiends joined in, wielding crude weapons—broken-off mountain peaks from Tu Bo's rocky skin, used as massive spiked clubs to smash and batter their foes.
Sometimes, Quinn saw Primordial Spirits of gods and demons emerge from the palaces on those demon-gods' backs, casting spells, unleashing divine arts, or wielding sacred weapons in fierce combat with their enemies.
"Youdu is lively as ever."
Quinn watched in excitement. Passing a battlefield, he stopped the boat and called out loudly, "Daoist brothers!"
Both warring sides were startled by his voice. Countless green-skinned goblins immediately stopped fighting, and the fiends on both sides paused, leaning on their mountain-forged spiked clubs to stare up at the little boat.
From each palace, Primordial Spirits of gods and demons flew out and hovered in the air, offering deep bows and saying, "Lord Prefect, we dare not accept the title of Daoist brother!"
"Is Lord Prefect here to kill us? Is Tu Bo going to eat us?"
The two battling gods and demons suddenly hugged each other, wailing, "Everyone else fights for territory, but when it's our turn, we're going to be eaten..."
Quinn quickly said, "Don't cry yet, you two. Tu Bo isn't here to eat you. I'm just asking for directions—once I've asked, you can go back to fighting."
The two Primordial Spirits of gods and demons quickly let go of each other.
Quinn asked, "Where is the place where the heavy offenders are imprisoned?"
The two Primordial Spirits sighed in relief, "It's in the Jade-Lock Fortress beneath Tu Bo's feet."
Quinn thanked them, "Everywhere I go, there's fighting. Why is Youdu so chaotic?"
The two Primordial Spirits glanced at each other, both surprised. One demon-god spirit cautiously replied, "Lord Prefect, have you forgotten what happened twenty-two years ago? Twenty-two years ago, that nameless being fought its way down from the Nine-Bend Horn, slaughtered countless giants along the Yellow Springs, and devoured many more. We're just fighting for territory now, settling old scores while so much land is left masterless."
The other god-spirit quickly nodded in agreement.
"Nameless being? There's something that terrifying in Youdu?" Quinn was puzzled, and steered the boat away.
Only after the boat had gone did the two spirits relax. "Strange, why did Lord Prefect ask us for directions? He's Saint-King Tianqi—how could he not know about the Jade-Lock Fortress, or the Netherworld Little Overlord?"
"Forget it. Kill—! Take down those bastards and win thirty ghost beauties!"
"I treated you like a brother in life, and now you flirt with my wife—help me take down that bastard!"
The two sides plunged back into chaos.
Quinn flew downward along Tu Bo's body; the deeper he went, the thicker the Netherworld Miasma and the stronger the demonic will.
What he saw along the way left him uneasy. Battles raged everywhere in Youdu, the slaughter so intense it blotted out the sky, and terrifying ghosts ran amok, burning, killing, and looting without restraint.
"That nameless being from twenty-two years ago must have committed countless atrocities, slaughtering so many giants that it threw Youdu into chaos that still hasn't settled to this day."
Quinn felt a chill in his heart. "It seems Youdu is just as unfathomable—a place where dragons and tigers hide at every turn."
Tu Bo's body was dotted with many ancient cities, their walls aglow with lantern-light, bustling with gods and demons stationed there.
There were also dark cities floating in the sky, connected to the ground by cableways. These cities formed battle formations, radiating an atmosphere of grim slaughter.
Quinn glanced from afar but dared not approach. He thought, "That must be where Lu Li and the other outland Heavenly Court commanders garrison their troops in Youdu—best not to get close."
He flew onward for a long stretch. In the sky, ruined divine cities drifted; on the ground, pitch-black cities lay in ruins, littered everywhere with severed limbs. Judging from the wounds, it looked as if some savage giant beast had bitten half their bodies away.
A massive fortress wall blocked the way ahead, like a wall of black iron. The wall was so high that Quinn was about to fly around it when he suddenly froze—there were enormous palm prints all over the fortress.
The palm prints were colossal, each finger like a mountain crashing into the wall—five peaks, five fingers.
There were also fist marks on the fortress, and countless imprints left by gods and demons smashed against the wall. The ground was strewn with demon-god skeletons and piles of shattered divine and demonic weapons.
After a while, Quinn stopped the boat at the city gate. The towering gate and wall had been smashed to pieces, with a huge, human-shaped hole blasted through them. Judging from the shape, the nameless being who did this must have had a round, chubby body—yet the sheer brute force was unimaginable!
The little boat slipped through the blasted opening, entering this ruined Jade-Lock Fortress. Inside, all former splendor was gone; everything had been smashed to rubble.
Suddenly, Quinn reached the center of the fortress and saw tens of thousands of divine and demonic skeletons standing there, arranged in circle after circle. All these white bones slanted toward the center, as if some immense force at the heart was pulling at their bodies, while they struggled to resist.
Quinn steered the boat to the center and saw two enormous footprints at the very heart of the circle.
His little boat hovered above one of the footprints. Quinn stood on the deck, looking at the skeletal remains of gods and demons all around. These bones must have been slain after the city was breached by that unspeakable existence, who then erupted with violence.
"Ahhhhh—!"
Quinn opened his mouth and shouted toward the surrounding skeletons, then shook his head and said, "No, it wasn't a sonic attack that killed them. It must have been..."
He took a deep breath, inhaling from all directions, then nodded. "That's it. That unspeakable existence suddenly sucked away the Primordial Spirits of these gods and demons, devoured them all! In one breath, it swallowed tens of thousands of divine and demonic beings—so cruel, truly cruel!"
The little boat soared out of the fortress and continued onward, arriving at Tu Bo's ankle, where a fortress of chains stood. Massive chains were linked together, forming a series of fortress pools.
Quinn steered the boat through a cliffside gate and discovered another world within: palaces and cliffs stretched endlessly, city within city, though most were ruined, filled with heavy demonic energy. Only a few green-skinned goblins lived here, extremely wary; when they saw his boat approaching, they turned into wisps of black smoke and vanished somewhere unknown.
Quinn's expression turned grim. He quickly withdrew from this gate, looked up, and saw that the gate itself had also been smashed and broken.
He lowered his head to search, and after a moment spotted writing on the shattered gate. He drew a sharp breath.
"South Heaven Gate! This is a Heavenly Palace!"
His heart shook violently. After steadying himself, he entered the Heavenly Palace, flying over the Jade Platform and Jade Pool. The Jade Pool was dry, as if someone had gulped it all down in a single breath. The Execution Platform was smashed to bits, Jade Capital City was broken, Lingxiao Hall had a huge hole punched through it, and the Emperor's Throne had been yanked out, as if crushed to pieces by a giant buttocks sitting on it, pressed into the ground and shattered.
"The spirits qualified to reside in a Heavenly Palace—if not Emperor's-Throne-level, then at least Lingxiao-level—were all destroyed by that unspeakable existence. I fear the master of this place was devoured by that cruel being!"
He left the Heavenly Palace, growing more and more alarmed. Twenty-two years ago, Youdu clearly suffered a tremendous catastrophe. The spirits living here were slaughtered by that nameless existence, their deaths tragic and heavy.
"Tu Bo and Nether-Venerable still make me record daily logs, but this unspeakable existence is the true villain, and they never mention him at all."
Quinn felt deeply uneasy. He arrived at Tu Bo's footprint, which had already become the ruins of a battlefield.
Looking out, Quinn's heart pounded. The battlefield was vast beyond measure—even with his divine sight, he couldn't see its edges. All he could see were streaks of divine light everywhere, remnants left by great divine powers.
Each streak of light stretched for ten thousand li, radiating a breathtaking beauty.
The ground was flat as far as the eye could see—no mountains, no rivers. In the sky, everywhere were palm prints and fist marks; even after more than twenty years, the scars in space had not recovered!
Clearly, the fighting here was more terrifying than anywhere else—truly dreadful!
"Could these be Emperor's-Throne-level spirits, besieging that unspeakable existence?"
Quinn's heart raced with alarm as he carefully piloted the boat through the battlefield, dodging those dazzling divine lights. The deeper he went, the more shocked he grew.
The ferocity of this battle exceeded imagination—the sheer number of gods and demons involved must have been terrifying!
Yet at the edge of the battlefield, he saw another deep, fat footprint—the footprint of that unspeakable existence. It was clear that in this battle, that being was not killed; on the contrary, it slaughtered its way out!
That unspeakable existence was the ultimate victor!
"Are there really such terrifying beings in Youdu?"
Quinn took a long breath and thought, "I must tread carefully here, lest I offend some terrifying power in Youdu. Yes, just as Village Chief said, courtesy never offends."
He now arrived at Tu Bo's standing place, where the demonic aura was so thick it was terrifying—the demonic energy and nature had settled into the land beneath Tu Bo's feet.
As the boat flew away from Tu Bo's sole, Quinn saw a vast, magnificent black city, forged as one seamless piece of black jade, with no visible seams anywhere.
"This must be Youdu's Jade-Lock Fortress."
Quinn piloted the boat upward, trying to leap over the city walls and enter the fortress. But as the boat ascended, the black jade walls grew upward as well—no matter how fast he flew, he could never cross the wall and enter the fortress.
After many attempts, he finally gave up and obediently followed the wall, searching for the city gate.
After a long time, he finally found the Jade-Lock Fortress's gate. Outside the gate, two demon gods stood guard with axes. Seeing the paper boat approach, they were about to bow, but noticed the boat carried not the Underworld Courier, but a youth, and could not help but feel surprised.
One of the demon gods hefted his axe and asked, "Which family are you from, boy? Why have you come to Jade-Lock Fortress, and why do you ride Saint-King Tianqi's paper boat?"
Quinn hurriedly replied, "Honored gods, I am Quinn Shepherd of Oldridge Village, here to visit my mother."
— Brothers and sisters, this month marks the novel’s anniversary—one full year, and two and a half million words written! The anniversary events have begun, including a special book review activity! The author has commissioned custom gifts for the anniversary, to be awarded as prizes! For details, please see the author’s note at the end of the chapter.
This chapter does not end here ^.^ Please click next page to continue reading!