Thud.
The Village Chief's stone statue landed in front of the Lunar Ark. The statue had no limbs; it was the likeness of a weathered old man, his face etched with deep wrinkles carved by wind, frost, and the erosion of years.
The statue gazed in Qin Mu's direction, its face breaking into a gratified smile. Qin Mu couldn't help but recall the old man rocking in his lounge chair, eyes full of loving kindness as he watched him.
"Village Chief..." Qin Mu stood dazed, a surge of immense sorrow rising in his heart.
Darkness swept in, but the statue emitted a faint, ghostly glow. Its light didn't reach far, yet it seemed to recreate the stubborn old man's unyielding desire to protect his little patch of the world.
"Grandpa Village Chief..."
Moonlit tears streamed from Qin Mu's eyes, one by one drifting upward and floating in the air. Each glimmer shone like lunar radiance. Suddenly, the agonized scream of the Flood-Dragon King rang out. Qin Mu closed his eyes, forcing out the moonlight from his gaze.
This time, he had ventured deep into the Great Ruins, relying on the Flood-Dragon King to escort him as he broke into the place he once mistook for Carefree Haven—the site of the colossal continental ark built by the Ministry of Works. After seizing the Lunar Ark, he sailed it back.
When he tried to enter the Moon Well, he encountered another group of god-demons sent down from High Heaven. There were only three deities.
Unlike figures such as Star Lord Jonas, these three deities did not travel ostentatiously as starlight. Instead, they walked along the ground, concealing their dazzling divine radiance, emitting only a faint glow to drive back the monsters lurking in the darkness.
When Qin Mu encountered them, one of the deities mistook him for a night-creature and immediately spoke a line of God-Speech: "High Heaven at work, demons disperse!"
He was instantly met with Qin Mu's devastating strike. Caught off guard, Qin Mu swung the broken moon down—the moon crashed, and that deity was smashed to dust!
Only then did the other two deities realize they had run into a formidable foe.
Qin Mu was not like Crystal Blaze, who had to worry about the sun being damaged. He fought with utter abandon, caring nothing for the consequences, and battled the two deities across thousands of li. Just now, he had crippled another deity.
The drawn-out battle was mainly because the moon of the Lunar Ark was too damaged—nothing like the Solar Ark's sun.
The Solar Ark had a complete sun, but the Lunar Ark's moon was already extinguished and severely damaged. After such a long fight, the moon was in tatters, and even two of the chains binding it had snapped.
But in the instant he looked toward the Village Chief, he was still distracted. The sight of the Village Chief turning into a stone statue and falling from the sky struck him deeply, stirring up a nameless sorrow.
The Flood-Dragon King's strength was on par with the Dragon-Keeper Lord, but not as great as the other High Heaven deities. In the moment Qin Mu was distracted, the Flood-Dragon King was badly wounded.
Qin Mu opened his eyes, raised his hand from the divine pillar, and tried to touch the smiling, limbless statue. His enormous palm swept past the statue but did not land upon it.
Crash—