The Sacred Ruins

Yellow Ox wrote on the ground. It did not want to leave yet, and it still maintained a firm attitude.

The black yak was on the edge of losing it. “This is not the time for you to dawdle and waste time here!” the black yak shouted. After its hot temper cooled down, it cast a sidelong glance at the calf. There was a nagging instinct within the yak that was telling it that there was something strange about the calf’s behavior. Behind all this dawdling, there must have been a reason.

“Chu Feng had saved my life once. I want to repay him, so before I leave, I want to pass on everything that I’ve mastered to him!” Yellow Ox told a barefaced lie.

The calf still wanted to hold out to the last. It would be dissatisfied unless the seeds sprouted and flowered.

“No, I’m fine. There’s not much you can teach anyway. Hurry up and leave!” Chu Feng pulled the rug from under Yellow Ox’s feet.

Yellow Ox was all tears, demurring at the idea of leaving Chu Feng behind at any rate. The calf had never been so sentimental in the course of its life; one might have guessed that this visceral sadness was due to its reluctance to bid farewell to its buddy; but in reality, the calf shed tears because Chu Feng’s inoperative words had really rubbed Yellow Ox up the wrong way!

However, it was not fine for the calf to lose its temper in front of the black yak either. It still had to put on airs and remained in its disguise. The calf wrapped its front hooves around Chu Feng’s arm, meanwhile sobbing out its reluctance to bid farewell to Chu Feng.

“This is getting so sickening! Argh... I can’t bear you no more!” the black yak angrily denounced then it turned its back and walked away.

As soon as the silhouette of the yak disappeared in the horizon, Yellow Ox immediately thrust itself upon Chu Feng and started jostling. The “hot tears” had not even dried up yet, but the fight was already becoming fierce and ferocious.

Chu Feng fled in panic. A wise man knew when to retreat. Chu Feng knew for a fact that ever since Yellow Ox managed to evolve further, its power and strength were not something against which he could dare to challenge.

In fact, Yellow Ox had every intention to just take the wooden bucket and wait for it to sprout during its journey with the black yak; however, the calf also feared that the seeds might be claimed by the yak if it knew the truth.

In comparison, the calf trusted Chu Feng more than it did the black yak; mainly because the calf was confident that Chu Feng was not a fighter daring enough to challenge it in a fight.

As to travelling to the mountains of Kunlun with the oxen, Chu Feng had no intention to do so just yet. His parents were desperately anxious to see him. They called at least a few times everyday to ensure that Chu Feng was still safe and sound.

Days earlier, Chu Feng told them that he had made his way quite near the city of Shuntian; so, if he were to linger in the dangerous world outside for any longer, his parents might not be able to stand the taxing anxiety by the time he made his way back from the mountains of Kunlun.

Later that day, Chu Feng called on Grandpa Zhao’s weaponry workshop in the evening. Had he not offered him the “Thunderous” bow, Chu Feng would have most likely lost his life in the fight at the mountain of White Snake.

“Grandpa Zhao, how are you doing?” Chu Feng asked. He peeled off the rind of a pine nuts then fed it into Grandpa Zhao’s mouth. Chu Feng dared not to feed him any more of those nuts, fearing that something might go awry.

“I feel full of energy, full of vitality. I feel like I’m suddenly twenty years younger! No! I feel I have more strength than I was during those youthful years!” Grandpa Zhao sounded rather excited.

He had shut the door of his workshop since the moment Chu Feng arrived. He feared that a passer-by might accidentally hear a single piece of secret that was discussed.

Grandpa Zhao claimed that he felt young again, and he sure enough did. Even those few strands of silver hair by his temples gained a bit of blackness. He felt healthy and vigorous. His strength had also increased to quite a sizeable extent.

“Take a few more of these nuts.”

Chu Feng whispered. He peeled off the rinds of four more pine nuts. Every single one of them were gleaming with purplish glitter. They were also crystal-clear and transparent like a batch of purple diamonds.

Grandpa Zhao opened his mouth; clearly, he wanted to babble out some words before committing to the action of something unknown to him. But Chu Feng stopped him just in time before he could spell out any words.

Chu Feng had once discussed with Yellow Ox before. They had both reached a consensus that normally, it should only take a person around five pine nuts before he underwent some form of metamorphosis or broadly speaking, mutation.

After all, the pine nuts did see a decrease in effect after Yellow Ox had taken about ten pine nuts in total. No more changes seemed to have happened after that.

Let alone a person who had never experienced any form of mutation in his life before.

Sure enough, Grandpa Zhao underwent a profound round of mutation on that day. There was a noticeable increment in his strength; there was a layer of purple scales emerging on his skin as well, which was impenetrable to both sword and spears. Additionally, the appearance of those scales was easily controllable. They came and went as Grandpa Zhou wished.

Zhou Quan was all tears when he heard about this. “Why can the other people control when and when not to show their mutated body parts while I’m just completely helpless?” Zhou Quan sobbed out his trouble to Chu Feng.

Yellow Ox later informed Zhou Quan that his power was permanent, which meant that he had undergone a more thorough mutation compared to others!

“F*ck this ‘permanent mutation’. I wish I’m free, man!” Zhou Quan roared and bellowed.

Chu Feng was rather generous. He gave what remained of those nuts to Zhou Quan since he felt like that Zhou Quan might have not achieved the best result from those seeds that he had previously taken.

Zhou Quan was both delighted and fearful, but in the end, he still braced himself and swallowed those nuts.

As expected, Zhou Quan evolved even further after that.

But on the following day, he came over to Chu Feng’s house and started sobbing out his troubles to him again.

“I don’t want to live anymore... why is my mutation so different from everyone else’s?!” Hot tears were seen rolling down his cheeks as Zhou Quan spoke; because there was a fourth horn growing on his head!

This time, the horn stuck out from the back of his head. It pointed to the ventral side of his skull. This new horn was similar to the third one in the way that it was also a straight and pointy one!

Chu Feng was taken aback by the sight as well. Zhou Quan had acquired a completely different ability to everyone else. The characteristics he displayed was unique on his own.

Zhou Quan’s new horn could jet out columns of fearsome flames,whilst Grandpa Zhao acquired a suit of scale armor that also allowed him with immense power and strength.

“The direction of the mutation depends on the many mysterious molecules that were hidden deep in the subject’s body,” Yellow Ox wrote to inform.

“What’re you trying to say? Are you saying that my forefathers evolved from cows and bulls?!” Zhou Quan had grown all indignant.

Yellow Ox solemnly nodded. The calf thought that there was of every likelihood that this was the case.

“I’ll fight you to a bitter end!” The raging man charged ahead towards the frivolous calf, but a black hoof suddenly stopped him mid-way through. The hoof pressed him down firmly on the ground, incapacitating Zhou Quan entirely.

“Demon Ox!” Zhou Quan shouted in shock. He then shrank into himself with fear. The very hoof that stopped him just in time belonged to the black yak. The yak mysteriously cropped up out of void, silently and unknowingly.

In fact, the black yak had been watching Yellow Ox attentively for the past few days. The yak believed that the calf must have been onto something covert, something clandestine; otherwise, there was no good reason for the calf to dawdle here at all. However, after days of watchful observation, the black yak still could not see anything odd happening.

Yellow Ox was quite a slippery fellow as well. The calf knew that the yak was not an easy target to fool; so, for the past few days, the calf consciously resisted the urge to go checking on the affair in the wooden bucket.

But although the calf had been deliberately shunning away from the bucket, it still had a basic idea of whether the seed had taken roots or sprouted.

“Not bad! You’re quite a good young successor to our family!” The black yak finally let go of Zhou Quan from beneath its hooves. The yak sized him up from head to tail, looking rather satisfied.

“Blood vessels ran through all four horns. Very nice! Stay with me and I’ll teach you something useful in the future.” The black yak suddenly began to see Zhou Quan in a new light. The yak was quite satisfied with what Zhou Quan had achieved in his life.

Zhou Quan’s heart palpitated after hearing what the black yak had to offer. He felt no pressure when hanging around Yellow Ox. After all, Yellow Ox was just a calf. No matter how ill-meant and wicked the calf could become, it would still be manageable by Zhou Quan.

This black yak, however, was a completely different animal. God knew how long this slippery devious fellow had been living in this world. Zhou Quan had learnt all about the yak through the words of Chu Feng. He knew that the yak was not just a mutated beast of the Kunlun Mountain, but a psychic animal who had reached unparalleled godliness and gained unmatched intelligence long before the upheavals started shaking the world.

In fact, Chu Feng even doubted that this black yak might have been one of the “inauspicious beasts” mentioned by the locals.

According to legends and fables that were local to the Tibetan area, in the depths of those towering mountains, hordes of auspicious beasts hibernated in their cribs for centuries; of course, alongside them, there were also some inauspicious ones residing there!

Was the black yak one of the auspicious ones? Chu Feng had never thought so!~

If one had to classify the beast as something along those lines, the yak was at best an inauspicious one. Chu Feng was firm in his stand, unchallengeable in his belief. Of course, he would not let the yak know that he had such thought of it in his head.

“Not bad, not bad. How about I call you the ‘Holy Baby’ from now on?” the black yak took such a fancy to Zhou Quan that it felt the need to give him a nickname.

“What the heck?!” Zhou Quan leaped into the air, then he was scared stiff. Who was Holy Baby? Wasn’t Red Boy [1] from the novel “Journey to the West” also called the Holy Baby? No! No way he would stand to be called this. This name could potently signal that he would probably die a tragic death.

“I...” Zhou Quan opened his mouth, but the words were not spoken. He felt quite apprehensive about the consequence of him challenging the yak on anything it said. In the end, he said nothing.

“Don’t you have a brother in the west? Come with me! I’ll help you bring your family together on my way back to the Mountain of Flame,” the black yak said.

This was a typical use of both coercion and bribery. The yak first threatened Zhou Quan, then it gave him enough lure and attraction that Zhou Quan found impossible to reject.

Zhou Quan’s parents had always been missing their eldest son, and now the chance for a family reunion was right around corner. How could he resist?

It was hard to judge how powerful this yak really was, but it was one of the kings of the beast after all, which meant that the beast could easily march over the primitive wilderness unhindered. With the yak guarding nearby, his family would probably be a lot safer.

“Alright! I will go with you!” Zhou Quan finally made up his mind.

“That’s right, son!” The black yak stuck out one of its front hooves then patted him on his back with a huge grin on its face.

“But can I be called something else?” Zhou Quan asked.

“No!” the black yak scowled at Zhou Quan and said, “do you know what’s the most important thing in this world? Opportunity! What if one day I’m sanctified to become a holy god of my species? When my title arrives, so will yours. I’m the saint, and you’re the saint baby, meaning that you’re the son or disciple of a saint!”

Zhou Quan: “@#￥T$#......”

Zhou Quan cursed under his breath, but he dared not to openly challenge the beast.

Chu Feng and Yellow Ox looked at each other in the eye, meaningfully. They could now finally rest assured that the yak had indeed been watching them in the dark; otherwise, how else could it know so much about the family of Zhou Quan? This made the man and the calf grow even more cautious.

...

“The dragon is about to be slain! The West has opened their armory. They are going to use the taboo weapons!”

“Sh*t is gonna hit the fan!”

...

In the evening, sensational news spread across the world.

For the past few days, countries in the west had all been busying deploying troops and launching missiles. However, nothing had been successful in killing that black dragon.

Even though the beast could not duck underground like the slithery snake, it could dodge the homing missiles just as well.

And just like the situation in the Eastern world, there had also been quite a sizeable number of giant mountains emerging out of void appearing in the locations where civilized cities once were. Some people believed that those mountains came from the ancient legends, and today, they had somehow been reborn to this world.

The Black Dragon escaped into one of those mysterious mountains range located in Northern Europe. The mountains all had a cloud-capped peak and a miasma-enshrouded body. The whole world inside the range was just like the primeval state of chaos before the heaven and the earth came apart. Nothing could be perceived, and nothing even seemed to exist.

The soldiers in these western countries had never been known for being superstitious or fearful of anything. Without the slightest hesitation, they drove their armored cars and missile forces straight into those mountain ranges. They had pledged to slay the dragon to avenge for the death of the innocents!

The mutants were cheering alongside the all-determined marching forces. They were all eager to see who was going to be the dragon-slayer, and who was to be bathing in the blood of the black dragon. He who claim the life of the dragon would be forever remembered as the man who accomplished a magnificent feat.

However, after the tanks and the armored vehicles drove into the misty forests, death soon began to hail on these bold intruders. Quickly, the military began to suffer quite a serious defeat.

The planes that were deployed to the area had no better luck either. They either drifted off course or crashed before falling to their demise.

“MONSTERS! THEY ARE ALL MONSTERS!”

That corps of cheering mutants soon disbanded into a fleeing mess of delirious men who had clearly seen some shockers during their stay in the dense jungle. Many died while others fled the scene.

Amidst the dense fog and miasma, there were beasts and monsters of all kinds. Beast were patrolling the earth while birds of prey soared the sky. Under the command of their king, the Black Dragon, all beasts and birds frantically rampaged through the crowd of their enemy, killing many while miming the others.

Although the military had known that the mountains were a heaven for the murderous beasts for a long time, they had never truly appreciated the killing power of those ravenous animals. They thought that their armed forces could easily crush and eradicate these wild faunae in these wild mountains ranges.

However, the reality was not quite what they had anticipated. Venomous bugs were thick on the ground; ferocious birds patrolled the sky unhindered, and so were those free roaming beasts on the ground. It felt almost like a different world when people first positioned themselves amidst those thick fog and miasma.

The most terrifying thing of all things, however, was the fact that the beasts were all obeying the dragon’s order!

“Long-distance bombardment! Use the most powerful firearms! Raze those mountains to the ground!” some high-ranking officials in the military issued his final order.

The secret armory was opened. They had decided to use weapons of mass destruction, razing everything in that region to the ground!

For the sheer sake of killing the black dragon, the country had decided to go all in with everything they could set to offer. Even though it might seem as an overkill, it was still an action worth committing.

“Let you be monsters or beasts! Go to Hell!”

...

The western world was bubbling over with fear and blind enthusiasm.

Chu Feng was also reading the news that were reported on these. He also believed that the Black Dragon’s fate was sealed.

Yellow Ox, however, shook its head. The calf disagreed.

The black yak had also joined the conversation. It now also had a communicator in hand. The yak got his by coercing Chu Feng to buy one for it. The yak had determined to keep pace with the times ever since it noticed the communicator in the hands of Yellow Ox.

When there were two oxen both handling a communicator, one would know that things would only become worse from now on.

“What a sheer indulgence in wild fantasy! Do they actually believe that this will kill the Black Dragon? Hopeless!” The black yak sneered.

“Why would you say so?” Chu Feng asked.

“Do you think that they could raze that place to the ground with just some ‘taboo weapons’? Hell no! Do you know where are those mountains linked to? Do you know how vast and broad the place was behind those layers of mountains?” the black yak showed a look of disdain after seeing those news report.

“Linked to where?”

“A Multi-verse. An infinitely large Multi-verse!” the black yak informed.

What did it mean? What was a Multi-verse? Wasn’t it just a fine collection of a few hundred primitive forests growing on top of a few hundred primitive mountains? How did it suddenly become “infinitely large”? There must be a border somewhere to mark the boundary of these regions, right? Chu Feng was bewildered.

“Take the Mountains of Taihang for example. What you see is just the superficial layer of something grand underneath. You and Yellow Ox had once treaded on the soil of those forests, but have you ever seen the end of the forests?” the black yak asked.

“No.” Chu Feng shook his head.

“Let him tell you.” The black yak pointed to Yellow Ox.

Yellow Ox was unwilling, but the calf still had to made a clean breast of things by divulging everything it knew.

Without exception, every primitive mountain that appeared in this world was linked to somewhere even more mysterious. It could be a boundless prairie; it could also be a vast expanse of water.

“Are you serious?!” Chu Feng was astounded by what he heard.

“Do you know where the White Snake is right now? The beast has entered the primitive mountain, which means no-one from the outside world can pinpoint where this slithery bastard actually is,” the black yak said.

The yak admitted that it had been keeping a high alert for the past few days, fearing that the white snake might have sounded out its way to make a surprise attack on it.

“This...” Chu Feng had become utterly dumbfounded.

This world had become larger than before; in fact, it was now something much larger than he had ever imagined. The world was infinitely large! It existed without boundaries!

“In fact, the world has always been this large throughout its course of existence. It was only that they were never discovered,” said the black yak.

“So, what has actually happened then to cause all of these to happen?” Chu Feng attentively inquired.

The black yak snipped a piece of paper, then it began to fold it in. The paper became smaller and smaller in size before at last, it was rubbed into just an insignificant piece of almost nothingness.

“Did you see what I just did? The world as it was had been constantly folded in, becoming smaller and smaller; and this is the world you normally see,” the black yak said in a carefree and content manner.

“Now, just give it a little bit of jerk on the side. Now you see, some of those once hidden sections started to show themselves,” said the yak as it started to pull out minor sections of the crunched paper.

“However, this is just a rough representation of what the reality actually is. In fact, there is a huge problem with this explanation,” the black said as it disposed of that piece of paper.

The yak pointed to the vault of the heaven and said, “Seeing in human’s perspective from the sky above, the world doesn’t seem large at all. In fact, right now as we speak, if you take a plane and look down, you will see that the earth is still as large as it used to be.”

“Hasn’t it become larger?” Chu Feng was baffled.

“You think it’s getting larger; that’s because you’ve taken into account of the presence of those Multi-verse. However, you ought to remember that these Multi-verses have always been in existence. You never saw them before, but now you do. This is a very complex concept, so it’s pretty hard to me to explain it fully with just a few words.” Obviously, the black yak was unwilling to divulge more.

A few days had passed, and now, no-one from the west shouted cheerful encouragement to the military anymore, nor had anyone ever mentioned anything about the dragon slaying business.

They had just been through an unprecedented loss and setback. Many missiles had gone to waste, including those so-called “taboo weapons”. Launching these weapons into those foggy mountains felt very much like throwing an ox made of mud into a sea of water, not even the slightest ripple could form as a result.

They began to realize that the world underneath that smothering layer of fog must have consisted of something grander.

Luckily, besides the black dragon, every other beast that belonged to that region seemed to have been locked inside of the fog and the miasma. Those who dared to rush out of their confined region burned and died.

This freed people somewhat from worries.

Whether it was the white snake or the black dragon, they were both the creatures that belonged to this world; but both had evolved to become the king of many mutated beasts.

In comparison, the white snake seemed to have been a rather reasonable phenomenon. After all, this beast had been living in that mountain for God-knows-how-long. The mythical undertone, in addition, had also made the snake’s appearance somewhat explainable and reasonable.

But the story about that black dragon, on the other hand, might seem too wild and unreasonable. Before it ever became anything remotely like a dragon, it was just an old and useless lizard living out its remaining years hopelessly and helplessly. How did it all of a sudden evolve into a dragon?

Chu Feng had always been awed by the fact that mutation could occur so fast and so drastically. Taking the appearances of all these mutants and mutated beasts as example, this level of evolution was unprecedented!

“Yellow Ox, you have to tell me. What on earth is actually happening?!” Chu Feng had never been so keen in knowing the answer to this question.

Yellow Ox acted quite discreetly. It hesitated for a long while before finally, it decided to tell him the truth. It wrote down a line of words: Never in a Million Years!

“Be more specific!”

“I barely escaped from the jaws of death to come to your world. What is it for? Sanctification, of course!”

Yellow Ox frankly admitted. Then, it buried its head and wrote lines after lines of words.

“There is going to be an earth-shattering change brought about to the world that had been sealed from the outside!”

Yellow Ox continued to write.

“Why are you able to achieve what he had achieved in such a short period of time?” Yellow Ox asked. The answer was soon revealed. Yellow Ox admitted that the reason behind all these was that Chu Feng had run into a particular type of upheaval that would never happen in a million years, and so had the other mutants.

The fact that Qianye, the Buddha disciple; the white snake and the black dragon could promptly gain their power and abruptly rise to prominence were all thanks to this very upheaval that was brought about to this world. It was not just opportunities but also resources from which they could gain nourishment to catalyze their flourishing development.

“What kind of world had been brought down to this region?” Chu Feng felt increasingly uneasy. There must have been some earth-shattering secrets hidden beneath the soil of this region!

Numerous beasts from the primitive world had once tried to break through the confinement of this region to undergo some sort of transformation, but so far, only Yellow Ox had succeeded.

“This world is...” Yellow Ox continued to write on the ground.

...

[1] (the son of Demon Ox from the same novel)