Tales of Herding Gods

“Celestial Venerable Yu!” Yan Qiling exclaimed. She looked at the approaching person with an expression of disbelief and immediately turned her head to look at Qin Mu.

She had seen Celestial Venerable Yu before. Compared to Qin Mu, he was a chubby looking youth.

She had even fought Qin Mu before in an attempt to take Celestial Venerable Yu away, almost killing Qin Mu in the process. Eventually, Qin Mu had made a comeback, and she almost died in his hands.

However, shouldn’t Celestial Venerable Yu be by Qin Mu’s side?

So… who was this ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ standing before her?

Xing An was also perplexed and threw Qin Mu a questioning glance. Xing An had also met Celestial Venerable Yu before but had simply assumed he was Qin Mu’s sidekick and thus had given him no extra thought—after all, Celestial Venerable Yu’s level of cultivation was simply too low for Xing An to take notice of him.

Yet, the sudden emergence of Celestial Venerable Yu from the coffin alarmed Xing An, he was more alert now upon sensing danger.

Dragon King Tian also revealed a puzzled expression, his gaze moving to and fro between ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ and Qin Mu. The day Qin Mu brought Celestial Venerable Yu to Mother Earth’s palace, he had almost pushed his face into theirs to examine them up close.

This ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ differed in physicality from the one who was with Qin Mu, but only marginally.

The coffin was filled with absolute silence.

‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ was all smiles, and he looked towards Qin Mu as well, his gaze landing on Qin Mu’s hand.

Just, Qin Mu had made the teacup explode when he lost control of his own emotions. Yan’er took out a scarf, gently wiping away the water stains on his face.

At the tips of Qin Mu’s fingers, a token was spinning around with great speed, gradually slowing down.

The token was what caught ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’s’ attention.

Qin Mu ignored the attention he was getting.

The ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ who had emerged from the coffin naturally couldn’t be the real Lan Yutian.

A million years ago, Lan Yutian had perished, his soul dispersed. Qin Mu had reconstructed his corporeal body, restored his bodily functions, and healed his injuries. After, Qin Mu had forged a coffin, handing it to Celestial Venerable You for safekeeping in a hidden location in Youdu.

It was only a few years ago when Qin Mu revived Celestial Venerable Yu, who had then begun following him around.

Presently, Celestial Venerable Yu was studying in Li River Academy under the personal guidance of Butcher.

The ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ who had emerged suddenly from the coffin was slimmer than the original. Previously, after learning how to refine pills, Celestial Venerable Yu had also started stealing the water qilin’s food rations. Consequently, he was gradually turning into a little fatty. He only regained a regular body size when he was trained for a period by Farmer.

However, in the recent days with the attentive green sparrow Yan’er around, Celestial Venerable Yu was gradually on course to becoming a fatty again.

The ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ before his eyes had the perfect figure and physique instead—he was so perfect he didn’t seem human.

He resembled the peerless and eye-catching Celestial Venerable Yu that Qin Mu had first met at the Jade Pool Meeting.

Only one Celestial Venerable Yu existed in this world. It was likely that the Celestial Heaven Dao Master had taken the mark of Celestial Venerable Yu from the top of the Guardian Pavilion and used the creation divine weapon of heaven to create the ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ that had emerged suddenly from the coffin.

‘Alternatively, there’s another possibility… someone mastered the technique of Brahma Buddha and transformed into Celestial Venerable Yu. However, the one who had cultivated this sort of technique has long been dead.’

Qin Mu squinted, his gaze lowering to the token that was gradually coming to a still. ‘If that person came back to life, he wouldn’t have been so careful. After all, he’s a Celestial Venerable too. Therefore, this ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ can only have been created by heaven using the creation divine weapon as an experiment to test out the Celestial Heavens technique! Heh heh, the being who founded the cultivation system of divine treasures and cultivation system of the celestial palaces has actually become the test subject of another…’

Eventually, the token came to a still, remaining upright at his fingertips. The side of the token that was carved with the character turned to face this ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’.

The gaze of this ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ fell onto the token—the character carved on it was a single ‘Mu’ character.

He looked at it clearly before raising his gaze only to meet with Qin Mu’s own bright and furious gaze.

‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ gave a slight smile. “It’s been a while.”

Qin Mu burst out laughing, the anger in his eyes dissipating. He moved his fingers slightly, and the token disappeared. Standing up, he said, “Truly, it has been a while! You’re from the extraterritorial celestial heavens, how should I address you? May I boldly ask, are you an old friend of mine?”

‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ smiled. “We can be considered old friends.”

He didn’t elaborate further.

The coffin was still in descent, the atmosphere within was grave.

Everyone looked towards this ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’, examining him and each making their own assumptions. Xing An’s eyes flickered. ‘This youth is worth collecting, his corporeal body seems to be even more perfect than Qin Mu’s Overlord Body…’

The coffin suddenly jerked, as if it just landed in water. Following that, it started to rise upwards slowly as though it was floating in water. With a whoosh, it emerged from the surface of the water.

The churning sounds of flowing water could be heard. The water was flowing extremely fast, taking the coffin to god knows where.

The atmosphere within the coffin remained stifled, no one making any movements.

Mu Qiubai suddenly chuckled. “Junior Sister, look at the people presently in this coffin. We come from the ancient celestial heavens, Dragon King Tian came from Mother Earth’s, these few came from Eternal Peace Empire, and this fake ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ is from the fake dynasty. This is a sufficiently strange sight. However, do you know what is even stranger?”

Yan Qiling smiled. “Please enlighten us, Senior Brother.”

Mu Qiubai’s eyes flickered. “What’s stranger is that there are so many living people in this coffin and no dead people. A coffin with living people and no dead people inside, don’t you think it’s strange?” At this, he burst out laughing.

Dragon King Tian replied coldly, “How many dead people would you like to have in this coffin? I can fulfill your wish.”

Mu Qiubai smiled, the maids behind him moving to his front in unison, shielding him and facing off against Dragon King Tian.

At that very moment, a creaking noise came from the coffin. Everyone was alarmed. The lid of the coffin suddenly opened to reveal a crack as rays of light shone in from outside.

The inside of the coffin was very spacious. Although the opening wasn’t very big, it felt very wide to them.

The rays of light shining down at them weren’t glaring, but it astonished them because the source of the rays was actually an entire galaxy!

The galaxy drifted above the coffin, the stars resembling star sands.

Dragon King Tian hurriedly leaped into the air, sticking his head out to take a look. The sight left him in a daze.

The rest of them followed behind, crawling out through the crack and landing onto the lid of the coffin.

Yan’er flew onto Qin Mu’s shoulder as Qin Mu, Xing An, and the dragon qilin also flew out of the coffin. Everyone was standing atop the coffin—above their heads was a resplendent galaxy, and beneath their feet, the coffin was flowing along a river.

Qin Mu looked downwards. The huge river was actually coursing through the middle of the galaxy with vigor, heading straight towards the deepest end.

The river was incredibly wide beyond imagination, reminding Qin Mu of the celestial river in heaven.

When the Primordial Realm broke through its seal, the Surging River merged with the celestial river. However, in Qin Mu’s recollection, when the celestial river flowed to the Primordial Realm, it was flowing in the skies. However, the Surging River flowed on earth. This meant that where the celestial river flowed in the Primordial Realm, there were still seals that hadn’t been completely broken through.

If the seals were completely removed, the celestial river would definitely rise into the skies.

What surprised everyone was the fact that the ancient well was connected to the celestial river. The coffin had actually fallen into the celestial river and was getting carried out of the Primordial Realm.

Atop the coffin, everyone searched in all directions, yet the Primordial Realm remained unseen.

They didn’t know how far away they were from the Primordial Realm at present, and no one knew where this peculiar coffin was about to send them.

The celestial river surged towards an enormous blue sun, revolving around it for half a turn.

Qin Mu looked around from a distance and saw that there were clusters of palace constructions of grand scales on the sun. It was only that they were now dilapidated, meaning there shouldn’t be any divine beings living there anymore.

Shortly after, they saw the glorious and dazzling heavens.

The ancient celestial heavens was extremely far from where they were, and it was shrouded in golden light. As the coffin continued down the celestial river, the heavens was getting closer. It was only then that the group realized that this heaven only looked magnificent from afar—a gloomy aura permeated its center.

It was the aura of death.

The celestial river coursed by this heaven, and suddenly, the river turned around and flowed right through it. The aura of death was getting stronger.

A ruined Southern Heavenly Gate appeared before them. On the gate hung the corpse of a massive devil god, one that was snapped apart at the waist and which had a heavily rusted spear nailed through its head.

The spear impaled the skull of the devil god and pierced through the Southern Heavenly Gate.

“Which heaven is this?” Dragon King Tian croaked out in a hoarse voice.

Yan Qiling and the others looked behind the Southern Heavenly Gates in a daze. There were countless white bones there, white bones that belonged to devil gods.

The coffin headed through the heaven, and on both sides were countless corpses and bones that piled up into mountains—it made them shudder.

The dragon qilin hid behind Qin Mu, laying flat on the ground with his claws covering his face, afraid to look at the scene outside. Still, he peeked out between the gaps of his claws to look around, only to tremble in fear at the sight immediately after.

Beside him, the chest was abnormally excited. It paced back and forth, wanting to jump onto land to collect those bones.

Xing An also felt his skin crawl. He had deduced that the Fallen God Valley was just a gate, a gateway leading to an enormous collection of treasures. He hadn’t anticipated that behind this gate would lie such a horrifying sight.

Suddenly, Yan Qiling said, “Celestial Venerable Yu from the celestial heavens, what do you know about this Fallen God Valley?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to look at ‘Celestial Venerable Yu’, who laughed. “I don’t know much of it either. Didn’t you all mention just now that this was the burial ground of Celestial Venerables? Logically speaking, you all should know more about it than me.”

“Nothing truthful comes out of your mouth!”

Mu Qiubai laughed coldly. “You aren’t the real Celestial Venerable Yu! Who exactly are you? If you refuse to say it, do you think we won’t be able to capture you and force you to reveal the secrets of this place?”

Dragon King Tian’s brows furrowed, and he spoke in a low, muffled voice, saying, “Little brother from the celestial heavens, it would be best if you tell us what you know.”

‘Celestial Venerable Yu’ smiled. “I only know that there really is a Celestial Venerable buried in the Fallen God Valley. The celestial river is the birthplace of North Deity Xuan Wu, yet part of it has been cut and taken by a group of people using a great amount of power to make their base for rebellion. The ones who did such a treacherous action are the Heaven Alliance.”

Qin Mu’s heart jolted. Could it be that the one buried here was a Celestial Venerable from the Heaven Alliance?

So who was this Celestial Venerable?

Suddenly, the coffin shook slightly, coming to a stop.

The coffin had stopped at a small harbor.

Everyone stepped onto the harbor, walking up the staircase. There was a stone tablet erected at the top of the staircase, and on it were the words, ‘Tomb of Celestial Venerable Ling’.