Chapter 188: Ancestral Dragon Ying Zheng
Before them stretched a sea of yellow sand, half buried under drifting dust. As the critical pass Qin once used to march east and swallow the Six States, the land before Hangu Pass had always been wide and flat, a plain made for armies.
Inside the pass, even with the world unified, the territory directly ruled by former Qin remained the most important ground under Heaven.
Hangu Pass was still heavily guarded.
Yet the soldiers stationed there had been in a haze for a long time.
They went through their duties, day after day, but something pressed down on their minds. They were not clear enough. Not light enough. Not fully awake.
So they did not notice that the land behind them had been swallowed by mist for far too long. That it no longer saw true daylight. They did not notice the demons that occasionally moved within that haze.
Demons were everywhere, infecting thought and consciousness. Qin's generals were disciplined. They were not completely swallowed.
But no one can be completely untouched.
"Guard…"
"Hangu Pass…"
"Protect His Majesty the Emperor…"
"Guards…"
Soldiers stumbled up onto the walls. Generals stood above the gate, eyes unfocused.
Dazed. Half dreaming.
Then a shadow fell across the world.
The sun had only just risen.
"What… what is going on?" A Qin general snapped awake as if struck, a deep bell tolling inside his skull. The sound came from far away, yet it felt as though it had traveled from an ancient era straight into this moment.
Old.
Solemn.
Reverent.
The world sharpened.
The soldiers guarding Hangu Pass widened their eyes. They did not understand what had happened, but they felt their own strangeness like a fever breaking. They finally recognized that something was wrong in Qin.
And they knew that someone had arrived.
Rowe stepped forward, and he and Sun Wukong passed through Hangu Pass.
The gate stood open.
The guards on both sides did not stop them.
They could not.
They did not dare.
Because what had arrived was not merely a person, but Heaven.
Azure Heaven.
"Come, Sun Wukong," Rowe said.
"Master, wait for me!" Red hair swaying, the girl skipped after him.
From Hangu Pass into Xianyang, this was Rowe's first time traveling by land. Before, his movements had followed the Wei River, not the roads.
So this was his first look.
And what he saw was not beautiful.
Mist clung to everything. Every corner, every alley, every breath of the pass. Countless people moved within it. Life looked ordinary on the surface, yet their faces were clouded by countless desires.
Demons had appeared.
Desire had slipped its restraints.
Crimes surged. Impulses broke free like a dam bursting open.
"This smell…" Sun Wukong wrinkled her nose. She looked up at Rowe and tilted her head. "Master, do you still want to go further in?"
Of course he did.
"But I can go alone." Rowe stopped and looked down at the small Stone Monkey girl at his side. "You are not yet a Demon Sage. You have not fully reined in your Heart Ape. These demons will affect you as well."
"You stay here. I will go by myself."
"I am not afraid." She was not pure Sun Wukong but a manifested existence in a dependent state. Fear did not come easily to her.
Rowe's tone stayed even.
"You are my disciple. I will not keep you in a glass case. But right now, you are not strong enough to face the demons filling this era."
Sun Wukong froze.
She wanted to argue. To insist. To follow.
She could feel that Rowe did not want her to go further.
And the Stone Monkey girl, who had grown used to staying beside him, learning Arcane Arts and watching the human world, felt an unfamiliar panic rise in her chest.
She was born craving freedom.
Yet freedom of the body was never as important as freedom of the mind.
At Rowe's side, she felt at ease. Their talk sounded like master and disciple, and also like friends.
She did not want to lose that ease.
Rowe did not give her the chance to refuse.
Wind rose around her in an instant. She opened her mouth, trying to speak, and the world flipped. Space and distance folded.
Her Master's figure vanished.
In its place was the roar of surf and the vast, boundless sea.
She stood atop an island mountain, the highest point overlooking the whole island.
She blinked once.
Then voices erupted below.
"Great King, you are back?"
"Great King, Great King!"
"The Great King is back!"
In the forest, a chorus of chattering surged as the apes of the mountain bounded forward and gathered around her, excitement spilling in every movement.
They called her Great King.
This was the place where she had once stood as divine stone, a celestial mountain in the East Sea.
This was Flower Fruit Mountain.
With a single motion, she had been sent back from Hangu Pass.
"Master did not even give me a chance to show off again." Sun Wukong sulked, resentful enough to puff her cheeks.
She huffed.
"Sooner or later, I will prove I will not lose to you."
"Even if you are the Heavenly Emperor."
"Even if you are Heaven."
Here, on her mountain, she vowed to be equal with Heaven.
Rowe continued forward.
He had drawn the Spiritual Enlightenment quality from Sun Wukong, taking in that peculiar trait born from the joint work of stars and nature. He had also taught her how to grasp and control it.
The foundation was set.
As long as she followed the path, Sun Wukong would climb to an extremely high realm. One day she would no longer need to learn from him.
So she could leave now.
And she had to leave.
Because what Rowe was about to face could be called, without exaggeration, a formidable enemy.
He passed through Hangu Pass and entered Xianyang.
The sun followed behind him, stabbing through the haze.
What was Xianyang like now?
Under the mist, countless shadowy figures moved. Just like beyond the pass, the people still lived as if nothing had changed.
They ignored the fog that swallowed the four directions, or their senses had been dulled until they could no longer see it.
They also could not see the demons hiding inside it.
Pig demons fed appetite until people ate themselves into death. Others died in their sleep, devoured by hunger they never understood.
Nightmare weaving demons.
Insatiable demons.
Arrogant demons.
They tore at lives.
The people remained unaware.
Rowe kept walking.
There were too many. Far too many demons.
They were born from human desire. Unless Rowe could strike once and cover the entire Human Order of the Divine Land, annihilating every trace at once, the demons would remain endless.
So he chose a direct line.
The Xianyang Imperial Palace.
The source of the anomaly.
The First Emperor.
Ying Zheng.
What had happened to him?
What flaw had opened inside him?
Rowe needed answers.
He needed them now.
He stirred the Chaos that resided far above the thirty six layers of Heaven.
A deep bell toll dropped from on high.
Formless tendrils of Chaos unfurled, and in that highest heaven, countless immortal treasures and divine grade artifacts flared with brilliance. Roars and drum like sounds wove together with the bell and sank into the human world.
The mortal realm stretched wide beneath shimmering mist.
Minds shook.
Some people jolted awake, eyes widening like someone surfacing from drowning.
Across the land, demons screamed in pain.
Wherever the sound passed, the Divine Land was cleansed.
Not entirely.
Not everywhere.
He could not cover every heart.
He could not seize the whole Human Order.
But as Heaven, he protected what he could.
With Chaos as a shield, he stepped into the Qin Palace with his main body.
The palace was vast. Halls stacked behind halls. Armored guards stood like statues. Civil and military officials filled the space, bowed and motionless, as if trapped in a dream.
Only one presence sat high upon the throne.
And that presence was already looking at him.
Waiting.
Gazing directly at the figure entering the hall.
At the approaching Heaven.
"Have you finally arrived?" The laugh from the throne was wild. "I knew you would come, hahahaha!"
Rowe stopped at the threshold and looked forward.
Black mist coiled around the throne, condensed like something breathing.
Within it, the outline of an Emperor appeared.
But it was not human.
Rowe's eyes narrowed, and he stepped in.
"How is it, Rowe?" Ying Zheng's voice rang out. "What do you think of my appearance?"
"Mountains are dragons. Sun and moon are dragons. Heaven and earth are dragons."
"And I am a dragon!"
The mist dispersed.
The First Emperor revealed himself.
A slender figure coiled upon the throne, eyes blazing gold. He wore black ceremonial robes embroidered with a dark bird. A crown rested on his brow, pearl curtains hanging like a veil.
But beneath the robe and canopy, it was not a man.
It was a dragon.
A black dragon.
Horns, whiskers, mane, scales, and nine claws.
A nine clawed True Dragon.
Ancestral Dragon.
"Ying Zheng," Rowe said, voice controlled, "do you truly think this form is not strange?"
The First Emperor burst into laughter.
"What is strange about it? I am the rightful sovereign of this world. Is it not natural for me to become a dragon?"
Natural?
Of course not.
This was not a later age where dragon symbolism had been flattened into a single unchallenged idea. The dragon was a totem, but not every state had raised it as their flag. Qin's own banner had been the Black Bird.
Later generations would call him Ancestral Dragon.
But for now, it should not have looked like this.
Ying Zheng did not seem to notice any contradiction.
He lifted his body and floated into the air.
At first, his coiled figure did not seem large. Only when he raised his head and drew his long body from the throne did the lower half become visible.
Only half of the black dragon's body was above ground.
The rest was connected to the earth.
The palace floor began to glow, majestic and dreadful. Dark scales surged outward from beneath the stone, spreading like a living tide.
"This dragon body takes Xianyang as its head," Ying Zheng declared.
"Hangu Pass as its throat."
"The Qinling Mountains as its bones."
"The great rivers as its blood."
"Mount Tian and Mount Tai as its two horns."
"And the four borderlands as its four feet."
"I did not become a dragon shaped like a man."
"I used the entire world to manifest as a dragon."
Rowe's expression turned heavy.
He had sensed anomalies in Xianyang, but he had never been able to see the root clearly. Even when he observed from above as Taiyi, his view had refused to penetrate.
Only now did he understand why.
It was not that he could not see.
It was that he had not looked at the whole.
He had only examined Xianyang.
But Xianyang had never been the whole body.
What Ying Zheng was doing was attempting to expand his being across the entire Divine Land, transforming the land itself into his body.
That was why demons could manifest everywhere across the Nine Provinces, using him as a foundation.
He was one entity.
And he was also the world.
Outside the Qin Palace, another figure stood.
Feathered robes fluttered. A black cloak swayed. Golden eyes gleamed with divine light.
"Hahahaha, interesting." The figure stroked his chin. "The method of dragonification I gave him has actually been used to encompass the entire world?"
"Another me."
Another humble one.
This had exceeded even the Imperial Advisor's expectations.
The First Emperor of this timeline.
"Even if I failed to create a machina god body like yours," Ying Zheng continued, gaze locked on Rowe, "with my current vastness, I will not be inferior to you."
He had seen Rowe's machine body. He admired it. He genuinely loved grand structures.
Bigger.
Stronger.
Higher specification power.
"I intend to use this body to remake the world."
"I will create a world without war, without strife, a world where everything flourishes."
"I will cover the thirty six prefectures of the Nine Provinces with my True Dragon body."
"And as Emperor, I will judge all things."
The Emperor's undertaking.
The Emperor's resolve.
He had pushed it this far.
And yet he still did not show hostility toward Rowe.
His voice lowered, almost reasonable.
"I did not touch Mount Li. I did not touch Mount Tai. I did not interfere with the East Flower Palace."
"Because I believe you can understand my actions."
"Because you are Azure Heaven. You are Taiyi."
"You are the only friend in this world who can stand equal with me."
The dragon body turned.
A claw extended toward Rowe.
An invitation.
"How about it?" Ying Zheng said.
"Join hands with me, and together we will create a new Great Qin."
An Emperor invited Heaven.
.....
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