Chapter 191: The Peach Tree Supporting the Divine Land
It was not only Ying Zheng.
Rowe's words, spoken across the Chaos that blanketed the Thirty Six Heavens, carried the weight of Authority. He was Heaven, and he was the Heavenly Emperor. When he spoke, it was not persuasion. It was a decree.
Golden words. A command.
He ordered the soul of the Ancestral Dragon to endure.
Thus, though the First Emperor died, his soul did not vanish. It remained, transforming into the ancestor of mountains and dragon veins, threading the Nine Provinces of Yan Huang from east to west, from north to south. From this moment on, the concept of unification was carved into the Human Order of Yan Huang. Future rulers would be called True Dragons, because the First Emperor died, yet the Ancestral Dragon would live forever. They would also be called Sons of Heaven, because Heaven had acknowledged a unified Yan Huang.
Therefore, what had long been divided would unite, and what had long been united would divide.
Therefore, from this point forward, the unity of Yan Huang was destined by Heaven.
"What a magnificent scene." The First Emperor from the Lostbelt stroked his smooth chin, delight plain on his handsome face. "Is this how you twist a history that has already deviated, and force it back onto the right track?"
For him, results were pleasant. Unexpected developments worth observing were even better.
This worldline, and the version of "himself" here, and the Heavenly Emperor who stood above them, had delivered surprise after surprise.
He smiled.
"How could such precious experimental data not be uploaded back to my main body?"
"You cannot leave," Rowe said, his expression unchanged.
The Lostbelt Emperor clapped his hands and laughed.
"I can descend."
He lifted his gaze upward.
Above the highest point of the Thirty Six Heavens, within mist that should not have parted, a black shadow appeared.
The haze was pushed aside as if by a giant hand. Layer after layer churned, and something vast took shape overhead.
A floating palace.
A planetary scale supercomputer.
The Lostbelt Emperor in his current form could not escape the Thirty Six Heavens, but his main body, anchored within Imaginary Number Space, sensed the anomaly and descended anyway.
The sacred body.
Epang Palace.
Connecting.
Link to sacred body Epang Palace successful.
Information transmission.
Click, click, click.
The main body emitted a whirring sound like turning gears, the sound of energy accumulating, preparing to discharge, preparing to leave this chaotic realm the moment the data was secured.
The human like avatar laughed again.
"Heavenly Emperor of this worldline, you cannot stop me. After all, your problems are not completely resolved."
As he spoke, the demons entwined with the present world let out a chorus of roars.
Howling. Screaming.
Demons born from nature braided with human desire. In a sense, they were pure. Pure malice, or pure longing, or pure hunger. They had manifested because Ying Zheng became the Ancestral Dragon, but even now that Ying Zheng was dead and had merged into mountains and rivers, even now that he had become the First Emperor in another form, the demons still existed.
"Was that your doing again?" Rowe asked.
"Indeed," the Lostbelt Emperor admitted without shame.
He always prepared for two outcomes. He tried his best to overestimate his counterpart in this world. In the end, he still underestimated him, but he had left a contingency.
The demons appeared because of Ying Zheng, yet they also bore the Lostbelt Emperor's mark.
A chaotic dance of demons.
For this era, it was still distortion. A Singularity that demanded correction.
It had to be stopped.
And right now, it seemed only Rowe could stop it, because he was the Heavenly Emperor of this worldline.
"I am about to leave," the Lostbelt Emperor said, smiling wider. "You no longer have time to stop me. Thank you for the reward, Heavenly Emperor."
Epang Palace continued to rise. Even though the Thirty Six Heavens were sealed by Chaos, they were not absolutely impenetrable against computation at planetary scale and an information database accumulated over thousands of years.
Only Rowe could act.
Only he could stop it.
"How could I possibly let you leave?"
The space around Epang Palace shifted.
Two golden dragons intertwined like shears, one on the left, one on the right. A raised golden dipper carried the weight to make all things sink. A mirror inverted life and death as its positive and negative faces rotated. A banner stirred pale cloud like energy into shape.
Countless writhing tendrils extended, each holding a famed divine treasure, and the power of those once celebrated artifacts began to show itself.
From every direction, above and below, it formed a vast cage.
Even the Lostbelt Emperor could not ignore immortal treasures wielded by an existence of Rowe's level.
The ascent stalled.
The sacred body paused.
The Lostbelt Emperor looked at Rowe, faintly puzzled.
"Are you not afraid?"
Afraid this worldline would still be judged as a Singularity.
Afraid it would be treated as a Lostbelt and pruned.
Afraid.
"Of course I am afraid," Rowe said, and the corner of his mouth rose slightly. "But I am also not afraid."
"Just as Ying Zheng said, you and he share the same origin. Yet you, who ruled alone for two thousand years, do not understand something fundamental."
"A companion."
Rowe's gaze dropped toward the present world.
Mists stretched across the land. Demons hid within them. Human strife continued. Desire spread endlessly.
He watched.
The Lostbelt Emperor also looked down.
He saw people disturbed by desire, pushed by demons. He saw countless people doing things they did not truly want. He saw laughter on faces that hid suffering underneath.
And then he saw something else.
In the heartland of Qin, beyond Xianyang, within the continuous mountain ranges, palaces stood clustered along a high and distant ridge. A wisp of green smoke curled upward.
The smoke spiraled in the wind.
The wind took form in the light.
Within that motion, a phantom outline grew, moving with the wind, forming with the wind.
A tree.
A towering peach tree.
"This is…" the Lostbelt Emperor murmured.
"Pan Tao," Rowe said. "The evolution of Jianmu. The first appearance of the Divine Peach."
Above the East Flower Palace, at the crown of that immense tree, a divine maiden floated and slowly opened her eyes.
Long black hair fell loose. A wide black robe trailed like night, silk bound at her waist, outlining a slender figure. Crimson eyes opened, calm and ancient.
"I am the Yang within the Great Yin," she said. "Queen Mother of the West."
Consort Yu.
An ancient true immortal of Yan Huang.
A spirit born from the planet itself.
She had obtained the peach tree seed from Xu Fu, a seed nurtured by the Yin energy lingering in the remnants of Jianmu. Now she absorbed it and manifested a higher and stronger form.
"Consort Yu…" Being from the same era, the First Emperor naturally knew of her, even if they had not interacted much.
His own external avatar had been constructed by a simulator after a fleeting glimpse of this ancient female immortal long ago. Yet his information database held no record of her standing under such an identity.
So absolute.
So vast.
So unmistakably divine.
"I got here first," Consort Yu said with a grin, lifting her gaze toward Rowe above the Thirty Six Heavens, joy bright on her face.
Rowe was the sun.
She had become the moon.
And the divine light she displayed now, the Divine Peach manifested in this instant, seemed to support the entire world.
As the Lostbelt Emperor had implied, the existence of demons could still have pushed this world toward pruning.
But the Pan Tao tree erased that possibility.
Demons drove inflated desire, and inflated desire drove humanity into a pathological acceleration. The demons had no stable source and could not restrain themselves.
Now the Peach of Immortality Tree became their source.
Consort Yu was a spirit.
The Peach of Immortality, born of Yin, was even more so.
Demons, monsters, goblins, all belonged to Yin.
"I am the Heavenly Mother," Consort Yu declared, and her smile sharpened into something cold. "I govern all Yin in heaven and earth, and all spirits."
She raised a hand, and her voice carried the edge of a blade.
"I command the demons to restrain their existence, to integrate into Human Order, and to not interfere with human development."
"But any who disobey."
"Kill."
She was both Heavenly Empress and White Emperor, golden in nature, sharp with intent.
The myriad demons of this world now had a source, a foundation, a chain that could bind their power.
Who would dare disobey?
"We respectfully obey the will of Heaven." From a ten mile radius of erupting volcanoes and molten lava, a tall figure with ox horns responded.
In a mountain forest, a monkey like demon leaped and shouted.
"Good, good, good, excellent. Tongfeng obeys the will of Heaven."
The Roc Demon spread its wings. The mighty lion roared. The jiaolong crossed the sea.
Many great demons, destined to become famous in later generations, now stepping into the immortal realm as spirit level existences, all chose obedience in this moment.
Demons would exist without harming humans.
They and humanity would become parallel lines, unable and unwilling to interfere with human development any longer.
"And that force that drives the manifestation of human desire," Rowe said quietly, "if controlled, will not only prevent pruning. It may even lead to more vigorous development."
"Because desire, disciplined and principled, is also a condition for progress."
Rowe's gaze returned to the Lostbelt Emperor.
"So I will say this."
"Thank you very much, First Emperor of the Lostbelt."
The Lostbelt Emperor fell into contemplation. Even Epang Palace went still for a brief moment, as if its gears hesitated.
He was analyzing.
Structuring.
Trying to understand the change.
Then, to his surprise, a figure appeared beside Rowe.
A beautiful young woman in luxurious black robes, her presence half shadow, half certainty.
Consort Yu.
She looked at Rowe and spoke softly.
"Thank you."
Rowe answered without looking away.
"Why say thank you? You already tied me to your warship."
Consort Yu rolled her eyes, then clasped Rowe's hand with a smile that did not hide her satisfaction.
"But this is what I wanted."
Demons had always struggled to exist in the world.
Even at the height of mythology, when ancestral gods demanded stable human development, and immortals and sages pursued purity and defended what they called the good side of human nature, spirits that represented the turbid chaos of humanity were never accepted.
They were similar to Consort Yu.
Rejected.
Unwanted.
So she was willing to create a place for them to belong.
Willing to protect them.
Just as Rowe had protected her.
"I should be the one saying thank you," Consort Yu murmured, tightening her grip on Rowe's hand. Her lips curved, bright and assured.
"I won."
"One step faster than Ereshkigal."
Below Mount Li, within the Underworld that connected north and south, Ereshkigal opened her eyes. Silver teeth showed.
Damn it.
Even so.
"I still have to say thank you."
Thank you for helping Rowe.
Thank you for standing by him in my stead.
"I am not standing in your stead," Consort Yu snapped, annoyance flashing.
"No," Rowe replied, and his voice carried the calm cruelty of truth. "You are."
Thoughts crossed thousands of miles. Rowe held Consort Yu's hand, yet reached through space and time toward Ereshkigal all the same.
They were still competing.
But in protecting Rowe, they agreed.
Among the myriad stars in this world, only he shone the brightest.
"Hahahaha. I understand," the Lostbelt Emperor said at last, and the laughter had turned quieter, more careful. "What peculiarity, what world."
"The peculiar one was never this world," he continued. "It was never anything else."
"The peculiar one is only you."
"It is," Rowe said.
He released Consort Yu's hand and stepped forward.
Consort Yu said nothing. She only watched Rowe advance.
She did not stop him.
Because she knew this was something he had to do, an expression of will.
Those who love do not imprison. They fulfill. They stand beside.
And in her heart, confidence remained simple and absolute.
As long as you are in this world, you cannot escape me.
Ereshkigal held the same certainty.
The Lostbelt Emperor unfolded his sacred body further, and his human avatar stood before it like a king before a throne.
"Are you going to fight me?" he asked. "If I swear I will no longer interfere with your world, have you still decided to make me your enemy?"
Rowe did not answer.
He simply continued forward.
The answer was obvious.
Retreat might have been practical.
Retreat might have been beneficial.
The existence before him was powerful. A ruler who had governed a world for over two thousand years. A depth of accumulated Human Order data that bordered on obscene. Computation at planetary scale.
He was the lord of a world.
A king of a Lostbelt.
But Rowe would not retreat, because he knew the Lostbelt Emperor was not speaking the truth. A man who would stop at nothing to find a way to perpetuate his Great Qin would never let go of an observation subject like this world.
And also because Rowe did not fear death.
Because.
"Ying Zheng walked his path," Rowe said. "He became the Ancestral Dragon and protected the unity of the Divine Land."
"And I, as the Heavenly Emperor, have responsibilities as well."
A loud boom shook the realm.
The machine god manifested.
Chaos unfolded.
Immortal treasures and divine grade Noble Phantasms wove a network of dazzling light across the land. The furnace within the massive frame rotated, and iron wings unfurled behind it, releasing a primeval wind that carried the taste of stars.
The machine god Rowe clenched his hand.
A crimson storm condensed, forming a massive sword.
Three spirals.
Three storms.
The Sword of Rupture.
No.
Perhaps now it should be called what it truly resembled.
A Starslaying Ship that cut through worlds.
"Come," Rowe said. "First Emperor of the Lostbelt."
"Hahahaha." The Lostbelt Emperor's eyes gleamed, and even with sanctification and mechanization, something hot stirred in him. "A battle. Fighting at full power. How long has it been?"
Blood burned for a simple reason.
The existence opposite him could stand as an equal.
The existence opposite him could speak to him directly.
In that instant, the Lostbelt Emperor understood his counterpart in this timeline.
Having a friend really was a luxury.
Chaos flowed.
Heaven collapsed. Earth sank.
Rowe struck.
A single punch sent the Lostbelt Emperor crashing into the depths of the Void Sea.
Rowe followed immediately after.
He would make the First Emperor never dare involve himself in this world again.
He would protect the people of this land.
For no other reason.
"Only because I am the Heavenly Emperor."
"I will suppress all foreign enemies."
End of Volume 1: The Red Emperor and the White Emperor
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