Tales of Herding Gods

The dragon qilin looked around with nervousness, afraid that the buildings, houses, and palaces would revive once again.

But Bamboo City was silent, with no other people to be seen in the whole place. Bamboo City should have been a big city with over a hundred thousand people, but all of them seemed to have vanished without a trace.

To make an entire city leave their homes, a person had to possess unimaginable authority.

Bamboo City was empty, but for Qin Mu and his group. The city that was more than lively earlier seemed to have suddenly died.

But the quieter it was, the more terrifying it felt.

Suddenly, the entire city started to tremble violently, and the ground under their feet rose up. The buildings, houses, and palaces sunk downward, and Bamboo City instantly turned into a piece of empty land.

The dragon qilin hurriedly rose into the sky while stepping on fire clouds. Xiong Qi’er held tightly onto his mane, looking nervously downward.

The city below suddenly split apart, and square stones started to rise from the ground. They overlapped layer by layer to form a square-shaped obelisk which rose up extremely quickly. Within the timespan of a breath, a forest of square pillars appeared around Qin Mu and his group!

They seemed incomparably small when compared to their surroundings.

The pillars were actually moving rapidly, but the changes in formation were hidden. Every time the pillars moved, they would either increase in height or shrink. The square stones would automatically move horizontally or upwards, entering other pillars.

There were also some horizontal pillars which hung on the other pillars like beams. Yet the length of those beams was also constantly changing, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing. There were clearly roads in front of the group, but the next instant the stone pillars would join together and become an incomparably thick wall.

Bamboo City seemed to have revived once again, but it was completely different from the moving city that could swallow all things. Now it was like a three-dimensional space that was constantly changing.

Before, Bamboo City had been a huge object that could swallow everything and looked to be extremely dangerous, but it was all bark and no bite, posing no strong threat. However, after it had become three dimensional and began to operate with the pattern of formations, its threat level had risen drastically!

The six sides of the squares were imprinted with different rune markings. Even with the shifting and reassembly of the stones, the runes always connected perfectly with the ones in their surroundings.

It was the strangest point. The reassembly of the stones was only the outer appearance while the true danger lay in the runes that were constantly splitting up and merging back.

Different patterns created with the runes meant different formations. There were countless stones in the city and the runes on the stones were different from each other, so there were countless methods to merge them, and the changes in the formation were boundless!

Qin Mu immediately saw through it. If they stood still instead of moving, they wouldn’t activate the power of the formation, but if they moved the least bit, the power of the formation would be activated!

‘Divine arts of West Earth are incomparably magnificent!’ Qin Mu exclaimed in admiration to himself. The divine arts of West Earth might not put importance on power like those of Eternal Peace Empire, but their strangeness and wildness made him admire them deeply!

He had learned Ten Thousand Spirit Nature Technique, but he had never put in effort in exploring it. Now, however, Bamboo City had shown him the wisdom of countless divine arts practitioners of West Earth.

The free space became smaller and smaller. It was continuously being compressed, and if the city continued like that, it was probably going to become a huge three-dimensional cube. If Qin Mu, Xiong’er, and the dragon qilin didn’t manage to get out, they would naturally be squashed within it.

The dragon qilin could also see the terrifying points of Bamboo City and immediately began to calculate a path to survival. Since they were facing a formation, there had to be a certain execution process, and within it lay their chance for survival.

The transformation of Bamboo City relied on the shifting of stones, so it was where the group’s only chance rested.

However, it was incomparably difficult to solve the formation. The paths that looked like they would lead to escape soon showed up to be dead ends. If the group had taken them, what awaited them would only be miserable death!

“The cubic cage of Bamboo City contains an extremely complicated algebra transformation!”

The dragon qilin looked around and his eyeballs continuously rotated like a lantern with a carousel of paper horses while he tried to calculate the movement of all the cubes in the huge formation. He soon started to foam at the mouth from exhaustion, though. He quickly said, “If I was given enough time, I could calculate a path to survival! However, I’m afraid that before I calculate it, we will be squashed to death! Cult Master, do you have any method to calculate a way out?”

Qin Mu’s eyes flickered, and he said in delight, “I suddenly thought of an idea to deal with Xing An! If spirits could wake up in his limbs, wouldn’t they go out of control? That would make it much easier to kill him!”

The dragon qilin was flustered and exasperated. “Cult Master, we are about to die, but you still have time to think of this?”

Qin Mu smiled. “The person controlling Bamboo City has extremely high attainments in algebra and is not inferior to me. If it was a fair fight, I could still defeat him. However, since they schemed against me and took the first move when an opportunity arose, it’s very hard for me to solve their formation. By the time I would do it, we would have already been squashed to death.”

The dragon qilin despaired, but Qin Mu didn’t seem to share his feelings. He suddenly shouted out, “Senior Brother Yu, long time no see. Don’t you want to chat with me before I die?”

“I don’t. I’m scared I will die if I talk too much.” Qin Mu could not tell from where Yu Bochuan’s voice was coming, but it sounded quite delighted. “When dealing with a person like Cult Master Qin, it’s best if you die as soon as possible. I can’t risk you dying a moment later. Only dead Cult Master Qin is Cult Master Qin that people can trust.”

Qin Mu’s face turned black like charcoal.

“But Brother Qin can be at ease. If I meet your corpse, I will definitely sit down and tell you about myself.” Yu Bochuan laughed happily. “Little brother I have a bad habit, and that’s trying my best to get rid of the opponent when I fight them. Only when the opponent dies do I become talkative and have a good chat with their corpse, telling them the reason why they lost to me. I won’t make an exemption for Cult Master Qin.”

Qin Mu sighed ruefully. “What a good habit. I’m trapped here and am destined to die under your hand yet you are still so careful. Truly a wonderful opponent. So this is called meeting your match. I want to do a painting for you in consideration of our friendship that started with appreciating each other’s talents.”

The movements of the stone walls became more and more concentrated, and the cubic cage formed by Bamboo City was also changing extremely fast. Every move contained profound mathematical structure.

They became formation structures, and the stone cubes that no longer moved on the outer layer had already become a killing formation, trapping those inside. Slowly, the stone cubes in the inner layers also started to stop moving, becoming killing formations as well.

As one layer wrapped around another, it became more and more unlikely that the trio would escape. When the final killing formation was laid out, there would no longer be any way out.

If Qin Mu and the rest moved, they would die. If they didn’t move, they would also die.

Qin Mu chose to stand in his stop. He raised his brush and splashed some ink, then began painting with quick strokes.

Stone pillars continuously closed in on them, and the formation changed continuously. Finally, it came right to where they were.

When it evolved until its final stage, it became six walls which came squeezing toward the center. The six-sided stone walls continuously pushed forward while giving off loud booms.

Finally, the six walls collided and immense power burst forth. The formations on the outer layer activated, and the runes on the countless stone cubes lighted up, giving the six walls terrifying crushing force. The whole cubic Bamboo City trembled from the collision!

Such a strike would it make it hard even for experts of Divine Bridge Realm to escape death, let alone someone like Qin Mu or the dragon qilin!

“Great, truly superb!” Yu Bochuan clapped his hands and laughed. “Formation Master is still Formation Master after all. This formation is truly unrivaled in the world and no one is a match for it. Despite Heavenly Devil Cult Master being full of tricks, he could do nothing against Formation Master’s formations. He died without any grudge.”

A woman’s voice answered him with insipidness. “Young Master Yu flatters me. I’ve heard that this Cult Master Qin had once fought with Poison Master Mu Yingxue who is quite arrogant but had lost to him. This shows that there’s something extraordinary about him, but he focused too much on poison and his attainments in algebra and formations are far inferior to mine. I was matching against someone who was inferior to me, so I was able to trap them. Cult Master had no choice but to offer up his head and be executed.”

Yu Bochuan laughed loudly. “He thought Bamboo City could only defeat him with brute force, so he rushed in to show off his impressive skills, but he didn’t expect that it was merely a bait set up by Formation Master and ended up in the trap. Formation Master, Poison Master, and Sword Master are the three absolutes of our West Earth, and you are all truly extraordinary. Formation Master, please undo this formation. I want to take a look at the painting Cult Master Qin left for me.”

The sound of swords clashing rang out, and the huge formation of Bamboo City gradually unwound itself. Chunks of huge stone sank into the ground, and the houses and palaces slowly rose from the ground. Not long later, Bamboo City recovered back to normal and a wall stood where Qin Mu and the rest had been stuck. A painting was hanging there.

Yu Bochuan had a smile on his face as he sat on the carriage which drove toward the wall. Behind him followed a crowd of experts from West Earth. There were about a hundred of them, and in the lead was a woman. She had a delicate and pretty appearance, and there was a metal cube in her hands.

It broke down and turned into metal cubes of all sizes. They then rattled and merged together.

The woman was Formation Master He Yiyi of West Earth, a person who was as famous as Poison Master Mu Yingxue and Sword Master Luo Yinyu.

The three masters of West Earth were all girls, and they all had their unique ultimate arts which allowed them to set up an independent regime.

Formation Master He Yiyi ruled Bamboo City and had become famous with her formation skills, which were unrivaled in West Earth. No one was a match for her in formation skills.

Even though True Heaven Palace was the sacred ground of West Earth, the three masters had their strong point and weren’t subordinate to anyone. However, due to the power of True Heaven Palace, the three masters were slightly fearful of it. If the sacred ground had any requests, they would help.

Behind He Yiyi were the experts of Bamboo City. They were the heads of all the influential families in Bamboo City, and their abilities were strong, much stronger than those of people in Fragrant Bloom City. To be able to set up an independent regime, they were naturally no small fries.

Yu Bochuan drove the carriage next to the stone wall. He examined the painting and saw within it were Qin Mu, the dragon qilin, and Xiong Qi’er. They looked remarkably realistic.

“Vivid and lifelike!” Yu Bochuan was full of smiles as he laughed to the female disciples of True Heaven Palace. “Truly vivid and lifelike! Cult Master Qin’s painting is really superb. If he sold paintings, he could be adequately provided! Hahahaha!”

The women in the carriage laughed. “It’s a pity he’s dead. Young Master, take a look, Cult Master Qin is still smiling in the painting!”

Another female of True Heaven Palace smiled and said, “To die in the hands of Formation Master after seeing her perfect formation, this should deserve a smile of no regrets, right?”

Yu Bochuan laughed loudly and got out of the carriage. With his hands behind his back, he examined the painting on the stone wall. He then said leisurely, “Cult Master Qin, let’s chat for a bit.”

“Great!” Qin Mu in the painting suddenly turned his head around and grinned. “I was also thinking of chatting with Senior Brother Yu! Sword Treading Mountains and River—”