Tales of Herding Gods

“Can!” Granny Si and the rest shouted in unison.

Deaf grabbed toward the abyss of Without Embroiling City, and his magic power poured out. A pillar of magma rushed into the sky. Deaf used the magma as ink and the land as paper, twisting and turning his brush to paint on the ground.

He used the tail of a fire wolf that had cultivated to near the god realm as the hair of the drawing brush and a god’s bone he had found in a ruin in Great Ruins as the handle. Qin Mu had frequently played with it when he was young and always got smacked on the hand by Deaf when he found out.

Fire wolf’s tail could not be damaged even when bathed in fire, and the god’s bone allowed him to release his power as he liked. He could write to his heart’s content!

Deaf was always cultured and refined, and sometimes even slightly inflexible. He had an extraordinary bearing when he was rich and seemed like a prince roaming the land for pleasures. Yet when he was poor and in dire straits, he didn’t dare to give a shout but rather squatted in a corner of some street to sell his paintings.

Now, as he held onto his brush, the tip of it suddenly become wild, and he also suddenly became wild. He had the unique spirit of a scholar that was full of vim, a unique deranged and unrestrained side to him!

“Deaf, let me assist you!”

Heroism couldn’t help rising inside of Butcher when he saw the tip of that brush painting a blazing picture in the fire. With a wave of his knife, he leveled the land so that Deaf could paint to his heart’s content.

With his vital qi as a pillar, Butcher stirred the magma continuously so it wouldn’t solidify into rock. While doing so, he recited, “One’s writing brush moves like a dragon or snake, and poetry pours out like a river, achieving character and skill at a prime age! Reporting to the main hall of the emperor, personally selecting and crowning an ensemble of heroes. Who doesn’t want to take the head of the dragon, leading straight to riches and extraordinary meritorious achievements?

“Contrary to expectations, creating something big is attaining a good reputation! Former memory, place of worship, Heavenly Painting Country then, Without Embroiling City now. The white-haired and green clothed sigh, creating a gate for visitors once more. Carefully gifting a book of poetry, relying on the immortal wind, blowing to the ocean!

“Returning to the land, with magnificent words, becoming an old scholar!”

His passion for poetry erupted in a poem with a different kind of heroic feeling that described Deaf’s life. From Heavenly Painting Crown Prince whose skills were outstanding and who had all the books in the world, he’d went to become someone with a ruined country whose people were dead. He fell into dire straits and had to sell paintings to survive. The poem not only made people feel angry, but also held some sorrow of one growing old.

“Aba!”

Mute stuck his thumb up and a loud explosion rumbled in his dantian. It sounded like a huge sun blazing, and the furnace behind him erupted like a volcano, pouring fire energy at the magma.

Intense fire blazed, and Butcher used his vital qi as a rod to stir the magma. The light of the flame shone on his face and chest, roasting his skin red.

Deaf laughed loudly as though he was drunk and let himself loose. He stumbled around, and his huge brush started to have less and less of a fixed path. It moved like a dragon and a phoenix in flight, like a dragonfly lightly touching the water, like a baby swallow learning to fly, and like an old bull plowing the land.

Behind him, his primordial spirit appeared and raised his brush to paint along with him. He poured all of his meticulous care when writing essays and painting mountains and rivers so that it would unfold on a magnificent scale.

On the side, Qin Mu, Chancellor Ba Shan, Granny Si, and the rest were all stunned.

They had never thought that the solemn and docile Deaf would actually have such a wild and unrestrained side to him.

With magma as ink and the land as paper, he covered a dozen fields of land in flames in just a short time. The painting shrouded in flames was a dazzling sight to behold.

Who would have thought that an old scholar would have such unrestrained heroism?

Deaf drew non-stop, painting the heaven and earth. The sky was white and the land was green. He drew majestic mountains and gods in all kinds of poses, without any two being the same. He drew countless soldiers who looked stern and fierce. They had iron-like muscles and sharp, bright knives and swords.

He painted a battlefield and countless athletic bodies that were mid-leap. Qin Mu and the rest were certain that the gods and the fierce army in the painting wanted to jump out!

The explosive force of the figures’ muscles with which they were swinging their knives, thunder and lightning that was about to burst forth from the cloud layer, the heavy rain that was about to fall, the gales that came blowing, the tornadoes that were wreaking havoc, the mountains that were crumbling, and the boiling sea were extremely real!

Deaf was drawing a vast world and bringing it into reality!

Butcher’s poem had caused his inspiration to explode, and it poured out of him. The awakened heroism and power of creation in his chest made him sink into a kind of crazy creation. He spoke without restraint, indulging in his own fantasy.

After some time, Blind said nervously, “The army of the devils is almost here! They’re some hundred miles away from here!”

Deaf didn’t listen and continued to paint.

Blind frowned and said, “Eighty miles!”

Qin Mu raised his head to look and saw the pitch black devil qi there rolling around there like a black fog. Formation markings opened in his eyes, and his heart trembled violently. He saw countless huge devil monsters passing by mountains like a flood. As they ran, they swung all kinds of weird spirit weapons while screaming all the way.

Their clothes were tattered and did little to cover their bodies. They didn’t look like devils of Luofu Heaven but like people escaping for their lives.

They had huge bodies and ran as if they were flying. They were in all kinds of strange shapes as if they had been pieced together from different lifeforms. Their muscles and organs were all deformed, and they were much scarier than the devils.

Some monsters had heads of all kinds of creatures, and their arms were formed from countless arms twisted together. Some of the monsters were only white bones, somehow formed from skeletal frames. There were some who had eyeballs of all sizes on their faces and some who were like centipedes with countless legs.

Their weapons were extremely primitive—big bone clubs with flesh on them. Their eyes sparkled with bloodlust and they destroyed everything in their way.

“These aren’t devils but monsters from Youdu!”

Qin Mu suppressed the trembling of his heart. Rushing toward them were monsters born from wandering souls in Youdu that had absorbed the devil qi and devil nature!

Youdu wasn’t fully controlled by Earth Count, and Qin Mu had once roamed through it. Even though the time hadn’t been long, he’d noticed that Earth Count didn’t put much importance on power.

What Earth Count cared about the most were rules—Youdu’s rules.

As long as one didn’t break Youdu’s rule, he would rarely interfere with the lifeforms in his territory.

The Youdu monsters were the result of Earth Count not caring.

Suddenly, incomparably thick beams of devil light brought black-colored flames from the back of the devil army. Pillars of fire swept in front of the devil army, plowing through the ground, melting the mountains, vaporizing the river, and setting ablaze the trees!

Qin Mu’s gaze passed by the monsters and focused on the source of the devil light. Looking at the army behind, he saw devil gods that were like blazing volcanoes with tall and sturdy bodies. They walked very slowly, but their steps were so large that one required Youdu monster to sprint for quite a long time to cover it.

“They are devil gods born from evil thoughts and devil nature in Youdu, the old ancestors of the devil race!”

Qin Mu’s mind was in disorder. Suddenly, he saw quite a number of divine arts practitioners escaping in a hurry. They obviously had been training and didn’t know that the army of Youdu monsters was coming. When they noticed, it was already too late.

Twang!

A pillar of black flames plowed past them, and over ten divine arts practitioners were vaporized immediately, leaving no corpse behind. The other divine arts practitioners dodged in a hurry and avoided the gaze of the devil god by a hair’s breadth. But they were flooded by the monster army the next moment.

The divine arts practitioners couldn’t raise any waves and vanished without a trace.

“Forty miles!” Blind said nervously in a loud voice. “Deaf, are you done? Thirty miles! Prepare for battle!”

Just as he finished speaking, Deaf suddenly put away his brush and gave a heavy tap to his painting, bringing it to life. Flames rushed across the huge painting of a hundred fields.

With his brush as a spear, Deaf gave a heavy flick, and the painting suddenly stood upright. It then gave off an indescribable aura.

The painting fused with heaven and earth, vanishing from in front of their faces.

Rumble, rumble.

Thunder came from the sky, and a bolt of lightning jolted everyone. They raised their heads up and saw dark clouds covering the sky. Flames surged within them, and they were intense beyond imagination.

The area which those dark clouds with flowing flames covered grew greater and greater. Suddenly, a gale rose, and an incomparably thick tornado descended from the sky. There was one, two, three…

In an instant, countless flame tornadoes, like the dragon of Heaven Duke, hung down their tails and tore apart the land! They set everything ablaze while rushing forward furiously!

Whoosh!

It started pouring, but it wasn’t rainwater that was falling down but magma. Chunks of lava fell from the sky like rain droplets and crashed into the Youdu monster army, creating quite a chaos among the ranks.

Countless tornadoes rushed in after, and bodies twisted out of shape littered the ground. They tumbled around and were brought into the air before being shredded by the violent winds. Either that or they were burned by the lightning that fell from the sky.

Suddenly, gods led thousands of soldiers and cavalries down from the clouds, descending on the army on the ground. The slaughter was a racket deafening to the ears.

The gods with their soldiers were an army of a million, and they rushed down to collide with the Youdu monster army. Countless limbs flew into the air, creating a magnificent sight of carnage.

Qin Mu, Blind, and the rest looked at it with blank expressions. They didn’t even need to join in the battle or risk their lives. The vanguard of the devil race was actually blocked just like that.

By one person!

Deaf continued to draw freely. Gods and soldiers continued to jump out from under his brush and rush into the battlefield. Not one of them was afraid of death. The wind, rain, lightning, and thunder struck without restraint, but they never hit the army of the gods. They only landed on the army of the devils.

The army of gods belonged to the painting, so the wind, rain, lightning, and thunder in the painting were unrelated to them.

‘Could these Youdu monsters have rushed into Grandpa Deaf’s world in the painting?”

Qin Mu’s heart suddenly moved when he thought of a possibility. Deaf’s painting definitely had to have a boundary, but where did it lie?

He looked around, but couldn’t see any boundary marking.

Deaf’s painting path was to be highly revered. It was so profound that Qin Mu had to put his heart into learning once again!

‘Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor said that Grandpa Deaf could fight against a million bold warriors by himself and his words weren’t just empty talk!

‘However, this was Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s evaluation of him after Heavenly Painting Country was wiped out and the country had turned into eighteen levels of hell.’