Tales of Herding Gods

Qin Mu looked at the crowd celebrating beneath the sacrificial altar. The chiefs of each clan were mobilizing their clansmen.

“What are they doing?” Qin Mu curiously asked.

“They are planning to concentrate everyone’s power and visualize you together to strengthen your corporeal body and consciousness.”

Divine King Lang Wo said, “We will grant you power like we did the Grand Emperor. Due to the number of masters of creation who participated then, we can’t recreate it. However, we can still boost your cultivation greatly due to the collective worshipping and visualization by millions of masters of creation. It will only take 110 years for your cultivation to reach the level of a strong practitioner of the Emperor’s Throne, perhaps even stronger. Your corporeal body will also be indestructible as a result.”

Qin Mu looked at the excited crowd below and thought about the ancient gods like Earth Count and Heaven Duke. He shook his head and said, “Although it can grant me power, worshipping me to become a god limits me too much. I think I should cultivate and elevate my own cultivation.”

In the past, he wouldn’t have rejected such large scale worshipping and visualization of him.

However, today, Qin Mu suspected that the ancient gods were visualized by the masters of creation.

After all, they were limited by their own Great Dao. Perhaps, they weren’t limited by their own Great Dao but by the thinking of the masters of creation who created them.

When the masters of creation visualized Earth Count, they thought of him as a god of death who was fair. Earth Count thus became an ancient god made out of and restrained by such thoughts.

The one restraining Earth Count was his body, which was created by the masters of creation’s visualization and thoughts.

However, the masters of creation being the creators of the ancient gods was merely a speculation of his. He didn’t know the specifics.

The reason that Qin Mu had such a theory was due to Divine King Lang Wo’s mount, the rainbow phoenix.

He felt that the phoenix and the ancient gods were in similar predicaments, which made him not want to be visualized by the masses.

Divine King Lang Wo glanced at him and sent out waves of consciousness to notify the chiefs.

The chiefs of the various clans heard it and were shocked. However, they had to obey it, for it was Qin Mu and the divine king’s orders.

Qin Mu felt relaxed when he saw the masses disperse.

There were too many limitations to the ancient gods. One had a body that wasn’t one’s own. The ancient gods tried so many tricks to get out of their restraints. Wouldn’t it thus be stupid for him to voluntarily be restrained?

“How could you reject the masters of creation’s worship?”

Shu Jun’s large head flew over, and he bitterly said, “You missed your chance at becoming the Grand Emperor!”

Qin Mu smiled. “Becoming the Grand Emperor? My goals are far bigger. How can being the Grand Emperor satisfy me?”

Shu Jun felt that it was a pity. He shook his head and said, “You don’t know how terrifying the Grand Emperor was.”

“Even if I wanted to be a being like the Grand Emperor, they wouldn’t let me. Shu Jun, they created one Grand Emperor already, and that almost led them to extinction. Why would they do it again?”

Qin Mu smiled and said, “If I did become another Grand Emperor, what if I too chose to eliminate all masters of creation to secure my reign? I’m the masters of creation’s holy infant, not a ruler like the Grand Emperor. Otherwise, what would be the difference between us?”

Shu Jun stared at him, but his eyeballs didn’t jump out this time. He said, “You actually made sense this time, it’s just, are you really that kind? I don’t believe it, you’re too sly.”

Qin Mu smiled gently and said to Divine King Lang Wo, “Sister, let them rest so they can recover their energy and consciousness. After they recover, we shall head to Carefree Village.”

Divine King Lang Wo was shocked as she asked, “All?”

Qin Mu nodded. “Yes, all.”

Divine King Lang Wo frowned slightly and expressed her doubt, saying, “Won’t that be too vast and obvious?”

She didn’t want to say it, but Shu Jun couldn’t help but say what she was really thinking, “All? Are you hoping to wreck your ancestor’s place? When the time comes, are you sure that your ancestors won’t kill you?”

Qin Mu laughed, shook his head, and said, “I want the masters of creation to talk with Carefree Village and Founding Emperor. If I don’t unleash our power, even if Founding Emperor agrees to it, his officers might not agree to live peacefully with us.”

His gaze flashed as he leisurely said, “When two giants negotiate, they must be equal.”

He excitedly thought, ‘It would be best to scare Founding Emperor witless!’

Divine King Lang Wo gave him a deep look before informing all of the chiefs to rest their clansmen.

Around five days later, the masters of creation who participated in the offering recovered their consciousness to peak condition. Divine King Lang Wo informed the chiefs to mobilize their clansmen to Carefree Village.

When that order came, all of the masters of creation were excited. They said, “As expected of the holy infant, he’s going to strike at Carefree Village already!”

“Thief Qin has been rubbing me the wrong way for a long time. The holy infant is a saint from heaven sent to lead us to eradicate the enemies!”

“We shouldn’t be too careless. After all, they have a weird infant with a large head that’s super powerful.”

“The holy infant can beat him up!”

“Naturally.”

…

Qin Mu and Divine King Lang Wo stood on the high ground. Qin Mu saw the masters of creation leading their armies and families, and he frowned. The masters of creation deployed their divine arts by cultivating consciousness and used visualization to create their artifacts. Hence, everyone’s consciousness and divine arts were different. The same could be said for their mounts.

It was normal to visualize beasts like dragons or phoenixes as mounts, but many people visualized weird mounts. The mount of the Zili chief, a giant white silkworm, was already weird enough. Yet there were also large spiders, an eight-legged monster, a feathered snake, a large kraken, and even a godd*mn tree!

Outside of that, there were various flying houses with legs that were on top of boats and treasure carriages. Some people even sat in a giant egg!

There were many more holy objects flying that carried hundreds of masters of creation. Some of them sat on planets that had elders pushing them. The elders would jump onto the planet after pushing it so they would be carried towards Carefree Village!

Many more young masters of creation had to visualize wings and fly themselves due to their lacking cultivation.

Even then, their wings weren’t uniform. Some were large, while some were small. Some were long, while some were short. Some even had colorful wings.

The elements of the wings were different too. Some had thunder, while others had wind or fire. One pair even gave off floodwater via torrential rain.

This wasn’t what made Qin Mu speechless, however.

What made him speechless was how the masters of creation marched in a messy manner. They dragged around as if they were fleeing. They didn’t look like a force that could scare Carefree Village!

Qin Mu was so angry that his hands trembled. He breathed in and whispered, “Even if we let Imperial Preceptor train them, it would take decades before they became an orderly and useful army. How can such a scattered force scare a powerful ruler like Founding Emperor witless?”

He knew how powerful the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens was, be it in their formations or tactics. The Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens had formed a powerful civilization. The gods and devils that had experienced countless battles had greater control over the battlefield than the masters of creation.

In a one on one, the masters of creation were too powerful. However, in a large-scale war, the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens was far more powerful!

There were terrifying beings like Heavenly Teacher Zi Xi, Yan Yunxi, in the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens!

Scholar Zi Xi, also known as Yan Yunxi, had the highest attainment in formations. She dared to scheme against two Mother Earths by herself and could destroy strong practitioners of the Emperor’s Throne like Martial Arts Heavenly Teacher Guan Cha!

Besides, the teleportation formations and divine arts were products of the Founding Emperor Era. They represented the highest attainment in algebra at that time!

Divine King Lang Wo said, “Don’t worry, holy infant, you just have to communicate with them via consciousness to get them in a formation and orderly.

Qin Mu sighed and said, “An orderly army isn’t an army that can’t lose. One still has to get them to form various formations and be skilled in various tactics. They have to form different killing formations between different formations, and every master of creation’s divine weapons and divine arts are to become a part of it. It’s too messy now…”

He sighed and said, “If we head to Carefree Village in such a messy manner, we will merely amuse Founding Emperor. It won’t be deploying an army but making a fool of ourselves. Now, we can only try to get them into a formation. However, my consciousness isn’t strong enough to deploy all of them.”

Divine King Lang Wo said, “You can use mine to contact everyone to deploy troops and formations.”

Qin Mu sighed. “That’s the only option.”

His consciousness was interlocked with Divine King Lang Wo’s, and he instantly felt how deep her consciousness was. It was like a vast ocean with no end in sight!

When their consciousnesses moved, Qin Mu could feel his vision stretching out to an unknown distance!

He could also clearly contact every master of creation as well. Every master of creation’s thoughts were also clearly reflected in his head too!

Such a strong consciousness was immeasurably deep!

With the help of Divine King Lang Wo, it was way easier for him to mobilize every master of creation. He thought, ‘Such a way of deployment and mobilization should be spread to Eternal Peace! This combination of consciousness and vital qi should be spread there too! We could easily forge an invincible army!’

On the way, he used Divine King Lang Wo’s consciousness to order every master of creation, getting them to change formations and adjust them. He got them to abandon those messy visualized items. Instead, he got them to only visualize one thing per formation.

For those masters of creation who didn’t listen, Qin Mu got the chiefs and elders to restrain them. If the elders didn’t listen, the chiefs were to reprimand them. If the chiefs didn’t listen, Divine King Lang Wo would handle it.

This method of training an army while marching was tough, but by using Divine King Lang Wo’s consciousness to deploy the masters of creation, he finally got them to stop running around like headless chickens while marching, after several months that is.

Qin Mu now knew why the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens lost so quickly without the command of the four great heavenly kings.

It was taboo to change formations and generals when facing a great enemy. The four great heavenly kings of the Founding Emperor Celestial Heavens were in control of the army, but they couldn’t participate due to various reasons. So the four great heavenly teachers took command, and it led to their defeat.

If training an army was so difficult, one could imagine how much more difficult it was to suddenly change formations and generals.

‘It’s not enough to be orderly. This formation is meant to scare people only. It’s but a fabrication. However, it would be difficult to scare formation experts like Yan Yunxi.’

Qin Mu’s heart was on tenterhooks. ‘Hopefully, she is still at Fengdu and hasn’t returned to Carefree Village yet.’

Carefree Village, 33 Heavens.

Founding Emperor came to the Paramita World and made a small piece of land into 33 heavens, building Carefree Village. Ever since then, Carefree Village had been suffering from disasters.

The star creators of the masters of creation created countless stars to surround the 33 heavens of Carefree Village. They cut off all of its paths, and sometimes, stars even crashed into Carefree Village.

Every now and then, the Sky Supervising Department of Carefree Village had to alert the gods to burst the planets and stars to keep Carefree Village safe.

Every now and then, the masters of creation would come out of the stars to attack Carefree Village, causing a lot of trouble and casualties.

Only when Founding Emperor’s 107th descendant, Qin Fengqing, came back from the outside world with his parents did the situation improve. Every invading master of creation was eaten by Qin Fengqing. It was then that the invasions stopped.

Now, there were countless stars and debris that locked Carefree Village in. Only a few gods could come out of Carefree Village via boats.

In the 33rd heaven, many reports came in. Yan Yunxi, who was dressed like a male scholar, looked at the report and laughed. “These masters of creation learned how to deploy a formation. How interesting. Their formation is a mere bluff, though. Their formations pale in comparison to mine. Emperor, have you recovered from your injury?”

Founding Emperor frowned and said, “Yes, I have, there’s no need to worry about me. This mobilization of the masters of creation seems to be a move to eradicate us.”

Yan Yunxi smiled. “Why are you so worried, Emperor? With me, they can’t stir much of a wave.”

Founding Emperor sighed and said, “I’m not worried about us, I’m worried about Qin Mu. I’m afraid that they might sacrifice him.”

Yan Yunxi frowned and sighed too. “He’s always like that, obstinate and self-opinionated. He always likes playing with fire and gambling his life. How foolish. That Divine King Lang Wo is too intelligent and gutsy to not realize his roots and use it against us. When the army reaches here, they will probably sacrifice him in front of us…”

“Carefree Village is in front!”

In the center of the master of creation army, Qin Mu used Divine King Lang Wo’s consciousness to transmit his words to everyone. He hollered, “Thief Qin is over there. Everyone, put in your best effort and scare him witless!”

In the Void, millions of masters of creation’s consciousnesses congregated to form an earth-shattering sound. “Scare him witless!”