Bearing the blue sky

Chapter 324 Subduing the River Demon! Taking Over Great River City!

The eight main veins of the array pattern are continuing to extend, and the angles between them are slowly adjusting.

The Qian position faces north-southeast, the Kun position faces south-southwest, the Kan position faces due north, the Li position faces due south, the Xun position faces southeast, the Zhen position faces northeast, the Gen position faces northwest, and the Dui position faces due west.

The eight directions, as if recalibrated by an invisible compass, precisely pinpointed the eight key points of the city.

Some of these nodes are ancient wells in the city, some are stone tablets in the center of the square, some are arrow crenellations on the city gate tower, and some are ancient trees planted in the courtyards of several households for hundreds of years.

Originally unrelated, they are now linked together by array patterns, forming a net covering the entire city.

Zhu Ge stood at the center of the array, his bone wings fully extended, the witch power on the wingtips burning like candlelight, illuminating his figure in a half-light, half-dark manner.

He could feel the subtle pulse beneath his feet; it was the city breathing through the earth's veins, the faint resonance of countless slumbering beings.

It was also the last trace left in the air of those barbarian soldiers whose skulls and spines had been extracted by the sorcery.

"This power—" The great sorcerer hovered in mid-air, the heads and spines around him spinning faster and faster, but the spinning was no longer under his control.

The skulls began to tilt, and the faint green light in the empty eye sockets flickered like candle flames being blown by the wind.

The vertebrae emitted a soft, grinding sound, as if rust had formed between the joints, and twisted with a sluggish, halting motion.

"You—" The great sorcerer's voice was hoarse and urgent, his eerie green eyes under his hood fixed on the array patterns spreading beneath his feet: "You are diverting my power."

T

The light from the array patterns became softer and gentler at this moment, like the warmth that rises between heaven and earth at dawn.

The light continued to advance along the eight main veins, and at each node it passed, the corresponding hexagram runes lit up.

Qian represents Heaven, Kun represents Earth, Kan represents Water, Li represents Fire, Xun represents Wind, Zhen represents Thunder, Gen represents Mountain, and Dui represents Lake.

The eight runes shone brightly, lighting up simultaneously in every corner of the city, like eight lamps being lit in succession.

The barbarian soldiers in the city stopped running.

They had been fleeing in terror; some had fallen on the muddy streets, some had huddled under the eaves shivering, and some had huddled together and wept bitterly.

The mutilated bodies of those comrades whose skulls and spines had been seized by the black magic lay prostrate on the blood-stained ground, their heads no longer in place, yet their bodies still convulsing—a scene resembling hell on earth.

But when the light of the array patterns covered their feet, the fear suddenly receded like a tide.

A young barbarian soldier was the first to notice something was wrong.

He initially felt a chill on the back of his neck, as if an invisible hand was gripping his spine from behind.

But the icy feeling is fading, replaced by a warm sensation, like water warmed by the sun enveloping the body.

He looked down and saw the edges of the array patterns beneath his feet slowly flowing over the instep. The light was not dazzling, but rather carried a reassuring gentleness.

"—It's protecting us?" he murmured, his voice trembling with disbelief.

More and more barbarian soldiers noticed the change.

The life force that was being drained and the soul that was being seized were now being cut off by some force and flowed back into their bodies.

Someone squatted on the ground and vomited violently, but what came out was a dark green, foul-smelling mucus.

Those were the seeds of sorcery planted in their bodies by the great sorcerer, which were being forcibly expelled from their bodies by the power of the array patterns.

"Damn it—" The great sorcerer's expression changed completely.

He could feel the hidden connection between himself and the city being peeled away layer by layer, as if someone were pulling the ropes that bound him to his existence from his hands one by one.

The heads and vertebrae around him were rotating at a slower and slower speed, and the dark green light was dimming.

The faint green light remaining in those skulls gradually faded, and one by one they fell down, like ripe fruit falling from a branch and into the mist on the river surface, splashing up a few tiny water droplets.

"Impossible!" The Grand Sorcerer's voice was shrill, cracking with near collapse: "I've been rooted in this city for three hundred years, three hundred years of management, three hundred years of sacrifices, three hundred years of sorcery, and you, a newly broken-through—a bone monster—what makes you think you can..."

His words were abruptly cut off, because the eighth main vein of the array pattern completed its final connection at that moment.

The light of the Dui position shone beside an ancient well in the southwest corner of the city wall, aligning with the Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li positions.

The Xun, Zhen, and Gen positions are connected in a line.

The eight trigram runes shone simultaneously, and a visible shockwave of azure light erupted from the center of the array. The light was not violent, nor even particularly bright.

However, its spread precisely cut into every gap between the Grand Sorcerer and everything in the city.

And it spread to the great sorcerer very quickly.

The great sorcerer's body trembled violently, and at the same moment, most of the runes on his robe dimmed, leaving only a few scattered ones still flickering stubbornly, like candles in the wind.

His hands clenched and unclenched in mid-air, his knuckles cracking from the force, but no more dark green light could be condensed at his fingertips.

Those cities that were once his source of power no longer supply him with anything.

The array patterns acted like a fine filter, diverting all available energy within the city to a large array beneath Zhu Ge's feet.

"Your power comes from that city, from those who are still breathing." Zhu Ge repeated what she had just said, then slowly raised the tip of her bone wings: "And my power comes from the heavens and earth. When your city no longer sustains you—what will you have left?"

'

The sorcerer opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

The battle with the river demon had already injured him, and now he was completely exhausted.

His body fell from mid-air.

The dark red robe gradually faded as it fell, turning from dark red to grayish-brown, then from grayish-brown to earthy yellow, until it finally became as fragile as an old piece of cloth weathered over many years.

One by one, the runes on the robe shattered and peeled away, turning into countless tiny specks of light that dissipated in the night wind, like ashes from burning paper being blown away by the wind.

He fell onto the gravel beach on the riverbank with a dull thud.

"Dead?" Zhu Ge didn't approach.

The array beneath his feet was still in operation, and the magical power continued to flow along the eight main veins, maintaining its coverage over the entire city.

He could sense that the great sorcerer's aura was rapidly diminishing, much faster than he had anticipated.

It was as if, once that connection was severed, the Grand Sorcerer had nothing left to sustain his existence.

The great sorcerer lay on his side on the gravel beach, his hood had fallen off, revealing a pale and withered face.

It was a face whose age was hard to judge. There were no wrinkles, no hair, and the features were like a wood carving that had been soaked in water for a long time. Although the outline was clear, there was no trace of the luster that a living person should have.

His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but only intermittent breaths came out.

His body is beginning to dissipate from the edge.

The first thing to disappear was his fingers. Starting from the fingertips, they turned into fine, grayish-white powder, as if burned by an invisible flame, and were gently scattered by the night wind.

Then comes the palm, wrist, and forearm, moving forward slowly but irreversibly.

His gaze remained fixed on Zhu Ge's direction; his dark green eyes had lost their luster, becoming cloudy and empty.

"I—" He finally uttered a clear word, but he no longer had the strength to say what followed.

Those two words seemed to have exhausted his last bit of energy. His eyes slowly closed, and his jaw opened slightly, as if he wanted to take his last breath, but that breath was forever left unfinished.

His body completely dissipated in the next breath, turning into a pile of grayish-white ashes scattered on the gravel beach.

The ashes were swept up by the night wind blowing from the river and sent into the air like snowflakes moving against the current. They shimmered for a moment in the moonlight before completely merging into the night.

The river fell silent.

Zhu Ge stood still, her gaze lingering on the spot where the ashes had dissipated for a moment.

Then he slowly retracted his bone wings, letting the wingtips lie flat against the sides of his back, and the array patterns under his feet began to fade layer by layer, shrinking from the outside to the center.

One by one, the divination symbols dimmed, like lamps being extinguished one by one after a grand performance.

Suppressed weeping and intermittent prayers echoed through the city.

That was the release of emotions that the barbarian soldiers finally found an outlet for after confirming that they were still alive.

Some people knelt on the ground and kowtowed, some hugged each other and wept bitterly, while others stared blankly at the spot where the light and shadow had disappeared in the direction of the city wall, unable to utter a single word for a long time.

Zhu Ge did not turn around to look at the scene in the city.

They also did not confirm whether the sorcerer had clones or other means of self-preservation.

Instead, he turned around and faced the river that flowed ceaselessly in the darkness before dawn.

The mist on the river surface was dissipating, the whirlpools stirred up by the battle had calmed down, and the water flowed smoothly again, shimmering with a faint silvery-white light under the moonlight.

The light was soft and quiet, as if the earth-shattering battle just now was just a dream carried away by the flowing water.

"River Demon, come out and see me."

Zhu Ge said softly.

He could sense something slowly gathering beneath the surface of the river.

At first, only a few tiny bubbles rose from the riverbed, gleaming with a deep blue luster under the moonlight.

Then the bubbles gathered more and more, forming a slowly rotating eddy below the water surface.

The vortex wasn't violent; it was more like a process of recombination.

Like shattered pottery fragments piecing themselves back together in water, piece by piece returning to their original shape.

The river demon's figure slowly rose from the water's surface.

He looked much thinner than before, his dark blue body exhibiting a translucent texture, like a water film penetrated by moonlight.

The cracks on his body inflicted by the Grand Sorcerer's final blow had not yet fully healed. Fine cracks could still be seen from his shoulder to his waist, with a faint blue light flowing along the edges of the cracks, as if the wounds were slowly scabbing over.

His face was also somewhat blurred; the lines between his eyebrows and eyes, etched by the passage of time, were no longer so clear, like a painting dampened by rain, with lines becoming soft and hazy.

But he still managed to regroup.

He floated three feet above the water, supported by the river beneath his feet, like an invisible base.

His gaze fell on Zhu Ge, his deep blue eyes filled with a complex emotion.

There is vigilance, scrutiny, and also an inexplicable sense of closeness.

"Surrender, or die."

Zhu Ge's expression remained calm.

The river demon hovered above the water's surface, its deep blue eyes slightly narrowed, like two canyons that had been eroded by water for thousands of years slowly closing together.

The cracks on his body that had not yet healed gleamed even brighter at this moment, with a bluish light flowing along the edges of the cracks, as if silently responding to the oppressive feeling contained in Zhu Ge's words.

During his silence, the flow of water on the river became extremely slow, almost to the point of stagnation.

The ripples that had been shimmering silver in the moonlight gradually subsided.

The water's surface was like a giant, deep blue mirror, reflecting the river demon's translucent figure and Zhu Ge's silhouette with slightly open bone wings standing on the shore.

There was no wind, no sound of water, and even the water mist floating in the air seemed to be frozen in mid-air.

Zhu Ge did not urge them.

He stood there on the gravel beach, the tips of his bone wings drooping at his sides, the embers of his sorcery still emitting a faint glow at the wingtips, like two lamps about to burn out.

His gaze fell calmly on the river demon, without any killing intent or threat, but the calmness itself carried an undeniable certainty.

The river demon's eyebrows twitched slightly.

The water-like lines at the corners of his eyes rippled with a fine ring, as if a small pebble had been thrown into the water on his face.

He lowered his gaze, looking at the still-unhealed cracks on his body, then at the layer of water supporting him at his feet. After a moment of silence, he raised his head: "You were able to kill the Great Sorcerer, so you certainly have the right to say that. But what makes you think I will submit? I have been flowing in this river for ten thousand years, far older than the city beneath your feet."

"So, you choose death?" Zhu Ge replied calmly.

The river demon's lips twitched.

That blunt, almost crude remark pierced his vitals like a sharp thorn, causing a sharp pain in the cracks within his body that were slowly healing.

"—You saved my life." The River Demon's voice was much lower, with a muffled sound as if it were being pressed down by a stone: "It is only natural that I submit to you."

.

Seeing this, Zhu Ge said no more, used his literary skills to outline a contract, and then had the River Demon sign it.

If the river demon rebels against him in the future, he can use the power of this contract to communicate with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and kill the river demon instantly.

"—What do you want me to do?" After signing the contract, the River Demon's voice no longer carried the previous resistance.

Zhu Ge's gaze lingered on his face for a moment, then shifted to the still-swirling eddy on the river's surface: "Stay in this river, protect this city, prevent floods from engulfing it, and prevent foreign enemies from approaching it by water."

"At the same time, I will send men to dig waterways to connect all the cities in the southern Vietnamese and Burmese wilderness. Then you can follow the waterways and protect all the cities."

All the waterways?!

The river demon's expression changed from surprise to delight: "Yes, sir!"

"Behave yourself, and you'll reap the rewards." Zhu Ge shook his head.

Digging a river channel is naturally difficult for ordinary people.

However, once you reach a certain level of cultivation, digging a river becomes very simple.

In the desolate wilderness of southern Vietnam and Myanmar, there were no official roads; the cities were mostly surrounded by dense forests and towering mountains.

Only if there are connecting waterways can they form a unified whole in the future.

As for the River Demon?

There will certainly be many benefits in this process.

Thinking of this, Zhu Ge looked into the distance.

The battle was long over.

When Zhu Ge entered the city gate, the barbarian soldiers had already gathered on both sides of the street inside the city gate.

They still held their weapons, but with the blades pointing downwards and the spear tips touching the ground, making a gesture that suggested they had laid down their weapons rather than being on guard.

A barbarian general with a bandage wrapped around his left arm stood at the front of the crowd. When he saw Zhu Ge walk in, he bowed and performed the salute where his forehead touched his knees.

"My name is Daman."

The general straightened up, his voice much calmer than before, carrying a sense of relief as if he had made a final decision: "The remnants of the thirteen tribes of Great River City now number a total of more than two thousand seven hundred."

"We are willing to submit to you!"

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