Chapter 3615: Chapter 3615: Giants In The River
Zen and his group returned to the pool and started to crawl along the long fishing rods.
When they reached the end of the rods, they then clasped the hooks with their fingers, swinging themselves down.
In the lead were Zen, Campbell, and Fuxi. Soon after, they returned to the cave.
The moment they stepped inside, they were stunned to find a huge pile of green crystals that filled the entire cave.
The abundance of crystals completely blocked the way in.
“What is that?!” King Ieuan exclaimed in its surprise.
Taking a step forward, Fuxi gently tapped on them. Examining them cautiously, he commented, “This stuff is so dense. I'm afraid it won't be easy to break—”
Before he could finish the statement, the Snake Goddess interrupted him. “These crystals must be the Regal Jades from the Wing King's body. He was the last one to head up, so this must have been arranged by him to cover our rear.”
“I think so,” Zen agreed with a smile.
While the Wing King never mentioned it to him outright, Zen was rather familiar with these Regal Jades.
Once the black-robed men and the Eternal Realm Hunters followed suit and swung down, the Wing King was the last to return.
For the most part, he remained silent, bringing up the rear.
Walking to the pile of Regal Jades, he stretched out his wings and flapped at them. With that, the solid green crystals quickly melted like wax before fire and flowed toward the Wing King's body.
It wasn't long before he absorbed them all. Once he did, he stepped aside, remaining silent as usual.
In the past, the Regal Jade Civilization suffered a miserable failure when they developed a festering feud with the Nihility race. Ever since they encountered Zen in the Dark Region of Stage Thirteen, the Wing King favored Zen's superior talent, entrusting the hope of the entire Regal Jade Civilization to him.
And never had he regretted the choice, not even now. Zen had never disappointed him — instead, he greatly exceeded each and every expectation the Wing King had for him. Naturally, the latter was willing to devote himself to the man.
Once they left the cave, they returned along the path of the Wilderness of No Return.
The cave's exit stood close to the Divine River, only about thirty feet away.
Previously, Eastern Emperor Taiyi had been rather confident that this path would intersect with the Divine River. If they managed to enter it, he would have liked to dig into the soil for treasures.
Unfortunately, the cave leading to the Jade Pure Realm was the end of the path. Eventually, he had to relinquish the idea of entering the Divine River.
The minute they stepped out of the cave, the strange sight in the river had them all astonished.
Normally, the water in the Divine River was a dark-green color — the color of the Soul Interdicting Water which was preventive against Other Shore warriors from leaving the Other Shore.
The water's color never changed, save for when shoals of Golden Bites swam across the river, their bright scales illuminating the water with a golden shine.
But now, the water was dark red, emitting a strong smell of blood that spread across the river.
“How did the Divine River end up like this?” Eastern Emperor Taiyi, who happened to be the most interested in the Divine River, muttered to himself.
“It's the smell of blood,” said the Snake Goddess, taking a whiff of the air. “I don't know whose blood it is but it seems to have been flowing in the river for a long time. It's beginning to decay…” ṟ𝘢ΝȎＢЁʂ
Apart from the smell of blood, another rotten odor was coming from the river.
“Have you ever seen the Divine River like this?” Zen asked.
Both the leader of the black-robed men and the Eternal Realm Hunters shook their heads vigorously.
The Eternal Realm Hunters were rather knowledgeable, having been around the Divine River for a long time. But even they were stumped — they had never seen it like this.
“A battle happened at the upper reaches of the river,” Campbell suddenly remarked.
Only Zen could understand his language, but as soon as he opened his mouth, everyone tuned in attentively. They knew he was a world builder, after all — nobody in the entire chaos could know more about it than him.
“Do the upper reaches refer to the main Pure Sky Platform?” Zen asked.
Earlier, Campbell had told him that the main Pure Sky Platform was the real Jade Pure Realm. In the end, he surmised that the upper reaches of the Divine River indeed lay in the Jade Pure Realm.
To his surprise, Campbell shook his head. “That's not necessarily the case. When we planned the Divine River's basin, we led its water from the main Pure Sky Platform to some other smaller ones which made it meander several times…”
“The smaller Pure Sky Platforms? But they're not connected to each other. How could they become the Divine River's basin?” Zen asked in confusion.
“We used a special method, of course,” Campbell said proudly. Once he got onto the subject of his major, there was no holding him back. “It's a permanent combination of different spaces. It's only in this way that we managed to put the completed Divine River into them...”
As Campbell continued introducing the mechanism, Thurston suddenly pointed to the distance and shouted, “Look there! Something is flowing along the Divine River!”
Immediately, everyone turned to where he was pointing. An enormous figure was floating on the surface of the blood-red Divine River — it was flowing rapidly toward them.
When it got closer, they finally got a clear look.
It was a giant's corpse, lying on his side in the water.
The giant seemed to have been ruthlessly skinned — one half of him soaked in the water while the other half floated on the surface.
Half of his exposed face was swollen from all the soaking, one of his eyes wide open with anger — he seemed to have died a highly resentful death.
On the giant's dead body hopped a flock of crows, pecking at his rotten flesh.
Each of the crows only had a single eye. Despite their small size, they exuded an indescribably evil aura — it was somewhat akin to the Treacherous Beings' aura, but not quite the same.
Soon, the one-eyed crows noticed Zen and the others on the shore.
As it turned out, the crows looked more interested in fresh prey than a rotten corpse.
With a loud caw…
One of the crows took the lead and flew away from the Divine River, heading straight for Zen's group.
But just as it reached about ten feet, an invisible force suddenly wrapped around its body, dragging it forward against its will. Failing to return to the river, it went straight into the depths of the Wilderness of No Return.
The same thing happened to the rest of the crows. Once they left the range of the Divine River, all of them were affected by the mysterious power, reluctantly flying toward opposite directions.
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief at the sight. Their nerves had been going wild because the one-eyed crows seemed to be highly powerful creatures of the Jade Pure Realm. Nobody knew what abilities they possessed nor did they have any idea how difficult it would be to deal with them.
When Zen asked Campbell if he knew of these Other Shore creatures, the latter only shook his head in reply.
While it was true that he was a world builder, he already left to find the next suitable spot once the previous world was completed. Because of this, he knew little of the later developments in the secondary worlds. Without having experienced much of the chaos' development, he could only offer so much information.
For a while longer, they lingered on the bank of the Divine River.
In a short period of time, they witnessed six more dead giants flowing down along the river. With that, they concluded that the river must have turned red because of the great amount of blood from the giants.
Whoever had killed them, though, remained an enigma to them.
After taking the time to observe the area, they returned along the same path they had come. Encountering no obstacles in the wilderness, they found the journey back was rather smooth.
But when they arrived at the snowline, much to their surprise, they found an area of bare brown earth.