Seeing Rovi look over, Yu Mei-ren paused. She had not expected him to actually be interested in this, but she still could not help feeling smug.
How about that? I do know quite a lot, don't I?
Though, strictly speaking, she only knew about it. She did not cultivate it herself. Her identity as a planetary Elemental also determined that many things were unsuitable for her.
"You definitely don't know, do you? Mm-hm~ It's fine if I tell you." Yu Mei-ren's vermilion lips lifted, her graceful body swaying as her robes fluttered. "During Xia, fourteen hundred years ago, a meteor once fell..."
"And brought an old calamity from beyond the universe!"
Yu Mei-ren's little fangs showed slightly, as though she were deliberately trying to put on an intimidating expression. But when she noticed that Rovi's eyes held only amusement, she could not help feeling discouraged.
A supreme existence really was not so easy to scare.
Yet Yu Mei-ren still felt a little unwilling. She had just woken up and been smashed flat. After that, she had been "tricked" into drinking that strange "blood," and then the ownership of the Fusang Tree had been "taken" from her... It seemed that ever since this man arrived, she had been suppressed by him the entire time?
"I'm not telling you. Not unless you beg me..."
"I can beg."
Yu Mei-ren froze.
You're a supreme god, aren't you? Can you not agree that quickly?
And why was it that, even though Rovi had clearly done as she asked, Yu Mei-ren instead felt even more annoyed?
"I did what you said." Rovi stood, shook out his long sleeves, and smiled. "What, are you going back on your word?"
He looked at Yu Mei-ren before him until her face reddened faintly, then withdrew his gaze.
"But even if you don't tell me, I can more or less guess."
"The Xia dynasty fourteen hundred years ago. A meteor fell, a stone from the heavens sank into the Divine Land, and it brought with it the terrifying shadow of something from beyond the universe. Someone peered into that meteor and saw the shadow of an Outer God, obtaining a ritual to summon the 'Old Gods.'"
"H-how do you know that?" Yu Mei-ren was a little stunned.
Rovi blinked. "You told me, didn't you?"
"Eh? I..." Yu Mei-ren panicked.
Had she said that? No, she had not. But then how did he know...?
"So I'm saying, if you don't have the mind for schemes, isn't it better to just be purely happy?" Rovi let out a breath.
Only then did Yu Mei-ren realize she had been tricked again.
She could not help deflating. But in truth, Rovi could have guessed these "opening details" anyway. It was a very standard pattern, wasn't it?
"Fine. I'll tell you, then!" Yu Mei-ren shook her head and combed through her long, smooth black hair with five slender jade-white fingers. Slowly, she sat down beneath the giant Fusang Tree, hiding herself within its shadow.
The course of events was actually very simple. Just as Rovi had said, fourteen hundred years ago, when the dynasty ruling the Divine Land was still named "Xia," a meteorite fell from beyond the sky. That stone, however, had not fallen from the starry sky, but from beyond the universe—much like the origin of the Atlantis civilization. Only what it brought was not the remaining seed of an alien civilization, but endless horror.
Twisted, bizarre patterns clung to that meteorite, concealing a means to summon indescribable beings from beyond the universe.
"At the time, some people deciphered those patterns, attracted the attention of beings outside the universe known as the 'Great Old Ones,' and received the gift of their power."
"Relying on that power, those people gradually made names for themselves and won a place in Great Xia. They were called 'wu'—people who summoned gods through dance and obtained the power of gods from beyond the universe."
"However, the descent of power could not possibly be without risk. All the more so for power that seemed to come with no effort at all."
"The final result for those people, without exception, was that they met their end in madness like endless ravings."
"But even knowing the danger hidden within it, countless people still involved themselves... Hmph. Human greed really is endless, so ugly it defies description!" By this point, Yu Mei-ren's mood had visibly turned irritable.
Perhaps this immortal spirit, who had seen the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and lived for so long, had come to hate humans precisely because she had seen those events.
"Humans are indeed ugly."
Rovi sat down beside Yu Mei-ren, his robes falling around him as the wind and waves rose. Clear sunlight fell upon him, illuminating him with a warm glow.
Though there was still some distance between them, Yu Mei-ren could clearly hear his voice. "But humans also have a beautiful side."
"What beautiful side could there be? Greed, slaughter, destruction... Hah!" Yu Mei-ren sneered.
"Since you know about Xia, you must have seen the magnificent palaces of that ancient kingdom. But perhaps you only ever saw the people standing atop those palaces, and rarely paid attention to the people who built them."
"What you saw cannot represent humanity. What you never paid attention to is what truly represents humanity—of course, it may still be too early to say these things now, but in the future, someone will inevitably come to understand this." Rovi recited softly.
This ancient land, this homeland from his dreams, also carried many of his dreams.
Those... impractical dreams.
And so, upon seeing Yu Mei-ren like this, he could not help wanting to speak. So he simply said it aloud.
Rovi, who yearned for death, had never had many reservations.
"You're right. Humans are indeed ugly because of greed, but humans can also become beautiful because of greed. The countless living beings underfoot, those people struggling to make their tomorrow better than today... they are the vessels of that beauty."
"I hope the sun I govern shines upon them."
Yu Mei-ren froze. She had not expected Rovi to say such things to her, and what he said truly was something she had never thought about, never paid attention to.
She could not help looking at him, at that figure who seemed tall and warm beneath the sunlight.
Yu Mei-ren was somewhat dazed, and suddenly somewhat lost.
The person before her, the one named Donghua, the person whose real name was "Rovi," seemed to also possess a human identity.
And his humanity was dense.
Still, she could not help muttering, "A swarm of ants. What beauty could they possibly have..."
Yet the words she spoke already lacked some conviction. After all, since she had never paid attention, she naturally had no theory with which to convince herself.
Yu Mei-ren bent her knees, pressed them against her chest, and buried her face into her breasts as they deformed under the pressure, her voice turning muffled.
Perhaps... she really should go and look?
After all, she had stayed here for far, far too long.
Only after a moment did Yu Mei-ren continue talking about "Xia." "In any case, Xia... perished in madness."
"The last ruler of Xia, the final Xiahou, Jie, also practiced 'wu arts.' He was the most outstanding 'wu.' He possessed a mighty power capable of matching heavenly gods, but at the same time, he also possessed a madness surpassing all other 'wu.' He slaughtered as he pleased and madly challenged the immortals and gods, not hesitating to let countless people die unnatural deaths..."
"At that time, the immortals and gods finally could no longer endure it. The heavenly gods ordered the fox demon Mei Xi to seduce Xia Jie and delay his madness, but that was only a drop in the bucket. In fact, even the fox demon Mei Xi fell and became a monster because of it."
"And so the heavenly gods voluntarily gave up the position of Heavenly Emperor and entrusted it to another with the qualifications to become Heavenly Emperor—'Emperor Ku.' They had his descendants, Shang at the time, replace Xia as the new rulers of the lands of Huaxia."
"In the end, the last Xia Jie transformed into a god of chaos amid madness and distortion. He died after his five orifices were carved open. Before his death, the wu arts he cast still caused the Xia realm to experience decades of drought and death."
The ancient Xia dynasty had ultimately gone to its end amid madness.
Rovi lowered his brows in thought.
The Xia dynasty had been a chaotic dynasty full of ancient gods. From Yu Mei-ren's words alone, he could tell how terrifying those bizarre existences lurking beyond the universe were. Had the gods not made their decision so decisively, perhaps the effects would not have spread only through the Xia dynasty, but across every era of the entire Divine Land from top to bottom.
But from another angle, it also showed that even the gods of the Divine Land seemed to have no solution for those ancient gods. They could only respond by "sealing away the paths by which they spread."
...Could they really be the 'Cthulhu' pantheon I know? Although in Rovi's impression, that had only been a fantasy system from the first world he came from, in this world, it was a horror that truly existed.
If the gods upon the earth were manifestations of the planet's nature, then those indescribable existences represented the "unknowable" of the universe itself.
Encountering them here was unexpected, but it was even more a pleasant surprise.
Indescribable Outer Gods...
That was an excellent system for "courting death"!
Yu Mei-ren tilted her head and looked at Rovi's eyes, which were excited even in thought, somewhat unable to understand.
How could there be someone who grew excited after hearing about danger?
Still, she did not ask further. She merely snorted. "In any case, that is an absolutely forbidden domain. The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, even many creator gods, once sternly warned the immortals, gods, and mortals against it. Even after Xia was destroyed, its influence still wasn't removed. Mm... I heard that the reason the Investiture began six hundred years later was also related to this. It was launched to completely uproot the last influence of the Great Old Ones..."
"So I advise you to give up that idea. With your current power, even in an era when immortals and gods gathered together, you would count among the very highest ranks. There's absolutely no need to take such a risk..."
The lands of Huaxia were different from other places. Perhaps because of the special nature of their geography, the gods here had not participated in the war between the primordial gods and the Atlantis civilization in the distant past. The gods back then had focused only on the stable development of the regions they governed and ignored worldly affairs, to the point that they had not even noticed the war that affected the world. They could be called the oldest "shut-ins"—at least, in the details of the war Tiamat had once told Rovi, there had been no trace of them.
Precisely because of that, long ago, the primordial gods of Huaxia had safely passed through the earliest period. They developed more stably than primordial gods in other regions, and there were even several creator gods who reached the extremely special level of planet-making gods like the god Ea.
There were more than a dozen primordial existences. With such power, they still faced the Outer Gods beyond the heavens with full vigilance. In Yu Mei-ren's view, that was already terrifying in the extreme.
But the more Rovi listened, the more excited he felt.
If it was not dangerous, he would not want it!
And he suddenly felt that perhaps this was the path of courting death he had been seeking. That chaotic, unknowable essence—how similar was it to his dream?
It was also at that moment that Rovi sensed something strange. "Wait. Don't you think the surroundings have gotten a little quiet?"
Yu Mei-ren froze. She noticed it as well... At some point, the surroundings had fallen silent. The tide had stopped rolling, the waves had congealed, and even the high, vast sound brought by the swaying of the Fusang Tree had vanished.
Those sounds had been the "background" here, something that had never once disappeared. In the past, Yu Mei-ren had fallen asleep listening to them.
But now, they were gone.
She felt as though something had fixed its gaze on her...
"All that is thought shall be known." Rovi laughed. "Impressive, as expected!"
"Aaaah, why can you still laugh!? Annoying, annoying, annoying! Sure enough, I should never have paid attention to you—!" Yu Mei-ren wanted to grow irritable, but could not.
Without a doubt, she had been noticed.
Because just now, she had recalled the figures of those "strange beings."
And even more because Rovi had then sketched their forms in his mind.
If it were only Yu Mei-ren, she naturally would not have drawn their interest. After all, ants could hardly attract the gaze of a giant dragon. Perhaps even the primordial gods of the planet were the same in their eyes. But Rovi, who bore the name "Yahweh," was different.
That name alone, which had originally belonged to the Spirit of the Void, was enough to draw the notice of those indescribable Outer Gods dwelling beyond the universe.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
At that moment, Rovi seemed to hear the sound of chaotic drums beating. He heard the roars of countless invisible writhing things. He heard wave after wave of mad ravings.
He heard them, and Yu Mei-ren heard them too.
The girl's face turned deathly pale.
Those sounds were the power that the Outer Gods poured into the world.
Chaos, disorder, madness... Yu Mei-ren's eyes began to swim.
At a time like this, the benefit of the name "Yahweh" became apparent. Rovi, who bore that name, had effectively put on a layer of "armor," enabling him to directly face all things that could not be faced and endure all "pain" that could not be endured.
And so he looked straight at the "outer universe" where the Outer Gods existed.
"Big Brother, you're really interesting. You can actually see us?" A delicate girl in a black dress, holding a small doll, floated in the gap of the outer universe. Her eyes were hollow, and a pitch-black keyhole grew on her forehead. "Are you here to find Father too? Can you stay here and play with Abby for a while?"
Abby. Abigail. A special existence in the "future," beloved by an Outer God like a daughter.
But Rovi merely swept his gaze over her and quickly withdrew it, ignoring the disappointed expression "Abigail" revealed, and disregarding the words she spoke after that: "Big Brother, I'll definitely find you and play with you!"
Rovi took a step forward and came to Yu Mei-ren's side. His sleeve swept upward, and at the same time, his raised finger came to rest between her brows.
"I'll bear the power of these Outer Gods instead!" Rovi suppressed his excitement and showed only calm, as if afraid the "Outer Gods" would regret it.
"Mm?" The chaos in Yu Mei-ren's mind gradually receded, but at the same time, her whole body weakened, and she could not stop herself from falling forward...
Her full figure fell against Rovi. Amid the faint swaying of soft curves, Yu Mei-ren instinctively reached out and hugged the man before her.
Warmth and softness pressed into him. Rovi went with it and wrapped Yu Mei-ren in his long robe, feeling the chaotic aura from the Outer Gods within his mind as he closed his eyes and sorted through it, utterly unconcerned with his own actions...
Yu Mei-ren, whose consciousness was growing clearer and clearer, widened her eyes slightly.
I-insolent!
She knew that he had saved her, but still instinctively wanted to say it aloud. Yet the warmth stirred up by Rovi's hand, which had unconsciously fallen on her slender waist and brushed across her delicate skin, inexplicably made this ancient immortal spirit's entire body go weak.
The more her swaying thighs tried to move away, the more they instead seemed to rub against something.
The collision and pressure, the raised curve behind her climbing and shifting up and down... It did not seem as though she wanted to leave, but rather as though she were rubbing against him.
Yu Mei-ren, who had never had such close contact with any existence before, clearly heard Rovi's steady breathing and heartbeat.
She... suffocated.
So, so, so hot...
Yu Mei-ren's mind suddenly went a little dizzy, both from the weakness caused by that instant of gazing at the ancient gods, and even more from the influence of coming into contact, in this moment, with Rovi, "Fusang Great Emperor Donghua Dijun," and the mystery he possessed that was even older than her own.
---
T/N: ABBY!!!!!!
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