Chapter 345: Where Does the Rainbow Rise?
The beast tide was like a sea, shadows blotting out the sky. Zhe Xiu carried Qi Jian on his back, running tirelessly in the opposite direction. Qi Jian, barely holding onto her waning strength, kept pointing the way, correcting the occasional deviations in his path. But the space and time within this grassland were distorted; no matter how fast Zhe Xiu ran, he couldn’t escape. So, once they were a bit farther from that shadow, he stopped to catch his breath and think about what to do next. Just then, ten thousand sword lights appeared in the grassland’s sky—a sea of swords materialized behind them on the plains.
Qi Jian, perched on his shoulder, watched the scene, stunned into silence, her body stiff as a board.
“What’s happening?” Zhe Xiu asked.
Her voice trembling slightly, Qi Jian said, “It seems... it seems the Sword Pool has manifested.”
Zhe Xiu was silent for a moment, then said, “Go on.”
The battle between the beast tide and the ten thousand swords in the grassland didn’t reach them in the distance. Those magnificent scenes, dulled by Qi Jian’s monotonous descriptions, still held Zhe Xiu’s rapt attention. He knew these disturbances might be their last chance to escape the grassland alive. When the ten thousand swords finally soared into the sky, transforming into a golden dragon that devoured the Golden-Winged Roc, he zeroed in on a key detail in her account.
“The sword at the very front... was it a short sword?”
Qi Jian, still gravely wounded and weakened after days of fleeing through the grassland, was on the verge of collapse. If not for the need to guide Zhe Xiu, she might have passed out at any moment. But having trained in the sword path since childhood, her eyes were as sharp as a wisdom sword, allowing her to see distant things clearly. She confirmed it with a firm “yes.”
Hearing this, Zhe Xiu didn’t hesitate. He hoisted her back onto his shoulders and continued walking away from the battlefield.
Qi Jian asked, “Do you recognize that sword?”
Zhe Xiu replied, “That’s Chen Changsheng’s sword.”
Qi Jian was puzzled and shocked. “Chen Changsheng? Then... shouldn’t we go help?”
She had seen clearly that the short sword, despite leading the ten thousand swords to victory over the Golden-Winged Roc, was clearly on its last legs. If Chen Changsheng was truly fighting the demons deep in the grassland, how could Zhe Xiu, as his companion, ignore it?
Hearing her doubts, Zhe Xiu didn’t slow down; instead, he sped up. “If he can solve that problem, he doesn’t need our help. If he can’t and can only buy some time, then turning back would waste the chance he’s given us to survive.”
Qi Jian had grown up in the Li Mountain Sword Sect, where comrades supported each other without ever giving up. She couldn’t quite grasp his way of thinking and was about to argue when Zhe Xiu continued, his voice utterly flat: “If I were the one fighting the demons there, and Chen Changsheng were carrying Xu Yourong here, I believe he wouldn’t turn back either.”
Hearing this, Qi Jian still found it hard to accept, but she fell silent. Because Zhe Xiu said Chen Changsheng would make the same choice, and he compared her relationship with him to that of Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong, leaving her unsure how to respond.
Zhe Xiu carried her onward, heading toward the edge of the grassland as she saw it. Just then, a beam of clear light fell into the sky. The next moment, fragments of the sky rained down onto the plains. An explosion erupted, a fierce gale swept through, and a violent tremor knocked them both into a patch of water grass.
Zhe Xiu struggled to his feet from the puddle and asked, “What’s going on?”
Qi Jian looked at the distant sky, her face pale. “It seems... the sky is falling.”
Zhe Xiu was silent for a moment, then hoisted her out of the water grass and continued running toward the grassland’s edge.
Indeed, the sky was falling. Countless violent energy storms swept across the entire grassland, effortlessly tearing through the barriers at its edges and spreading to other parts of the Zhou Garden. Everywhere, there were terrifying ripping sounds, and the world seemed on the verge of destruction.
Zhe Xiu and Qi Jian were lucky—none of the energy storms from the clear light struck them along the way. Even luckier, the cataclysm triggered by the appearance of the Heavenly Book Stele shattered all the barriers in the grassland. The differing time flows in various regions vanished, and the spatial separations between them disappeared as well.
They ran like that all the way, escaping the Never-Setting Sun Grassland and arriving at the base of Twilight Valley.
It was still night in the Zhou Garden. The light from the distant orb reflected off Twilight Valley, but it lacked its usual serene beauty. The energy storms from the Heavenly Book’s manifestation had already reached here. Boulders tumbled from the cliffs of Twilight Valley, as if a terrifying earthquake had just struck—and it was still ongoing.
Qi Jian, enduring the pain in her lower abdomen and the effects of the medicine, forced herself to stay alert, guiding Zhe Xiu through the chaos of fallen rocks. Zhe Xiu underwent beast transformation again, his sharp claws digging deep into the ground as he leaped and bounded across the treacherous cliffs, narrowly avoiding several landslides. Finally, they reached a garden at the edge of the Zhou Garden.
When Qi Jian spotted a woman in the ceremonial robes of the Azure Radiance Thirteen Divisions, the tension she had been holding finally snapped. She couldn’t hold on any longer and fainted.
This was Riverside Mountain Grove, a gathering place for human cultivators. For Zhe Xiu, Chen Changsheng, and the others who had entered the Never-Setting Sun Grassland, dozens of days and nights had passed. For the human cultivators here, not much time had gone by—though it had felt unbearably long to them.
Because of the demons’ conspiracy, the Zhou Garden was in chaos. People wanted to leave but couldn’t. Time dragged painfully for them. Now, the terrifying tremors from deep in the grassland and the even more fearsome energy storms made them feel the threat of death directly. The garden was in disarray, filled with anxious questions and desperate cries. They didn’t know when the Zhou Garden’s gate would open, or if it was truly about to be destroyed.
The Zhou Garden was a small world with a complex structure. Beyond the cliffs lay a vast area. The great lake had long since calmed, the blood of Nan Ke’s two attendants washed clean by its waters. The blood from the treacherous sword that had pierced Qi Jian’s abdomen was now buried under the sand and gravel by the lakeshore.
Liang Xiaoxiao and Zhuang Huanyu stood by the lake, neither looking at each other nor speaking. Both wore expressionless faces, but they represented very different emotions. Gazing at the ominous blood-red sky in the distance and feeling the tremors from deep within the lake, Liang Xiaoxiao glanced at Zhuang Huanyu and said, “Let’s get out alive first. We’ll talk about the rest later.”
The thick fog outside Hanqiu City remained. Though it was night, the rainbow from ten thousand miles away was still dazzling. The final trace of disorder had long since vanished, but what had happened couldn’t be undone by turning back time. The invisible gate of the Zhou Garden in the fog remained tightly shut, its opening time unknown.
Zhu Luo stood at the forefront of the night forest, staring at the rainbow in the fog, his expression cold and unreadable.
As one of the Eight Winds and Rains, the strongest among humanity, he had weathered countless storms in his life—whether bitter winds and rains or bloody tempests. The demons infiltrating the Zhou Garden and cutting off contact between inside and outside was shocking, but not a major event in his eyes. Under his direction, many priests of the State Church and the strongmen of Tianliang Commandery were using a formation to repair the Zhou Garden’s gate where the rainbow fell. Judging by the distortion of space in the fog, it should succeed in a while. But... just moments ago, he sensed something very wrong. Something seemed to be happening inside the Zhou Garden—it was on the verge of collapse.
For a powerhouse of his level, his understanding of spatial laws was profound. He knew that any small world would eventually collapse or be annihilated. Even the Central Continent would disappear after countless millennia. But... small worlds that could be discovered and utilized were necessarily stable and sturdy in structure. The Pope’s Green Leaf World was like that, and so was Zhou Du Fu’s Zhou Garden. By all accounts, the Zhou Garden should have remained stable for at least tens of thousands of years. Why was it now showing signs of collapse?
No one could destroy a world with their own power, not even a small one. He couldn’t, the Pope couldn’t, and Zhou Du Fu couldn’t in his time. The only force that could destroy a world was the world itself. If the Zhou Garden was about to collapse, the cause must lie within it—or in some force beyond space.
Zhu Luo thought of that rumor, and his expression grew colder, like frost.
At some point, Merisa had come to stand beside him. The old bishop’s face usually bore a habitual weariness, but now only worry showed. His eyes were still narrowed, but anyone standing close could clearly sense the chill in his gaze.
His voice slightly hoarse, he asked, “How much longer until the Zhou Garden’s gate can be reopened?”
Zhu Luo extended his divine sense, using his insight to perceive the degree of spatial distortion in the fog, and gave a relatively precise estimate: “It should open before dawn.”
Merisa’s eyes narrowed even more. “No, that’s too slow.”
Even facing a peerless powerhouse like one of the Eight Winds and Rains, his words were still this direct, even pressing.
Zhu Luo looked toward the southern night sky where the rainbow originated and said, “We’ve done everything we can. If you want it faster, it depends on Li Mountain.”
Merisa understood his meaning. Gazing toward the south, where that steep peak was actually invisible, he remained silent. No one noticed his hand trembling slightly within his clerical robe’s sleeve, and naturally, no one could hear the voice of this venerable old man in his heart: Chen Changsheng, you must not die.
...
...
This rainbow, rising from ten thousand miles away, was not the key to the Zhou Garden. To be more precise, the rainbow was the action of the key opening the Zhou Garden. The Black Robe used that square plate to influence the rainbow, temporarily closing the Zhou Garden’s gate. In effect, it was like inserting something extra into the lock just as the key was turning.
The key to the Zhou Garden had always been at Li Mountain, in the highest cave dwelling on the highest peak—the very place where the rainbow arose. With a creak, the cave’s door was pushed open. An old man with an immortal air stepped out, his hand resting on his sword hilt. His eyes were as calm as a lake, yet within that lake were a thousand swords. He was the current Sect Master of the Li Mountain Sword Sect.
...
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(See you tomorrow.)