Wet viviparity

Chapter 812 Reaching Out, Southern Fire Frontier
South of the Fire Frontier, Youchi Village.

Youchizhai is nestled in the folds of a branch of Tianteng Mountain, backed by a reddish-brown cliff.

The villagers have an old custom of grinding their teeth and tattooing their faces. They live by fishing, hunting, and gathering, and believe in a huge "stone eye" that was naturally formed on the cliff.

Early that morning, wisps of smoke were just beginning to rise from the village.

A deep, muffled thud startled the entire village awake.

In that instant, the bamboo house creaked, and the hanging animal bones and dried fish fell down in a rustling sound.

As the villagers rushed out of their houses in alarm and looked around in bewilderment, they saw an old man who was offering morning prayers, pointing to the sky and making strange hoarse noises from his throat.

The next moment, everyone knew that the sky... had changed.

The once flowing clouds seemed to have been smoothed out and pressed down by an invisible giant hand, turning into a transparent and lifeless gray-white "slab of stone" that hung heavily overhead, so low that it seemed within reach.

A few rays of sunlight struggled to pierce through the "slate," and above the pale, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth, a huge, distorted, and ominously intricate picture vaguely appeared.

"The sky has collapsed!"

A burly hunter was the first to break down, collapsing to his knees, banging his head on the ground, and letting out unintelligible howls.

The women held their terrified, wailing children tightly, while the men, gripping crude stone axes and bone spears, growled threateningly at the low-hanging "slate" sky and its patterns, their voices sounding powerless and ridiculous.

A cascading light, like a waterfall, poured down from the sky and landed on the altar in the village. There were three figures there, all dressed in bright red Taoist robes.

"What are they doing?"

As soon as the three landed, they saw the old village chief on the altar cut his forehead and smear his blood on the stone eye totem, singing an ancient tune.

The old village elder lay slumped on the altar. Upon seeing the strange man arrive, he showed no surprise, only weeping. His mind was already clouded. Pointing at the patterns in the sky, he tried to understand them with his limited knowledge, crying out, "That ominous sign!"

"Isn't that the number 'two'?!"

The first to speak on the altar, a short, stout Taoist priest, looked up at the sky and scratched his head.

“These mountain barbarians can’t read a single word, why do you care about them?” said another Taoist wearing a mountain-shaped golden crown.

"It's really haunted. The old monsters said that our Tianteng Mountain was completely caught in a calamity this time. We fell directly into the eye of the storm, and our disciples of Tianteng Mountain have become like props here."

The short, stout Taoist was still rambling on when the Golden Peak Crown Taoist taunted, "Hehe, junior brother, you can switch sects now and ask those two families to accept you. That way, you can be excluded from this territory because you're not on their lists."

"Senior Brother Dugu is joking. You are deeply favored by Venerable Huofeng, so you must know more than I do. I was completely unprepared to come and meet this mysterious person. Please give me some pointers."

"Easy to say."

The Taoist wearing the golden peak crown nodded slightly, then called out to the last person, "Junior sister, why don't you come and listen too? It will definitely be beneficial to your current situation."

The other woman had a cool and aloof expression, and seemed to maintain a distance from the two of them, keeping a certain distance between them.

The woman turned to the villagers with a look of pity on her face and said, "My two senior brothers, please talk here. I will go into the village to comfort them and ask them to seek refuge on the edge of this border region."

Having said that, he leaped into the village before the two men could react.

"Haha, let's ignore him then and talk about this first."

Senior Brother Dugu didn't seem to care about the junior sister and said to the short and fat junior brother, "Just one day ago, in the Tianhe Altar of Tianqing Dafang Luoyin Lake in Zhexiong Prefecture, the Three Frontiers Conference, which will determine the future of Tiannan for the next thousand years, was held."

Our Tianteng Mountain has been designated as one of the regions, to be used by the top cultivators from the four realms of Taiping Mountain and Yunyu Temple to compete in magical duels.

Senior Brother Dugu spread his arms and said excitedly, "When the outer border of our Tianteng Mountain was finalized, apart from the people from both families who drafted the list of those to be matched in the duel, everyone else from both families was excluded. However, our sect, which was already within the border and belonged to the third family, was not excluded. Therefore, we inevitably became the people from both families who had to win us over in the duel."

"We are permanent."

"Permanently neutral?!"

Senior Brother Dugu seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world, and said, "Even the immortals and gods in the heavens may not be able to obtain eternal power, so how can our neutral position be permanent? In this great calamity that will determine who will dominate the next thousand years, someone has already secretly placed a bet."

"Who? Venerable Fire Peak!"

The short, chubby junior brother kept wiping his sweat. He finally understood why his junior sister was avoiding them; she didn't want to hear these damning words.

Then he thought of the person his master had sent to meet him with Senior Brother Dugu. That person must be from one of the two factions. Did this mean that his master had also sided with one of the two factions?

"coming!"

Dugu Rong looked at a certain spot on the wall outside the village, grabbed the short, fat Taoist, and directly teleported to the boundary of the wall on the ground.

The short, stout Taoist priest stood before this invisible, transparent, gray-white giant wall, extremely uneasy. He simply turned his back and muttered to himself, "Taiping Mountain, it must be Taiping Mountain, please don't let it be those people."

"I am You Rongzi from Tianhe Peak of Taiping Mountain, paying my respects to my fellow disciples from Tianteng Mountain!"

Hearing the voice behind him, the short, stout Taoist was overjoyed. When he looked over, he saw that the newcomer was covered in thick water vapor, clearly skilled in water magic. He quickly raised his hands in return and said, "I dare not call you Senior Brother when you are here in person, Master Taiping Mountain."

As he spoke, he bowed to the man and woman who were traveling with You Rongzi.

Upon seeing the Taoist priest in the golden crown and black robe, and his unique six-fingered hand, he widened his eyes even more. Just as he was about to approach and get closer, he heard You Rongzi laugh in a strange and eerie tone, "If I won't call you senior brother, then I'll call you a scoundrel, shall I?"

"Ok?"

The short, stout Taoist priest was taken aback.

You Rongzi sighed and said to Dugu Rong, "Brother Dugu, it seems that everyone still leans towards the righteous sect!"

Dugu Rong said admiringly to the three of them, "What courage! You actually dared to transform into You Rongzi, Luo Ji, and Master Lingxu. Even though your two families are mortal enemies, I still think that the three of you are really bold to do this."

"These three transformation talismans of ours are hard-won. Unless you have cultivated the art of seeing through magic, you can't see through them."

Next, we need your cooperation to lure and kill the Taiping Mountain True Man who has entered this territory, so that we can clear out some miscellaneous soldiers for the several valiant generals under the command of the three gods in our temple, as well as the four extremely noble and powerful evil children.

Don't worry about the dangers. Although we don't know exactly who the twelve True Men on the "Southern Fire Frontier" list are at Taiping Mountain, we are certain that You Rongzi, Luo Ji, and Master Lingxu, these three powerful Daoists, will not intervene too early.

"That's right!"

Master Lingxu said from the side, "No one can be sure of the attitude of the Tianteng Mountain. Even our Yunyu Temple did not win the support of all the Three Monsters and Five Animals in advance. The early battle will definitely revolve around winning you over."

If the three of them had come in at the beginning, it would have certainly escalated the situation, causing the two sides to immediately engage in a bloody battle, which would have provoked Tianteng Mountain. At that time, no one would have been able to easily win them over or plan for the future.

"If we can deduce this, then by entering two days earlier, we can have an opportunity to lure and kill them."

"Snapped!"

At this moment, a hand reached in from the wall and gently placed on the "Master Lingxu" standing in front of the wall. A voice came from behind the wall and said, "What a coincidence, we both have six fingers."

Everyone turned their attention to the hand on the shoulder of "Master Lingxu," and a feeling of being utterly terrified shot straight to the top of their heads. Their hearts felt as if they were about to jump out of their chests, and everyone seemed to forget to breathe.

(End of this chapter)