Chapter 158: Sprouting in Each Other's Minds
Mystery, the hidden strength a god commands, is ultimately measured by how far back their existence can reach while still being recognized as "a god."
Consort Yu had already tasted Rowe's vast, alien "blood." Even before today, she understood what kind of antiquity sat behind the calm face in front of her.
Supreme. Primordial. The Authority he had just established as "Donghua" was, for Rowe, little more than decorative plating.
[Donghua = Monarch]
What she did not expect was this.
Just being close to him was enough to make her sink into his presence without meaning to. It was not simply the way older Mystery suppresses newer Mystery, or how strong Mystery draws other Mystery like iron filings toward a magnet.
Consort Yu knew the real reason, and it irritated her.
His aura was similar to hers.
It carried the same fundamental taste as a natural Stellar Spirit, as if it belonged to the same category of existence. The difference was that his was warmer. Not soft, not gentle in a harmless way, but warm like a controlled flame that did not burn the skin, only the mind.
A spark that made her whole body feel strangely comfortable.
"Hm…"
Even so, Consort Yu squirmed and let out a low sound, then bit her lip and forced herself to shift away, as if the distance itself could restore her dignity.
Rowe's eyes opened slightly.
His hand had brushed something delicate, a rippling sensation of warmth and tremor. He paused for a heartbeat, then did not treat it as anything worth thinking about.
They were both adults.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Of course I'm alright." Consort Yu lifted her chin, forcing disdain into her voice. "What kind of impact could something that small have on me?"
Her pale face, still faintly flushed, betrayed her.
The gaze of the Outer Gods had already withdrawn. The wind and waves returned to their endless rhythm. The Fusang Tree swayed, and sunlight fell like a quiet blessing.
Consort Yu took a deep breath. Her slender waist shifted, her abdomen tightening and loosening as she steadied herself. She still looked a touch unsteady, but she was not collapsing.
Rowe nodded.
"Good."
They had come because of him. It was better not to involve others.
He turned inward.
The power he had taken into himself was still there, a chaotic and indescribable presence lodged in his consciousness. It did not sit in a normal shape. It inverted, twisted, and whispered nonsense with a persistence that tried to imitate meaning.
It was exactly as Consort Yu described.
The kind of thing that could drag a mind into madness.
And yet Rowe felt… unsatisfied.
Not because it was weak in an absolute sense.
Because relative to him, it was nowhere near enough.
The beings beyond had only spared him a sliver of attention, like scenery noticed from the corner of an eye. Not even a direct look.
Still.
Rowe's gaze shifted back to Consort Yu.
"Why aren't you angry?"
Consort Yu froze.
"Why should I be angry… Hm?"
Only then did she realize it.
Her mood was too calm.
If this had happened in the past, she would have been upset at minimum, furious at worst. She would have snapped, threatened, thrown something into the sea just to hear it splash.
Now she was tranquil.
Peaceful.
As if someone had reached into her chest and quietly turned off the part of her that burned.
Rowe frowned.
He sensed the "chaos" within his mind had grown, but only by a negligible amount.
So that was the mechanism.
The seed of chaos could absorb negative emotion, or rather, absorb what could be defined as "chaos," and feed on it.
The Outer Gods did not simply spread madness as a curse. Their very nature aligned with it.
Consort Yu narrowed her eyes.
"What are you talking about? Did you do something again?"
Displeased, but still not angry.
"Nothing." Rowe chuckled. "Everyone is safe. Isn't that good?"
"Hmph…" Consort Yu's brows drew together. Her irritation remained, but she did not press the matter.
Rowe felt the seed swell a little more.
It delighted him, which was itself a kind of irony.
Still, he understood the limitation immediately.
Consort Yu alone was not enough.
If he wanted that thing to grow into something capable of killing him, he needed a wider furnace.
He needed the Divine Land itself.
"Qin hasn't unified the six states yet," Rowe said, more to himself than to her.
From Xu Fu's timing alone, the conclusion was simple. The Warring States still breathed.
War was a factory for chaotic emotion: greed, rage, slaughter, despair. A constant, reliable supply.
If he used it as a crucible, the seed inside him would develop rapidly until it became unavoidable.
Until it became lethal.
After death, if he reached the Throne of Heroes, he could use that origin to strip away the contamination and remain intact.
Rowe's gaze stayed steady.
This was not recklessness.
This was selection.
Consort Yu stared at him.
"Why did you stop talking again?"
"Talking about what?"
"Talking about…" Consort Yu faltered. "Whatever you were thinking."
She did not actually know what she wanted him to say. She only felt a sudden urge to speak. To keep speaking.
Was it the long solitude?
Was it the strange closeness created by that accidental embrace, the similarity of their Mystery making her mind treat him as familiar?
It was ridiculous.
She pouted, irritated with herself.
"Just say what you want."
Rowe glanced at her, then began, slow and precise.
"Survival is simply continuing to exist according to your own will."
He sat beneath the Fusang Tree again. His human body was tiny against the colossal trunk, but the space around him insisted on his presence. It was as if the tree was merely scenery, and he was the anchor.
He let the sea wind pass over him and closed his eyes halfway.
Consort Yu's delicate brows knit.
"Why are you suddenly speaking like that?"
A faint cunning crept into her ruby eyes.
With this unnatural calm settling in her chest, thoughts she never indulged began to rise.
Rowe had been calm since the moment he arrived. Calm, human, but also carrying the sense of someone who had seen too much and refused to be broken by it.
Consort Yu wondered, for the first time, whether Rowe could panic.
She was curious.
A soft rustling reached him.
Rowe opened his eyes.
Consort Yu had moved close. Very close.
She stood in front of him, bending slightly at the waist, her face leaning toward his. Her lips were moist, catching the light. The posture made her look graceful, almost sweet, and her exposed skin looked impossibly pale under the sun.
"Rowe," she said, tasting his name. "That's right, isn't it?"
She raised a finger and lifted his chin, smiling as if she had won something.
Rowe looked at her hand.
Then at her eyes.
"What are you doing?"
Consort Yu paused, as if surprised he asked.
Rowe's answer was blunt.
"If you do not want to sleep, go sit in the sun. You are blocking my view of the sea."
Consort Yu wanted to be angry.
She could not.
The frustration clogged in her throat instead.
This man.
He had seen through her immediately.
She was proud. She was a Stellar Spirit. She was not supposed to be readable.
Annoyed, she did not retreat.
She moved closer.
Then, as if daring him, she lowered herself directly onto his crossed legs. Soft weight pressed down. Her chest met his torso. Her legs folded on either side, claiming space like a challenge.
Now you cannot stay calm.
That was the intent.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Her lips curled up, pleased with her own cleverness.
It was just teasing. Just revenge. It was not that she wanted to be close.
Even so.
It was warm.
Rowe narrowed his eyes.
His body did react.
But the more obvious reaction was hers.
Color rose across her face in waves. Her exposed skin trembled. Her fingers traced the line of his face with a slow, uncertain confidence that did not match the way her breathing caught.
Rowe sighed.
"If you do not know how to play, then do not play."
He reached out, grabbed her by the draped coat, and lifted her.
Not with violence, not with cruelty.
With the casual ease of someone picking up a child who had climbed where they did not belong.
Consort Yu hung there, stunned.
Then she flailed with indignation.
"Put me down!"
She reached for his face. It was right there, close enough to see every detail, and yet she could not reach it no matter how she stretched.
So close, and still impossibly far.
Rowe stood, then set her down.
Her feet touched the cool ground. She inhaled hard, cheeks puffing slightly as the delayed anger finally arrived.
Rowe looked at her sideways.
"If you have nothing to do, then look at the sea."
Consort Yu pouted.
"What is so special about the sea? I have seen it countless times."
"Soon you will not be able to say that," Rowe replied.
Above them, the Pure Yang Sword hung near the top of the Fusang Tree, drinking in sunlight. The heat of the sun tempered it, polishing edge and concept alike.
Rowe faced the sea.
He closed his eyes.
The world grew quiet again, but this time it was not the silence of something watching. It was the silence of something listening.
Consort Yu's mood softened into stillness. She sat with her knees bent, staring at the sea.
And at Rowe's back.
He carried many identities.
In Greece, he had been the Lord of Myriad Armies. The God of All Machines. In the north, a Great God who had carved a name into frozen land.
And he was also Yahweh, the solitary god of a faith that swallowed worlds.
Here, however, in this land, he was something else.
Fusang's Emperor.
Donghua.
The god tied to sunrise and moonset, seated on the shore of the East Sea, the one who held a portion of the sun's Authority.
And also the Water Official Great Emperor, the one who governed the cycle of the Three Waters.
Sky as cloud.
Middle as rain.
Earth as river.
The land of sunrise was his territory.
The sea was his domain.
Rowe extended his influence across the East Sea.
He intended to go to the Divine Land, but before that, he would do something first. He would use the seed of chaos within him as a container, draw the impurities accumulated above the East Sea into himself, and purify the waters that had cycled for billions of years.
It was an experiment.
A trial performed the moment he grasped what this Authority could do.
The sea responded.
Beneath the surface, toothed sharks surged upward, their bodies cutting through water like blades. A kun fish cried out, its form swelling, twisting, and breaking, becoming a peng that rose toward the high sky. Schools of fish gathered and flowed like living currents, converging into whirlpools beneath the surface, all moving with the same direction.
A voice spread through the sea.
Not spoken aloud.
Felt.
The Emperor is calling.
Creatures competed and surged forward, yet remained strangely orderly. A predator did not tear into prey. A tiny fish did not panic.
Everything moved on one line.
The wind cleared. The air brightened. The world turned lucid.
Evil was drawn out.
Absorbed.
Purified.
On the East Sea shore, an old man stood upon a reef.
His posture was straight as a monument. He wore a crown that made him look taller than the wind. His hands rested behind him, sleeves hanging heavy, and he stared at the boundless sea and the cloudless sky.
He sighed, voice full of emotion.
"The Master said by the river: what passes is like this, never ceasing day or night."
Below the reef, someone spoke.
"Master Xun, the world is in chaos. It needs the help of the wise. How can you float on the sea?"
The old man laughed.
"The world is in chaos, but it does not need the help of the wise. It needs brave people to carve a path."
He waved off the thought with a smile.
"As for Li Si, I already declined him. My destiny is approaching. It is not far."
The person below stiffened.
"Master Xun, you…"
For a Confucian, destiny approaching meant lifespan nearing its end.
And Xun Kuang, the last great sage of his era, had long reached a realm where he understood his own fate. Something akin to knowing one's allotted measure, close enough to the threshold of gods and immortals that his words were not idle.
Xun Kuang interrupted him gently, stroking his beard.
"I was worried that this Donghua Emperor might be a treacherous sort."
His eyes remained on the sea.
"But look at this. This is no ordinary god. Such breadth, such order, such a presence."
He exhaled, satisfied.
"To have seen this once in my life, this journey was not wasted."
He continued, as if each line steadied his heart.
"The Master said: when the waters of Canglang are clear, I can wash my cap strings in them. When the waters of Canglang are muddy, I can wash my feet."
"The Master said…"
The phrases scattered into wind and water, then faded.
Xun Kuang removed his crown.
His white hair and beard lifted in the sea breeze as he began to walk along the coast.
Waves crashed against the shore.
And the countless evils accumulated in the sea were swallowed by Rowe.
Chaos churned in his mind.
Rowe's eyes only grew brighter.
A hawk cried overhead.
The Fusang Tree swayed.
Below it, fish swirled in vast spirals, scales flashing under the sun as if the sea itself had become a moving mirror.
The Water Official Great Emperor governed the waters.
In sky, cloud.
In the middle, rain.
On earth, river.
And now, by that Authority, Rowe cleansed the sea.
Within him, the Sea of Chaos began to sprout.
Consort Yu stared, eyes widening as she watched the sea teeming with life, watched the shimmering surface turn into a living scripture of light.
She was quiet for a long time.
This was not a sight she had ever witnessed before.
"Rowe… Donghua Emperor…" she murmured, almost to herself.
Perhaps the world really did hold beauty she had never bothered to see.
A record formed, as if it had always existed and only needed to be written.
The Water Official Great Emperor resides beneath the Fusang Tree in the East Sea. He is known as the Fusang Great Emperor, the Donghua Emperor. He purifies the qi of heaven and earth through the cycle of the Three Waters, drawing myriad spirits to guard him. Fish scales flash and leap from the sea like an army. Xun Kuang saw this and said: to be a god of such goodness, this is his true destiny.
"Since he holds a heart for the people," Xun Kuang said softly, "he deserves a bow from this old man."
"Xun Kuang's Late Years Journey to the East Sea."
On the shore, Xun Kuang clasped his hands and bowed.
Across the sea, Rowe adjusted the crown at his brow and returned the bow.
<><><><><>
[Check Out My Patreon For +50 Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Every 100 Power Stones = +1 Bonus Chapter]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]