Chapter 163: The New God, Taiyi
Rowe felt his power thinning out into the world and smiled.
In a sense, this was the reason he had accepted the role of an Eastern Essence Emperor in the Divine Land. A god of the rising sun was not merely a title. It was a concept made visible. In the eyes of mortals, the sun was the archetype of selflessness. It burned, and everything else lived because of it.
That belief let him turn his own existence into light between heaven and earth.
That same belief stamped his true name into the hearts of countless living beings.
Rowe.
A single word, and it was enough.
He sought death, but not as an empty obsession. When he saw ordinary people crushed by disaster, the urge to save them sharpened until it hurt. Not for justice as an abstract virtue, but because empathy was the most basic human reflex.
As long as he still wore a human body, he could not watch humans suffer and feel nothing.
And because he did not fear dying, he could afford to be reckless with himself.
"Again."
In the burning glow, Rowe raised his sword.
Pure yang gathered around him. Light, heat, and fire surged forward like a tide, rolling across the sky.
The Six Heavens old ghost remained eerily silent. Even bathed in layers of sunlight, that oppressive darkness did not thin. It clung like oil, deep and wrong.
Still, the light spilling down gave the people below something they had not had since the black sun appeared.
Hope.
In the palace of Chu, the king cried openly, joy and terror mixing into something humiliating and honest. Beside him, Xiang Yan lowered his head toward the heavens.
In the Valley of Tang, a slender white finger lifted.
Tamamo no Mae sat on a broken ridge, idly swaying her legs, and smiled.
"Rowe," she murmured. "So that is it."
Her gaze followed the burning sun in the sky, and her voice turned faintly distant, as if speaking to history rather than the present.
"Fuxi spent himself to carve patterns that made order possible. Nuwa bled to patch what was torn. Xuanyuan built a legacy that outlived him. Shennong tasted what should not be tasted and paid for it."
"They were gods, and yet they kept doing that for mortals."
Her smile carried venom.
It also carried something that looked suspiciously like admiration.
"To burn yourself for them. That is what the orthodox gods of this land always did."
Then the venom returned, sharper.
"But why can it never be like that for us?"
On the ground, atop a distant mountain, Consort Yu watched the battle through rain veils and boiling mist. Her crimson eyes narrowed.
So it really is you.
A memory surfaced, old enough to feel unreal.
Long ago, a god who governed the binding of fates and marriages had told her that she would meet someone who mattered more than she understood. Someone with a body like iron and a heart that stayed warm.
She had never given it weight. She had not known what loneliness was, because she had never known its opposite.
Now she understood. And the old words refused to stay buried.
The thoughts on the ground were complicated, tangled, human.
In the sky, Rowe's thoughts were simple.
Fight.
Fight Taiyi.
And beyond that, fight himself.
A buzzing rose from the black sun. At first it sounded like a low growl. Listening closer, it became endless whispers, chaotic sounds layered with colors that should not exist.
Rowe drove forward, into darkness, into invisible tendrils that struck from every angle. He swung his sword, still radiating light. The blade did not even need to touch for the darkness to scatter.
The whispers changed.
The darkness surged again.
The Six Heavens old ghost finally moved in full.
Its pitch black form advanced and threw a punch.
It met Rowe's burning sword.
It met the burning concept of the sun that covered Rowe's entire body.
"Useless."
The whisper was clearer now.
Then the fist pushed forward, and Rowe slid back an inch.
Only an inch.
But it was real.
His light and heat had been poured into the world. With power steadily draining away, his body was starting to lose the ability to withstand the old ghost's strangeness.
Tentacles spread. More. Faster. Like a rising tide.
Rowe laughed, delighted.
"As expected of an anomaly born from a former god."
Then his voice hardened.
"But today, I will not retreat."
He leaned into the pressure.
Tentacles struck from every direction.
Power roared inside him, accumulating, compressing, preparing to detonate.
Rowe was already calculating the final move. He would burn everything he had left to scorch the enemy, and at the same time drop every defense he had.
He would offer the old ghost a clean chance to kill him.
So, in that moment, Chu's thousand mile sky flickered between bright and dark.
The people below could not see the details of the battle, but they could see the verdict forming. The sun was being wrapped by darkness from all sides. The light still shone, but the situation was clearly worsening.
"Is the Monarch going to lose?" the King of Chu rasped, beard and hair trembling.
Xiang Yan's expression was carved from stone.
"Probably."
"Probably?" The king nearly choked. "Say it clearly. Is there a way?"
"There is one method," Xiang Yan said. "A desperate one."
"What?"
"Order the entire nation to worship the Monarch. Use faith to restore what he has spent."
The king stared.
Changing customs. Shifting belief. In one day.
Even at the height of his authority, forcing an entire kingdom's hearts to turn in a single direction would have been close to impossible.
But there was no second path.
"Then we try," the king said, voice raw. "Even if it is only a try."
Xiang Yan turned to leave, then stopped.
The king frowned. "Why are you not moving?"
Xiang Yan hesitated.
"Your Majesty," he said quietly, "there is no need."
The king opened his mouth to demand an explanation, then fell silent.
Smoke rose across the kingdom.
Not mist from water vapor.
Not storm clouds from the East Sea.
Smoke, thin and gray, carrying the scent of burning offerings.
Within it were drifting sparks.
Ash from embers.
Faith made visible.
"I believe you do not need to issue the decree anymore," Xiang Yan exhaled. "The people have already chosen."
In the wilderness, an old man bowed until his forehead hit dirt.
"I pray to Monarch Emperor, Fusang Great Emperor, Water Official Great Emperor."
"We entrust ourselves to you."
A young man cut his palm and used blood and pain to wet the incense, as if the price proved the sincerity.
Along the great river, women danced with trembling steps, offering sacrifices to the being fighting in the sky for their land, for their families, for their lives.
At this moment, the people truly chose on their own.
Those who had regained clarity looked at the sun being swallowed by darkness.
That god was burning himself to push back night.
He was in danger because he had chosen to care about them.
So they would not remain indifferent.
Giving did not always bring reward, but selflessness always attracted reverence.
Because the god was willing to bleed for them, the people were willing to bleed their prayers into the heavens.
The King of Chu watched smoke and sparks fill the sky. Silence held him for a breath.
Then he burst into laughter.
"Chu is saved."
"My kingdom, my people, do what your hearts demand."
He slammed his hand down.
"I will hold a national sacrifice."
"For the millions of living beings, we will offer rites to the Monarch Emperor, the Fusang Great Emperor, and establish Donghua as Taiyi."
"Taiyi, the New God."
Chu was still a kingdom. The two matters a state could not take lightly were war and sacrifice. It could never admit that its supreme god had gone mad.
So it became a struggle between Taiyi and Taiyi.
For caution, the king did not dare invoke the full ancient title. He declared only Taiyi, the New God. A succession, not a theft.
Xiang Yan froze, then bowed.
"Your Majesty is wise."
Smoke and offerings rose like a river into the sky, punching through layers of darkness and crossing the strange encirclement.
Rowe stood with sword in hand and watched the tentacles wrap closer.
The moment had come.
His power, which should have been draining away, began to rise again.
He could die here.
He believed that.
And he believed this land would remember.
Divine Spirits did not enter the Throne of Heroes the way humans did.
But humans could..
"This is the end."
Rowe held his sword horizontal across his chest and touched the blade with two fingers. Red light stirred like a living shadow.
The Six Heavens old ghost answered with gibbering laughter and a flood of noises that had no language.
It was the end.
For Rowe.
And for it.
"What a pity," Tamamo no Mae whispered, and for once the malice in her tone dulled.
In the Monarch Emperor, she saw the silhouettes of those who had left this land long ago.
He might have had a path to reach their level.
Now he would not.
She should have been pleased to lose an opponent.
Instead she felt something like melancholy, the same strange hollowness she had felt long ago while watching older gods vanish one by one.
Above them, wind and fire converged.
The great river boiled.
The land itself seemed to shift under the pressure.
Rowe's sword light overlapped in his palm. The blazing sun, wrapped by the strange dark sun, swelled in an instant. Tentacles snapped forward and were severed by his blade.
Rowe did not retreat.
He advanced.
Sword light shot out like a dragon, extending without pause.
Fire spread from a surface into a line. The last remaining manifestation of the sun concept condensed into a single razor thin stroke. A point broke through a plane, and the darkness was forced back.
Body and sword moved as one.
Rowe pierced through layers of depth and arrived before the dark sun itself, face to face with the Six Heavens old ghost.
The drumbeat returned.
Gibberish slammed into him.
Darkness surged again, reserves pouring out of the old ghost like a flood.
Sword shadows collided.
Roaring impact after impact.
The old ghost revealed the concept of the sun.
But it was the sun inverted. A mad, feminine sun, burning wrong.
Ripples expanded again and again.
This was Taiyi giving birth to water, water nourishing Taiyi and earth, earth nourishing Taiyi and giving birth to heaven, heaven giving birth to all things.
Even inverted, even distorted, it still carried the skeleton of that Authority.
The Six Heavens old ghost was the chaos Taiyi had cut away. Not Taiyi, and yet it could be called Taiyi.
The power Taiyi once held was still present within it.
Rowe was not surprised.
He was pleased.
He answered with the Authority of the Water Official Great Emperor.
The East Sea trembled. Clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and seas gathered into a mist that wrapped Rowe like a mantle. The threefold water cycle of heaven, earth, and humanity formed around him again, tighter, more precise.
Sun collided with inverted sun.
Primal water and the cycle of water twisted together.
The sky flickered faster, brightness and darkness trading places like a failing heartbeat. The noise of impact rang across heaven and earth.
The old ghost roared without reason.
Rowe seemed even more unreasonable.
Burning himself was not enough. He forced his body to squeeze out every last fragment of power. Somewhere deep inside, something mechanical turned, like gears grinding. The world echoed in response, thunder without lightning.
His sword drew intricate light. Tentacles were cut. Darkness scorched.
The old ghost cackled.
Rowe laughed louder.
The old ghost hammered out its drumbeat.
Rowe laughed louder.
It cackled again.
Rowe laughed again.
At last the old ghost fell silent, and only its tentacles continued, multiplying, showing pure chaos.
It tried to block Rowe's escape.
Rowe had no intention of escaping.
"Which of us is chaos?" he asked, almost kindly.
If the old ghost had enough self to be furious, it would have been.
It tried to pull back.
And found its retreat sealed.
An invisible barrier.
The Key of Heaven, displayed by a Primordial human.
Gibberish erupted again. The sound carried a wrongness that made Rowe's skin crawl, but he did not stop.
He only laughed again and raised his sword.
"To end this, drink this sword."
Red light detonated.
Rowe crashed into the old ghost. The extended blade struck its body.
His reserves were nearly empty.
His recovery would have returned that power in an instant.
He suppressed it.
He forced his body to remain drained.
He wanted a death that could carve a crown of heroism out of the moment.
The old ghost howled. Tentacles spread. Darkness bit down like teeth.
It was going to die.
He was going to die.
Rowe felt no fear. Fighting as a human, he could at least die satisfied.
Then voices entered his ears.
Prayers.
Offerings.
Promises.
"We pray, we wish."
"Protect us, we offer our faith."
"The kingdom walks with the people."
"Sacrifice to the New God, Taiyi."
An invisible force surged upward.
Faith.
Reverence.
Life force poured into him like a tide that had finally found a channel.
For a moment Rowe saw them. People on the ground praying, burning incense, shedding blood, crying until their throats failed.
His power rose.
His body warmed.
His death moved away like a joke with bad timing.
Rowe made a sound that was not dignified.
"Oh, wow."
He stared at the darkness in front of him, then at the world below that was handing him a new name.
Seriously?
Leaving aside whether I can still die, I was fighting Taiyi, and now I am Taiyi?
<><><><><>
[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]