Chapter 676 - Fortunes
The shed skin of the goddess giggled and said, “I’ll just go there and get them out, easy enough.”
Zhong Yue was awestruck by her suggestion, Did the shed skin of the goddess say she would go there personally and get them out?
Can she actually go wherever she wished? That was so strange. But what did she mean when she said she was the goddess’s past body?
At that very second Zhong Yue thought of this, the blood ocean started to shrink as the blood surged into the body of the goddess’ shed skin; the size of the shed skin was huge, but compared to the blood ocean, she was extremely tiny. However, she managed to contain every single drop of the blood ocean into her body, and that was extremely amazing.
At the same time, a skeleton was revealed as the blood was sucked away. This skeleton was a Dao skeleton, a skeleton imprinted with the Dao of heaven and earth, grand and holy, a skeleton that would make people bow willingly upon seeing it.
The Dao skeleton then slowly merged with the shed skin while one after another detached Dao totem carvings attached together again and flew right into the shed skin.
Ding ding—-
From the sea came accessories like headwear, wristbands, anklets, and others and they slowly flew and positioned themselves on the body of the shed skin.
When the blood ocean disappeared, the shed skin body shrunk to a size similar to Zhong Yue’s and a heartbeat could be heard coming from her chest.
“Let’s go,” said the shed skin as her transformation completed.
Zhong Yue was shocked entirely and all he could do was stare into her with an empty mind while Xin Huo voiced out his question, “You said you are the previous body of the goddess, what did you mean by that? Are you alive or dead?”
“Of course I’m alive,” giggled the shed skin, “I may be the discarded body of the goddess, but innate gods are immortal. The innate gods’ spirits are their souls, their bodies. Thus, while I am Goddess Hou Tu and have her memories, Goddess Hou Tu is not me. Ever since she acquired and mastered the Six Paths Wheel, she shed me away and reforged a new Dao body to become a Dao God.”
Though what she said was difficult to comprehend, Zhong Yue and Xin Huo still managed to understand what she said.
The Dao body was the current body and the shed skin was the previous body, both were Goddess Hou Tu, but after Goddess Hou Tu discarded her previous body, the previous body did not die away because Goddess Hou Tu was an innate god. Thus, the previous body was still alive and so was the current body.
“Then, how are we supposed to address you?” asked a confused Xin Huo, “Both of you are Goddess Hou Tu, it would be a trouble to differentiate the both of you in the future.”
With a giggle, the shed skin said cheerfully, “You can call me Goddess Shen Hou.”
“Shen Hou, nice name.” Xin Huo praised before immediately asking again, “Goddess Shen Hou, what about the Dao blood you promised us just now? And the【Earth Mother Art of Empress】.”
“What a cunning boy, how could I forget?”
Goddess Shen Hou extracted a pool of Dao blood into a sphere. The sphere of blood spun around in her palm and instead of appearing to be actual blood, the ball of blood looked like a purified red ruby. “I’ve prepared it for you long ago. Be careful, I may be able to seal away a portion of the Dao blood’s power, but you still have to be very cautious when refining your inheritor’s bloodline since he is still too weak. Be forewarned that if you are not careful enough, the blood will turn you into a Hua Xu Celestial.”
Zhong Yue thanked her earnestly and retook control of his body as he accepted the Dao blood from her.
Within the Dao blood was a terrific innate Dao. When the purest bloodline of the Huaxu Celestial Race was in his hands, he felt an inexplicable resonance between him and the blood, causing his original fleshly body to flicker in and out of existence intermittently.
Without a thought, Zhong Yue placed the Dao blood into his psyche ocean somewhere on top of the thunder pool with lightning speed and he figured out that this was not the best time for him to extract the blood.
The Dao blood was, after all, from an innate god and it must be used cautiously or he would be crushed by it.
Goddess Shen Hou then proceeded to teach him the【Earth Mother Art of Empress】, which Zhong Yue went through it detail by detail. He felt that the【Earth Mother Art of Empress】was even more complex than the【Time Light Spatial Crystal Mystic Scripture】taught to him by Xin Huo. But the【Earth Mother Art of Empress】was obviously a technique made for women, which was not suitable for him or he would turn into a woman.
But he could still take the【Earth Mother Art of Empress】as a reference to improve himself.
Hmmm… I think it’s better if this technique were taught to Senior Martial Sister Jun and Jin’er instead. But the effect would be different depending on the person who taught them this technique. Goddess Shen Hou would be able to maximize the effect if she was the one who taught them, I wonder if I can get her to teach them?
Goddess Shen Hou then looked at him from top to toe and asked curiously, “Is this your real body? Do you need my help?”
Zhong Yue thanked her again, but this time, he rejected, “No, thank you. I’d like to do this myself.”
Goddess Shen Hou laughed and said, “Alright. It will be slower for you to do it yourself, but it is still a better choice because you will gain a deeper understanding on the Six Path Wheels. Goddess Hou Tu only allowed me to leave this place after the lucky winners came forth. Whatever was bestowed upon you is too little, so I suppose I can teach you another song.”
Her psyche rippled and a song was directly imprinted to his psyche ocean, but Zhong Yue did not even know what the song was singing about.
The song, however, refused to fade from his mind, and each time it played, he felt that his understanding on the Six Path Wheel deepened. It was truly bemusing.
“Good, let’s go now.”
Zhong Yue hesitated for a moment; he wanted to behave like Xin Huo but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. However, in the end, he still asked with a thick skin, “Goddess Shen Hou, would you still gift me the things needed to open the Bloodline Wheel?”
“Of course, if you want to give it to someone, I’d just help you.”
Zhong Yue’s heart felt relieved and suddenly, the scene in his vision changed drastically and they were back at the door again where Bai Canghai and Ma Sansou were still searching for Zhong Yue. While they were confused and shocked, Zhong Yue’s reappearance with an extremely beautiful girl had scared them greatly.
“Brother Zhong, would you stop disappearing and reappearing constantly?” Bai Canghai complained, “You are a skeleton now and each time you disappear, you’d reappear somewhere terribly close to us. Do you know how scary is this? And this lady?”
Zhong Yue laughed and replied, “This is Goddess Shen Hou.”
He did not mention her origins, only giving them her name since her origins were rather intimidating. Besides, it might not be a wise decision to spread information of this goddess as well. If Goddess Hou Tu’s enemies came looking for Goddess Shen Hou after learning about her origins, it might not be that serious to Goddess Shen Hou but it would be a catastrophic encounter for Zhong Yue and the others.
Thus, he preferred not to say anything so as to avoid unnecessary trouble.
“Goddess Shen Hou was here earlier than us and obtained some treasures about the Six Paths, which she said she could give us some.” said Zhong Yue again, “Goddess, this is Bai Canghai from Bai Zhe Celestial Race. May I ask you to give him some?”
With a nod and a flick, a divine ray flew out from Goddess Shen Hou’s fingers which entered straight into Bai Canghai’s body. In an instant, he felt that an invisible barrier between his body and Yuan Shen evaporated; the power of the two merged and the hidden bloodline in him was unleashed, forming another secret realm!
The sixth secret realm — the Bloodline Secret Realm — was achieved just like that!
He felt that everything was like a dream; he never thought that someone as unlucky as him would become so lucky in one day that he would be able to unlock the sixth wheel without even trying!
Suddenly, the young man from the Bai Zhe Clan cried and said, “For so many years I have entered this place. With the Innate Curse Body, wherever I went, bad luck followed, people looked at me with disgust and I’ve always ended up with nothing. Every time, I carefully avoided people in fear of bringing bad luck to them but there would always be someone that lost their lives! Eight years! Time slowly passed and people avoided me immediately upon seeing me. It really is difficult! This is my first time gaining something in these years!”
“Brother Zhong! Do you think bad luck has left me?” Bai Canghai sobbed with tears and hope in his eyes as he grabbed onto Zhong Yue’s hand.
Zhong Yue immediately shrug him off and said, “I’m afraid that there is still a long way to go until your luck can turn around.”
Hearing his reply, Bai Canghai rolled his eyes back.
Zhong Yue burst out laughing and headed towards the bottom of the mountain with Goddess Shen Hou after that.
Bai Canghai and Ma Sansou followed behind them and suddenly, Man Sansou had a huge shock when he turned around only to see the palace on the mountain had vanished without a trace.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain, he looked back again and realized that the jade mountain had disappeared as well, which made him shiver as he thought, Eerie, really eerie! So many strange things are happening.
First, the skeleton Zhong Yue vanished and reappeared from time to time, then the blood ocean and its disappearance and the gorgeous lady that followed Zhong Yue around; each and every single incidents felt extremely weird.
And now, the disappearance of the palace and the mountain greatly scared him.
But of course, Zhong Yue failed to notice this since he had experienced everything first hand. But as someone who had never witnessed something like this, Ma Sanshou felt a cold shiver travel down his spine.
At the same time, Fa Bisheng’s and Jun Wudao’s jaws were on the ground as they blankly stared at the spot the mountain and palace used to be.
With two hundred top tiered followers each, these two Qi Practitioners went through countless challenges and difficulties; they lost most of their comrades and when they got to this place, about every one of their followers had already perished, leaving only a dozen of them, all of whom were weary and paranoid from their harrowing journey.
Just as they thought they could rest after reaching their destination, the mountain and palace had vanished with their hopes!
And this was a fatal blow to their will.
“The key! The fortune of this place must be in their hands!”
Beside Fa Bisheng, a lady shrieked as she lost their mind, “Master, have them hand over the fortunes!”
Being shocked and disturbed by the disappearance of the mountain and palace, Fa Bisheng lost his cool and when his gaze shifted from the mountain and Zhong Yue, his expression was very dark.
Zhong Yue frowned slightly upon this, and he immediately warned Bai Canghai and Ma Sansou, “Keep an eye out for them, don’t let your guards down.”
The duo nodded immediately and prepared themselves for a tough battle.
Zhong Yue then looked at Jun Wudao and saw that the few ladies behind Jun Wudao were conversing among themselves. Although he couldn’t hear what they were saying, Zhong Yue could tell that whatever they discussed had ill-intent. But Jun Wudao did not say anything, instead, she stared at Goddess Shen Hou.
“There were only three of them when they hiked the mountain, but now, there is another lady with them now.” Jun Wudao whispered.