Chapter 172: The Unnameable Taiyi, Zong that Governs Yin and Yang
To this day, Rowe's sword still rode his back.
It had been modeled from a Fusang branch and anchored to the concept of the sun. Since then, it had never stopped being tempered. As the god who carried the sun's Authority, Rowe constantly bled that concept into the blade without intending to, the way a star leaks heat simply by existing.
He had not drawn it in a long time.
That only made it sharper.
Now that he had entered Qin, Rowe intended to finish what he had started. He would forge the sword again in the Qin heartland behind Xianyang until it became a pure Blazing Sun, a blade of unalloyed Yang.
A demon slaying sword.
A tool to cut down the Six Heavens Ancient Ghosts and purge the last stains left behind by the Old Ones who had once tried to invade the Chinese ancestral gods.
Rowe had confirmed it during his travels through the states.
Those ghosts were not hiding in mountains or swamps. They hid in historical gaps.
Some states on the Divine Land rose and vanished quickly, but many families inside them could trace their lineages back to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. The depth of human order ran for thousands of years. Cracks existed everywhere, layered so deep they could swallow even gods.
That was why the Six Heavens Ancient Ghosts were difficult to find.
Worse, their existence did not remain passive. They could influence the human world continuously. In a sense, the collapse of rites and music and the endless warfare of the four hundred years of Spring and Autumn and Warring States could be traced back to their pressure.
A slow poison.
But a crisis of national annihilation left little room for shadows.
When homes and kingdoms collapsed, there was nowhere to hide.
Qin's eastward blade gave Rowe the exact opportunity he needed.
Finding them would be difficult.
Killing them would be more difficult.
Yet Rowe was confident.
He had the Chaos in his mind, and the one trait that mattered most here. He was not afraid of contamination.
If he could cut them down and purify them with a sword of pure Yang, it would also return a final fragment of strength to the Chinese ancestral gods who were still resisting the Old Ones beyond the heavens.
In any case, the Six Heavens Ancient Ghosts were weirdness stripped from the ancestral gods themselves. Their existence was a restraint, a shackle, a wound that never closed.
That was Rowe's plan.
And a plan was something done later, step by step, without rushing.
For now, he had something simpler to handle.
"First," Rowe said, standing on the dragon chariot and looking down over the mountain range below, "we build a home in Qin."
The Azure Dragon drew the chariot, head lifted, presence vast.
By now, even if Loki, the Norse god of sophistry, saw this beast with his own eyes, he would not recognize it. It had been transformed so thoroughly that its origin might as well have been rewritten.
The dragon lowered the chariot toward the ground. Steam like mist rose with the descent. Eight eagle like claws touched down, and the wheels rolled forward.
They landed on a high mountain.
The highest around Xianyang.
Its peak stood like a fortress, overlooking Qin, seeing the land without obstruction.
"A home?" Xu Fu tilted her head. "Then I'll help too."
"How annoying," Consort Yu muttered as she stood, swaying slightly. "I'm coming too. I'm not letting you take all the credit, Monarch."
"Then all of us get off together," Rowe said, stepping down from the chariot.
They had barely moved when the ground gave a faint tremor. Dust rolled in from afar.
Qin cavalry.
They carried Ying Zheng's decree.
"By order of our king, this mountain is designated as the human world residence of the Monarch. All demons, spirits, and monsters must keep their distance."
The soldier did not need to say it.
The mountain's nonhuman residents had already fled when Rowe entered Qin. In this era, aside from ancient demon saints like Wuzhiqi, nothing dared face the divine might of the Great Monarch.
But the decree continued.
"By order of our king. With generous compensation, recruit common laborers to build a temple for the Great Monarch on this mountain, with child attendants on either side. Its scale will equal the King of Qin's palace."
Rowe, Consort Yu, and Xu Fu, who had intended to build a residence here themselves with their own power, all stopped at the same time.
"It seems our host is enthusiastic," Rowe said, mild amusement in his tone. "We should not disappoint him."
There was another reason he did not say aloud.
If Qin built it, the building would carry human traces. Not a miracle dropped from the sky, but a work recorded into human order.
It would become history.
It would be the first time Great Monarch was inscribed by others into the human world. Rowe had no reason to refuse.
Also, Ying Zheng had ordered recruitment, not conscription.
That meant the people benefited too.
Rowe had no reason to believe the King of Qin would act dishonestly in front of him.
"Hahaha. Great Qin's national strength is abundant. What are mere riches?"
Dust rose again beyond the cavalry.
A king's chariot approached, drawn by six horses, the ruts heavy and proud.
As recorded in the Rites of Zhou, the Son of Heaven rode with six horses. The one arriving had placed himself in that position without hesitation.
His identity was obvious.
Ying Zheng.
The cavalry dispersed. The king dismounted and stepped out from the shadow of his canopy, walking toward Rowe.
Others could not directly gaze upon Rowe in his manifestation as Great Monarch.
But Ying Zheng, holding the territory of Great Qin, possessed the qualification.
"You and I finally meet properly, Great Monarch," Ying Zheng said.
Rowe's eyes narrowed slightly in amusement.
"My exchange with you in the sea of consciousness left me with impressions as well."
"Then sit," Rowe said. "Why stand?"
"Fine."
Ying Zheng laughed as he took his seat.
"To sit with an immortal god. I once believed I would only have this chance after unifying the world and searching Penglai in the Eastern Sea."
"There are not many immortals left in the Eastern Sea," Rowe replied.
One man and one god.
One earthly king and one immortal emperor.
They sat on the mountain peak while cavalry sealed the slopes like a wall.
Xu Fu hid under the canopy of the chariot, pressed into herself as if she might evaporate from excitement. Consort Yu yawned and lay lazily in the sunlight.
As a planetary spirit born within the planet, she had once disliked the surface sun.
Now, beside Rowe, sunlight always carried his presence. That warmth made her feel safe in a way she refused to name.
The soldiers brought a table.
Ying Zheng raised a cup, thoughtful.
"Not many immortals on Penglai," he murmured, disappointment flickering. "A pity. I had wanted to test my strength against the gods of the mythical era."
Rowe lifted his own cup.
Ying Zheng had not yet unified the world, and his status was lower than Rowe's in this land. Still, Rowe could treat him as an equal for the moment.
Emperor and king differed, but both were rulers. Both stood apart from their subjects.
And status, in the broadest sense, was influence. Whether enforced by personal power or by Authority and might, it could be measured on the same scale.
"There is no real difference between the immortal path and the human path," Rowe said, draining his cup. "Even now, am I not drinking wine and eating meat with you?"
"With wine," Ying Zheng said reflexively, "how can there be no meat?"
Rowe's request was absurdly worldly. It clashed with the image Ying Zheng carried of cold, distant immortals.
And for that reason, it felt closer.
Ying Zheng laughed.
"With wine, there must be meat. With wine, there must be meat."
He ordered the soldiers to hunt at once.
"Gather ingredients from the mountain. Let the Great Monarch taste the flavors of Great Qin."
Before long, the soldiers dragged back a mountain elk.
Ying Zheng personally demonstrated what he called Qin flavor.
Rowe set down the carving knife after a moment, eyes narrowing with quiet judgment.
"Your culinary skill is hard to describe."
Ying Zheng laughed, shameless.
"I have never needed to cook. How would I have skill?"
"Then why invite me?"
"Why not?" Ying Zheng lifted his chin. "I am the King of Qin. Food made by the King of Qin needs no skill. Anything I make is the most delicious thing in the world."
Rowe looked at him for a beat.
"Even I cannot understand your greatness."
"I just think you are as punchable as someone else."
Ying Zheng paused, then laughed again, loud enough to frighten the birds from the pines.
"Since you refuse to taste my deliciousness, then I will leave the rest to my soldiers."
Arrogant, yes.
[Damn i can see Gilgamesh in this guy]
And still carrying a stubborn goodness in the way he framed everything.
Rowe exhaled and smiled, setting the knife down.
Truthfully, it had tasted fine.
Much better than Rowe's own attempts at cooking.
"The Emperor says my culinary skill is hard to describe," Ying Zheng said, rising. "Then next, witness what I prepare for this world."
He spoke like a man sharpening a blade.
"The true delicacy."
Using the Qin sword as the utensil.
Using mountains and rivers as ingredients.
Ying Zheng arrived with a smile, and left with a smile, his chariot vanishing down the mountain road under cavalry escort.
Consort Yu watched his back, frowning.
"Strange fellow."
"Yes," Xu Fu whispered eagerly. "Very strange. The Monarch is better."
Consort Yu's eyes flashed with feral irritation.
Even now, you are still trying to flatter your way into favor?
Rowe remained seated, gaze following Ying Zheng until the man became a dot in the distance.
Strange.
And also not strange.
This was Ying Zheng, an earthly king who dared raise his sword even when facing immortal gods.
Rowe stood.
"Whether he is strange or not, we will see in the future. Next," he said, looking over the mountain, "we wait."
They would wait for Qin's people to build the Great Monarch's residence.
They would wait for Rowe's mark to be etched into human order.
Above them, the chariot's canopy shed layers of light like pearl curtains, sealing the space into a private shelter from wind and rain.
So they waited.
And watched.
After Shang Yang's reforms, Qin's state machinery had run at high efficiency for more than a century. Once Ying Zheng gave an order, the response arrived like a wave.
Within half a day, laborers answered the recruitment. Earth and timber were hauled up the mountain. Soldiers helped as well.
Foundations rose.
Beams locked into place.
One building after another climbed out of the ground, steady and severe, like Qin itself.
Rowe did not move beneath the canopy.
Neither did Consort Yu or Xu Fu.
From time to time, offerings arrived from Great Qin. Xu Fu had not reached the immortal realm yet, but she had no fear of hunger.
Days passed.
Sunrise and sunset repeated.
Starlight spilled down from the river of the galaxy.
Rowe watched the land beneath him.
He watched the Qin people, their spirit unbroken and bright even under labor.
He watched the sky in its brilliance.
He watched the night in its dim vastness.
"Great Monarch," Xu Fu whispered, eye gleaming, face flushed with excitement while she forced herself not to move. "It feels like you have comprehended something."
Consort Yu tried to sound indifferent, but worry leaked through.
"Comprehended what? There will not be a risk of assimilation, right?"
To establish a connection with a planet meant accepting the possibility of being covered by the planet's immeasurable traces, slowly becoming an invisible planetary spirit.
A fate that swallowed even primordial gods.
Assimilation was a calamity. Difficult to avoid completely.
Consort Yu's concern was not foolish.
Xu Fu, however, looked almost confident, as if belief could serve as armor.
She believed Rowe could overcome it.
She believed even more that the Great Monarch would never be swallowed by the stars.
Consort Yu's heart eased despite herself.
Then she frowned.
"Do you hear that?" she murmured.
Something was ringing.
Thin as a thread.
Like wind passing through grass.
Rowe opened his eyes.
They had always been mixed gold and red.
Now the gold burned brighter, and the red sank darker, like heat and blood sharing the same depth.
His ancient robes lifted in a motionless breeze. The binding in his dark hair loosened, strands falling free.
Gold and red.
Light and dark.
Intertwined within him.
The sun and moon he had watched.
The mountains and rivers.
The Qin people.
"This," Rowe said softly, almost chanting, "is Yin and Yang."
His mind vibrated.
The Chaos that had always sat inside his consciousness, born from the malice of an Old One, responded.
It did not resist.
It dispersed.
What Rowe had sought all this time, to accept that madness without being drowned by it, finally succeeded.
He assimilated it into himself.
Chaos divided into Yin and Yang.
Then converged back into Chaos.
Madness and rationality twisted together, inseparable.
A bell echoed through the long night.
Consort Yu looked up and saw a faint light spreading into mist, then condensing into an ancient grand bell hanging in midair.
And within it, in the corner of her vision, she seemed to see something that should not exist.
A whirl of indescribable fog.
Invisible tentacle like extensions.
Striking and beating at an unseen drum.
Unnameable.
Unthinkable.
It became Chaos.
It became the unutterable.
It became freedom.
This was primordial Taiyi.
Rowe's path, forged with Chaos as its seed.
An immortality belonging only to him.
He had once attempted an immortal path under the Fusang Tree. He had become an immortal in an instant, then discarded it.
Rowe had known from the start what he sought was not star immortality. Not an existence that simply outlasted Heaven and Earth.
What he wanted was this.
This chaotic and unnameable path.
This was precisely
"The sovereign of Yin and Yang."
The mist vanished. The bell dissipated.
Consort Yu's senses snapped back, and she saw Rowe raise a hand.
The sword on his back hummed as it drew itself free, turning its point toward the sky.
Sword light flashed.
It split into two opposing forces, like a nascent sun and a setting moon.
As Rowe absorbed Chaos, the blade finally gathered sun and moon, divided Yin and Yang, and became the instrument he had intended to forge.
The light fell like rain made of stars, scattering over the Qin pass lands.
That night, countless lives looked up in confusion.
Night still felt intoxicating, yet something in their hearts stirred, as if insight had been forced awake.
That night, some stared into the star rain, attained enlightenment, and fell into dreams where they saw 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]