Chapter 383 — The Bloodline of the Evil Dragon
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
At this moment, upon the Yong River, besides their own boat, there were fishing boats one after another, treasure ships carrying ore and dark gold, dark iron, and dark copper, merchant vessels hauling goods to and fro, and passenger boats ferrying travelers.
The Yong River's waters ran strong and swift, its fish fat and savory; and so the river was crowded with boats, and the harbors and docks along its banks were many.
Yet now the mountains on both banks were sinking little by little beneath the river's surface, and upon the river there remained only boat after boat gliding over the water. Many vessels halted one after another; who knows how many people thrust their heads out over the gunwales to peer about, not knowing what had happened.
Some divine-ability wielders even flew up from the decks, gazing bewildered at the Yong River.
The Yong River floated in midair. Its waters, tens of thousands of li in length, had not broken apart; rather they still flowed through the sky, shone upon by the early-rising sun and shimmering with a riot of colors.
Splash—
A merchant ship hauling goods failed to hold steady; it burst out of the river's surface and plunged down from the sky, falling helplessly toward the mountains below, growing smaller and smaller. After a while, the ship smashed into a stretch of mountain forest; after another while, the sound of its landing reached the ears of the crowd upon the river—a muffled, faint sound.
The ship's owner leapt clear the moment it fell, and many divine-ability wielders helped rescue the others aboard; the casualties were few.
Some official cargo ships carried officers of the Kingdom of Jingping, who straightway ordered the divine-ability wielders to save lives, rescuing common folk from the other boats and setting them down on the land below; other soldiers and officers flew out of the Yong River, speeding toward the cities beneath to beg for aid, to summon tower ships to the Yong River's rescue.
"It's none of my doing. Don't look at me—I didn't do it."
Shen Mu and the others turned their eyes to the blind elder. The blind elder shook his head, his face grave. "To set the Yong River afloat in the air demands power far more formidable than mine. A man of such magnificent strength is something I have never seen in all my days... Look below!"
Shen Mu and the rest looked down at once.
The Yong River had been lifted up and was flying in the air; the water beneath had parted from the earth. The current had once been somewhat turbid, so that the riverbed could not be seen; but now the mud and sand within the river had vanished entirely—as though, when the Yong River took to the sky, only the water had been borne up and not the silt within it. Thus the river water turned incomparably clear, and the eye could pass through it to the land below.
At once they saw great fish swimming in the water, distinct and plain before them—a wondrous sight.
Because the Yong River had its source in the Desolate Ruins, it teemed with monsters: fish-monsters and water-monsters of every kind lurked deep in the riverbed, and their shapes were grotesque beyond reckoning. Shen Mu had lived by the river since childhood and had seen many of its fish-monsters and water-monsters, yet now he beheld many he had never seen before. Doubtless they had lain hidden deep in the riverbed and seldom risen, and so were rarely glimpsed.
And now he could see everything within the river, with utter clarity.
Just then, a chill of dread ran through them all: a body sleek and slippery, immense and immeasurably long, swayed as it passed beneath their boat, its vast bulk swimming with the river's current, winding away toward the west.
Great scales scraped along the boat's bottom, rocking the little vessel once before it steadied again.
The enormous body swam on without raising the slightest wave; the scales that grazed the hull did the boat no harm, only jostled it a little, as though a swift current had struck it from below.