Chapter Eighty-Five: Earth’s Milk

The Mountain God, his chest pierced clean through, dropped to his knees on the ground, gasping harshly for breath.

A moment ago, the command token in Manman's hand had spat out a streak of firelight, blasting through the phantom mountain the Mountain God had condensed from the power of the earth veins, tearing open his chest and grievously wounding him. Then, with a strange and overbearing shamanic art, it had bound him fast and forced him into servitude.

At this moment, the Mountain God's aura was feeble, and his fighting strength was not even equal to that of an ordinary novice shaman. Without a long period of recuperation, nourished by the earth-vein energy of the mountain range that had birthed him, there was no way he could recover his former majesty.

Ji Hao studied the token in Manman's hand with keen curiosity.

The crimson token was made of a most peculiar material, neither metal nor jade, yet bearing certain qualities of both. It was exquisitely fashioned, six inches wide, an inch thick, and three feet long. Amid countless flame-patterns, carvings of fire dragons, fire phoenixes, and all manner of divine birds and beasts of flame were rendered so vividly that, at a glance, they seemed to be soaring and racing through the swirling sea of fire.

Ji Hao remembered with perfect clarity the instant that token had unleashed its power. The vast heavenly might it had released had frozen his whole body stiff. He had felt like a mere ant in the presence of a god enthroned high above him; his mind had gone blank, and he had utterly lost control of his own body.

That kind of heavenly pressure was terrifying beyond measure, unforgettable to the marrow. And yet it had been only the aftershock of power released by a single token.

"Well now, you really are something, forcing me to use the lifesaving token Father gave me." Manman swung the token carelessly in her hand, standing before the Mountain God and kicking hard at the arm he had braced against the ground.

"Do you know how long it takes to refill the power in Father's token after one use? It has to soak up sunlight for a whole day before the spent power is restored. And now it's the rainy season, the rainy season! How am I supposed to recharge it?" Manman kept talking as she raised the token and hammered it against the Mountain God's head, striking sparks with every blow. Ying Yan, watching from the side, could not stop baring his teeth.

"Take me to your lair. Big lunkheads like you always keep good things in your nests." Narrowing her eyes, Manman spoke with bright excitement. "And if there aren't enough treasures in there, you're dead for sure! Hmph. Big Brother is building a new palace for Father, and we happen to be short on laborers."

The Mountain God, now shrunk to a little over five zhang in height, gave a weak, muffled growl. Slowly he pushed himself upright, touched the hole in his chest, and strode off in the direction from which he had come.

As he walked, the great fellow kept turning his head, glancing again and again at the furry little bundle one of the guards was carrying.

Only then did Ji Hao notice that the thing in the guards' hands was a small beast shaped like a leopard, sleek and lithe of body. It roared and struggled unceasingly, and the fluctuations of power emanating from it were almost no different from those of the Mountain God.

At once, Ji Hao recalled what Ji Kui and the other old shaman-priests had once told him: beings as strange as Mountain Gods, if the mountain cavern and earth veins that birthed them were powerful enough, would often produce not only one Mountain God but also a companion beast born from the same source.

To a Mountain God, such a companion beast was the same as blood kin to a human.

So that was why Manman's guards had secretly seized the little creature. The Mountain God had flown into towering rage and pursued them relentlessly, only to be lured before Manman and beaten half to death.

"Fine, fine, I'm giving it back!" Manman squinted, laughing merrily. "You're already mine, and this little thing is mine too. Ha! Now hurry and lead the way. Let's take a look at your lair."

The guard holding the little beast loosened his grip, and the creature instantly turned into a streak of black light and shot away. It scrambled swiftly onto the Mountain God's shoulder and curled up there comfortably, lying down as if at peace. A faint smile slowly spread across the Mountain God's ancient, stiff face. He gently patted the tiny beast, no bigger than one of his fingers, and let out a joyous roar to the heavens.

Seeing the simple, natural smile on the Mountain God's face, Ji Hao could not help smiling as well.

The Mountain God possessed all sorts of uncanny traits, but he was still a spirit born of heaven and earth, and nothing could be more guileless and honest than such beings. Their smiles came from the purest joy of the heart, and within them was a strangely powerful warmth that moved all who saw them.

Manman, however, leapt up and planted a savage kick squarely on the Mountain God's backside. "Move it! What are you grinning like an idiot for? Hah, blockheads that pop out of rocks are impossible to talk to properly. Father has tens of thousands of stony louts like you under him, and every one of them is just as dull."

Ji Hao stared at Manman in shocked disbelief.

Her father had tens of thousands of beings like this Mountain God in his service?

Even the weakest Mountain God required the power of earth veins stretching across a thousand li to be born and nourished, and only by rare chance could the conditions needed to gestate one arise within some hidden earth-cavern. To command tens of thousands of Mountain Gods—how vast a territory must Manman's father possess to gather so many beneath him?

At the very least, as far as Ji Hao knew, the Fire Crow Clan directly or indirectly controlled a territory spanning over a hundred thousand li. Within that enormous expanse there were quite a few stone monsters like Old Stone, but true Mountain Gods, capable of commanding an entire mountain region and its terrestrial force, probably did not number even as many as the fingers on one hand.

The Mountain God panted heavily as he broke into a great loping run ahead of them. The others quickened their pace and followed close behind. After racing several hundred li, they came before a lofty and majestic mountain. The Mountain God rounded its base and halted before a cliff face.

With a booming cry, a yellow radiance flashed across his body. A crack silently opened in the cliff wall. The Mountain God turned back and muttered something, then strode into the pitch-black fissure.

Manman went first, and the others followed him inside.

At the entrance, the fissure was utterly dark, but soon a faint light began to seep from the surrounding stone. As they advanced deeper, the radiance gradually brightened. The mountain walls on either side grew lustrous and fine as polished jade, and in many places the stone had become as transparent as crystal.

The strange light came from within the rock itself. From time to time, naturally formed earthen-yellow runes could be seen flickering within the mountain walls. Ancient and weighty, these runes pointed directly to the primal source of the power of thick earth between heaven and earth. Ji Hao instinctively focused all his spirit and hastily engraved those fleeting symbols into the depths of his soul.

Ordinary people would never in all their lives have the chance to see such primordial runes born of heaven and earth.

They followed the broad fissure for more than a dozen li, and then the view opened all at once.

This was a vast cavern in the belly of the mountain, spanning dozens of li.

The ground of the cavern was made of fine yellow earth, rich and moist. If one squeezed it hard, a greasy juice like oil would even seep out. Countless strange flowers and herbs grew thickly over the soil. Ji Hao swept his gaze over them only briefly, yet he recognized several hundred potent medicinal plants Qing Fu had once mentioned.

Many of these herbs were exceedingly difficult to find in the mountains and forests, yet here they carpeted the ground. Some were of astonishing age, cultivated for at least several thousand years.

Around the roots of the herbs, gemstones of every size lay heaped in wild disorder like broken rubble—red, blue, green, white—glittering with dazzling brilliance. Every one of them was filled with dense earth energy.

But what drew the eye most was neither the herbs nor the gemstones. It was the pool at the center of the cavern, a hundred zhang across.

Within the pool was a mass of thick, heavy, earthen-yellow liquid. Waves of pungent earthy odor kept billowing from it, scratching at the throat until one felt an unbearable tingling itch.

Ying Yan cried out in alarm, "So much primal earth-vein milk? How many years would it take to accumulate a whole pond like this?"