To Rovi, who had crossed over from another universe, "Gudako" undoubtedly held a very special meaning.
As the protagonist of a game set in the "World of the Moon," she did not represent any single person or character within that game—or even the game itself. She represented its countless players, the countless people who loved this world named for the moon.
And naturally, Rovi had once been one of those players before crossing over.
The "Azure Heaven" standing here now was still that same person.
He had been himself then, and he was still himself now.
Past and present remained unchanged.
Of course, those complicated emotions passed in an instant. That distant past was still worth remembering, but it had long since become the past. Rovi would not lose himself in it.
His command over his own state of mind had already reached perfection.
And so, Rovi turned his attention elsewhere.
For example, the stone monkey before him had been born from the East Sea. Without question, she was the legendary Sun Wukong.
And at this very moment, he himself was the Heavenly Emperor.
In that case...
"Do you want to hit me?"
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven wreaking havoc in the Heavenly Palace seemed inevitable.
As the Heavenly Emperor, did that mean Rovi was destined to be beaten?
Perhaps he should beat her up first, right here and now.
"Huh? Why would I hit you?"
The stone monkey girl froze, scratching her red hair with a thoroughly baffled expression.
"We only just met..."
Having manifested through possession, this stone monkey was clearly not as wild as the original.
Her personality was somewhat more restrained.
"True." Rovi nodded solemnly. "Besides, you couldn't defeat me anyway."
The difference between them was far too great. Without even moving, Rovi could kill the newly born "Great Sage Equal to Heaven" with a single breath.
The stone monkey girl abruptly bared her sharp little fangs.
No matter how restrained she might be, she was still a monkey!
Rovi merely smiled.
"As for this one, she has helped me before. How about letting her go?"
Wuzhiqi clutched Rovi's sleeve and looked at him pleadingly.
Yu Mei-ren scoffed.
Being mocked by an old acquaintance made Wuzhiqi flush with humiliation, but in front of the stone monkey girl, she did not dare move an inch.
The newly born stone monkey was not actually "powerful."
Born with nine orifices and the body of a half-immortal, she was certainly far beyond ordinary humans. But compared to a seasoned primordial supreme god like Rovi, she was insignificant. Even beside a veteran chief god such as Yu Mei-ren—an Emperor-Lord at the level of a God-King—or a chief-god-level Demon Sage like Wuzhiqi, she fell far short.
Yet Wuzhiqi was terrified of the stone monkey.
The stone monkey was the manifestation of the original divine stone from the East Sea, while Wuzhiqi was merely a "fragment."
Theirs was a relationship between trunk and branch, far stronger than any simple matter of compatibility or natural advantage.
Of course, that did not mean Wuzhiqi was incapable of fighting her.
With such an enormous difference in strength, even as a mere offshoot, Wuzhiqi would not truly lose to the stone monkey.
What she actually feared was the figure behind the stone monkey...
"I never intended to do anything to her. She's just so stupid that letting her wander around outside would ruin my reputation!"
The stone monkey floated in midair as though submerged in water, kicking her legs up and down. Her furry tail swayed behind her with a faint rustle.
"Besides, Sister Lishan told me not to take her life. I was only supposed to scare her."
"If not for that Sister Lishan of yours, how would I have ended up being bullied like this?" Wuzhiqi finally snapped.
"Oh? Then would you like to test that? Hehehe. I promise I'll hold back."
The stone monkey grinned.
Wuzhiqi immediately shrank back again.
"The Lady of Mount Li?" Rovi asked, looking at the stone monkey girl.
The stone monkey planted her hands on her hips and snorted.
"Sister Lishan is the most beautiful goddess in the world! It was her warm power that awakened me."
Rovi naturally knew of Mount Li and the Lady of Mount Li associated with it.
Mount Li lay within Qin. It was a gathering place for tombs, a land where "death" accumulated, yet also one of the first places touched by the light of dawn.
It was the seat of the "earth mother goddess" worshiped by the people of Qin, the goddess of "Earth" paired with "Heaven."
Except that no such deity actually existed.
There was only a vacant divine seat, with no goddess who met its requirements.
Mount Li was Qin's "ancestral mountain." The goddess of Mount Li had been worshiped by the Qin people ever since their ancestors established their state there.
But Qin had been founded near the end of the Western Zhou, by which time the immortals and gods had already departed one after another. No goddess could possibly have answered Qin's faith and assumed that position.
That was why Rovi was somewhat surprised.
Yu Mei-ren, however, instantly became wary.
"The goddess of Mount Li... Who is she?"
She looked at Rovi, light flickering within her vermilion eyes.
Rovi spread his hands. "I don't know her. We aren't acquainted."
"Really, Your Majesty?"
Yu Mei-ren blinked, parting her red lips slightly. She lifted her face and breathed directly against Rovi.
Ever since revealing her "true nature," Yu Mei-ren had become almost a different person in certain respects.
"After I entered the Divine Land, weren't you beside me most of the time? How could I possibly know some goddess of Mount Li?" Rovi said helplessly. "Besides, Mount Li lies in the fertile lands of Guanzhong in the west. That territory falls under your authority as the White Emperor of the West. Don't you know there has never been a goddess on Mount Li?"
"That does seem... true."
Yu Mei-ren thought for a moment, then smiled.
"Fine. I'll let you off this time."
"You might be letting me off, but I don't intend to let you go."
Yu Mei-ren was about to pull away when Rovi suddenly pressed a hand to her head, drew her into his arms, and kissed her.
"Mm!?"
Yu Mei-ren froze.
But she did not struggle. She merely narrowed her eyes slightly and savored it.
Come to think of it, wasn't this the first time Rovi had taken the initiative to be intimate with her?
Yu Mei-ren was especially delighted.
Rovi had also done it to make his intentions clear—to show that he would never abandon her and put her mind at ease.
Whether human, god, immortal, or Sage, all sought peace of mind.
After a moment, they separated, a glistening thread briefly stretching between them.
Yu Mei-ren exhaled, her cheeks faintly red.
Wuzhiqi stared, dumbfounded.
The stone monkey girl scratched her hair, entirely unable to understand what they were doing.
Born from a divine stone, the monkey had been granted vast knowledge by the planet at the moment of her birth.
She was not a pure planetary Elemental like Yu Mei-ren, but she could still be considered a semi-innate planetary Elemental, possessing a closer connection to the planet than other immortals.
But the planet itself had no emotions.
Thus, the stone monkey could not understand matters of human feeling.
She did, however, understand their conversation.
"Sister Lishan isn't some fake goddess..."
She was getting angry.
"I don't care whether you're the Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress. You're not allowed to insult Sister Lishan."
The stone monkey bared her teeth as golden light blazed in her eyes. Her red hair scattered wildly around her.
Her face twisted into a "fierce, indignant" expression. Had she been in her original body, it might have looked intimidating.
In her current vessel, however, she merely looked adorably petulant.
Appearances really were a curious thing.
"I did not mean to insult her."
Rovi looked at the girl with a serious expression.
"If something I said offended you, then I apologize in my own name. However, it remains a fact that Mount Li has no goddess."
The stone monkey wanted to remain angry, but Rovi had already "apologized."
The words lodged in her throat, leaving her unable to vent her displeasure and only making her even more frustrated.
Wuzhiqi could not understand it either.
She had unquestionably met the "Lady of Mount Li," and the goddess had unquestionably been powerful—at the very least, stronger than Wuzhiqi herself.
Yet the Heavenly Emperor's word was absolute and could not be mistaken.
Perhaps...
That woman truly wasn't the Lady of Mount Li?
"Of course, the best way to settle this would be for you to take us to meet this Sister Lishan of yours."
Rovi continued, "Whether she is what she claims to be should be obvious at a glance, shouldn't it?"
He pointed at his eyes.
Only now did he reveal what he had truly been after.
The moment the stone monkey mentioned the "Lady of Mount Li," Rovi had already activated the eyes of Taiyi—the Core of Chaos coiled above the Foundation, in the highest of the Heaven Realm's thirty-six heavens—and swept them across the Divine Land.
Yet he had found nothing.
He had sensed nothing.
That in itself was abnormal.
The Lady of Mount Li might be false, but the "sister" spoken of by the stone monkey unquestionably existed.
If Heaven could not see her, then she was most likely not native to the Divine Land, and her existence had to be highly unusual.
Perhaps she was some kind of deity of the Underworld, capable of hiding beneath the earth and within Human Order, intimately connected to human life and death. Only such a being could prevent "Heaven" from locating her instantly.
That was why Rovi intended to have the stone monkey personally lead him to her.
The stone monkey girl puffed out her cheeks and narrowed her golden eyes.
"Sister Lishan went to the Divine Land."
"She borrowed a fragment of the stone that nurtured me. She said she was going to take back something that belonged to her."
"What was it?"
"I don't know. Sister Lishan didn't say..."
She truly had not.
But at that moment, Yu Mei-ren abruptly raised her head and looked toward the western reaches of the Divine Land.
Wuzhiqi also followed the direction of the surging Wei River, where her true body resided, and turned her gaze toward the mountains and rivers of Qin.
Rovi flicked his sleeve and raised his eyes.
In the direction they were watching, a ray of light descended like the first light of dawn, illuminating a majestic mountain.
Countless gravestones stood upon it.
There were resting places for nobles and burial grounds for commoners.
It held the tombs of kings and lords, as well as monuments to ordinary people.
Mount Li.
The "ancestral mountain" of Qin.
...
Beneath the sunlight, the endless gravestones began to shine.
Ghostly blue flames emerged among them, spreading outward like a river of stars.
An ancestral deity of Qin.
A "human" ascended to godhood.
Golden hair shimmered beneath the sunlight.
A young woman in a red cape looked down upon the countless gravestones covering the majestic mountain below.
Having entered the Divine Land using a fragment of the East Sea's divine stone, Eresh felt a sense of closeness to this place.
It was not only because the mountain resembled the Underworld where she had once lived, but also because she could sense that this mountain—and this divine seat—were intimately connected to Rovi.
"This world is very special!"
Eresh lightly stirred the air with one finger. Tilting her head, she sensed the aura of this place.
The Age of Gods had passed.
Yet that ancient age seemed to persist in another form.
High above the heavens, deep within Human Order, a vast vessel stood majestically between heaven and earth.
Eresh sensed the presences of countless overwhelmingly powerful gods.
She also sensed innumerable forms of Mystery resonating faintly with the planet itself.
More importantly, she sensed Rovi, seated high above them all.
The place where he resided was connected to the mountain upon which she now stood.
Through that connection...
"I'll definitely be able to find you."
Eresh smiled.
She felt no rejection from this place.
She could sense the mountain responding to her call.
And so, at that moment...
Ghostly blue flames flickered across Mount Li.
With a wave of her hand, Eresh sank beneath the ground.
The ley lines of Mount Li roared without end. Under the goddess's divine power, an "Underworld" slowly came into being.
It was the manifestation of Mount Li's Concept as a gathering place for the tombs of the dead.
The goddess of Mount Li was also the ruler of the Underworld beneath Mount Li.
At last, the goddess of Mesopotamia became a "deity" of this land.
This was neither an invasion nor a seizure.
It was a divine manifestation accepted by heaven and earth alike—the assimilation a foreign god inevitably underwent after arriving in the Divine Land.
Eresh merged into this land.
Her name and identity remained her own, yet at that moment, in accordance with the Mandate of Heaven, she embedded her existence within the Divine Land.
This was the power by which a god manifested their Mystery.
She moved upstream through time, pushing traces of her own existence into the past.
Naturally, that power was not without limits.
With her current abilities, Eresh could not embed herself too deeply into the Divine Land's distant past, when God-Kings were numerous and primordial beings far from rare.
She could only extend her history back a little under a thousand years.
...
The true name of the goddess of Mount Li was Ai. She was descended from Ru Ai, a minister who aided Emperor Shaokang in restoring the Xia dynasty. During the Shang dynasty, she attained the Way at Mount Li, manifested countless divine wonders, and became an earth mother goddess.
She was wed to the manifestation of the Azure Heaven, ancestor of Qin.
—Records of Qin
...
Within the royal palace of Xianyang, among the innumerable books stored in its archives, this information inexplicably appeared upon the bamboo slips recording the history of Qin.
The countless people of Qin noticed nothing.
Only Qin Shi Huang, standing within the majestic palace, looked up at the heavens.
Thoughtfulness appeared on his young but increasingly imposing face, where a beard had gradually begun to grow.
Why does every last one of them want to become my ancestor?
"Hmph. Once I finish constructing that colossus, I will settle accounts with all of you!"
For Ying Zheng, nothing in the world could compare to the joy of building a mecha.
"How is construction proceeding?" Ying Zheng asked without turning his head, addressing Zhao Gao beside him.
Zhao Gao answered respectfully, "We still have no leads."
"However, a young traveler recently arrived from the East Sea. They wear azure wings and resemble a qi refiner of antiquity who has undergone feathered ascension."
"They claim... they can help Your Majesty forge it!"
"Hahahaha! Excellent."
The First Emperor laughed loudly, yet his eyes never left the Azure Heaven.
Azure Heaven... Azure Heaven...
"Rovi, I found you."
Eresh suddenly opened her ruby-red eyes. Her red lips curved into a smile.
Following the connection between Qin's "Heaven" and "Earth," Eresh had finally found Rovi.
She had located him.
He was...
"The East Sea?"
Eresh's eyes widened in astonishment.
"I told you Sister Lishan really was the goddess of Mount Li, but none of you believed me."
Above the East Sea, the stone monkey girl folded her arms across her chest, looking unbearably smug.
Wuzhiqi stared in shock.
Yu Mei-ren narrowed her eyes, instantly wary.
Rovi, however, stood there dumbfounded.
Eresh—!?
Wasn't she in the Primordial Highest Heaven?
How had she gotten here!?
And how had she become the goddess of Mount Li!?
---
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