The Human Emperor had fallen, the Human Path had been invaded, and this battle had lasted roughly one-tenth as long as the Human-Shaman War.
It truly was a vast catastrophe.
Natural disasters and famine swept through the land, the dead lay in one another's sight, bands of thieves rose everywhere, and the four barbarian frontiers encroached upon the borders.
The prosperous living beings of the Human Path had likely never imagined that such things would one day happen to them.
Under the control of certain Shamans, strange insects suddenly swarmed through the fields across the Human Path. Neither claw nor fang, they burrowed and gnawed, entering from the roots and joints of the grain into its heart. Whoever touched them would surely die. They spread from one place to another, from one territory to an entire town. Every field, even all manner of engineering works built by the Human Path, was left without a single remnant; all were devoured clean.
These were Fuzhong, the scourge of beetles—gu insects bred by the Shamans.
At that time, some husbands and wives wept bitterly beside their fields, joining hands to drown themselves in rivers. Some returned home after weeping, shut their doors, and hanged themselves. Some heard that their neighbors had taken their own lives and followed suit. The heartbreaking, dreadful scenes could not all be recounted.
But the Shamans were not targeting these ordinary people. In truth, releasing Fuzhong was merely meant to release the land's strength, to free nature from the Human Path's control over heaven and earth.
The Human Path had once manipulated the seasons and controlled the land's strength, arranging all things according to its wishes and bringing everything into its plans. What these Shamans did now was no more than return the restricted weather and earth-force to their