Endless Gu.
Hidden inside clouds shaped like brains, they resembled people who had eaten something unclean and ended up with parasites growing in their brains.
Aside from Black Tortoise and Azure Dragon.
Gou Chen, however, seemed somewhat strange.
Black Tortoise had a completely different appearance; it had undergone a thorough transformation, becoming hideous and malevolent. Azure Dragon had changed little in form, but its methods were poles apart, making people uncomfortable.
But Gou Chen...
According to legend, Gou Chen had several forms.
In ancient astronomy.
Gou Chen was a celestial official. It was named so because the arrangement of its stars curved like a hook.
It belonged to the Purple Forbidden Enclosure.
The brightest of those stars was none other than the famous North Star!
When the age of religion arrived.
The North Star held a noble status, and thus Gou Chen the Great's Divine Seat came into being. He was one of the Four Imperial Lords, presided over wars and warfare in the mortal world, and was a deity of war and martial force.
In folk legends.
Gou Chen was a divine beast, described as having a dragon's head, deer antlers, and a snake's body.
It was also depicted as resembling a qilin.
In divination.
Gou Chen represented a power of delay and entanglement, as well as conflict, capture, and war.
These forms.
In ancient legends, could be said to have been passed down through the same lineage.
But...
The Gou Chen before him... The carving on the hexagonal altar resembled the legends, showing an altered qilin form. But when its enormous beastly shadow properly manifested, its appearance changed completely!
First, it was humanoid.
Second, it had been pieced and stitched together from countless corpses that had already begun to rot.
Every corpse was covered in all kinds of