Dragon Lord searched the northern grasslands, Lady Xiang traveled tirelessly through the southwest, and Lord Xiang went far up Kunlun Mountain, seeking the traces ancient gods had left behind in the modern age.
Cloudy mountains stretched into the distance, and the vast sky went on forever. No matter how they searched or called out, some things that had passed were gone for good—
Queen Mother of the West had vanished. Emperor Haotian had vanished.
Even if Lord Xiang was willing to let bygones be bygones and call out to former enemies—to Rushou, the metal god who had once fought him to the death, and to the war god Chiyou—he could not hear even an echoing remnant.
Yingzhao, Lu Wu, and Kaiming had all, with the establishment of the Heaven-Earth Barrier, migrated—or been exiled—to the savage world beyond the barrier.
How far it was from Huaxia—or from this human nation with its thin spiritual energy—no one knew. Nor did anyone know whether that distance could be measured by physical laws.
In any case, for the mortal world they loved so dearly, several ancient gods were all on the move, visiting deities they knew and even dragging out powerful great demons one by one.
Shen Le was bent over his work in Zhuxi Town, nurturing spiritual artifacts. Wooden objects needed repainting, silk fabrics needed added silk protein, paper needed cleaning and conservation, and Mud Figurines needed reinforcing and recoloring—
As for the Ancient Residence and the wooden ship, the workload was even greater. Just Cloud Kun alone kept Shen Le climbing up and down, wiping the ship inside and out, and he could not finish even a tenth of it in a day.
Everyone was working hard, contributing their strength to reinforce the Bronze Tripod and make one final expansion of the