Darkness.
A demonic creature slowly rose upon the rim of the enormous bronze cauldron, his muddy-yellow sheep's head hanging low. He let out calls like surging tides, his long, twisted limbs struggling outward, only to be restrained by bronze chains.
"Grave Sheep."
He spoke again. Endless blue-yellow radiance gathered, as though countless living beings had been devoured and refined by this thing, becoming part of his demonic body.
Having attained a Divine Ability, Xu Fayan could discern quite a few clues on this visit. He asked hesitantly:
"Are you Senior Stone-Chiding?"
"Me?"
A smile gradually appeared on the sheep monster's face. His half-human, half-beast features twisted until they actually bore some resemblance to Xu Fayan.
Boundless gales howled toward him, cold and dryness alternating, yellow dust filling the sky. The demonic creature clinging to the cauldron's rim roared:
"I am Gu Huaixu."
"I am Xu Fayan."
"I am Wei Huang."
"I am the eldest son, I am the stillborn, I am the spirit monster, I am one."
Xu Fayan had intended to enter the Nether-Mystic Expanse and invoke Nether Sheep's honored name to stir its mystical power, frightening off the Zhuyan. But the thing he had awakened exceeded his expectations.
The darkness broke apart. Blue and yellow intertwined as something vaster and more immense manifested. Amid the wind and sand filling the sky, a recumbent corpse faintly appeared. A sheep corpse.
It was a deep, shadowy color, its entire body covered in blue-yellow divine patterns. Its two horns resembled long blades with icy edges, and its four hooves trod upon metal, wood, water, and fire respectively.
Even in death, its yellow pupils, vast as stars, peered outward in discontent. Its greedy maw gaped as if devouring, day and night succeeding one another, warmth and cold intermingling, transforming between chill and