Where water met sky due east, thick black fog surged like churning seas.
Over the Black River, time quietly slipped by, second after second.
The ancient beings gathered around him ran in packs or let out long cries, their clamor rising and falling.
But Zhou Heng simply stood quietly in place, his unwavering gaze fixed on the empty location marked by Fate Hint.
There was no telling exactly how much time had passed.
Perhaps a few dozen breaths, or perhaps several hours.
A faint, unusual purple glimmer suddenly appeared on the pitch-black, chaotic eastern horizon.
That purple light was not violent; it even seemed somewhat pale and gentle.
And as it appeared, the raging black waters roaring around him fell silent in an instant, in an utterly inconceivable manner.
Amid a vast expanse of pale purple clouds stretching across the sky, an enormous blue-green water buffalo, its four hooves treading on nothingness, swayed leisurely along with exceedingly slow, steady steps, crossing the waves from east to west.
Seated sideways on the buffalo's broad back was a white-haired old man in a loose Daoist robe.
The old man had a lean, simple face and a long white beard hanging beneath his chin. His eyes were neither open nor closed, one hand rested casually on a horn, and his body swayed with the buffalo's steps, exuding an indescribable ease and transcendence.
Purple qi came from the east for thirty thousand miles. Even by the data assessments of Boundless Endless, this was merely a false construct created by some mechanism during Blue Star's great era.
Yet the vast Dao resonance of classical Eastern mythology flowing from him still eclipsed the entire Fated Black River.
Soon, accompanied by the buffalo's steady hoofbeats, the man and buffalo passed through countless roaming pods of giant whales