novelraw Chapter 85 : Opening the Mountain, Summoning the Clouds (9/9)
Chapter 85 : Opening the Mountain, Summoning the Clouds (9/9)
Chapter 85: Opening the Mountain, Summoning the Clouds (9/9)
A gleam of brilliance flashed across Xiao Yang’s eyes as he momentarily slowed the drawing of the Mountain-Moving Rune.
His figure drifted down lightly, silently landing before Jiang Zhaoming.
His gaze pierced through the flowing Dao resonance and fell upon the embryonic form of the Black-Tortoise Spirit behind Jiang Zhaoming—a nascent vision of a tortoise carrying vast mountains upon its back.
At once, a trace of genuine astonishment and admiration flashed in his eyes.
Jiang Zhaoming slowly opened his eyes from his state of enlightenment. Traces of earthen-yellow Dao markings still lingered within his pupils.
“Divine General Xiao, there is still much about this Dao that I do not understand. I ask that you enlighten me.”
Xiao Yang did not stand on ceremony. He could tell that Jiang Zhaoming was at a critical juncture in condensing his Earth Dao Foundation—and with his extraordinary talent, he was worth guiding.
“Observing your Black-Tortoise manifestation—it bears the mountain, carrying the weight of ten thousand catties. This embodies the true meaning of ‘Kun Yuan Bearing All Things’, emphasizing both bearing and stability.
Yet the Dao of Earth is not merely about heaviness and stillness. It also nurtures, flows, and carries within it the cycle of life and death for all things.
Your Dao Foundation seems overly focused on the form’s weight, while somewhat lacking in the spirit’s motion and the pulse’s flow.”
He extended his fingers like a sword, and a strand of pure, earthen-yellow divine light—imbued with the rhythmic pulse of the earth itself—touched Jiang Zhaoming’s brow.
“Observe carefully the veins of the Ridge of the Burial Dragon—feel its breath, its rhythm. The mountain is no dead thing; the earth has spiritual roots. The path of Earth is not stagnant; it too may surge like rivers, nourishing all beings—”
As Xiao Yang’s divine thought guided Jiang Zhaoming into sensing the grand and living pulse of the earth veins—
—a strange innate ability within Jiang Zhaoming, born from his Sandworm bloodline, suddenly resonated violently and was awakened.
The Sandworm race’s innate talent: Affinity with Earth Veins.
This gift allowed them to synchronize naturally with the earth’s pulsation—to perceive and channel its energies for miraculous, rapid traversal.
“Pulse, traverse, nurture—”
Xiao Yang’s words exploded within Jiang Zhaoming’s sea of consciousness.
In an instant, his understanding of his own Sandworm gift and the Earth-elemental arts he had cultivated over the years merged into one.
A brand-new realization about the essence of manipulating Earth power emerged before him.
It was not merely for bearing and defense.
The power of Earth could also become part of the world’s great network of veins—borrowing its force, following its flow, and traversing a thousand li in an instant.
“So that’s it! Kun Yuan Bearing All Things—to be unmoving as a mountain is one aspect; but Kun Yu Hidden in the Abyss, pulsing without cease is another!”
Brilliant divine light burst from Jiang Zhaoming’s eyes as he could not help but exclaim aloud.
With that world-shaking realization, the once-blurry manifestation of the Black-Tortoise Spirit behind him underwent a fundamental transformation. The tortoise raised its head and roared silently. The boundless mountain upon its back came alive.
Among the undulating ridges, countless intersecting earth-veins shone with earthen divine light, flowing like blood vessels.
These veins faintly connected with the entire Burial Dragon Mountain Range, as if the tortoise itself had become a vital nexus of the earth’s network.
A deep, vibrant, and harmonious Dao resonance—capable of carrying all things and linking all directions—erupted outward.
The Earth Dao Foundation – Black-Tortoise Spirit was perfectly formed!
Moreover, at that instant of completion, a new divine art—born of his enlightenment and fused with his Sandworm talent—naturally engraved itself into the depths of his soul.
Kun Yu Hidden-in-the-Abyss Escape!
With a flicker of thought, Jiang Zhaoming’s form turned translucent, composed of countless minute grains of sand.
In the next moment, he seamlessly merged into the earth beneath his feet.
No fluctuation of spiritual power. No tear in space. Only a faint ripple of the earth’s pulse flashed and vanished.
A hundred zhang away, a circle of earthen ripples spread outward.
Jiang Zhaoming’s body emerged intact, as if rising from beneath water.
The entire process happened in a flash—he seemed a natural part of the earth, merely shifting through it in a short-range leap.
“Good! What an exquisite Earth-element escape art!”
Witnessing this, Xiao Yang’s eyes flared with unprecedented brilliance, and he could not help but clap in praise.
“For the Prince of Anxi to comprehend such a subtle art from the true meaning of the earth vein’s bearing of all things—His Majesty’s path ahead is truly limitless!”
Even this well-traveled Divine General was shaken by the Prince’s self-created art that merged perfectly with his own Dao Foundation.
Jiang Zhaoming cupped his fists deeply and bowed. “For today’s guidance, Divine General Xiao, this Zhaoming shall never forget. My gratitude is beyond words.”
Though his tone was respectful, it was not self-effacing.
A Divine General of Great Zhou held an exalted position and unfathomable strength—his status far beyond that of an ordinary royal scion.
Xiao Yang’s sermon and guidance were no small favor; such courtesy was only proper.
Xiao Yang nodded slightly, accepting the salute, his eyes showing even greater appreciation for this gifted and steady-minded Prince of Anxi.
This young prince, with such profound roots at his age, would surely have an extraordinary future—perhaps not inferior to the Prince of Huaijiang.
Seeing Jiang Zhaoming’s enlightenment complete, Xiao Yang wasted no more time. His figure rose again, hovering before the main peak of the Burial Dragon Mountain Range.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
During this time, the ancient jade brush in Xiao Yang’s hand never ceased moving.
With strokes like dragons and serpents, earthen-yellow runes imbued with boundless power were engraved deep into the mountain’s heart.
Layer upon layer of runes interlocked and shimmered, as though binding the ancient colossus with invisible chains—yet also igniting within it a fuse capable of shaking heaven and earth.
Finally, as the last rune merged into the rock, the jade brush dimmed.
With hands clasped behind his back, Xiao Yang hovered aloft, his gaze sharp as lightning as he surveyed the fruit of three days of labor.
“—Mountain, open!”
His voice was not loud, yet it carried the will to command heaven and earth, resounding clearly into the clouds.
“Rumble——!”
In the next instant, heaven and earth quaked.
The entire Burial Dragon Mountain Range—the spine that stretched ten thousand li and upheld the sky—let out a roar of agony unlike any before.
The peaks trembled violently; rock that had endured eons shattered like brittle glass.
The earth was torn and kneaded by invisible giant hands.
Abysses thousands of li long split open like ferocious scars across the plains and hills.
The cataclysmic shock rippled outward from the Burial Dragon Mountain Range, spreading madly in all directions.
Within a hundred li, mountains collapsed, boulders rained, rivers changed course, lakes reversed flow, ancient trees were uprooted, and houses turned to dust.
Within a thousand li, the ground heaved like boiling water, cities quaked, and walls cracked with web-like fissures.
Fortunately, Jiang Zhaoming had already evacuated the commoners within a thousand-li radius, so none were harmed.
At the storm’s center, the Burial Dragon Mountain Range itself was undergoing a remaking akin to creation’s dawn!
Under the pull of countless runes and Xiao Yang’s supreme might, the deep strata of the mountains groaned—the earth veins forcibly twisting.
The once-solid range, seamless and indestructible, was split by an invisible divine axe.
“Crack—BOOM!”
With a thunderous roar that shook the universe, an immense canyon cleaved through the mountain’s body.
Amid flying boulders and rolling dust, a colossal chasm opened wide.
The canyon spanned nearly a hundred li. Its sheer cliffs were smooth and steep, piercing the heavens.
The vast sea of clouds, once trapped to the east, now found release.
Billowing mists poured like a celestial river, roaring through the newly-formed gorge into Anxi.
The clouds churned in endless splendor, bringing long-lost moisture and life to this arid land.
Moving mountains and filling seas—splitting heaven and earth.
Divine General Xiao Yang, with supreme might, had carved upon the eternal barrier of the Burial Dragon Mountain Range—
—a grand passage uniting east and west, guiding the clouds into the borderlands.
As the dust settled, the resonance of destruction and rebirth still echoed endlessly across the land for ten thousand li.