Chapter 101 The 101st Day of Creating a Game: Tales of the Underworld
As the 360 stars vanished one by one, Pangu's phantom image shattered into dust, and the great battle came to an end.
In the end, Di Jun dragged Kunpeng along with him and self-destructed, taking most of the Ancestral Witches with him. Seeing the death of his brother, with whom he depended for survival, Donghuang Taiyi became even more bloodthirsty and ultimately chose the same path as his brother.
In the end, Buzhou Mountain was broken by Zhu Rong in the battle, causing the sky to collapse and the earth to split open, and floods submerged most of the prehistoric world.
In the center of the battlefield, wails of agony filled the air, and bones littered the ground. The witches had long since perished along with their ancestral witches, and the great demons had also lost their lives in the battle, their own lives exchanged for the witches'. The remaining lesser demons were missing limbs and other injuries.
Houtu, protected by her brother with her life, stood between this world, which was full of "living beings" yet utterly empty.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Just half a month ago, this place was a prosperous and thriving territory of the Wu tribe, but in the blink of an eye, everything has changed.
What exactly happened? Why the fight? Everything seemed to happen suddenly. I lost my closest relatives and friends in a daze, and even the people I had always protected disappeared.
The war between the Lich King and the Demon King resulted in the deaths of all the tribesmen, leaving the primordial world in ruins.
It shouldn't be like this!
The tears on Houtu's face did not fall to the ground, but melted into her skin halfway, like rainwater merging into the earth.
She turned to look at the little demons who were injured on the battlefield or by natural disasters. Countless mounds rose up, taking them to high places away from the floods and ferocious beasts.
Then she never looked back: "Heaven above, I, Houtu of Pangu, see that all living beings are deeply mired in calamity, unable to find peace, living without death, having a beginning but no end, and the Great Dao is flawed. I, Houtu, am willing to transform myself into the six realms of reincarnation to mend the Heavenly Dao."
"From this day forward, the living dwell in the primordial wilderness, the dead return to the netherworld, and the cycle of heaven and earth begins!"
Upon hearing this, the heavens and earth changed color. On the originally blood-red battlefield, one after another white divine soul appeared, rushing towards the Six Paths of Reincarnation that Houtu had transformed into.
But these are the souls of demons and innocent souls who have died, while the witches who have no primordial spirit can no longer reach the land of reincarnation.
Houtu gazed silently, even seeing the great demon from not long ago among these souls, but her brothers, whom she longed to see most, would never come again.
From then on, the Wu Clan and Houtu of the Wu Clan ceased to exist in the world.
Houtu's body gradually merged into the earth. Between heaven and earth, there must be an underworld, which governs the six realms of reincarnation and controls the cause and effect of good and evil.
The brilliance and sorrow in Houtu's eyes today have been replaced by impartial compassion, and now her heart is solely devoted to all living beings and the vast, desolate land.
But the next second she saw a familiar figure rushing towards her with a fiery red little golden crow.
Houtu's eyes flickered again: "Yuanyi, Xiaoshi."
Her tone was as always, as if she were facing a familiar friend and a caring junior before the Lich War.
The little golden crow trapped in the courtyard immediately burst into tears: "Empress Houtu, waaaaah, don't go, you're all I have left."
His elder brother died, his father and mother died, his Uncle Donghuang and Uncle Xuanming perished together, and his strictest minister Bai Ze and his uncle Zhurong, who always wanted to tease them, were also gone.
And now, even their most gentle goddess, Houtu, is about to vanish into the world.
How could Xiao Shi accept such a thing? He rushed towards Houtu with all his might, but could only rush towards the dissipating body and find nothing.
But this time, Houtu did not comfort the youngest child gently as usual. Instead, she turned to Yuanyi and said, "This child has no relatives or friends now. We can only ask you, fellow Daoist, to take care of him in the future."
Even at this moment, Houtu did not hold a grudge against Xiao Shi, who was the crown prince of the Wu clan. Instead, she thought that as one of the six realms of reincarnation, she could not return to the primordial world, so she could only entrust him to Yuan Yi.
This was the second person to say something like that to her, and Yuan Yi simply shook her head.
"I already have apprentices, so you are more suitable to take care of this child?"
You? Houtu assumed Yuanyi had misspoke. She lowered her head, her body already mostly merging into the earth: "From now on, there will be no more Houtu of the Wu Clan in the prehistoric world."
Yuan Yi feigned surprise: "Isn't there internet underground? You can certainly explain this to the little bird."
What a joke! Even the words of the Little Golden Crow in the heart of the Witch Clan's battlefield can spread far and wide, let alone a newly established clan that has set up its headquarters in the underground underworld, where the earth's veins are most active!
Since they're already making games in the prehistoric world, how can they give up on the huge market of the underworld? She had long ago installed interconnected formations underground, so as long as there's a place in the underworld connected to the prehistoric world, it will definitely be able to connect to the formation network.
Yuan Yi was certain of victory, and Hou Tu, whose part had already merged into the Underworld, subconsciously opened the game interface and was actually able to chat with her game friends from the Primordial World!
However, "why are the portraits of my elder brother and Donghuang Taiyi still lit up, and why do they show that they are on the same screen as me?"
Houtu always keeps her eleven brothers at the top of her game interface so that she can deal with the troubles they cause as soon as possible.
So when she opened the game interface and saw a whole row of still active game accounts, even Houtu, who had already abandoned personal feelings, couldn't help but choke up.
"The living dwell in the primordial world, the dead return to the underworld. The eleven Ancestral Witches have died, so they will naturally go online in the underworld. However, you reminded me that we cannot simply break the boundary between life and death. In the future, we need to move the Underworld server out separately. Cross-server communication will require the consent of the Underworld's higher-ups and the Primordial Heavenly Dao."
At this moment, Houtu's human form had almost completely dissipated, but she still tried her best to speak: "But the Wu Clan does not have a primordial spirit, and cultivators who self-destruct will also have their primordial spirit completely dissipated."
Houtu had a premonition that this question was very important to her. This was the answer she had been searching for all along: finding a primordial spirit for the Wu tribe.
Yuan Yi said, "Living beings are born between heaven and earth, their bodies cycle repeatedly, while their primordial spirits are eternally reincarnated. As long as the primordial spirit exists, living beings exist. This is the principle of the Great Dao."
"But can only the primordial spirit prove the existence of a living being? The existence of a living being is clearly due to its every action in contact with this world. It has been here and recorded. As long as the world exists, it can prove that it once existed."
"Then even without the primordial spirit, we can still find all living beings again from heaven and earth."
Yuan Yi pronounced each word with utmost steadiness.
Houtu, whose face had become blurred and was about to be transformed into the six realms of reincarnation, reappeared as a member of the Wu clan: "So that's how it is, so that's how it is, then brother..." In the end, she still had some attachment to her family.
But Houtu did not continue speaking. She already understood that the world lacked the Six Paths of Reincarnation to bring peace to all living beings. She would sacrifice herself to protect all living beings in the primordial world, giving up Houtu of the Wu tribe in exchange for a new life for all living beings in the world.
Houtu's appearance vanished once more, leaving only the words, "Thank you for your explanation, fellow Daoist." Her understanding of reincarnation had deepened further. Not only had her previous doubts been resolved, but she also gained more insights into the current state of the Underworld.
After all, she was the Goddess Houtu. Between the common people and her personal feelings, she abandoned her selfishness and chose the common people.
Yuan Yi sighed. It was precisely because of this kind of Empress Houtu that she was willing to do this unprofitable business.
Yuan Yi reached out and precisely grasped the hand of Houtu, which had turned into chaos.
At this moment, Yuan Yi seemed to have transformed into a towering tree, with golden patterns spreading from its roots and branches, connecting the entire chaos together.
"This is my meticulously crafted 'Koukou Tales,' which can recreate the scenes of the underworld in the game. Your Majesty can make good use of it and take control of the underworld." Yuan Yi spoke in a grand and dignified manner, as if this really was a nested doll game of playing the underworld within the underworld.
But when Houtu came across the data migration function highlighted in red and bold in this game, she was momentarily speechless, as if her brain and throat were blocked.
She remembered that the last time Yuan Yi gave her was all the game data of the Wu Clan. So, if these two things were combined, would she be able to see the faces of her eleven brothers again in the game?
Before Houtu could think further, this chaotic state shifted between the tangible and the intangible until the Six Paths of Reincarnation were established, and Houtu was no longer here.
Only Yuan Yi and the little golden crow remained, staring at each other in bewilderment.
Yuan Yi extended his hand: "Why don't you come with me for a while?"
Xiao Shi, who was already exhausted from crying, didn't say anything, but silently put her arm around Yuan Yi's shoulder.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the game "Koukou Story" with only one player has spontaneously transformed into "Netherworld Story".
While Houtu was trying to appease the newly arrived souls in the underworld, the excessive number of souls caused chaos in the newly established, desolate underworld.
Houtu thought that someone should help manage the souls of the living.
There should be twelve levels of hell and six realms of reincarnation, each with its own administrators, so that all souls in the world may live in order.
If she were the only person in the underworld, even with the help of the rules, there would inevitably be areas she couldn't consider.
Thinking this way, Houtu wanted to select a suitable soul from among these millions of souls and grant it a position.
Those with great perseverance and merit should be chosen; Houtu used this as the selection criterion.
However, it turned out that the most meritorious thing in the entire underworld was actually the game pattern on his own body.
Houtu was both amused and exasperated. How much merit had Fellow Daoist Yuanyi added to this formation? It was almost enough to light up the entire Underworld.
If selection is based solely on merit, does that mean we should use a game to act as Yama, the King of Hell, and the judge in charge of managing souls in the underworld?
However, it seems that Fellow Daoist Yuanyi mentioned that this game has a management function?
Houtu added the most prominent talent recruitment function to the game's design, but this was followed by a silent uproar over the data migration button.
Countless golden rays of merit surged from the patterns in all directions, connecting the jade slip that Yuan Yi had given to Houtu and the still-developing rules of the underworld.
The next moment, countless familiar figures reappeared before Houtu's eyes.
Some wield axes, some hold knives, some carry snakes, some hold eagles, some carry fire, some draw water...
The burly man, still bearing injuries, scratched his head: "Little sister, what do you need us for? We just heard a voice say you need help with some work, but weren't we fighting earlier..."
Zhu Rong, who was standing to the side with flames still burning, punched the brainless Xuan Ming hard: "Didn't you hear me clearly? I already said that the Underworld is short of people and asked us to come and do the work. Hou Tu is now the lord of the Underworld!"
"Oh, so the younger sister is the eldest now, shouldn't we call her 'older sister'?"
Even Houtu, who had completely lost all emotions and desires, couldn't help but feel an indescribable emotion when she saw this familiar yet unfamiliar scene. A slow smile crept onto her usually calm lips.
Just as this group of enemies were still bickering and talking nonsense, the usually calm and collected Dijiang, like a saw-mouthed gourd, leaped into the midst of the souls carrying a giant axe, forcefully forcing the chaotic souls to line up in an orderly fashion.
What's there to ask? No matter where we come from, Houtu is right here. Even our silly brothers came along. So let's just listen to her as we did in the primordial world!
It's just too many spirits causing trouble. So many of the witch clans have come here; they can always manage to control it if they take action.
Seeing their elder brother set an example, the other members of the witch clan also jumped down to work together. Before long, the problem that had been giving Houtu a headache—the wandering souls that required judgment and reincarnation—was easily solved.
Then, a genuine smile appeared on Houtu's face, and she tapped the chat interface with golden light of merit: "[Thank you, I really like this game.]"
The other end replied instantly: "[This is just a normal game program. By the way, could I borrow a few souls to be used as NPCs in the new game?]"
They're not under the jurisdiction of the underworld for now; I'll let them know first.
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The author's note: Everyone deserves happiness, and Houtu Niangniang, who transformed the six realms of reincarnation for the sake of all living beings, should also have a happy ending.
Houtu's idea: Import data from the previous game into the new game, and recall the voice and smile of her elder brother in the game.
Yuan Yi's creation: Using Heavenly Merit to exchange for data from the world to import into the Tales of the Underworld.
Data in a game is just data, but data in the world is the data of countless living beings.
The Blinded Heavenly Dao: You never said that Tales of the Underworld was the entire Underworld, did you? (Not yet found)
The twelve ancestral witches correspond perfectly to the twelve levels of hell. There are also the ox-headed and horse-faced underworld messengers who send the witch clan to capture escaped souls. Although they sometimes have a hard time figuring things out, their execution is top-notch. [Sprinkling flowers] The underworld is starting anew.
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