Safe City Ch.219

Chapter 219: Hundreds of Millions of Streaks of Light

With all kinds of incessant chatter ringing in her ears, Cheng Qisheng simply gave up on sleeping.

After all, she was a Tier 7 Transcendent. Going without sleep wouldn’t affect her much. She could make sure the Old Eighths managed to catch some dragons to bring rain, while also studying whether this method of ordinary mortals using a “password” to open a link channel could be applied to deities.

At present, Fallen Heaven Star could practically be described as a grand gathering of demons, monsters, ghosts, and spirits. Even if every resident of every Safe City joined the effort, relying solely on the gods to catch them all would keep everyone busy for quite some time.

Ordinary mortals, however, had no divine power. Even among cultivators, only a tiny handful could truly cultivate supernatural abilities.

But summoning a god to possess one’s body was a different matter.

Cheng Qisheng intended to recreate the scenarios from the zombie movies she had watched.

When she was little, every time she watched a movie in which some Daoist master summoned a powerful deity to possess him, only for the deity to be forced to leave for one reason or another, turning what had initially been an advantageous situation into a disadvantage, she had always found it strange.

If a deity’s possession could be interrupted so easily, why didn’t the deity simply descend in person and help?

Now Cheng Qisheng understood.

Because the gods simply couldn’t spare the time!

Just look at Youdu right now. Lu Luo, the third-generation sect master of Fenglu Mountain, who didn’t need to sleep after eating, had already hit it off so well with Qian Heng that, after being “recommended,” he had taken a seat among the Four Great Judges.

Just one incense stick ago, Lu Luo had still been in disbelief.

He had never imagined that simply because he had accumulated considerable merit during his life and continued doing good deeds after death, he would be given an opportunity to work for such a massive “organization.”

And not only that, he had become an official the moment he joined!

Most importantly of all, after taking up a position in Youdu, he would no longer need to worry about his remaining yin lifespan.

—“Youdu is the place that accommodates the souls of the deceased throughout the world. Unless Your Excellency personally wishes to enter the cycle of reincarnation, you may remain in Youdu for as long as Youdu exists.”

Lu Luo was both deeply astonished and overjoyed.

He was happy, on the one hand, because he no longer needed to worry about his lifespan. On the other hand, he was delighted that Youdu had promised to treat Fenglu Mountain amicably. It was even willing to select some Fenglu Mountain cultivators to serve as Yang Messengers in Youdu.

How was this any different from having cultivation levels dropped right into his lap?

Lu Luo was absolutely delighted. So delighted, in fact, that Cheng Qisheng could sense his exuberant emotions through his official waist token.

—Though there had been a slight hiccup along the way.

As the Judge of the Office of Merits and Transgressions, he had seen mountains upon mountains of records detailing the good deeds of departed souls. The files were piled so high that they nearly filled the entire great hall, and he was expected to review and approve every single one of them.

Ever since Lu Luo had taken his seat in the tall-backed official chair of the Judge of the Office of Merits and Transgressions two hours ago, he hadn’t been able to move his backside even once.

And the best part was that he was a Yin Deity. Yin Deities didn’t need sleep, which meant he could work and work without stopping.

After that brief moment of being overwhelmed, Lu Luo himself seemed quite enthusiastic.

It was a little tiring, but he had cultivated for several hundred years, and his divine power was far stronger than that of ordinary ghost deities. With all his divine power working simultaneously to process the files, he was still getting through them at a pretty impressive speed.

Besides, he was still caught up in the excitement of having somehow come to collect a descendant cultivator, only to end up with an absolutely fantastic job!

One had to remember that before tonight, he had been a pitiful Yin Deity with barely more than a decade of yin lifespan remaining, on the verge of dissipating entirely.

And now, with a complete change of fortune, he had become one of the Four Great Judges of the Luofeng Youdu Office, responsible for overseeing the reincarnation of souls throughout the world and specifically judging the good deeds of the departed.

The newly appointed Judge of the Office of Merits and Transgressions grew more and more motivated the longer he thought about it. He rolled up his sleeves, steeled himself, and plunged back into the sea of records, working tirelessly without sleep—

——

Meanwhile, ninety-nine percent of the Blue Sea residents on Fallen Heaven Star hadn’t gone to bed either.

The Old Eighths were absolutely cherishing this period of godhood.

Because they were deities, even the tiniest gods—down to the Gods of Chicken Feathers (and yes, Fallen Heaven Star really did have Gods of Chicken Feathers)—could stay wide awake and full of energy without sleeping.

Didn’t that amount to suddenly having twice as much life?!

Although Blue Sea residents had gradually been receiving anti-aging injections, extending their average lifespans to around 250 years, the feeling of suddenly having even more time at their disposal still gave the Old Eighths a wonderful sense that they were getting an incredible bargain.

Even though Youdu had already been fully established, and Blue Sea residents no longer needed to spend day and night hauling bricks, they still chose not to sleep.

After all, what Blue Sea resident could possibly resist spending a wonderful late-night hour in the divine kingdom bestowed upon them by their god, enjoying good health and boundless energy without needing to sleep, while vigorously working out with their own homemade fitness equipment?

Even if their current bodies would revert to their original forms when they left Fallen Heaven Star, meaning the results of their workouts might not carry over physically, the experience gained through training wouldn’t simply disappear.

That’s right. All the residents of Blue Sea’s Inner City had previously been busy establishing Youdu. Now, they were practically on-call reserve candidates for positions as Youdu’s ghost messengers.

Under these circumstances, something extremely rare had happened: after arriving in a new world, the residents of Blue Sea’s Inner City hadn’t fought a single large-scale battle.

Clearly, the residents had already swiftly cleared out all the demons and monsters in the areas surrounding the places where they were enshrined.

With nowhere else to expend their seemingly boundless energy, the Old Eighths naturally had no choice but to channel it into their fitness equipment.

And now, an oracle from their god had arrived—

And what was more, it involved catching dragons!

Speaking of dragons, the people of Blue Sea couldn’t help thinking of the Skywing Dragons, which had contributed so many flying wings to their city.

Ah! What a pity!

Those Skywing Dragons were native to Dazzling Star. Later, when they visited Green Billow Star and Moon Silk Star, they never encountered such adorable giant creatures again.

Quite a few Blue Sea residents who hadn’t managed to get their names on the waiting list for flight wings couldn’t help lamenting whenever they thought about it.

Although the dragons on Fallen Heaven Star were obviously not the same species as the Skywing Dragons, they sounded incredibly powerful and difficult to deal with.

The Blue Sea residents scattered throughout Fallen Heaven Star immediately grew excited.

Some were practicing squats while holding their divine statues. Others were working on their flexibility inside their divine kingdoms, twisting their divine bodies into pretzel-like shapes. Some were sparring with nearby Blue Sea deities atop desolate graves. Still others, dressed in flashy black-and-white outfits, were out collecting souls.

At that very moment, all of them respectfully raised their gazes toward the sky.

“Yes, my God. We shall obey Your divine decree.”

—Whatever their God desired, Blue Sea would surely offer it to Her.

The dragons of Fallen Heaven Star bore a striking resemblance to the dragons of Blue Star mythology.

Their heads resembled camels’, their horns deer antlers, their eyes rabbits’, and their scales fish scales. Their bodies were generally several dozen meters long, though it was said that some particularly enormous dragons could reach lengths of three to four hundred meters.

However, compared to the dragons in later Blue Star mythology, which had already become officially appointed members of the celestial bureaucracy, the dragons of Fallen Heaven Star were far wilder.

They possessed naturally superior physiques. Some had cultivated themselves into demons, while others had never cultivated at all. They relied solely on their formidable bodies to dominate entire fishing fleets.

The people of Fallen Heaven Star called them demon beasts—and extremely powerful ones at that.

Mortals worshipped them and offered them sacrificial offerings. Sometimes, the worshippers themselves even became the sacrifices.

The Divine Dao generally avoided provoking them. The two sides maintained a clear separation: the Divine Dao occupied the land, while the dragons ruled the oceans.

—Everything described above was based on legends.

There wasn’t a single legend in which the Divine Dao and the dragons had clashed. After all, their respective territories didn’t overlap in the first place.

At present, not a single Blue Sea resident had ever personally laid eyes on a local dragon.

Even the great Creator God of Blue Sea had never seen one. But as the saying went, being well-prepared could never hurt.

She had instructed her believers to stand ready for action.

After all, Fallen Heaven Star’s transformation field was practically suitable for everyone, young and old alike. It ensured that nobody would make the trip here in vain—everyone could become a god!

Apart from those staying behind to guard their homes and the children, Blue Sea now had 418 million residents on Fallen Heaven Star.

Excluding residents like the Earth Gods, who genuinely couldn’t stray beyond a certain distance from their own divine statues, as well as Outer City residents who couldn’t receive divine oracles, Cheng Qisheng had summoned every Blue Sea resident who was capable of moving around freely.

This was probably the largest operation Blue Sea had ever undertaken since making its debut in the Safe City system, both in terms of manpower and overall scale.

Cheng Qisheng could practically feel the excitement and anticipation surging through her believers, no matter how hard they tried to contain it.

The immense spiritual power of the great Creator God of Blue Sea swept over the believers standing ready for action. She bestowed a collective blessing upon them while taking a headcount.

One hundred and ninety million.

That should be enough, right?

That night, the sky was filled with stars—

The weather had been clear during the day, and disasters had been occurring with increasing frequency lately. As a result, quite a few cultivators had chosen to spend their nights continuously observing the celestial phenomena, attempting to calculate what exactly was happening and what they should do about it.

For as long as the world had been in turmoil, they had been performing their divinations.

The celestial phenomena were also controlled by the Heavenly Dao. One could therefore imagine that the harder these cultivators tried to make their calculations, the more chaotic their results became.

If Cheng Qisheng had been there, she would have quickly realized that all these cultivators were simply wasting their efforts.

The current situation was rather like this:

Originally, the Heavenly Dao had provided cultivators with a locked display screen. All they needed to do was insert a coin and press a few shortcut keys on the star keyboard. The screen would then display messages such as “Rain today,” “Cloudy skies today,” “A dynasty is about to change,” or “An extraordinary individual has been born.”

But now, although the display screen was still there, every single function on the star keyboard had broken down. No matter how hard the cultivators hammered away at the keys, all that appeared on the screen was gibberish.

At best, they might manage to piece together something like “September 78th, chicken wings at 14% off”—a sentence that was utterly incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, the cultivators didn’t have the Heavenly Dao’s perspective.

On this quiet night, whispers could be heard throughout Fallen Heaven Star. Some cultivators muttered to themselves, while others spoke softly with their fellow disciples.

“The stars keep shifting! There’s no way to derive any meaningful results!”

“It’s not just the shifting. Quite a few stars have fallen as well. It looks like something truly disastrous is about to happen.”

“I was clearly trying to calculate the fortune of the dynasty. So why did my divination produce the phrase [Fabric Absorbs Water Better and Tastes Better]? Could this be some kind of hint from the Heavenly Dao?”

“You must have made a mistake in your calculations. Yesterday, I derived something that looked like a recipe. When I followed it, I nearly burned a hole through the only cooking pot I had!”

At the same time, some cultivators who had remained silent, focusing solely on their own calculations, suddenly raised their heads.

“Wait! The celestial phenomena have changed. They’re becoming clear!”

“Quick! Perform the calculations again!”

“Perhaps this is a hint from the Heavenly Dao!”

Enduring their physical exhaustion in the cold night air, the cultivators continued their divinations relentlessly. And finally!

After so many days, they had finally obtained a result that was grammatically coherent and clearly expressed.

—“You’re so noisy! So noisy! So noisy!”

In the dead silence of the night, the numerous cultivators stared at the results of their divinations, sinking into profound bewilderment.

And just as they were questioning their very existence over what they had calculated, layer upon layer of brilliant light suddenly flashed across the pitch-black sky.

Cultivators standing atop different mountain peaks, at Daoist temples, and on the observation platforms of imperial palaces all looked up.

They weren’t the only ones who raised their heads. Some ordinary mortals with particularly keen spiritual sensitivity, as well as upright government officials with strong official aura, were also suddenly awakened that night. They opened their windows and gazed up at the sky.

In one small mountain village after another, the local Earth Gods emerged from beneath the ground. The City Gods of various counties also poked their heads out of their temples, their faces filled with astonishment.

For above them, hundreds of millions of streaks of light, so numerous that they nearly covered half the sky, were rapidly flying toward a single destination.

“Wait… Are those all… deities?”

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