Chapter 41: The Celestial Star Spans the Continent – 3

Suddenly, a stir rippled through the crowd as their attention turned to the campfire.
Several leaders hurriedly crouched and crawled over, only to breathe a sigh of relief.
It turned out that the shaman, who had been sitting on the ground, had nearly toppled over but swiftly straightened their spine and propped themselves up.
A middle-aged man beside the shaman steadied them, then burst into tears. Once the strongest person here, he had remained steadfastly by this elder’s side for over a decade.
Now, the youth who had been the tribe’s mightiest was also entering middle-aged.
He was well aware that the elderly person beside him had long endured both physical and mental pain, yet the shaman always relied on a formidable will to sustain this frail, weathered body.
No one knew why they could hold on for so long.
It seemed that the last glimmer of life essence deep within their bones could always be squeezed out just a little bit more.
……
The witch turned his withered, loose-skinned head, lifting his hand with effort. The middle-aged savage immediately bent down and lowered his head, allowing the old man to pat his head lightly.
The surrounding wild men, their ferocity diminished, cast envious glances.
……
Crackle~
A towering flame of two to three meters blazed with majestic vigor.
Throughout the endless ages, the snow-white demon that had claimed countless lives would detour around it, lest it be vanquished—such was the divine power of the shaman.
Whenever the flame showed the slightest sign of weakening, someone would add timber into it, following the shaman’s teachings.
Beneath the warm ashes beside it lay buried many tuber-like fruits, a gift from the shaman.
For decades, they had sustained tens of thousands of people in this region. Countless tribal leaders had traversed mountains and rivers, risking death at the jaws of tigers to lead their people here, just to fill their bellies with such sustenance.
The benevolent shaman never stinted in sharing it with all who came here.
Thus, a tribe formed in this place.
The old man sat by the bonfire with his eyelids half-drooped, like a ascetic lost in deep meditation.
I know not how long passed, but he seemed to hear a phantom sound.
“Xiao Wu?”
……
Suddenly, the surrounding crowd erupted in a clamor of “Ooh-oh” and “Hoo-ah,” startling the Great Shaman—who had thought he was again hearing things.
The old man, now utterly dulled, strained to open his blurry, clouded eyes to look—the vague figure of a person, clad in very thin but brightly colored clothing, appeared in the distance.
He could no longer make out the figure. Yet the moment this person appeared, the image that he had missed for countless years and thought of billions upon billions of times instantly overlapped with it.
“Ah!”
The old man cried out sharply, and managed to stand up tremblingly on his own!
Countless savages stood up, glaring hostilely at Yang Zicang in the distance.
“Hah!”
Xiao Wu swung his withered yet vigorous palm!
At this moment, the old man seemed to return to his youth; his eyes burst with sharp light, and his whole body exuded an air of solemnity and majesty.
Thousands upon thousands of people prostrated themselves with a rustle, not daring to move.
Seeing this scene, Yang Zicang couldn’t help but feel a tremor inside.
He looked ahead. The old man under the cave’s rock wall took a long staff handed by an attendant nearby, planted it on the ground, and prepared to take a step.
“Stop, stop, stop.”
Yang Zicang raised his hand.
These syllables fell into the old man’s ears. He suddenly seemed to realize something and let out a “Haah!” as if he had solved the world’s most difficult puzzle, and a strong sense of joy welled up from within him, like a man attaining enlightenment.
So, that syllable that year had meant this.
The syllable uttered before stopping the falling stone—that was telling me not to move~
Yang Zicang walked forward through the crowd that had made a path. The young man stood before the bonfire, looking up at the towering flames, feeling genuine happiness in his heart.
“Woooh, oh!”
The aged A Wu handed over a grayish, yet still steaming object coated with wood ash.
Yang Zicang, who had been warming his palms by the fire, took this “ancient sweet potato” with a smile and sniffed it.
“How wonderful.”
He pinched off a tiny bit and took a taste.
“Mmm! Delicious—my little Xiao Wu has become a master chef.” He gave a thumbs-up. A Wu burst into hearty laughter.
None of the thousands of savages surrounding them had ever seen the shaman wear such a genuinely joyful smile.
Yang Zicang sighed: “Ah, time truly is the most…”
A Wu, as if his last wish had been fulfilled, suddenly felt his vitality wane feebly, breaking into consecutive coughs.
“Rest well now.” Yang Zicang lifted the old man in his arms and walked to a leather mat. The surrounding savages automatically stepped aside.
A few young clansmen who had met Yang Zicang years ago had long come over and prostrated themselves on the ground, which made the thousands of savages present realize that this man was no ordinary figure.
Yang Zicang wanted to help each of them up, but the old man firmly grasped his wrist. A Wu weakly pulled out two small black stones from his pocket, opening his palm to offer them to this person who, decades on, had not aged a single bit.
A Wu no longer pondered why this was the case—anything that happened to this man was simply normal.
Yang Zicang shook his head, then gently bent the old man’s withered fingers around the fire stones, closing them into a fist.
“Designate your own successor.”
He pointed at the old man’s clenched fist, then gestured toward the crowd of savages squatting nearby.
A Wu nodded with a smile, his heart filled with boundless happiness.
He had finally waited for that person, and his mind, suddenly sharpened a bit, thought:
—He must have known I could hold on this long, so he came at the last moment, encouraging me to perservere and live on.
A Wu cast one last glance at the campfire; sparks fluttered and swirled upward into the sky.
……
Above the wide horizontal cave loomed steep cliffs.
The snow stopped falling only to resume, the wind ceased only to pick up again.
Yang Zicang sat cross-legged atop the mountain peak, a dark red spiritual artifact weapon resting horizontally across his lap. Even the wind and snow had to detour around this lone figure.
He awaited the steadily approaching comet ahead.
A light in the sky trailed with a gray-blue wake.
It moved with a steady pace, like a aloof monarch striding across the azure sky, advancing leisurely and calmly breaking through the deep blue firmament.
Yang Zicang slowly opened his eyes.
He felt a dense and terrifying aura brewing at the foot of the mountain.
“It’s here.”
He rose to his feet, pulled out a small knife-like spiritual artifact weapon from his bosom, and looked up at the sky.
The comet stepped overhead.
Suddenly, Yang Zicang seemed to see an illusion.
…
{Long, long ago, someone once faced the same situation as you and made the same choice.}
…
“This is?”
YangZicang stood as if in a dream, rooted to the spot. The mountaintop was no longer the one he had been on before, but an unfamiliar cliff of a similar kind that rose high with a strange familiarity.
[The synergy resonance between me and the Convergenceist Asner has exceeded 50%.]
In a daze, a towering figure stood before him with a giant sword strapped to his back.
YangZicang seemed to see—
On a barren land where civilizations withered like weeds, a man named Asner walked alone through settlements that still faintly resembled human habitations. He brought to the wanderers there, who had turned back into a primitive society, skills that could fill their bellies and warm their bodies.
He also brought disaster.
……
Now, like himself, he stood atop the peak, waiting for a powerful Nightmare to be born from the wandering camp below, where he had taught them to use fire.
Then, he drew his giant sword and leaped.
“Is this…” YangZicang thought to himself, Is it implying that I should follow his lead?
Below, over a thousand savages stared in bewilderment at the “fire” that had protected them for decades.
Now it seemed to have come alive.
Though its aura was spine-chilling and drove them to flee, the crowd struggled to suppress their fear and bowed their heads to it.
Had the departure of the Shaman caused the divine power to spin out of control?
Or had the Shaman fused with the fire and awakened within it?
A myriad of thoughts raced through the savages’ minds. They could hardly grasp what had truly happened, but it must be connected to the Shaman.
Some turned their heads toward the top of the cliff, seeking help.
But Yang Zicang did not move.
……
The massive bonfire began to sprout fine threads of flame, and amidst the gathering of so many savages, a hazy eye was being born within it.
The newborn eye of fire swept its gaze around.
The first thing it caught sight of was a group of trapped beasts. With its intelligence still extremely low, its first thought was to replenish its closest source of food.
Whoosh whoosh!
Several flaming trails extended from the ground, curling toward the tigers and wolves that Yang Zicang had captured. Amidst cries of anguish, the beasts rapidly withered and dried out.
Some savages screamed in terror and fled.
But more of them remained where they stood, prompted by the shouts of several chiefs.
Yang Zicang quietly watched all of this from above.
He was waiting for the flames to attack these savages, so that he could teach them just how terrifying a nightmare could be.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In a deafening roar, the bonfire suddenly expanded. The flames that had devoured the tigers and wolves grew into shifting heads of tigers and wolves.
Several “small fire tigers” abruptly shot out from the flames toward the surrounding crowd.
The savages finally realized that this was not the Witch reviving. In an instant, they fell into chaos.
And at that very moment—
Whiz-z-z-z!
Blazing streaks of energy struck down rapidly from the sky, pinning the creatures to the wide ground with an aura of destruction. The writhing phantom tigers and wolves could no longer move an inch.
“Roar~”
The ground scorched and burned fiercely as it rapidly gathered power.
“Thank you for telling me your origins.”
A voice as majestic as a deity came from the high sky, followed by a roar!
“Now, die!”
Yang Zicang’s lean figure, shrouded in golden light, shot down fiercely!
[My heart resonance with the Fusion-Vein Walker, Asner, has exceeded 85%.]
As he descended, Yang Zicang felt as if another person’s silhouette overlapped him.
[I walk alongside the Fusion-Vein Walker, Asner.]