I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 560 - 560 The Call of the Mountains_1

Chapter 560: The Call of the Mountains_1 Chapter 560: The Call of the Mountains_1 Traditional divine idols have kind eyes and a benevolent smile, instilling a sense of peace at first glance. Those that are unsightly or have fierce expressions are usually used as door guardians.

The very essence of religion is to foster belief, so creating an aura of approachability is essential. Lu Ban knew that many religions began by aiding the poor and befriending wealthy merchants, presenting a harmless facade, until they had deeply infiltrated the ruling class, and then they started to wreak havoc.

But the idol before him was definitely not among those.

This divine idol was dressed in an ancient-style robe, yet the patterns on the garment had a sense of dissonance akin to postmodern art. The idol was tall, approximately three meters, carved from stone. Some areas were rough, while others were excessively meticulous, lifelike to an astonishing degree.

What was most surprising was the head of the idol.

The reason for referring to it as the ‘head’ rather than the ‘face’ was because it wasn’t at all a human head.

That head was bald and exuded a slippery sensation that was nauseating. Further down, there were four pairs of slender eyes that made Lu Ban think of the four-eyed kids from Dusk City. The face had a long nose akin to that of an elephant, yet the nostrils were filled with fine, sharp teeth.

Below the nose were numerous tendrils, lacking suckers but smooth, which was the most exquisitely detailed part of the entire idol, as if not hand-carved, but rather an actual monster suddenly petrified and frozen in time.

Its ears were membranous, made of tendrils, while below the nose was a mouth with two sharp fangs, giving the head an alien aura that contrasted with the body and induced a shudder.

Lu Ban had encountered non-human divine idols before, such as those in Egypt with the jackal-headed Anubis, and in a country where people drink water from the Ganges, there were also elephant-headed divine beings.

Lu Ban had read some simple research papers, primarily probing into human mutation. It was well known that in many mythologies, there were gods and monsters with animal heads and human bodies, but there were very few with human heads and animal bodies, otherwise urban legends like the Human-faced Dogs wouldn’t exist.

For some reason, humans seem to accept monsters with human limbs far more than those with animal limbs and human faces.

And now, standing in the Taoist temple, Lu Ban had no idea which great immortal this was.

The body of the idol, in contrast to the head, appeared exceedingly crude, prompting speculation that perhaps this had originally been a monster, turned to stone and left here, with later generations carving its body into a human likeness to deceive themselves.

“The master of the mountains, the call between the peaks, in certain religions, He also has a name known as Fang Geng, the god of mountain gods, ruler of all mountains. Every peak in this world is His sacred domain.”

Alongside, came a clear and hearty voice.

Lu Ban turned his head and saw the figure-hugging, graceful form of Tang Que.

“Miss Tang, you’re knowledgeable about this thing?”

Lu Ban asked.

He glanced at the altar ahead. It seemed to have been neglected for years, leaving only the shattered remains of animal bones, possibly chickens or rabbits, but anyway devoured to indiscernible bits.

“To be precise, it was my father,”

Tang Que smiled.

“What you heard on the mountain trail did indeed contain some truth. It was indeed through my father’s inheritance that I learned about the existence of the Nine Streams. Among those possessions were folkloric tales that my father had collected during his travels across the country.”

“Your father traveled the entire country?”

Lu Ban was curious. Tang Que’s father should have been a forensic scientist, and in that era, there shouldn’t have been any notion of business trips. Did her father not work and instead traveled to various countrysides to investigate folklore?

“Yes, my family has some wealth. After participating in the strife of the Mysterious Monarch in his early years, my father longed for these things and spent several years visiting places with various mystical legends in an attempt to find the origins of the Nine Streams.”

Tang Que walked closer to the idol and looked up at it.

“In this world, the mysteries are never far away.”

“Indeed,”

Lu Ban nodded slightly.

“My father once stayed in an inn. He said that at night, while lying in bed, he could feel something scratching the bottom of the bed. He looked down and saw a person with a face mottled blue and black staring back at him.”

Tang Que suddenly started to tell a ghost story.

“And then?” Lu Ban asked, curious.

“Then my father punched through the bed board and found nothing beneath the bed, for which he compensated the other party with a silver dollar,” Tang Que said somberly.

…

Lu Ban didn’t know whether he should laugh at this point.

“My family’s craft is that of the corpse-sewing craftsmen, stitching corpses is a folk custom. Decapitated criminals always need their heads sewn back to their bodies; headless corpses are prone to mutation. Over time, handling corpses has become a tradition in my family,” Tang Que added, shifting gears in the conversation.

“And when dealing with corpses, one would certainly encounter many transformed corpses and strange incidents. If one doesn’t have some physical skills, capsizing would be just a matter of time.”

“Is that why you all learned boxing training?” Lu Ban asked instinctively.

It is said that the Tang Family’s boxing training is so powerful that one can punch through a door panel. From Tang Que’s recent joke, it was evident that her father could also punch through a bed, and Lu Ban guessed that Tang Que, though appearing delicate and petite, could probably kill three Qin Tiantians with one punch.

“Don’t worry, I know how to control my strength, I won’t pinch it off.” Tang Que’s mouth curled up into a smirk. She was in her thirties, a prime age, and seeing Lu Ban, a handsome and attractive young man with a face reaching the human limit of beauty, naturally, she had to tease him a bit.

Pinch it off?

Pinch what off?

How to pinch it off?

Lu Ban was just an innocent child and didn’t understand what Tang Que was talking about.

“Does this Fang Geng have any background?”

He decided to get back to serious matters, as he wasn’t here merely for fun.

“He comes from the Outer Upper Realm, the creator of all the mountains in this world. Legend has it that He slumbers beneath a certain peak; His every breath is an earthquake. If Fang Geng awakens, it would bring cataclysmic changes, hurling humanity into doomsday. Only by continuously making sacrifices can we keep Him asleep,” Tang Que explained.

“That’s quite impressive. In that case, I reckon He might be sleeping beneath the Himalayas, if not somewhere in Sichuan and Shu, or in Siberia.” Lu Ban chuckled.

Of course, as much as such legends could be true, the entity called Fang Geng was probably a sealed Evil God, and making sacrifices to Him would only grant tainted knowledge.

He took two steps forward, observing the Divine Idol up close.

At that moment, Lu Ban saw behind the Divine Idol, on the damp and moldy straw, there lay a dead body!

The corpse seemed to have been dead for a long time, wearing tattered clothes with decaying flesh on which even the maggots had withered.

Even more astonishing was the circumstances of the corpse’s death.