Above Pu Ban City, a watery mist was rising. On the ground, ninety-nine white streams extended to ten thousand miles, releasing a strong power vibration. They formed a powerful magic formation that covered the entire Pu Ban City.
Large raindrops mixed with countless water streams poured down, b.u.mping into the great formation based on Pu Ban City. They transformed into a dense watery mist, drifting and coiling in the air. An invisible cover seemed to exist above Pu Ban City. Along the arc-shaped cover, tens of meter thick water streams flowed in all directions, causing m.u.f.fled clattering noise all the way.
Pu Ban people stood on the broken ground and raised their heads, looking at the thick protective screen above their heads in a daze. On the protective screen, the flowing water was meters deep. One could easily imagine if this magic formation wasn’t activated, what would Pu Ban City be like at the moment.
Pu Ban City was protected by a powerful magic formation, but it still ended up like this. It was not hard to imagine how miserable the other areas were.
"What a sin!" Some old people supported their bodies with walking sticks, standing by the soaked farmlands and complaining in sadness. What a sin, those crops were almost ripe, but ruined just like this. How could people live without food?
This season’s crops were hopeless now, and life would be poor again for this year.
More despairingly, from around the crops which were soaked in the water, tiny bubbles had been popping out. This rainwater was poisonous! Even if the rain stopped, the soil soaked by toxic water wouldn’t be able to grow crops anymore without been cleaned thoroughly. However, the entire Midland was swept across by this rain. All of the soil was toxic now. How could anyone clean and detoxify the entire Midland?
"What a sin!" Pu Ban people signed deeply. Everyone’s heart was now covered in a dense dark cloud, and they were all especially gloomy. Even when facing non-humankind beings, Pu Ban people never doubted their warriors. They believed that human warriors could eventually defeat those d.a.m.ned non-humankind beings. But facing this heavy rain, the confidence and the will of fighting they had was frozen and destroyed. Many had been worrying if the humankind could even survive this great disaster. Even if they could, how much would they lose in this?
Ji Hao transformed into a golden beam of light and flew to above Pu Ban City. A white watery mist blocked his eyesight. He tried to fly into Pu Ban City, but that magic formation stopped him. He couldn’t even approach the protective screen created by the magic formation.
Boosting up his power, Ji Hao gave a resonant roar. A few armored human warriors flew up from the watery mist, and on seeing Ji Hao, they quickly bowed and took out a bronze tablet, decorated by an embossment of a tiger head. They waved it downwards, and next, a, three-meter long split showed up on the protective screen.
Ji Hao hurriedly drilled into the split, yet within this short span of time, a large stream of rainwater surged into the screen and poured on a hill down below, making mud splash everywhere. Even a few wide rocks were flushed down the hill.
The rocks fell on the ground, causing thunderous booms. Immediately, a group of human warriors rushed over. Seeing Ji Hao, they raised their heads and looked at that speedily closing split, then sighed together and weakly bowed to Ji Hao.
Ji Hao bowed back, then flew towards the Town Hall.
He was heavyhearted as well. These human warriors were fearless to the non-humankind. They dared to fight and kill, and even die in battlefields. They would even sing a happy song when peris.h.i.+ng together with those non-humankind warriors. But now, the enemies were not living beings, who also had heads and hands, were also wearing armors, and holding weapons. Instead, this time, the enemy was the rain, soft, unbreakable, capable of flowing into every corner in the world.
These warriors had no idea how to deal with this enemy, but the threat that came from this enemy was too lethal and destructive to the entire humankind. These human warriors had their morale lowered greatly. Ji Hao believed that at the moment, even a small troop of non-humankind warriors could easily destroy them.
"Army!"
Ji Hao’s heart twitched again, then he sensed a coldness from his entire body.
He thought of those aquatic warriors in Pan Jia world, that great army commanded by Kappa. When all human warriors were exhausted and mentally struck down by this rain, if an aquatic army rose on a great scale and with a strong intent of killing, not weakened even by a little bit, the humankind could never survive!
"Gong Gong, d.a.m.n you! d.a.m.n you!" Ji Hao gnashed his teeth and showed fierceness in his eyes while cursing with a twisted face. With an uncontrollable aura of killing, he rushed into the Town Hall.
In the Town Hall, Emperor Shun was walking in-between two large pillars with a tired face. Thousands of ministers and clan leaders and elders had divided into hundreds of different sized groups, whispering to each other.
A bright light shone in the air, within which, a five-hundred-meter square magic sandbox floated in the air, roughly showing a topographic map of Midland and the shapes of main water veins and mountain ranges in Midland.
This sandbox was indeed magical. Ji Hao saw a dense layer of watery mist was faintly visible in the sandbox, surrounded the entire sandbox. Clearly, this was the actual current situation of Midland.
Ji Hao broke in. Emperor Shun stopped walking immediately, turned around and looked at him.
"Earl Yao, didn’t you head back to Yao Mountain City? What…Did you find something?"
Ji Hao let out a breath, responded with a darkened face, "The rain is toxic. It seems that the non-humankind have already connected all twelve worlds, and if I have guessed right, all the twelve worlds are water-dominated."
Ji Hao quickly told Emperor Shun about all he learned from Di Yantuo.
Some elders from the dragon-kind were on the scene. Therefore, Ji Hao was a bit ashamed to tell everyone about the fact that he had sneakily been to Pan Xi world, ahead of the dragon-kind and the phoenix-kind.
Hearing Ji Hao, Emperor Shun and those human leaders glanced at each other, unable to say a word.
Such a severe effect could be delivered after Pan Gu world was connected with other worlds by portals? None of these human leaders knew about this!
Si Wen Ming walked out of the crowd and said seriously, "Ji Hao, are you saying that, if we want to survive this disaster, we have to…"
"We have to destroy the twelve portals that belong to the non-humankind. Apart from this, we have to figure out a way to fix the core of Pan Gu world, to repair the natural defense of this world." said Ji Hao while bitterly nodding.
Emperor Shun clicked his tongue without saying anything.
Breaking the twelve portals of the non-humankind, by risking lives, this might have a slight chance to succeed. But fixing Buzhou Mountain…
How could it be possible? How could it?
Si Xi was sitting in the crowd. Hearing Ji Hao, he stood up and said with a deep and strong voice, "Emperor Shun, first of all, we should control the rain. If the rainwater is harmless, things will still stay controllable for a while. But the rain is toxic, and if we can’t control this toxic rain, the humankind would be doomed."
Puffing up his chest, Si Xi continued in that strong voice, "I, Marquis Chong Si Xi, am volunteering to control the water for the whole world."
Emperor Shun and the other ministers nodded delightfully. Emperor Shun smiled and said, "Marquis Chong must be confident to do it. Whatever you need, let us know!"
"Breathing earth[1]!" Si Xi’s face twitched and said with a hoa.r.s.e voice, "We have to isolate our people from this toxic rain. Therefore, I need breathing earth!"
The Town Hall fell into silence. People glanced at each other but couldn’t say a word.
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[1]Breathing Earth: Translated from Chinese words 息壤 (xīrǎng), also known as Swelling Earth, is a magical substance in Chinese mythology that had a self-expanding ability to continuously grow- which made it particularly effective for use by the legendary G.o.d, Yu, in fighting the rising waters of the Great Flood. This Chinese word compounds xī 息 "breathe; cease; rest; grow; multiply" and rǎng 壤 "soil; earth". Noting similarities with earth-diver creation myths. This term appeared a few times in earlier chapters, as ‘divine soil’.