Chapter 9 Waiting in the Dark

Chapter 9 Waiting in the Dark

As the dimness of the setting sun turned into true darkness, Hikigaya was still making his way through the lush forest.

In a primeval jungle where artificial light was impossible, an ordinary person would be unable to see the ground under their feet. But for someone well-trained, the starlight and moonlight were already sufficient.

And for a God slayer, it was no problem at all.

Hikigaya could see clearly in the dark as if it were daylight, and he briskly continued deeper into the forest.

The birdman he had previously captured had already been released—keeping his intrusion a secret or something like that wasn't the God slayer's style to begin with.

For Hikigaya, it was enough to have obtained sufficient intelligence.

This place wasn't far from Mount Fenghuang. If there were a straight highway, it would take just over an hour by car to reach it.

But what currently attracted Hikigaya's attention was the rammed earth ruins that had appeared here.

These were remnants of buildings in the Yin-Shang style. Hikigaya could even see rows of human bones in some of the exposed foundations—sacrificed slaves buried with the buildings, a very typical Yin-Shang practice.

The use of rammed earth suggested that whoever built these structures either lived during the Yin-Shang period or that their construction techniques had not kept up with the outside world and were still stuck in that era.

Considering the people of Mount Fenghuang still lived like cavemen, Hikigaya leaned toward the latter. If the buildings were really built three generations ago, they wouldn't have survived in their thatched, earthen-stepped form to the present day without upkeep.

Most of the structures above ground had long disappeared, but one could still clearly identify the Yin-Shang architectural style. The most prominent feature was the use of the hieroglyphic character "墉" (city wall) in their design—this character, derived from Shang dynasty oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, represented the most philosophical, classic, and sacred form of architecture.

The best-preserved structure seemed to have been a grand hall. From its broken walls and fallen stones, Hikigaya could find relief carvings with taotie (gluttonous monster) and pan chi (coiled dragon) motifs.

From this, it was evident that the Mount Fenghuang clan was very likely the descendants of the ancient Yin-Shang people.

Although he had no idea how a group of Yin-Shang descendants managed to pass through Zhou territory and reach the Bayan Har Mountains, if that were really the case, then the ancestral deity of Mount Fenghuang must be a sun god—because that was the tradition of the Yin people. In Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), the supreme deity Di Jun, who shared divine identity with Di Ku, Shun, and Tai Hao, was the father of Xie, the progenitor of the Yin lineage.

The Yin royal family not only believed their ancestor to be a sun god, but also worshiped every deceased royal member as part of the solar cycle. They even constructed a self-contained solar cycle system using the titles of nine generations of ancestors from Xie to Shang Jia Wei.

Their love for the sun... ran very deep.

Hikigaya continued wandering among the ruins. Many of them were now covered by overgrown weeds, making it hard to recognize their original forms, but traces of meticulous construction could still be found.

But this wasn't what Hikigaya was truly looking for.

In the darkness, he walked back and forth, step by step.

Finally, he stopped.

Because just now, he had felt a chill—not from the cold, but… the presence of his nemesis!

Even a faint remnant of it was something a god slayer would be extremely sensitive to.

Hikigaya's eyes turned toward the source of the chill—it was a tree.

The trunk was quite thick, but upon closer inspection, one could see signs of it having been burned.

Around the tree were piles of stone.

These might once have been neatly cut, valuable building materials, but now they were nothing more than rubble.

The faint chill was leaking out from this spot.

It could now be confirmed—a god had indeed descended here.

For a Heretic god to obtain physical form on Earth, a specific environment and sufficient reason were required. And the place where they descended would have had to offer the necessary conditions for their manifestation.

What was the most suitable environment for a god's manifestation?

Without a doubt, places like temples or tombs—sacred grounds where humans liked to worship gods with sincere devotion.

But there was one type of place even more sacred—ancient settlement ruins.

Because ancient people were far closer to gods than modern humans. Traces of deities were everywhere in their daily lives, and they conversed with the divine day and night.

Such places were the favorite manifestation sites for heretic gods. The older the settlement ruins, the more favored they were by such gods.

The ruins before Hikigaya's eyes were exactly such a place.

Combining his suspicions about the Mount Fenghuang clan and their ancestral deity, Hikigaya believed that the being atop the mountain was highly likely part of the Dongyi pantheon—or even an ancient god from the Yin-Shang religious system.

This was something to be extremely cautious of. Ancient Chinese gods before the Western Zhou were not like the later deities, who had been imbued with qualities like justice and compassion by humanity. On the contrary, these ancient gods had no sense of mercy, acted purely on their whims, and were brutal, savage, and cruel in their actions—completely different from the later gods who protected humanity and punished evil.

"Well, hopefully it won't be too much trouble." Muttering this to himself, Hikigaya walked out of the settlement ruins.

To be honest, since all three of his Authorities had something to do with the sun, Hikigaya figured he didn't really need to be afraid of a sun god.

Back when he fought Kuafu, it went way better than when he fought Osiris.

Thinking he already understood the truth, Hikigaya cheerfully concluded as much.

But since it was already deep into the night, he decided not to advance any further. After all, daytime was when he was strongest in combat.

In fact, if he weren't worried that the Mount Fenghuang clan still kept to their ancestral customs—like performing live human sacrifices—he would've been in the mood to explore more of the ruins nearby.

When it came to fighting Heretic gods, the more intelligence the better.

But in this situation, he decided to skip a few steps. Surely three suns couldn't lose to one, right?

After leaving the ruins and traveling a bit farther, Hikigaya sat down. Soon, the soil beneath him began to writhe and swallowed him whole.

As the final view was also covered by the shadow of earth and stone, Hikigaya closed his eyes and let himself fall into slumber.

To battle his nemesis, he needed to be in peak condition.