The immortal is beside me

Chapter 79 I am an Ant
The weather is getting colder day by day.

For more than three hundred years before this, the winters in the Han Dynasty were always warm, and the rivers in the north rarely froze, so there was a good harvest every year.

But now this day seems to have declined along with the dynasty. It is only October, and the entire Central Plains has entered winter. Even the south is covered with frost. The cold weather has brought a plague that has swept across the entire Central Plains, making the hungry land even worse.

On the gray dirt road, the two walked side by side.

The weather was getting colder, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for people to survive. These past few days, every few miles the two of them walked, they could see several frozen corpses. Most of those corpses were curled up in a ball, and their bodies were covered with black spots. These corpses that died of plague were not even worth being eaten, and could only be piled on the roadside to slowly rot.

However, there weren't many corpses to be seen today. It wasn't because fewer people had died, but because they had wandered into a remote, uninhabited mountain path, surrounded by brown and yellow jungle, with not even a wisp of smoke to be seen.

Qing raised his hands in front of him and exhaled a breath of white air.

His realm had become increasingly stable over the past few days, and even though he was only wearing a single layer of clothing, he didn't feel too cold walking on the road. However, after entering the forest, the cold air gathered from all sides, and as the sky darkened, he began to feel a slight chill.

"The path in this mountain is difficult to walk on. Let's rest here for a while."

When they reached a sheltered valley, Old Zhou sat down next to them, his body trembling slightly.

With his eighty years of experience, resisting the cold should not be a problem, but now he seems to be more afraid of the cold than Qing.

He looked at the wrinkles on his arms. The marks had spread to his arms and were still extending, which proved that the Five Degenerations of Heaven and Man were still approaching him.

He lowered his sleeves to hide the wrinkles, then turned to Qing and said, "You are now very proficient in manipulating spiritual energy. I will take this opportunity to teach you some spells."

"What magic?" Qing turned around and asked.

Since setting out on the journey, he had seen Old Zhou cast spells many times, and that extraordinary power had made him yearn for it. Now that he had the qualifications to become extraordinary, he was naturally very excited.

"Since it's cold now, I'll teach you the art of controlling fire first."

As Old Zhou spoke, he pinched his fingers together and silently chanted a spell. After a while, a flame the size of a palm leaped out from his fingertips, bringing bursts of heat.

The firelight reflected in the boy's eyes, lighting up his own eyes as well.

He leaned forward and watched as Old Zhou waved his hand. The flames fell vertically and ignited the dry wood in front of him. As the flames jumped, the whole scene suddenly lit up, and a warmth spread in the cold night.

"I will teach you the mantra and the mental method, you can try it first."

Qing nodded, listened to Old Zhou slowly pronounce the spell, and memorized it firmly in his heart.

He stretched out his hand and slowly and carefully approached the fire in front of him, silently reciting the mantra in his heart, and strands of spiritual power spread out.

Beneath the leaves, the orange-red flames suddenly became bright, flickering with the shadows of the surrounding leaves.

The flames that had been burning quietly suddenly leaped up and danced beside him as if they had come to life.

"Hiss" Old Zhou in front of him took a breath.

Although he had witnessed the young man's training countless times in recent days and had some understanding of his talent, he still couldn't help but be shocked when he saw this scene.

He was able to master the spells right away after just one try. This was simply an enchanting comprehension. Coupled with his superb spiritual roots, it was hard to imagine how far he would improve in the future.

At this rate of comprehension, I am afraid that within a few months, the accumulation of eighty years will be exhausted, and there will be nothing left to teach.

But Qing didn't know what he was thinking at that moment. He just controlled his mind, led the flame around him, and fully felt the warmth it brought.

Fire, because the first people obtained it, they were no longer beasts. It means warmth, stability and hope, and it means the power that belongs to humans.

Holding the flame, he would not freeze to death in the cold wind, nor get lost in the darkness. This was his fire.

He was carefully feeling the flow of the flame when he suddenly heard a rustling sound above his head. Looking up, he saw the leaves of the forest rustling above him.

A gust of wind blew from the sky, shaking the fire before them violently. It struggled a few times in the wind before being completely extinguished, and darkness returned to the surroundings. Simultaneously, a rumble like muffled thunder echoed. From afar, waves of it seemed to come from the horizon.

Old Zhou's face suddenly changed. He stood up, looked into the distance, and his solemn expression suddenly became even more gloomy.

".They are people from the blue sky and the yellow sky."

Qing also stood up, raised his head and looked in the direction he was looking.

Suddenly, the dark sky became bright, and meteors were streaking across the sky, occasionally passing through the mountains and rivers, causing the surrounding mountains to explode, rocks to roll down, and mud and sand to flow. The whole world seemed to be shaking.

When the meteors passed over his head, he saw the true appearance of the "meteors".

Those are not stars, but people!
People in Taoist robes were flying between the mountains, wind, thunder, water and fire were flying together, magic weapons and great formations were resonating together, the aroused energy made the sky and the earth change color and the mountains and rivers tremble, and half of the sky was illuminated like daylight.

"The sky is dead, Huang Tian must stand!"

Faint cries were mixed in the wind, like the shouts of those people, and murderous intent was revealed in every word.

The shout fell into Old Zhou's ears, making his expression even more serious and he stood up.

"I didn't expect to encounter the conflict between Heaven and Earth here."

It was a good thing to run into monks from other sects along the way. If these monks could notice the two of them, they might not have to take the long way to Jiaozhou.

Old Zhou tried to send a message in that direction, but those people were too high and too far away, and were caught up in the thunder and fire rising into the sky, so he could not hear any sound from the ground at all.

In the end, he had no choice but to give up. In this intense battle, even if the other side actually noticed them, they might just as well have treated them as enemies and swept them away. They had no power to resist the overwhelming pressure from that day.

Beside him, Qing was also watching the scene in the sky.

Those people were flying in the sky, very far away from him. He had to look up to see their figures.

"Are those the powerful ones you mentioned?" he suddenly asked, "Why are they fighting like this?"

Old Zhou pondered for a moment, as if thinking about how to tell the story.

"About three hundred years ago, the leader of the Cang Tian Sect broke through to the Refining Void Realm, becoming the only cultivator in hundreds of years to reach the upper three realms. His power dominated his contemporaries, and the Cang Tian Sect quickly became the largest sect in the world of cultivation. The Han Dynasty under his rule also achieved unprecedented prosperity."

"But... according to the rumors I heard, those who reach the Void Refinement Realm are capable of causing disturbances in heaven and earth, causing the heavens to bring down calamities. The sect leader prepared for this calamity for a hundred years, but still failed to survive."

"After the death of their leader, the power of the Cang Tian Sect plummeted. Opponents of the Cang Tian Sect formed an alliance, hoping to overthrow the Cang Tian Sect and take over the Han territory. This was the cause of the recent conflict."

Old Zhou sighed at this point, "If this continues, the Huangtian Sect will be destroyed, and the Cangtian Sect will be severely damaged. In the end, there will be no winner in this fight, and the people on earth will only suffer."

"In their eyes, the people on Earth aren't ordinary people," he muttered, looking up. "They're just ants."

Qing listened to what he said without saying anything.

He finally understood that the reason why people on earth couldn't have food to eat was not only because of natural disasters and plagues, but also because of these people flying in the sky.

Those people didn't mean to hurt themselves, they just didn't care.

As Old Zhou said, the people on earth are just ants.

How can an ant shake the sky?
Qing raised his head and looked into the distance at the mountains, watching the figures disappear into the horizon.

At his feet, a spark of fire was burning quietly.

(End of this chapter)