Volume 1, Chapter 21 – The Mountain-Covering Ape King

Tianjue Mountain Range, Giant Rock Valley.

If Black Dragon Pool was deep and shadowy, then Giant Rock Valley was rugged and wild.

Enormous boulders could be seen everywhere. Some were like small mountains, while others had been carved by time into all kinds of strange shapes.

The air was filled with the scent of earth and stone.

Gu Han and Mo Lin had only just appeared above Giant Rock Valley.

From below came a deafening roar!

“Roar! Who dares trespass in this king’s territory?!”

The sound wave rolled outward, shaking the valley until echoes rang back and broken stones rattled down.

A huge figure rushed out, leaping into the air and stirring up a fierce gale.

It was a giant ape more than ten zhang tall!

Its entire body was covered in thick grayish-brown fur. Its muscles bulged in knotted cords, brimming with explosive strength.

Its pair of bell-like eyes were filled with fury, and heavy, dense earth-yellow spiritual power surged around it.

It was none other than the Mountain-Covering Ape King!

Originally, he had been admiring a newly collected glowing stone and was in quite a good mood.

But then he suddenly sensed two powerful auras appearing openly above his territory without the slightest concealment.

“Old Ape! Do not be rude!”

Mo Lin stepped forward and shouted in a deep voice, trying to ease the tension.

“Mo Lin?! It’s you!”

When the Mountain-Covering Ape King saw Mo Lin, he froze for a moment, then became even angrier.

“Why did you bring a human to my territory?! Are you looking for a fight?!”

Gu Han looked at the enormous ape king before her, who was raging like thunder and pounding his chest and feet. A faint smile flashed through her eyes.

At a glance, this Mountain-Covering Ape King was the sort of fellow who was blunt and straightforward, with a temperament so honest it was almost foolish.

Mo Lin still wanted to say something, but Gu Han gently raised her hand and stopped him.

She took a step forward and calmly looked at the giant ape below, which was like a small mountain.

“You are the Mountain-Covering Ape King?”

Her voice was not loud, yet it seemed to carry a strange power as it softly rang out.

The Mountain-Covering Ape King’s bell-like eyes locked firmly onto Gu Han. It could sense that this woman was not simple, and Mo Lin beside her was treating her with utmost respect.

But its nature was irritable, and it had been enraged by the sudden intrusion into its territory. At this moment, it did not think too much.

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“That is this king! Human, who are you?”

“And you, Mo Lin. Since when did you become a human’s little tail?!”

“Impudent!”

Mo Lin’s expression changed, and he shouted sternly.

“This is the Palace Master of Yaochi Immortal Palace! Why haven’t you paid your respects?!”

“Yaochi Immortal Palace? What kind of thing is that? Never heard of it!”

Two streams of white air shot from the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s huge nostrils.

“Pay respects? Bah! I, Old Ape, was born of heaven and earth. I only submit to fists!”

“If you want me to submit, ask my fists whether they agree first!”

It slammed its two fists together with a tremendous boom, and a savage, violent aura shot into the sky from around its body!

Its late-stage Mahayana cultivation was revealed without reservation. Even the surrounding air seemed to become heavy and viscous, and the ground trembled faintly beneath its feet.

Mo Lin’s expression turned ugly, and he was just about to scold it again when Gu Han gave a soft laugh.

The laugh was very light, as if carrying a trace of helplessness.

“Only submit to fists? Very good.”

Gu Han nodded, as though she very much agreed with this principle.

The instant her words fell, she moved.

There was no earth-shaking momentum, nor any dazzling spell art.

She merely extended one fair, slender hand toward the Mountain-Covering Ape King below, who was like a moving mountain.

Then she clenched the void.

The very moment she made that simple gesture,

Heaven and earth abruptly changed color!

The sky above Giant Rock Valley instantly darkened, as though every trace of light had been covered by an invisible giant hand.

Endless spatial power and the spiritual qi of heaven and earth madly converged in front of Gu Han’s delicate jade hand!

The illusory image of a colossal hand that blotted out the sky and sun appeared out of thin air!

That hand was so enormous it was impossible to describe. It nearly covered the entire sky above Giant Rock Valley!

Its five fingers were distinct, and the lines on its palm were clearly visible, like the veins of heaven and earth, containing a terrifying might that could suppress everything!

Time, space, light, sound…

Everything within the area covered by that giant hand seemed to fall into absolute stillness!

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The Mountain-Covering Ape King’s violent, sky-piercing aura instantly died out!

Its enormous ten-zhang body was as insignificant before that sky-covering giant hand as a tiny bug in the palm of a child!

“This… what is this…?!”

The Mountain-Covering Ape King’s pupils contracted. Boundless fear instantly drowned out all its anger and arrogance!

It wanted to move, to flee, to roar!

But it discovered that it could not move at all!

It could only watch helplessly as that giant hand, which seemed to have been condensed from the laws of the Heavenly Dao, reached toward it with supreme majesty that could crush all things!

“No!!!”

Under the extremes of fear and despair, the Mountain-Covering Ape King finally forced out a roar from the depths of its soul.

Yet that roar was destined never to spread.

The sky-covering giant hand descended.

There was no earth-shaking collision, nor any scene of destruction that made mountains tremble and the land quake.

That giant hand moved in a manner that defied common sense, with a gentleness taken to the extreme.

It pinched the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s massive body between its thumb and index finger as lightly as if picking up a tiny pebble.

Yes, pinched.

It did not slap it. It did not grab it. It simply and casually “pinched” it up with effortless ease.

Against the backdrop of that sky-covering giant hand, the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s ten-zhang body truly looked like a toy held between a mischievous child’s fingertips.

Ridiculous, yet permeated with a terrifying contrast that made one’s hair stand on end.

Beside them, Mo Lin was already drenched in cold sweat, his hands and feet icy.

Although he had long known that this Palace Master’s cultivation was heaven-defying.

Seeing the Mountain-Covering Ape King, whose strength was not much different from his own, subdued by her just like this, without the slightest ability to resist…

The double impact on his sight and mind was a hundred times stronger than when he himself had been intimidated by her pressure!

He was incomparably glad that he had made the wise choice earlier. Otherwise… he did not dare imagine what would have happened to him.

Gu Han’s expression remained calm, as if she had merely done something insignificant.

She controlled that giant hand and raised the “little monkey” pinched between its fingers to a height level with her eyes.

At this moment, the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s entire body was rigid. In those bell-like eyes, boundless fear and blankness still lingered.

Its mind was completely empty. It could not understand what had happened at all.

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It… a late-stage Mahayana demon king… had just… been picked up like this?

Gu Han looked at its eyes, which were full of terror, and the corners of her lips lifted slightly, forming a faint curve.

She leaned a little closer. Her voice remained calm, like she was asking an unruly child a question.

“Now, can you speak properly?”

“…”

The Mountain-Covering Ape King could not make a sound, nor could it nod.

But its eyes had already said everything.

Where was there even the slightest trace of its former irritability and defiance?

Only the purest fear remained, along with a thread of instinctive pleading for “life” that even it had not noticed.

Gu Han seemed very satisfied with its gaze.

With a thought, the illusory image of the sky-covering glazed giant hand slowly dissipated, turning into motes of starlight that merged into heaven and earth.

The spatial freezing power that bound the Mountain-Covering Ape King also disappeared with it.

Thud!

The Mountain-Covering Ape King’s massive body abruptly regained its freedom.

It fell straight down from midair in a sorry state, smashing into the ground below with a dull boom and kicking up clouds of dust.

“Cough, cough… cough, cough, cough…”

From within the dust came the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s violent coughing and heavy panting.

Only after a long while did the dust gradually disperse.

The Mountain-Covering Ape King, originally so majestic and imposing, was now sitting collapsed in a shallow crater it had smashed into the ground, covered in dirt and dust.

Its huge body trembled faintly. The way it looked at the figure in the air was filled with indescribable awe and lingering fear.

It struggled to stand, only to find that its legs were somewhat weak.

That “pinch” just now had not only crushed its aura, but also all its pride and confidence.

Gu Han and Mo Lin slowly descended from the sky and stood before the Mountain-Covering Ape King.

Gu Han looked at it and spoke again, her voice still calm.

“I am Gu Han, the master of Yaochi Immortal Palace.”

“I wish to invite you to join my Immortal Palace. Are you willing?”

The same question. The same invitation.

Yet now, when these words entered the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s ears, there was no longer the slightest sense of insult. Instead, it sounded like a decree of pardon.

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It abruptly raised its head and looked at Gu Han, then at Mo Lin beside her, whose expression was complicated but who had clearly already submitted.

Even this fellow Mo Lin had submitted… and this Palace Master was so terrifying…

Protector?

That sounded as if it was a bit better than being some mount, didn’t it?

More importantly, it had no choice but to submit!

It never wanted to experience a second time the feeling of being pinched between fingertips, with its life and death completely beyond its own control!

“Will… willing!”

The Mountain-Covering Ape King no longer hesitated. Its enormous head drooped, and its voice was deep and muffled.

It carried an unprecedented respect and a trace of… grievance that was hard to detect?

“Fushan is willing to obey your orders!”

The smile in Gu Han’s eyes deepened slightly.

She likewise flicked out a streak of spiritual light, sending the information about the Immortal Palace into the Mountain-Covering Ape King’s sea of consciousness.

“Since you have entered the Immortal Palace, you are one of us. Cultivate properly in the future and abide by the sect rules.”

“Yes! Palace Master!”

The Mountain-Covering Ape King answered loudly, feeling as though… perhaps this was not so hard to accept after all?

At least, although this Palace Master was frighteningly powerful, she did not seem difficult to get along with.

“First transform into human form and come with me.”

Gu Han instructed.

An earth-yellow light flashed around the Mountain-Covering Ape King, and its enormous ten-zhang body rapidly shrank and changed.

In the end, it transformed into a burly, broad-shouldered man eight chi tall.

Gu Han sized him up and nodded slightly.

After taking human form, Fushan looked at once like the kind of fierce general suited to charging into battle, entirely different from Mo Lin’s temperament.

“Only the last one remains.”

Gu Han raised her head, her gaze turning toward the eastern part of the mountain range. There, faint seven-colored rosy light flowed within the clouds and mist, appearing hazy and dreamlike.

“The Illusory Flower Sea, the Seven-Colored Illusory Butterfly Empress… I hope she will be slightly more tactful than you two.”

There was a hint of teasing in her tone. The Mountain-Covering Ape King’s old face flushed red as he heard it, while Mo Lin stared straight ahead and kept silent, not daring to respond.

“Let’s go. We will pay her a greeting.”