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Chapter 30: The Deity
Old Liu and Lin Song were both at a loss.
Li Xingyuan paid no attention to their reactions. He rushed from door to window, checking every entrance and exit in the service station, ensuring they were all tightly sealed.
Once he had inspected every door and window, the inexplicable panic gripping Li Xingyuan’s heart eased slightly. The apocalyptic pressure loosened just enough to give him a moment to breathe.
"Mr. Li? Are you okay?" Old Liu looked at Li Xingyuan with concern.
"I’m fine—for now. Block up all the gaps in the doors and windows."
Li Xingyuan felt his stomach twist into knots. As he tore apart the blankets they had brought, he urged them on. "Hurry! It’s coming!"
Old Liu followed Li Xingyuan’s instructions, using the torn blankets to seal the gaps in the doors and windows. But Lin Song, still curious, asked, "Mr. Li, what is it? What’s coming?"
Li Xingyuan didn’t know the answers to those questions, but he was certain something was approaching—and that sealing off all entrances was their only chance of survival.
If there were locks, they should be secured too—this thought inexplicably surfaced in his mind.
Lin Song was about to say something more when Li Xingyuan suddenly raised his head and stared at one of the windows. Specifically, at something newly clinging to the glass.
A snowflake.
It was the tail end of July, just entering August—the height of summer. Though prolonged eclipses had made this summer less scorching than usual, it was certainly not the time for snow.
"Phew," Lin Song sighed in relief. Having witnessed countless bizarre events on this journey with Old Liu and Li Xingyuan, a July snowfall seemed trivial. Smiling, he said, "It’s just snow. Nothing to worry about."
"Shh!" Li Xingyuan silenced Lin Song sternly. "Don’t speak."
From the first snowflake, the gentle flurry quickly turned into a blizzard. Then, the soft snow transformed into jagged ice pellets, pelting the windows with ferocity.
A biting wind howled through the gaps in the doors and windows that hadn’t been fully sealed, causing the temperature inside to plummet by more than ten degrees in an instant.
Lin Song’s expression darkened.
But Li Xingyuan remained glued to the window, gazing at the distant horizon gradually being swallowed by the storm.
The ground trembled faintly.
A deep, muffled thud echoed, followed moments later by a second.
Something was coming.
This time, even without Li Xingyuan’s prompting, Lin Song and Old Liu could feel the undeniable truth—something was coming.
Li Xingyuan stared into the far-off sky, where two glowing points floated amidst the swirling clouds and icy winds.
They were stars—two colossal, suspended orbs of crimson flame. Their light pierced through the clouds, burning holes in them like molten fire.
They moved slowly, accompanied by successive, terrifying tremors that caused the earth to ripple like waves, nearly knocking them off their feet.
Li Xingyuan fixed his gaze on the two glowing points and suddenly realized what they were. Eyes.
Those two floating orbs in the sky were the eyes of something vast and incomprehensible.
It came from the north, bringing with it a tempest of freezing winds so lethal they bordered on divine retribution. Slowly, it moved southward, its destination unknown.
Its true form was obscured, submerged within the raging storm, with only those crimson eyes visible, suspended in the air.
Even from dozens of kilometers away, the chill emanating from it was almost unbearable. This place no longer resembled Jiangcheng, which was usually mild even in winter—it felt like the frozen wasteland of death itself.
"What is that thing?" Lin Song’s voice quivered, as if frozen by the cold.
Was it a god?
If human language could define it, perhaps "god" would be the only fitting term.
Far beyond human comprehension, defying biological categorization—it wasn’t a living creature so much as a force of nature, akin to a calamity.
Compared to the Zan gods, this entity truly embodied divinity—a living deity, the ancient ruler of this land.
It continued its march in the distance, oblivious to Li Xingyuan and his companions. Would a human walking along a road notice an insect hiding in the grass?
Yet its presence alone sent shockwaves across the land. The snowstorm rapidly accumulated, frosting the windows and filling the air with biting cold that made Li Xingyuan shiver. Tornadoes ravaged the earth, roaring with deafening fury—they were servants of the deity, amplifying its terrifying display of power.
"Seal all the gaps!" Li Xingyuan shouted, trembling as he braved the freezing wind to block every possible opening with blankets.
The storm had arrived swiftly, and showed no signs of abating. Strange sounds echoed between heaven and earth—like the cries of some colossal creature. Peering through the frosted windows, Li Xingyuan saw shadows moving through the blizzard, darker and heavier than the snowflakes.
Their grotesque forms glided through the air, carried by the ferocious winds, emitting eerie shrieks. There were countless numbers of them, bat-like creatures with leathery wings. Most flew high above, but some skimmed close to the ground, occasionally diving down to snatch something before ascending again.
The true threat wasn’t the distant deity slowly advancing southward—it was these creatures accompanying the storm, along with the deadly cold.
Even from a macroscopic perspective, the deity’s passage represented a catastrophic upheaval to the ecosystem. If functioning satellites still existed, its movement could have been observed from space—the whirlwinds it stirred spanned vast distances. This was irrefutable proof of its dominance, intolerant of any life unable to adapt to its presence. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions—words failed to describe the devastation it inflicted on the biosphere.
In that moment, Li Xingyuan understood with crystalline clarity why beachhead civilizations like humanity couldn’t coexist with lifeforms within the Black Tide.
Compared to that deity, Li Xingyuan and his companions were mere insects, cowering in this tiny service station, desperately trying to seal every heat leak to survive a little longer in the blizzard.
"Fire," Li Xingyuan stammered after sealing all the gaps. "We need to start a fire."
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