Chapter 2073 - 88: Sworn Loyalty (2)

"All these years, you’ve been searching for me?"

Back then, their parting had been in the northern Void!

Now the golden spike flowers had reunited with him south of the Ice Sea...

To run about like this was no easy task; the space of the Old World was not continuous, and this south and north were practically separated by a heavenly chasm!

In the early years, by Gu Shen’s order, the golden spike flowers had been active in the northern Void. That was the Investigation Corps’ jurisdiction, and whatever happened there, Mu Wanqiu would be there to catch them if they fell.

But that incident had been different.

To escape with its life, the golden spike flowers had been forced to open a Void Portal and flee.

It had watched with its own eyes as its master was exiled...

It had charged forward like mad toward the "blurred coordinates" it sensed through Spiritual Sense. The golden spike flowers had wanted to rely on its innate talent for roaming the Void to break through the Old World’s fog of illusion and bring its master back, but unfortunately it had underestimated the dangers lurking deep within the Old World. Without the Sanctuary of a Starship, only an Extraordinary Life of the Divine Throne level could sail alone in safety.

This massive serpent body was covered in lifted, flipped-open scales.

All these injuries were scars left by its wanderings through the Old World...

"Originally, I was almost there."

The golden spike flowers obediently lowered its head, letting Gu Shen reach out and touch its flat skull. It hissed, tongue flickering, and spoke in a voice half aggrieved, half helpless: "But then your coordinates suddenly changed..."

It had suffered who knew how much!

Just when the golden spike flowers was about to lock onto Gu Shen’s exact coordinates...

The Gu Shen who had lain silent and unmoving suddenly stirred!

That single movement shattered all its plans. The Big Snake had chased Gu Shen’s moving trajectory in wretched desperation, all the way south, and finally, there was this reunion.

Gu Shen said softly, "You’ve had a hard time of it these years."

The shift in his coordinates had been his own doing—breaking free of the nightmare and choosing to head south.

By a strange coincidence, and yet not a coincidence at all, he and the golden spike flowers had missed each other.

"To see you, to see you safe... then all the suffering I’ve eaten is nothing."

The golden spike flowers continued to flick its tongue.

It narrowed its long, slit pupils; its gaze was full of ease and release.

Gu Shen patted the big fellow’s head.

He released his own flame of life, and wherever the Chi Huo swept past, the golden spike flowers’ lifted scales folded back down one by one. Those shattered wounds, that torn, dried flesh, were all mended under the passage of Chi Huo.

The golden spike flowers had risked its life for him!

How could he let it bear such a heavy burden?

The golden spike flowers let out a comfortable hissing sound. It reveled in Gu Shen’s caress and in the healing of the flame of life.

Gu Shen murmured, "Come home with me."

Those words jolted the golden spike flowers awake.

"Right! Lord Divine, this is the Old World map I’ve drawn over the past five years. To find you, I passed through many Void Portals. This map is larger and more complete than the one of the northern Void..."

It suddenly remembered that there was still something important.

An extremely detailed spiritual map was transmitted by it into Gu Shen’s Heart Sea!

In the past, this had been its usual task: after finishing, it would report to Mu Wanqiu... only, because the distance between them had grown far too great, the two had long, long since lost contact.

This map was worth a fortune!

But Gu Shen only glanced at it before putting it away, without studying it further, because he had noticed that the golden spike flowers’ emotions were not quite right.

"It seems you have something else?"

Gu Shen spoke gently.

"Yes... Lord Divine..."

The golden spike flowers hesitated greatly.

It hissed softly, tongue flickering, thinking for a long time before slowly asking, "You just said you were going to ’go home’?"

It spoke those two words—go home—with special emphasis.

"What about it?"

"When I was roaming the northern Void... I ran into an extremely terrifying Source Material Storm. I was lucky that time; before I was swept into the Storm, I happened upon a portal. I rushed to open the door and flee, but even so, I was left with wounds that will never heal."

In this moment, the golden spike flowers’ tone was full of the lingering dread of a survivor of cataclysm.

Gu Shen noticed as well.

Half of the golden spike flowers’ tail had been nearly twisted off.

That injury already exceeded the scope the "flame of life" could repair... But the golden spike flowers had adapted to the mangled tail; the remaining serpent tail had healed on its own, only now it was half the size it once had been!

"A Source Material Storm in the northern Void?"

Gu Shen narrowed his eyes.

He knew that sooner or later there would come an unprecedented Super Giant Source Material Storm that would make landfall on the Five Continents.

What the golden spike flowers had encountered... could it have been that very Storm?

"I’ve seen a thing or two in my time."

The golden spike flowers lowered its voice, speaking solemnly: "Lord Divine, I swear to you, the terror and power of that Source Material Storm is not something words can describe. Back then I was only brushed by the Storm’s edge, and I almost died... Even with your might, if you were to touch it, there would be only one path—’falling’. Before I dived into the portal, I saw with my own eyes that this Source Material Storm was heading south toward the Five Continents!"

At these words—

How could Gu Shen fail to understand what the golden spike flowers was implying?

In its view, going home was not a good thing at all... If that Super Giant Source Material Storm reached the Five Continents, then the giant wall, the Frontier, would all be uprooted!

"A homeland is a homeland precisely because it cannot be abandoned."

Gu Shen reached out and patted the big fellow’s head.

He said quietly, "If you’re afraid, you may leave on your own."

The golden spike flowers froze for a second.

It could see that Gu Shen was neither surprised by its information nor showed any hint of doubt.

Lord Divine... had long since known that such a terrifying Source Material Storm was moving south?

The golden spike flowers shook its massive head, its voice firm to the extreme: "I’m not leaving. It wasn’t easy to see you again. This time... wherever you go, I’ll go."