Chapter – 56 - The Shino Monte Paradun of Underworld Abyss

Today was the first day, or the Opening of the Shino Monte Paradun. And the audience area was bursting with people who had come from all walks of life to celebrate this grand occasion. Rihanna silently slipped into this bursting crowd, keeping to a corner which was comparatively less crowded, and focused on going through the minds of the people around her.

Paradun was apparently a carnival of sorts. Or rather it was a grand celebration of death, carried out in the fashion of a carnival, with parades, arena fights, free sales and sales promotions, and in-house auctions at the Underground Abyss for a full fifteen days! These people not only had connections, but they were also sinfully rich!!

Unlike earth, where dead people were commemorated, and people came to grieve together for the dead.....in this world people disdained crying and grieving for dead people, especially cultivators.

They believed in rebirth, and they believed that when a cultivator of high level died, he or she was reborn with a higher potential of cultivation. And their souls remembered their cultivation experiences, thus allowing the new babies to reach an even higher level of cultivation in this life. In this way, the soul, through rebirths, moved ahead towards immortality.

And thus, death for them did not mean dying and becoming dust, but retaining the inner knowledge and capabilities and moving on. Thus they celebrated the death of a cultivator, and came together to bless the new life the cultivators soul would soon assume.

Shino Monte was a legendary Spiritual Beast. He was the Guardian Spiritual Beast of the Great Spirit Lake in ancient times. This Lake was said to be in the middle of the sky, flowing down to the lower lands. It is said that all the rivers, lakes and oceans of the lands originated from the Great Spirit Lake, carrying the abundant and everlasting spirit energy to all the people living on these lower lands, and thus this path of cultivation opened up for the people and beasts of the lands. It was Shino Monte who guided the spirit energy of the lake to the rivers and oceans. Some legends even said it was Shino Monte who came down to the lower lands and taught the people and beasts how to cultivate.

And thus, Shino Monte was revered as a God by the people of the lower lands. And every five hundred years, a large scale carnival was organized by the people of the various countries to worship and praise this Legendary Spiritual Beast.

Strangely, however.....since the past two hundred years, the Underworld Abyss had gone against this thousands of years old tradition, saying that a God needed to be remembered and worshipped more often, so the beliefs and faith of people could stay more united and strong, and also the God would bless the people more often. And they turned this five hundred year celebration into a carnival held every hundred years. This was in fact the third such Shino Monte Paradun being orchestrated in the Underworld Abyss.

Rihanna found this method of celebrating death and blessing the dead people to be quite unique and interesting. She knew that there were various rituals for the dead practiced by the various religions, and that there were some tribes of Africa and other places who did dance and celebrate the passing of their member. But a celebration of death never took place in such a spectacular way.

Of course, this was only for cultivators. Commoners did not have any time to neither grieve or celebrate another commoners death. Except family members, no one even bothered to remember when a commoner had fallen and disappeared from this momentum of life. And family members only hoped that in the next life, their dead loved one would not be born bearing the curse of a commoner again.

As the time for the opening of the Paradun came nearer, the large doors allowing entry all closed down. The crowd too settled down and silence reigned in the entire audience hall. Rihanna too found a place to squat and watch the events scheduled for the opening day.

'Little Purple.....did you notice anything strange about those five people in the booth? No....actually four of them. The fifth girl did not give me the strange feeling.'

'I did feel they were much stronger than you. What exactly did you find strange about them?'

'I don't know. But I had the same strange feeling around them as I did about Little Siyu! It's like they are similar to little Siyu.....but I can't really point out how! Similar blood type?....similar body type?.....I don't know....but it was definitely the same feeling I have when I am around Siyu!'

'Same body type?...They can cut off our spiritual connection....could it be?!'

'What?....What have you suddenly figured out?'

'....Nothing. This is not the place for such talks. We can wait till we are out of this underground place. If they can block our connection, they might be able to eavesdrop on our conversations as well. This is not a safe place for us talking too much.'

Rihanna raised a brow in contemplation. What did Little Purple suddenly figure out that made even him so cautious?! Then....was it a good thing for her to know about it? The less she knew, the more probability for her survival! Or was it like that?

Turning back her mind to the large raised stage in the center of the audience area, she noticed that the eight large doors at the bottom of the staircases diving the entire audience seating area into eight parts, had already opened like large jaws of a beast at some point, and from each door, a humongous demonic beast crawled or walked out, walking in a straight line towards the stage.

Even at this distance, Rihanna could see the large and wide chains locked around the limbs and neck of each beast, each of them glowing with different elemental color. These chains and cuffs were obviously for restraining the beasts from attacking each other.

These were the Eight Supreme Level Kings of the past hundred years. Each Supreme Level King was born through winning a consecutive hundred matches, and they were bathed in the blood and flesh of their opponents, their ruthlessness reaching new peaks by the end of their hundred fights. They had to be brought out and paraded before the crowds, as this was the Opening Ceremony for the Shino Monte Paradun, and the Devil Emperor Beast Coronation was one of its most extravagant events commemorating the Paradun.

There was also a Supreme Spiritual Emperor Coronation being held in an adjoining arena - this was the fight between human cultivators for the highest crown given by the Underworld Abyss. And apparently there was an equally large crowd swamping all over that arena as well. Unfortunately, her 'new masters' preferred the gore of a beast fight to the cunningness of humans. Rihanna could do nothing but swallow down her discomfort and continue with this new form of entertainment thrust into her lap!

Eight extremely large beasts created a hell lot of noise. Even with the noise cancellation and noise absorption arrays shining grandly all over the arena and the audience hall, the sound of roaring and growling pretty much drowned out all the chatter, screams and shouts of the measly human cultivators. These were all Supreme Level Demonic Beasts.....they were like tiny mountains before the ant like human population!

After the Supreme Level Kings were paraded and showcased around to the contentment of the audience, they were once more dragged back to their respective doors, and the doors closed, blocking out the roaring animals from sight. But her thoughts kept turning back to these beasts. They were Supreme Level Beasts, yet now they were being held as captives, being forced to fight each other for the fun and enjoyment of the humans. To spend so many years of their life gaining cultivation, gaining senses and intelligence and enlightenment...only to be chained and gagged and thrown inside a pit to fight each other.....perhaps even to their death! This so reminded her of the gladiator fights of Roman times. Life truly held no meaning.....all these human cultivators really cared about was immortality! Everything and everyone else existed only because they allowed them to!

These cultivators didn't respect life. They didn't accept anyone who was different from them. They didn't even like or accept the demonic beasts or commoners who had a different path of life and living. Then what truly was their faith? What did they believe in? Other than immortality, which in itself was an intangible concept, like sands slipping through one's fingers. But was immortality a reality?.....was it a tangible possibility? What made all these educated and intelligent cultivators discard all the worth of life, and pursue such a vague and blurred concept with such heartfelt diligence?! Did immortals truly exist?

The audience was once again in an uproar, and Rihanna shook away her fleeting thoughts to focus on the arena once more. The arena was once again lit up, and the fights of the mid-level beasts had begun. Finding it difficult to concentrate on the gory fights amidst the screaming people, Rihanna found her mind slipping in and out as she turned her head to spectate the spectators.

Most of the people were clumped together, and one could see they had either come in a group, or become a group after coming here. There were all kinds of people. Some who were crazily screaming and cussing, some watched each fight in all seriousness, some were busy chatting up storms with their fellow crowd members, some were busy eating sleeping and watching other audience members screaming. People were really here to simply let down all their defenses and let loose and have fun.

Amidst the extremely noisy crowd, Rihanna's flickering eyes stopped over the very familiar group of people she been following just a short while back. A mischievous smile tugging at her lips, Rihanna hesitated for a moment before pushing her way through the crowd, almost falling over someone's feet and bumping into the person ahead. The middle aged man turned in annoyance, and then blinked in surprise.

"Little Girl Rihanna?! How....How did you manage to get here?!"