Chapter 1310: The Beast That Devours in Secret
"I took that bastard down with me before I died," Sun Erlang reasoned. He was far from foolish, and after a moment's reflection, he concluded, "These 100 Carefree Coins must be the reward for the kill."
"Speaking of which, what in the world was that?" Wang Xuanba shuddered, his hand instinctively flying to his chest, where the phantom pain of a gaping wound lingered.
"Was it a dream? But that feeling of dying... it was too real," Wang Xuanba murmured.
Sun Erlang's eyes were fixed on the lines of text floating before him, searching for any additional information.
Unfortunately, the words offered no further explanation.
"It seems we'll have to figure this out ourselves," Sun Erlang said, his expression darkening.
Just then, Yue Zhenwei suggested, "Why don't we go back to the border where we encountered the dog-headed beasts and see what's happening?"
"Those two beasts were about as strong as us. As long as we're careful and avoid an ambush, we should be fine."
"Good! I want payback! Dying like that was infuriating!" Wang Xuanba's eyes flashed with a dangerous light.
Along the way, Sun Erlang noticed a change. They were encountering more cultivators now, and these weren't the listless, defeated figures from before. Instead, they were gathered in small groups, deep in discussion.
When they tried to approach and overhear, they realized the groups weren't communicating through speech or spiritual sense, but by some method imperceptible to them.
"Maybe we could ask them," Wang Xuanba suggested, his eyes glinting as he sized up a group of five mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators nearby.
Yue Zhenwei held him back. "Don't be rash, Xuanba. If I'm right, these people can 'revive,' just like us. Brute force is useless against those who don't fear death. You won't get anything out of them that way..."
"Let's check our destination first," Sun Erlang snapped.
Wang Xuanba nodded, finally averting his gaze.
In this life, both Sun Erlang and Wang Xuanba had mastered their skills at a young age on the Lecture Stage. Naturally brash and headstrong, their journey after leaving the Great Xuan had been a string of easy victories, every formation they encountered crumbling before them. This had only fed their pride. The recent ambush was the first real check on their arrogance, forcing them to be more cautious.
When they returned to the spot where they had "fallen," a startling sight greeted them. "Why is the world on the other side completely different?"
The seaside cliffs of Shilin Prefecture had vanished. In their place stood a forest of swords, radiating a palpable killing intent. Countless decaying blades jutted from the earth, swaying gently with every gust of wind.
Hummm...
Perhaps they had drawn too close. In the instant the forest of blades vibrated in unison, a collective ringing cry of swords echoed in Sun Erlang's ears.
A tremor ran through Sun Erlang, and he instinctively jerked his head to the side.
An invisible blade of energy grazed his cheek, slicing away a sliver of skin. Ignoring the sting, Sun Erlang scrambled back, not stopping until the feeling of imminent danger subsided. There was no doubt in his mind: had he been a fraction of a second slower, he would have lost far more than a piece of skin.
"This world seems even more dangerous than the last three," Yue Zhenwei speculated, his brow furrowed.
The trio proceeded to scout all the worlds bordering Qiuxi Prefecture.
They found the sword forest and a deep valley. Another world appeared to be the domain of a demonic sect, teeming with at least a thousand vicious-looking cultivators.
Even from a distance, they could see the demonic disciples feasting on human flesh, torturing victims for sport, and forging artifacts from human bones.
The infernal scene made Wang Xuanba's blood boil. He wanted nothing more than to charge in and annihilate the entire sect.
But Wang Xuanba was impulsive, not foolish. He restrained himself, settling for spitting viciously in the direction of the demonic world.
The trio regrouped to strategize. "Do we try to get some basic information from the local cultivators, or do we press on into one of these other worlds?"
"The cultivators in this Land of Carefree Joy clearly know rules we don't. If we just ask them, we'll expose ourselves as outsiders right away."
"Our lives might not be at risk, but we could end up trapped here forever."
"What about a soul-search?" Wang Xuanba suggested, eager to try. "The Saint Teacher taught us the principles. I've never actually done it on a cultivator, but I think it's worth a shot."
"Don't forget, we're likely in a dream right now. Soul-searching techniques might not even work here."
After a moment of silence, they decided to risk it.
"We'll find someone alone, someone weak."
"Knock him out first."
They spent the better part of a day searching Qiuxi Prefecture before they finally found a suitable target.
He appeared to be an early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator who had somehow been separated from his team and was searching for them anxiously.
"Go!"
With a thunderous roar, the trio unleashed their fatal attacks, striking the Foundation Establishment cultivator in a single, coordinated instant.
A black cyclone, a massive grey axe, and Yue Zhenwei's longsword of purple energy.
To their utter astonishment, their combined assault—a strike powerful enough to gravely wound a Nascent Soul cultivator—had absolutely no effect on the man!
The cultivator's form flickered like a phantom, and their attacks passed right through him.
He stared back at the trio with an expression of pure disbelief, instinctively taking a step back.
At that same moment, Sun Erlang saw the text floating in his vision flicker.
Nothing else changed.
Except his Carefree Coin balance dropped to zero.
A muscle in Sun Erlang's jaw twitched.
Wang Xuanba's panicked voice echoed in their minds via spiritual transmission. "How can the coins go into the negative? They docked me 100!"
Yue Zhenwei's expression was just as grim. "Same here."
While they were exchanging these frantic messages, a brilliant white light erupted from the cultivator they had attacked. It enveloped him completely. He shot them one last look—the kind reserved for complete idiots—and then vanished without a trace.
The trio from the Great Xuan stared at each other, utterly speechless.
"It must be some kind of rule in this place," Sun Erlang concluded after a moment of dejection, his spirits quickly rallying as he pieced things together. "We're in the same category as these other cultivators. The monsters we fought, the ones in these border worlds, they're different. Cultivators can't attack each other—in fact, we get penalized for it. But killing the monsters from the border worlds gets us rewards, like those Carefree Coins."
"I don't know what happens if our balance drops too low, and I'd rather not find out. Let's head to a border world and earn back the coins we lost."
With that, they abandoned the idea of a soul-search.
It was impossible to search a soul you couldn't even touch.
Frustrated and fuming, they conferred again. Following their gut instincts, they chose what appeared to be the most dangerous of the three border worlds: the Demonic Sect World.
"That hellhole might be swarming with enemies, but how strong can they be if they're using ordinary human bones to make their artifacts?"
"Their techniques are crude, too. All flash and no substance," Wang Xuanba declared confidently. "They might scare mortals, but they won't survive a single swing of my axe."
"But let's be careful," Yue Zhenwei cautioned, his gaze fixed on the flickering text before him. "We've all died once. I have a hunch that this 'death count' is even more important than the coins."
Their plan set, the three charged into the Demonic Sect World, ready for battle.
Inside the Demonic Sect World, thousands of demonic disciples were stunned by the trio's sudden appearance from the sky. After a moment of shock, they began shouting in a language Sun Erlang couldn't understand and swarmed towards them.
The air reeked of blood, and countless wailing spirits swirled around them—a truly terrifying sight.
"Die!"
But a massive grey axe tore through the crimson specters summoned by hundreds of demonic disciples as if they were paper.
Its momentum unchecked, the axe swept left and right, each swing reaping the lives of dozens of sect members.
Wang Xuanba, eyes bloodshot, fought with ecstatic fury.
"Erlang, these bastards are even weaker than I thought!"
Sun Erlang, who was just as efficiently mowing down the demonic disciples, didn't reply. Instead, a familiar sense of unease crept over him.
It was the same feeling he'd had facing the dog-headed beast, even after its head had been severed!
Sun Erlang immediately scanned his surroundings, dispatching enemies while searching for the true threat.
"Look there!" Yue Zhenwei shouted, pointing Sun Erlang toward a colossal statue standing within the sect grounds.
The statue hadn't been there when they observed the world from the outside.
It had remained hidden even after they arrived.
Only now, as the battle intensified, had it silently manifested.
The statue seemed to be stitched together from countless human corpses, and it radiated an overwhelming aura of malice.
Its face was a featureless void.
Only a mass of pale, grasping arms, constantly writhing.
Each time they killed a demonic disciple, another pair of arms would emerge from the statue's face.
It was as if the dead disciples were being devoured by the great statue.
Sun Erlang's slaughtering pace faltered for a fraction of a second.
But the frenzied disciples showed no signs of letting up. Unafraid of their comrades' deaths, they snatched up fallen body parts, stuffed them into their mouths, and charged forward with even more maniacal howls.
"What do we do? Do we keep killing them or not?"
It was obvious that killing the demonic disciples was somehow charging the great statue. Watching the forest of pale white arms sprout and grow like bamboo after a spring rain, Sun Erlang felt a tremor of fear.
But his reply was decisive. "Kill them!"
Purple energy roared, and a dragon of light descended. A single strike annihilated over a thousand demonic disciples, clearing a massive hole in the tide of enemies.
But just as quickly, the fearless disciples swarmed in to fill the gap.
The only saving grace was that their numbers were not infinite. As the trio from the Great Xuan fought on, the horde of humanoid monsters finally began to thin.
After what felt like an eternity, the nauseating stench of blood in the air was so thick it was almost tangible. Even with their senses sealed, Sun Erlang and the others could feel the reek seeping into their very souls.
The vast demonic sect was now nothing but a field of gore and debris. Rivers of blood flowed across the ground, gradually absorbed by the land itself as if it were breathing.
Sun Erlang panted, his hand trembling slightly.
The demonic disciples had been pathetically weak, no match for any of them. But their sheer numbers had been overwhelming. Even just standing still and letting them kill would have been exhausting.
"If I were in the Nascent Soul realm, I wouldn't be in such a state."
"With a grotto-heaven to replenish my spiritual energy, I wouldn't fear these human wave tactics."
The thought crossed Sun Erlang's mind.
Suddenly, as if realizing something, he frowned. "A perfectly calibrated difficulty?"
Now, besides the trio from the Great Xuan, only the great statue remained.
It wasn't that they hadn't tried to eliminate the threat earlier; an invisible barrier had stood in their way.
Unable to attack it preemptively, they had no choice but to wait for the statue to complete its final transformation.
Rumble, rumble, rumble...
The entire sect ground began to shake violently.
The great statue, which had been motionless, suddenly came to life.
It lowered its head, gazing down at the three of them.
A pair of arms dropped from its face.
Then a second pair, a third...
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.
The arms fell faster and faster, like a torrential downpour.
Sun Erlang and the others deflected the falling limbs, their expressions grim as they watched the statue's true face being revealed.
It was the face of a pig.
The pig's face held an expression of compassion, its eyes filled with sorrow. It looked down at Sun Erlang with profound pity.
As if they had committed some unforgivable sin!
Stared at by the colossal pig head, a nameless rage flared within Wang Xuanba.
Sensing that the invisible barrier before him had vanished, he was the first to charge.
"Today, grandpa's going to make a meal of your pig head!" Wang Xuanba roared, his grey axe swelling to match the size of the statue.
He brought it down squarely on the pig's face.
The pig statue did not dodge, its eyes still full of sorrowful compassion. But it opened its mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
It bit down on the giant axe.
Then it chewed.
Crack! The grey axe shattered into countless fragments, and the pig statue crunched them down, swallowing even the wisps of grey energy.
Wang Xuanba coughed up a mouthful of blood, a crazed glint in his eyes.
"Explode!"
The thousands of wisps of grey energy in the statue's mouth erupted like a swarm of dragons. The pig's cheeks bulged, looking as if they might burst.
But to Wang Xuanba's astonishment, the statue took a deep breath and swallowed all of the grey energy.
This grey axe was no ordinary artifact; it was Wang Xuanba's own Foundation Establishment Wonder: the Variegated Time Axe, a reward for placing in the top three at the Lecture Stage, personally bestowed by the Saint Teacher.
Wang Xuanba's method for reaching the Golden Core realm had relied on comprehending the laws within this very artifact.
The grey energy of the stone axe contained the principles of flowing time, injuring foes with the power of passing years.
Yet, after swallowing the axe's infinite grey energy, the pig statue showed no ill effects. In fact, its body seemed to become even more solid.
With his Foundation Establishment Wonder devoured, Wang Xuanba's aura plummeted visibly.
Gravely injured and with no strength left to fight, Wang Xuanba was barely clinging to life.
The entire exchange happened in the blink of an eye.
Before Sun Erlang and Yue Zhenwei could even intervene, Wang Xuanba was on the verge of death.
While the pig statue was absorbing the grey energy, Sun Erlang sent a mental message. "Something is definitely wrong here!"
"These worlds in the Land of Carefree Joy must be some kind of test. Based on the power this statue is showing, not even a Nascent Soul cultivator could stand against it. For us Golden Core cultivators, it's a death trap. If it's impossible to pass, it's not a test..."
"So there must be some detail here in this demonic sect that we've missed," Yue Zhenwei realized, scanning their surroundings again.
After devouring the Variegated Time Axe's grey energy, the pig statue's aura became unstable. It seemed to be comprehending something, on the verge of a breakthrough that would make it even stronger.
"Damn it, we're running out of time."
They had already searched the sect grounds more than once. Besides the corpses of the demonic disciples, there was nothing else hidden.
"What's the key to breaking this?"
At this critical moment, Sun Erlang felt himself become strangely calm.
From the first glimpse of the demonic sect to every moment of the battle that followed.
Countless images slowed down, flashing through his mind one by one.
"The Saint Teacher once said, desperation breeds change."
"To the demonic sect, we outsiders are the variable. But our variable was only enough to slaughter the disciples. We're no match for this great statue. So..."
A sharp light flashed in Sun Erlang's eyes. "We need to find more variables!"
"This variable can't be other outsiders like us. It has to be..."
A sudden wave of understanding washed over him, and he quickly sent a message to Yue Zhenwei. "Get past the pig statue! Attack the sky!"
A black whirlwind shot into the air. Sun Erlang's figure merged with it, soaring upward.
This black, baleful wind was, of course, Sun Erlang's Foundation Establishment Wonder, the Annihilation-Breaking Baleful Wind, also a personal gift from the Saint Teacher!
The pig, in the middle of absorbing and evolving, sensed Sun Erlang's move. Its perpetually compassionate expression suddenly twisted with rage and fear.
It let out its first roar since the battle began.
Just as it was about to stop Sun Erlang, a longsword of purple energy shot towards its face.
The purple energy surged like the rising sun.
It was the Saint Teacher's gift, Yue Zhenwei's Foundation Establishment Wonder, the Vast Nether Purple Cloud Sword!
Within the purple light, the faint cry of a dragon could be heard.
Awed by the vast purple energy, the pig statue's movements faltered for an instant.
In that brief pause, Sun Erlang, transformed into the black wind, broke through its defenses.
He slammed violently into the sky above.
A web of cracks spread across the heavens.
The sun that had been hanging high above also fractured.
The false sky shattered with a deafening crash.
As countless fragments rained down, the truth was revealed.
They were merely inside a dark, massive cave.
The collapse of the false sky sent the pig statue into a near-insane rage.
But it no longer had any intention of dealing with Yue Zhenwei or Sun Erlang.
As if something truly terrifying was about to happen, a streak of light shot out from within the statue, attempting to flee.
"Vile creature!"
A voice like a thunderclap boomed from beyond the heavens.
A bolt of purple lightning materialized from thin air and struck the fleeing streak of light!
With a final, piercing shriek, the creature within was utterly annihilated.
Sun Erlang caught a glimpse of it: it was a young Pig Demon, seemingly just born.
The purple lightning, having appeared without warning and effortlessly destroyed the Pig Demon, vanished just as quickly.
Within the demonic sect, no living creature remained except for the trio from the Great Xuan.
Sun Erlang felt a deep wave of exhaustion wash over him.
Wang Xuanba and Yue Zhenwei, relieved to be alive, were also baffled. "We won? Just like that?"
"We didn't have to fight that terrifying pig statue to the death? All we had to do was break the fake sky, and a bolt of divine lightning would kill the Pig Demon?"
"What was the point of all that?! I almost died for nothing!" Wang Xuanba coughed, complaining.
As he spoke those words, the surrounding scene abruptly froze.
Then, it shattered like a thousand panes of glass breaking at once.
Countless identical world images flooded into their minds. The rapid impact of the fragments made them dizzy, and then...
The three of them found themselves back where they started.
Five Elders Council territory, Qiuxi Prefecture.
"Huh? I'm all better?" Wang Xuanba, who had been on the verge of death with his cultivation reduced to the Qi Refining stage during the battle, was now back to his peak Golden Core cultivation.
Not only that, but there wasn't a single scratch on him. It was as if the life-and-death struggle had been nothing more than a shared dream.
But clearly, what they had experienced was far more than a simple dream.
"The sky is back to its normal bright color," Yue Zhenwei noted, looking around.
"And my Carefree Coins aren't negative anymore. I've got two hundred now!" Wang Xuanba announced cheerfully after checking his status.
Though he still had no idea what these Carefree Coins were for.
Sun Erlang stared at the lines of text before him.
"Sun Erlang, Peak Golden Core, Death Count: 1."
"Land of Carefree Joy Experience Level: 1."
"Carefree Coins: 500."
Behind the Experience Level, a small progress bar had appeared.
It was about thirty percent filled with a pinkish hue.
Besides these numerical changes, something else had been added to Sun Erlang's mind.
"Man is the head of all spirits."
"The human brain, when consumed, increases wisdom."
"The human liver, when consumed, improves sight."
"The human kidney..."
A series of voices began to echo in Sun Erlang's mind.
They held no sinister or evil intent, merely stating facts and providing explanations in a detached, clinical tone.
But when the memories came—the taste of consuming each organ, the texture, the sensation—it all flooded his mind with such visceral reality, as if he had experienced it himself, that Sun Erlang could no longer hold it back.
He doubled over and vomited.
Wang Xuanba and Yue Zhenwei stared, bewildered, at the suddenly retching Sun Erlang.
Only when Sun Erlang managed to stand and explain what he was experiencing did their faces turn pale as well.
"This... Erlang, you're not going to get addicted to eating human flesh, are you?" Wang Xuanba shrank back.
"This 'Spirit Devouring Technique' must be the cultivation method that Pig Demon practiced. So, by clearing these border worlds, it's possible to bring back items that appear in them?" Yue Zhenwei said, a look of understanding on his face.
"Erlang, try to circulate this 'Spirit Devouring Technique'," he suggested.
Wang Xuanba jumped in surprise, but Sun Erlang, his face now slightly less pale, nodded slowly.
Fighting back his nausea, he closed his eyes and focused inward.
A moment later, he looked at Yue Zhenwei. "I don't sense anyone else practicing this technique."
Yue Zhenwei stroked his chin. "The Land of Carefree Joy has existed for so long, yet no one else practices this Spirit Devouring Technique..."
Wang Xuanba's expression turned serious. "I get it. There's something wrong with this technique."
Sun Erlang shook his head slightly. "That's not the main point. Although the Spirit Devouring Technique was used by the Pig Demon to devour humans, its targets are by no means limited to humans. Any creature with spiritual energy can be devoured."
"So, while it can't compare to what the Saint Teacher gave us, this Spirit Devouring Technique is definitely a remarkable cultivation method. You could practice it all the way to the Nascent Soul realm without issue. Even after that, you could continue to cultivate it, strengthening yourself by constantly devouring spiritual beings."
Wang Xuanba now understood as well. "A technique like this, appearing in a world that newcomers like us would experience... and yet there's no sign of anyone else practicing it..."
"Two possibilities. First, the law of incompatible cultivation doesn't apply here in this dream world of the Land of Carefree Joy."
"Second, these dream worlds are in constant flux, with new ones being generated all the time. It's possible we just happened upon a world that was recently created."
(End of Chapter)
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