Zhong Chengshuo stared intently at the fire and black smoke below the cliff.
This was his first time witnessing a war.
As for his feelings towards it, Zhong Chengshuo didn’t have anything particularly special to say—his foster parents always told him that life was valuable.
But that only applied to innocent people and “life” in the true sense. What he saw before him was only a faint echo of the past. Zhong Chengshuo didn’t pay much attention to it, but his body felt suffocated, and waves of pain stabbed at him again and again.
Yin Ren’s memories were so vivid that even though Zhong Chengshuo occupied the man’s body, this pain still lingered like a shadow.
Zhong Chengshuo pursed his lips. This was a pain he had never experienced before, different from the pain he felt when he and Yin Ren separated but equally heart-wrenching. Back then, Yin Ren probably witnessed this scene.
But all the villagers were fleeing outside, and getting closer to Yin Ren’s body would only mean death for these mortals who were faced with the overflowing Evil Force.
Casting a spell at such a long distance… Even if it was Yin Ren, he couldn’t perform precise spells from such a distance. Zhong Chengshuo tightly grasped the only short knife on Yin Ren’s body and was submerged in the pain from a thousand years ago.
The wails, smoke, and burning village made Huang Jin too scared to collapse, and Ge Tingting was too breathless to speak. Subconsciously, she moved closer to Zhong Chengshuo. The children had long since hidden themselves—as orphans found during chaotic times, most of them had seen this kind of scene before.
“We have to go save them,” Ge Tingting said hesitantly. “If this continues, the village… No, the memory will be affected.”
Even this newcomer knew that it was impossible for Yin Ren to do nothing.
“You guys go help the villagers,” Zhong Chengshuo turned to the evil creatures and ordered. Honestly, considering the average intelligence of these monsters, he didn’t hold much hope.
Sure enough, the monsters looked at him blankly. The hairless monkey evil smiled wryly and said, “Master, you need to guide us with your magic.”
As expected, it wouldn’t work.
Under the red cloth, Zhong Chengshuo slowly curled his fingers.
[We can’t go in right now. Our power is too weak] Seeing that Zhong Chengshuo’s order didn’t work, Huang Jin tried to encourage him. [Let’s explore the surrounding area first and look for our companions.]
Zhong Chengshuo turned his head and thoughtfully looked at Huang Jin. Huang Jin was taken aback by the gaze of this “weird flesh puppet” and his eyes shook. [What’s wrong?]
Zhong Chengshuo didn’t say anything. He just leaned forward slightly, observing the terrain around him. The pain from the erosion of the Evil Force shattered his limbs, and the pain of witnessing the destruction of the village tore at his heart. They reminded him of the pain that the original owner of this body had endured.
Ge Tingting said it well. They needed to do something. Yin Ren must have done something back then to make that dog the weakest and most sober Evil Spirit.
Zhong Chengshuo reached out and lightly pressed on his chest, where the pain was most intense.
He took the first step forward.
“Before we take action, I have a suggestion,” Zhong Chengshuo said, trying to make his voice sound calm.
……
Inside the mountain village.
People were still rushing into the ancestral hall. There were residential houses around the courtyard, and some people climbed in from the surrounding low walls. Among them, there were parents pushing their children over the walls, as if this simple temple was a refuge that couldn’t be missed.
Fu Tianyi couldn’t describe what he was feeling inside.
The elderly, who were unable to move, almost all collapsed outside, while the young adults took on the task of defending the rear. In the temple, except for a few young adults, most of the people were teenagers and children.
The mountain people knew that he and Lu Xiaohe, these two “immortals”, might still be here, but they didn’t try to find them. People just cried out “Great Celestial Master” and looked eagerly towards the mountain mist and black smoke.
The clean stone bricks on the ground were covered in bloodstains and shredded cloth, and the mountain people’s faces were all covered in dust. The joyful atmosphere of the afternoon seemed like a dream, and everyone’s eyes were filled with nothing but fear.
The door of the ancestral hall was the strongest. It vibrated endlessly under the violent impact, and layers of plaster were shaken off the door and walls. Deep in the dust, carefully pasted animal skin charms were revealed.
“Great Celestial…”
A child tightly clutched his older brother’s clothes and called out with a sobbing voice.
…These are illusions. These people are long gone.
Fu Tianyi did psychological exercises for a long time before he managed to control himself. He forced himself to look away and continued to look at the “Divine Dog” above the temple.
The black dog remained motionless. Its concealment spell operated with meticulous precision. It seemed to sense Fu Tianyi’s gaze and looked down at him with an almost teasing expression.
Could they have made a mistake in their judgment? Wasn’t the original form of this Evil Spirit the “Divine Dog”?
Before Fu Tianyi could finish thinking, Fu Xingchuan leaned down and struggled to perform the levitation spell in a circle, charging straight towards the black divine dog. The black dog easily dodged and opened its large mouth, letting out a mocking chuckle from its throat.
“I wondered what went wrong with my spell. It turns out Shian sent a few rookies to investigate. Being able to enter the memory of an Evil Spirit. Not bad, not bad.”
It licked its long mouth and stretched lazily in response to the cries of the mountain people.
“Although I’m not too comfortable in this form, it is an Evil Spirit that has been fed by humans for a hundred years, so it can still be used—who is that white dog? It can’t really be a real dog, right?”
The white dog struggled to jump over the roof tiles and landed with difficulty. Fu Xingchuan crouched down and made a threatening growl.
This was just a ruse.
Lu Xiaohe reacted first and took a few steps forward. “Sunken Society?”
“You science posts are always the most annoying.” The black dog spoke human language and confirmed Lu Xiaohe’s guess. “It’s appropriate that you die here.”
It was squatting leisurely in place, as if waiting for something.
Lu Xiaohe made a gesture, indicating that Fu Tianyi should recover some strength. She continued to stand at the forefront. “If we’re going to die, I also want to die with understanding—you’re specifically here to destroy the memory of the Evil Spirit, aren’t you?”
She deliberately emphasized the words “memory of the Evil Spirit”.
The black dog just lazily flicked its tail and didn’t respond. It stood there coldly, watching the temple door tremble even more violently.
Bang, bang! The sound of the door being pounded became louder and louder, and the smell of burning herbs and blood drifted in from outside. The invading army obviously had accompanying cultivators with considerable ability.
Fu Xingchuan hid in the shadows like a real dog, and Fu Tianyi frantically recited spells, trying to revive his exhausted body and spirit.
Lu Xiaohe didn’t give up either. She took two steps forward and took a deep breath. “According to the record in the Book of Exorcism, this Evil Spirit was sealed by the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi not long after it was born. Even if you forcibly maintain this form, you can’t escape Zhong Yi…”
She stared at the black dog with her eyes fixed.
The black dog was focused on the door and seemed annoyed by Lu Xiaohe’s chattering. Suddenly, there was a flash of black light, and a spell hit Lu Xiaohe directly. Her clothes were torn into a huge gash, but there was only a scratch on her fair arm with no bleeding.
The shell of this scholar’s body was stronger than she had imagined.
Bang, bang! Black and red smoke diffused from the crack in the door. The ancient animal skin charms touched by the smoke began to curl up and turn black at the edges.
The black dog cautiously stood up after failing to hit Lu Xiaohe and took two steps back.
“The memory of the Evil Spirit will not weaken Zhong Yi’s strength. It’s not that simple to try to deal with us while avoiding him.”
Lu Xiaohe continued to launch an attack of bullshit as a science post, desperately attracting the black dog’s attention.
“We can work with him in advance to seal you. It’ll be hard to say whether you can leave normally. Why don’t you turn yourself in now and let us help you change your shell—”
“Shut up!”
The black dog was becoming increasingly annoyed by the noise. It lowered its head and bared its sharp teeth at Lu Xiaohe.
“Who do you think is trying to escape, foolish woman?”
Lu Xiaohe was startled.
It wasn’t because the black dog was rude, but because its body was trembling violently, as if enduring great pain. Just like… Like that body, which still reacted to the sight of the current situation.
Bang!
The temple door was pushed open, and the Goulou Army rushed in with their swords. The black dog’s attention instantly turned away.
Their soft armor was stained with blood and almost black in the light. The murderous intent of these living people was stronger than that of modern evil creatures. No one wasted time talking, and each one raised their swords and struck at the weak and thin teenagers and children.
The cultivators accompanying the Goulou Army were carrying a wooden box with an extremely strong Evil Force. There must be multiple sources of corruption of Evil Force there that even Lu Xiaohe, who was a science post, could feel an abnormal chill.
The bodies of the children who approached the wooden box quickly twisted and collapsed, their bodies becoming like molten sugar and quickly becoming unrecognizable.
The crying in the courtyard suddenly became louder.
The black dog became even more focused, staring directly at the person-sized box.
This was their chance!
Fu Xingchuan let out a sharp bark and pounced towards the black dog almost at the same time as Fu Tianyi took action. He used every sealing technique he had ever learned to attack the black dog with countless talismans.
They had to remove the enemy from within the black dog before things got worse!
Fu Xingchuan bit the black dog’s throat, and Fu Tianyi’s sealing techniques destroyed all the hidden charms around the black dog, capturing it.
Strangely, it seemed like the black dog wasn’t resisting.
Fu Xingchuan stopped moving suddenly, but it was too late.
With the concealment technique no longer in effect, the remaining people quickly discovered their divine dog. They all eagerly reached out their hands, trying to touch it. Fu Xingchuan was quickly swept away by the surge of people, and Fu Tianyi’s view was completely blocked.
“Help us call on the Master…”
“It doesn’t matter if we all die. These people have to die…”
“Divine Dog…”
The people begged; their voices were tinged with a desperation that was almost like confusion.
The bodies of the children lay on the ground, their sticky blood covering the stone slabs. The mountain people had no protection, and they all believed in “immortals”. Under the influence of the power of the Evil Force, they quickly lost their human form.
Their features disappeared from where they should have been and grew from where they shouldn’t have. Joints and bones became visibly larger, and fat and flesh grew rapidly. Their organs inflated and deflated, making them look like balloons or corpses.
Fu Tianyi couldn’t help but lose focus for a moment, and even Lu Xiaohe retched twice.
Unfortunately, their plights and pleas weren’t communicated.
The Divine Dog of the mountain people didn’t respond at all. Taking advantage of the surging crowd, the black dog used all its strength to break free from Fu Tianyi’s binding spell.
Its fur was still stuck to the spell, and its entire body was covered in blood, as if it had shed a layer of skin. But the black dog completely ignored the people around it and bit the box belonging to the Goulou army with all its might.
In an instant, Fu Xingchuan’s fur stood on end.
The evil worshiped by the villagers for hundreds of years had some degree of intelligence. They should have shown reverence towards such a high concentration of evil qi, but the cultivators of the Goulou Army didn’t expect this to happen, and the box was bitten by the evil black dog.
The evil dog bared its teeth and bit through the metal shell of the box, causing a large number of translucent black fragments to fall out of the box, which the evil black dog swallowed in one bite.
After swallowing all the corruption, the black dog turned its head, which had been turned inside out, and grinned at the people of Shian, showing a smile that could almost be considered friendly.
The smile sent shivers down the spine.
“You fool,” it said. “Shian’s research on Evil Force is still too primitive.”
In the light of the fire, its eyes were like two black holes.
“Your Evil Spirit isn’t crazy enough yet. Let me help it along.”
Before Fu Xingchuan even got close, his dog’s body sprouted two extra legs, causing him to lose his balance.
[Retreat!]
Fu Xingchuan didn’t hesitate to bite off his own paw, and a large drop of blood hovered in the air, shining brightly in the darkness.
By consuming the source of corruption, an evil at most would become stronger or explode and couldn’t turn into an Evil Spirit. Such a basic possibility had already been tested by Sunken Society and Shian.
But this was a thousand years ago, in a mountain village that had produced the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi. The environment was completely different from the present day.
For some reason, the Evil Force in the nearby mountains suddenly had a target, and they rushed toward the black dog. They pierced through the night, passing through the thick scent of blood, and rained down on the black dog like drops of rain.
In the panicked crowd, the black dog struggled in pain. Its body grew larger and larger, constantly changing shape, as if it was being kneaded by invisible hands.
As soon as the levitation spell activated, Fu Xingchuan was pulled away by Fu Tianyi, but he couldn’t help but venture to look back.
In front of him, an Evil Spirit was about to be born.
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Fu Xingchuan, legs +2
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