Chapter 56 Entering Southern Xinjiang (Part 1)

  "Hongzhi suddenly realized and said: 'How could I have not thought of this? Ah, we were all in a state of anger just now, really muddled.'"

  "Hai Long snorted and said: 'If you've thought of everything, then you're my big brother. Think of another way now.'"

  "Don't worry, I have a way." A soft voice sounded, and everyone looked at her. Her pretty face showed a layer of dewy glow, obviously already fully recovered. With a slight smile, Xiaoyu said: "Everyone, don't rush, let's ask these villagers first, then we'll go find the mastermind behind this."

  At this time, an old villager walked towards the crowd, his face still filled with fear, but he kept getting closer to the crowd. Hongzhi went forward and said with a smile: "Old man, don't be afraid, we are good people from the Zhao Song Gu Temple. This time we came here to help you eliminate these monsters."

  The old man's courage grew, and with Hongzhi's support, he stumbled to the front of the crowd. With a thud, he knelt down on the ground, tears streaming down his face, and said gratefully: "Thank you, esteemed masters, for saving our village! It was terrifying! Truly too terrifying!"

  The dragon king helped the old man up and said, "Old sir, don't be agitated for now. What's going on here? Please tell us carefully, maybe we can help you get rid of the root of these monsters."

  The old man nodded and said, "I am the village chief Ma Xing. Our village is called Majiacun, which is the largest village in the surrounding area. We don't know what's going on either. This morning was fine, our villagers were working as usual, at noon everyone was tired, came back to eat lunch and rest before continuing their work in the afternoon. But just then, a man dressed all in black appeared, seemingly a male, he came here and turned around, we are always hospitable, kindly asked if he needed help, but he ignored us. He muttered to himself, saying something like 'so many people, enough to feed my precious ones'. Now that I think about it, those monsters were probably summoned by him. Just now, as the evening was approaching, we suddenly heard a loud rumbling sound, everyone had been tired all day, each household was preparing dinner, hearing this unusual sound, they couldn't help but come out and take a look. As a result, a terrible thing happened, those monsters that we had never seen before rushed into the village, they came from the direction where the man in black escaped earlier, the fences outside the village were useless against them. Regardless of women or children, they killed anyone they saw and even ate people, our solid houses were like paper in front of them, even hiding inside was useless. Just now I took a look around, at least half of the villagers were eaten by them. If it weren't for your timely arrival, our village would have been finished." Ma Xing burst into tears as he spoke.

  Hailong took a deep breath, his eyes flashing with cold light as he turned to look at Piaoyue. Piaoyue calmly said, "Let's go find the mastermind behind this. I have a magical artifact called 'Xunxiangzong' that can track down scents." With a wave of her hand, a small gray ball appeared in her palm. Piaoyue muttered a few incantations, and after a flash of light, the ball transformed into something resembling a mouse. Under Piaoyue's urging, it quickly circled around the village before dashing out along the path where the strange beast had escaped earlier.

  "Village chief, please comfort the villagers and let them repair their homes. As for the monster, leave it to us. Don't worry, with us here, those demons will never again wreak havoc on your village." After finishing speaking, she floated up and chased after her own scent. The sea dragon and others didn't dare to delay, Hongzhi and Zishui respectively took Huang Fang siblings and quickly followed up.

  Wen Xiangcong was moving forward at an extremely fast speed, while Piaomiao was watching him calmly and quietly, using her magical powers to sense any discoveries he might make. In a short while, they had already left the village far behind. Wen Xiangcong continued to move forward relentlessly, but Hailong couldn't shake off the feeling that something was amiss. He flew over to Piaomiao's side and pulled on her hand, saying "Wait a minute, wife."

  Wafting a faint scent, Heng stopped in his tracks and asked uncertainly: "What's wrong? Have you found something?"

  Hailong shook his head and said, "It's precisely because I didn't discover anything that I find it strange. Are you certain your keen sense of smell has been picking up the monster's aura all along?"

  Yao'er nodded firmly and said, "It won't be wrong, my keen sense of smell has indeed been sensing the presence of a monster all along."

  Hailong nodded and said, "This is contradictory. Haven't you noticed that after we left the village, we walked at least ten kilometers away from it? Along this road, although we didn't see many people, there were two small villages. If those monsters came to Mahang Village along this route, why did those two small villages escape unscathed? Given the ferocity of the monsters, this is simply unreasonable, I absolutely don't agree."

  His face changed greatly, saying: "It's not good, that horse track is probably problematic, let's hurry back." After finishing speaking, he urged his magical power to the limit and flew quickly back along the original road.

  Ten kilometers for a cultivator like the Sea Dragon was just a fleeting moment, and when they returned to that big village, they were all stunned. The village had become a desolate silence, with a gentle breeze blowing through, eerily quiet, like a hell on earth. There wasn't a single living person left in the entire village, and those villagers who had previously escaped were now lying dead in pools of blood. Compared to those killed by monsters, they were only lucky enough to have kept their corpses intact. Seeing the scene before her, Zhi Shui was furious, and with her status in the cultivation world, she had never been humiliated like this before. She shouted loudly: "Bastard, come out! If you have the guts, let's have a face-to-face showdown!" Her entire body was radiating an explosive aura, with blue-green light waves constantly fluctuating.

  "Sighing softly, he said: 'It's all because I had too much faith in Wenxiang. If we had split up into two groups earlier and left two people here, things wouldn't have turned out like this.'"

  Hailong pinched the small hand of Piaoyou and comforted her, "Now it's useless to say anything, don't think too much about it either. Let's first take a look at what kind of injuries these villagers have suffered, then we'll go find that bastard." Piaoyou nodded gloomily, and the group dispersed to examine the surrounding corpses, with the same result: all the villagers had their throats cut by a sharp blade.

  Hai Long furrowed his brow and said, "I really don't understand why that guy hiding in the dark hates these villagers so much. What's the point of killing these ordinary civilians? Even if it's an evil path, unless there's a special purpose, they wouldn't kill so many innocent people. There must be something fishy going on." As he spoke, he stood still and activated his internal divine power to release his divine sense, feeling the life fluctuations around him. With Hai Long's current mid-term cultivation level, everything within a radius of ten miles was within his perception in an instant. The divine power was much more sensitive than the Tian Xin Decree's law power. This kind of large-scale spiritual inspection made even the elusive ones unlikely to escape his detection. As he used his spiritual sense, Xiao Yao and others opened their heavenly eyes, searching with the Heavenly Vision technique. After a while, Hai Long opened his eyes and smiled, "Alright, you don't need to look anymore. I know where that guy is." Hong Zhi exclaimed, "Big brother, you found him! Where is he?"

  Hai Long Dao said: "I haven't found him yet, but I have a general idea of where he is. Just now I used my spiritual power to investigate the surroundings and found that within a radius of about ten miles, there are almost no clues."

  "Is there no lead at all? Then how can you say you know where he is?" Haichong sneered with a smile, "It's precisely because there are no leads that I know! Think about it, we returned extremely quickly, so fast that the guy didn't even have time to clean up the scene after killing someone. With our cultivation level, at such a close distance, no matter which direction he ran in, I'm afraid he would still be caught eventually. Therefore, I deduce that he hasn't left and is still in this village. The fact that Lingdie didn't find any leads earlier only solidifies my thinking." As Haichong spoke, his voice suddenly rose, shouting at the villagers' corpses, "Stop hiding! Come out! Otherwise, I'll use the Samadhi True Fire to incinerate all of you, and by then, you won't even have a chance to escape!" While speaking, Haichong silently chanted an incantation, and a dark red flame burst forth, its heat causing the air to distort as if being scorched. The intense energy forced the weaker cultivators, Xiao Jingling and Huang Fan siblings, to retreat to the side. Haichong's eyes gleamed with cold light, closely watching the villagers' corpses before him. Although he couldn't be certain yet, he believed that at least one of them would make a move, proving his judgment correct.

  After a while, there was no movement in the corpses. Just as Shi Liu was about to say something, he was stopped by Huan Yu. A gleam of light appeared in Hai Long's eyes, and with a wave of his hand, a flame shot out towards the corpses. The San Mai True Fire was his own Yuan Yang fire, its power far surpassing that of ordinary fire. Wherever the flames passed, the corpses were reduced to ashes. With just one sweep, dozens of corpses turned into flying ash. Hai Long thought to himself, "Anyway, these corpses needed to be dealt with, and burning them would prevent the spread of disease. It's the most suitable solution." Even if his judgment was wrong, burning all the corpses here wouldn't be a problem. As he was thinking this, he suddenly felt a faint energy fluctuation. His eyes flashed with precision, and the San Mai True Fire surged forth, burning towards the corpse that was emitting the energy fluctuations.

  "Roar——" The corpse suddenly exploded, and the clothes on its body flew apart, spewing out a mouthful of white energy that actually managed to block the Sea Dragon's Samadhi True Fire. This white mist was something that neither the Sea Dragon nor the Floating Void had ever seen before. As soon as they saw their enemy appear, the Stop Water Daoist rushed out first, with flashes of light in his hand, and a circular disk-like Praying Heaven Wheel flew out, emitting a deafening hum as it rapidly spun towards the black-robed man. The Stop Water Daoist was clearly furious with this person, showing no mercy in his attack. Wherever the Praying Heaven Wheel passed, it left behind a deep gully on the ground.

  "Leave him one life, sister," said the floating figure. The black-robed man seemed to want to resist, but under the effect of the massive spiritual energy of the Qitian Lun, his body shook violently, and a burst of blue light flashed, causing him to collapse to the ground. The Qitian Lun hovered above his head, slightly trembling, and even if it were a dragon from the sea, the outcome would be the same.

  The crowd quickly surrounded him, looking at the black-clad man. He was an ordinary-looking person with a long scar on his left cheek that extended to his chin, adding a few points of ferocity to his appearance. His face was pale and his body trembled constantly, clearly suffering from extreme pain. There seemed to be some white smoke emanating from his body, giving off an eerie feeling. Stopping the water coldly said: "Say, what are you? Are all the villagers here killed by you? What's going on with those monsters?" The black-clad man glared at Stopping the Water with a venomous gaze, gritting his teeth and remaining silent.

  The water stopped, and with a flick of his finger, a green light flashed by, instantly piercing the black-clad man's right shoulder. In intense pain, the black-clad man trembled even more violently, using a stiff voice to say hatefully: "You wait, the great god will punish you." After finishing speaking, his entire body suddenly stiffened, and he slowly collapsed to the ground, motionless, with a thread of black blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. Huang Han squatted down, carefully examining him, saying: "This guy bit off his own tongue." Zhi Shui was enraged, just about to say something, when he suddenly felt a massive force coming over, quickly pulling all of them back in an instant, the air suddenly becoming scorching hot, a circle of dark red flames instantly surrounding the black-clad man's corpse. The moment the flames formed, there was a deafening explosion, and the black-clad man's body actually exploded into powder, gray mist rapidly drifting outwards in all directions. The dark red flames suddenly retracted, the gray mist violently fluctuating, instantly being annihilated, leaving behind a foul smell of char in the air.

  Piao Yu let out a sigh of relief and said, "That was close." Hai Long knew that Piao Yu had just led the crowd in retreating, and couldn't help but ask in puzzlement, "What's going on? How did you know that person's test would explode?" Piao Yu's expression turned serious as he said, "I can now confirm that the appearance of this monster is related to Nanjiang. That person just now should be a Nanjiang Qiang tribesman; they are skilled in using Gu worms, just like the Miao tribe. I also recognized it from the tattoo on his neck. This Qiang tribesman is extremely brave and fierce; when faced with an enemy they cannot resist, they will release their life-bound Gu worm through their own body. Once invaded by this Gu worm, one will turn into pus and die in an instant - it's extremely vicious. Although we are not afraid of it with our cultivation, Huang Fan and Huang Xiu would not be able to withstand it. That large cloud of gray fog just now had at least tens of millions of Gu worms; if they were to spread out and wreak havoc, I fear that all living things within a hundred miles would be in danger. Fortunately, Gu worms are naturally afraid of fire."

  Please vote for me