Chen Mu looked at Liu Hongyang with pity, watching his face shift and change incessantly.
The other had absorbed too much of people’s blood essence and merged too many memories. One moment he was lucid, the next he was in disarray. Living was more of a torment for him.
"I am an envoy under the Divine Monarch Dong Yue. You can’t kill me!" Sensing danger, Liu Hongyang glared venomously at Chen Mu.
"If you kill me, you won’t live either!"
Chen Mu couldn’t help but sigh.
"After all those sneaky maneuvers, where is your Divine Monarch?"
Liu Hongyang’s face underwent a drastic change.
One moment he was obediently responding, the next he was madly raving, yet secretly he was continuously praying for blessings from the Divine Monarch.
But...
"Divine Monarch’s blessings, without any taboo?" Chen Mu said softly.Liu Hongyang felt as if thunder had exploded next to his ear. He trembled all over, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at Chen Mu, "How could you hear that?!"
I didn’t expect that myself.
Chen Mu looked at the dark rope as thick as a little finger.
It was indeed the Binding Ghost Rope, it not only bound Liu Hongyang’s ghostly body but also restrained his sinister divine skills.
Liu Hongyang’s covert prayers, emitted through subtle vibrations, were intercepted by the Binding Ghost Rope and transmitted to Chen Mu’s ears.
"Brother Liu, I’m curious, having asked for a blessing from the Divine Monarch, how would you deal with me?"
"No, no, no! Junior brother, please don’t misunderstand…" Liu Hongyang shook his head and waved his hands frantically. Mid-sentence, however, his entire being suddenly turned into a puff of black smoke, thrashing wildly in all directions.
"Brother Liu, you can’t escape."
Chen Mu said slowly, the United Heart Rope silently tightening in his hand.
Ah...
A piercing, tragic scream rang out.
The black smoke that had just flown out was suddenly pulled back by an invisible force, once again coalescing into Liu Hongyang’s form.
Without waiting for the other to plead for mercy, Chen Mu lightly clenched his right hand.
Whoo whoo whoo!
Amid the strange wailing of the quickly pulled rope, Liu Hongyang, like a drawn bomb, exploded into a cloud of black smoke with a bang.
Dots of crimson light spread in the smoke, resembling the embers of a fire, or burning paper money.
Countless faces flashed within the black smoke.
Liu Hongyang’s face was covered with patches of copper wire fire patterns.
As the patterns spread and burned, he madly charged towards the roof.
"Divine Monarch Dong Yue! Divine Monarch Dong Yue..."
But before he could touch the beams,
A black rope flew suddenly towards him.
Crack!
A loud sound erupted, like snapping a whip or muffled thunder.
Liu Hongyang was immediately scattered, turning into dots of crimson sparks that slowly dissipated in midair.
The next moment, the United Heart Rope slowly emerged behind his head, automatically binding his hair as if it were an ordinary black rope.
Chen Mu looked at the beams, somewhat stunned for a while.
The path of dao destroyed, worshipping an evil god, killing and harming lives, only to end up dead with the path vanishing.
The world changes, truly impermanent.
...
A hundred meters away, under Liu Hongyang’s residence, more than ten meters underground.
Inside a secret chamber as tall as a three-story building, Chen Mu walked around, observing the huge underground space.
Rather than calling it a secret chamber, it would be more fitting to call it a temple.
The walls around were filled with pictures of ghosts and deities, and the six pillars were engraved with scriptures praising the Divine Monarch’s mighty power.
But the most eye-catching was the statue of the Divine Monarch deep within the hall.
Chen Mu had thought the Divine Monarch Dong Yue would be a strange-looking evil god.
But the statue before him was of a gentle woman, wearing a crossed-collar gown with trailing skirts, with a Lingxu hairstyle, surrounded by fluttering jade belts, exuding warmth and grace.
"This... is this really an evil god?"
Chen Mu couldn’t help but look more closely.
The more he looked, the more the statue’s gentle and ethereal aura seemed to bring joy to the beholder.
"If this is the Divine Monarch whom Liu Hongyang serves, how did he end up in such a nonhuman, ghostly state?"
"Such a gentle and beautiful Monarch, how could she be an evil god!" he couldn’t help walking up to the statue of the Divine Monarch.
"Liu Hongyang was right about one thing, facing a True God that can manifest divine powers, one must worship devoutly!"
Thinking so, he walked over to the long altar table, bent down, and searched for a cushion to kneel on.
But as he lowered his head, the dried-up silhouette of a person kneeling on the ground came into view.
Who is that?
Just knock 180 times, and that’s enough—hogging the meditation cushion is just too annoying!
With one kick, Chen Mu sent the person tumbling, and as he rolled, a gaunt, skeletal face was revealed.
He looks vaguely familiar, oh, it’s Liu Hongyang.
Liu Hongyang!
"Shit!"
Chen Mu jolted back to reality, so frightened his hair nearly stood on end.
Before coming here, he had been certain that Dong Yue Divine Monarch was an Evil God, but now, seeing the jade statue, he actually felt an urge to worship it?!
"This is way too freakin’ evil!"
Chen Mu kept his head down and quickly searched Liu Hongyang’s body for the Ring Talisman. Black smoke billowed, engulfing the other’s dried corpse. Your adventure continues at
He dared not look at the divine statue any longer, and with a leap, he plunged into the dark passage above.
Without looking back, he pointed fiercely at the underground temple.
"Point Ground into Steel!
Boom!
The solid walls immediately softened into mud, and like a mudslide, broke through the walls, quickly engulfing and burying the entire temple.
Chen Mu was covered in Spiritual Light, fleeing through the secret passage, as if chased by evil spirits, in a most wretched state.
...
Half a month later, in the afternoon, the leaden clouds hung low, a heavy snowfall looming.
Midway up Eagle Grief Cliff, next to a small waterfall, there was a wooden building.
The broken walls had been restored to their former state, and the room’s heated floor was warm and toasty.
Chen Mu sat in a rocking chair beside the stove, holding a cup of Replenishing Origin Soup in his left hand and carefully studying an old, curled scroll with his right.
"It’s taken three months, but I’ve finally condensed a Talisman."
"I’m so envious of Junior Brother Zhang, who actually has White Jade to attend classes at the Scripture Transmission Institute. First, I need to save up some money..."
"Damn it, damn it! That greedy Scripture Doctorate, why does he keep asking for more when I’ve already paid with Daoist Jade?"
"Finally gathered enough White Jade, now I should be able to learn the intricacies of Point Ground into Steel."
"That damned Scripture Doctorate!"
"No, no, I got it all wrong, I’ve been cultivating completely incorrectly, ahhh..."
"Haha, after half a year of hard training, I’ve finally broken through the bottleneck...."
"No, what exactly is going on?"
"I swear I won’t attend another Scripture class..."
"At last, I’ve mastered Point Ground into Steel, and now I can take on work to earn money. The future looks promising, haha...."
"That damn..."
"The Jade Seed has shattered, I’m finished, what a shitty Dao path, it’s all over! Hahaha...."
"Divine Monarch, Divine Monarch, bless me, Divine Monarch!"
After a long while, Chen Mu set aside the scroll, sipped the coffee-flavored Replenishing Origin Soup, and sighed silently.
The scroll was Liu Hongyang’s Cultivation Notes.
It described the intricacies of cultivation, as well as the records of wrong practices and the experiences of correcting them.
Reading through the entire thing, Chen Mu’s vision of that simple and honest figure became even clearer.
He seemed to see the other person hiding in a secluded place, tirelessly practicing secret techniques over and over again, practicing until mana was exhausted, until he was so fed up that he wanted to vomit.
Suffering injustice but powerless to resist, he could only endure in lonely silence.
Though his path was fraught with stumbling blocks, he continued to steadfastly and unwaveringly pursue the Dao.
Until he was tortured by Sun Jian with the Bewitching Divine Secret Technique, until his Jade Seed tore apart, severing his Dao path.
"What a pity..."
Chen Mu couldn’t help feeling gloomy.
If it weren’t for Sun Jian.
With Brother Liu’s solid and diligent effort, though progress was slow, he was steady and sure-footed, and could have hoped to Condense his Aperture eventually, and as Brother Liu said himself, the future might have been promising.
"Such a pity indeed."
He wore the Truthful Listening Technique on his ears, listening to sounds from over a hundred meters away.
Half a month had passed, and the death of Brother Liu hadn’t caused the slightest stir.
As if he had never existed, no one noticed, no one inquired.
This damned world, where good people get no rewards!
Chen Mu sighed deeply.
He brought up the grey wall and looked at one of the entries.
Point Ground into Steel: 69/10000/Second Rank;
Inheriting Liu Hongyang’s legacy, he spent half a month studying his Cultivation Notes.
Initially, he just casually practiced Point Ground into Steel to conveniently dig out Secret Chambers, and he easily broke through to the Second Rank.
Chen Mu couldn’t help standing up, looking through the window at that lonely wooden building, his expression growing increasingly intricate.
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