Chapter 182: The Deserters
Chapter 182: The Deserters
A million miles away from Kaoshan City, in a city built beside a lake, blood-red light soared into the sky while bodies lay scattered everywhere like fallen leaves.
Millions of gray shadows, like a sandstorm, were madly attacking a group of five Cultivators.
These five, leaning on their Formation Array and using talismans and magic treasures, barely held on. But without reinforcements, their fate was obvious.
“Senior Brother, how much longer until reinforcements from Liangshan City arrive? My magic power is almost gone,” one cried sorrowfully. He was a Golden Core Realm Cultivator from the Chiyan Sect. A year ago, the Chiyan Sect had decisively seized five cities, dozens of towns, and nearly half a million people from the Sacred Boar Kingdom, backed by their founding ancestor Chisongzi.
After a year of management, the lakeside city was flourishing with a hundred thousand people. They believed the defenses—a City Protection Array, two Nascent Souls, ten Golden Core Realm Cultivators, and a hundred Foundation Building Stage Cultivators—could withstand any storm.
Then, without warning today, bizarre Gray Shadow bugs appeared in the city. They spread terrifyingly fast. Tens of thousands died within moments. By the time the resident Nascent Soul Cultivator was roused from seclusion, the situation was already in a bad state.
Ordinary folk were beyond saving; even Cultivators were too slow to gather. The Gray Shadow bugs grew stronger over time. First, at Foundation Building power, then Golden Core level within moments… now bugs with Nascent Soul strength appeared.
Boom!
An outer Formation Array exploded. The Nascent Soul Cultivator maintaining it spat blood and fell unconscious. The remaining few attacked frantically, but within seconds, bugs as thick as arms and meters long pierced through their bodies. They were torn apart instantly. Their vital blood incubated even more bugs.
The city had no more living souls.
The reinforcements never came.
Because at that exact time, every city in the Mortal Realm suffered the same attack. The main assault focused on Li Si’s territory, naturally, given its five hundred thousand people.
But there was an exception. The city where Chisongzi himself resided saw the ghostly bugs swiftly annihilated after they emerged. He could have saved the other four cities had he intervened.
Truthfully, Chisongzi did consider it. Thanks to the compassionate ‘Li’ and the philanthropic ‘Dragon’, the Blood Coffin Curse was long gone. For half a year, he’d shunned the Hall of Fate in the Illusory Realm, lying low in the Mortal Realm to conserve strength.
But the moment Chisongzi thought of helping, a thread of Calamity Qi coiled around him. He’d saved a hundred thousand humans in Liangshan City. Though they were unaware, the heavens remembered. Greater strength begets greater responsibility. It was an unyielding rule of nature: everyone in the Mortal Realm has a duty to protect family, clan, and race, even the nation and the heavens.
Bearing all Calamity Qi alone would be horrific. But distributed over hundreds, thousands, millions, even tens of millions? Only a tiny amount sticks to each individual.
Yet for World Guardian True Immortals like Chisongzi, merely stabilizing fate was troublesome enough. Getting tangled with Calamity Qi was simply not worth it.
“What’s happening? Saving a mere hundred thousand gives me a strand of Calamity Qi? In the past, saving millions wouldn’t cause any! Is this Mortal Realm doomed?”
As the saying goes, the duck knows first when the river warms in spring. Chisongzi was that duck. The truth Li Si desperately hid? It only took time for the observant to guess.
With a wave, Chisongzi dispersed the Calamity Qi strand onto several of his disciples. This stuff was lethal, a death mark hindering escape.
And so, only one city survived the five. As black clouds of mostly evolved ghostly insects closed from all sides, encircling Liangshan City, Chisongzi’s disciples discovered, horrified, the other four cities were gutted.
Disciples rushed for guidance.
“Defend. No reckless actions,” Chisongzi ordered, firmly set on not intervening. Clean hands were paramount now. With the City Protection Array holding, and no traitors within, the bugs couldn’t breach.
He’d made ready. Plunder the Heaven and Earth’s Fortune and flee at any moment.
A similar scene played out tens of thousands of miles away across three cities. World Guardian Immortal Yuqingzi ruled here. He and Chisongzi had often been friendly neighbors. Yet Yuqingzi only held three cities.
When the ghostly bugs appeared, Yuqingzi also acted, preserving one city… only to recoil at the strand of Calamity Qi that wrapped around him. Helpless, he watched the other two cities massacred.
“The building collapses! The Mortal Realm ends! This lone Taoist cannot hold it back! Woe is us!”
Sighing deeply, Yuqingzi turned away to enter seclusion. Did he want to save them? The consequence of Calamity Qi was terrifying—binding fate to this dying realm. He had already contributed enough. It was time for a more refined life.
Elsewhere, also a million miles away, Tianjizi stared bitterly at the fifteen strands of Calamity Qi clinging to him, cursing inwardly.
His Tianji Sect had similarly claimed five cities the previous year amidst the upheaval. For prudence, and genuine development, he merged them into three. They formed a triangle, just a hundred miles apart. Tianji Sect occupied the center, guarding all directions. Three interlocked City Protection Arrays offered stout defense.
Yet the ghostly bugs erupted via Wishing Stones. Impossible to prevent.
Tianjizu moved immediately to quell them.
Saving the first city yielded one strand of Calamity Qi. He thought he could bear it. Saving the second city brought three strands! That stunned him. Then, seeing the third city’s slaughter… he couldn’t resist. His meddling hand acted once more.
Who could have predicted the Calamity Qi would multiply?!
Fifteen strands. Basically permanent. Why was he so reckless?
Groaning in despair, Tianjizi wrestled with his grief. Finally, resolved, he decided to seek counsel from his old friend Tianyuanzi, based a mere ten thousand miles away.
Their meeting brought mutual shock. Tianjizi looked like he’d pulled most of his beard out.
“How many?” Yuqingzi asked first.
“Fifteen.”
“Damn! I’ve got eighteen.”
“How?! I only saved three hundred thousand people,” Tianjizi protested.
“I just saved three hundred and ten thousand,” Tianyuanzi replied glumly.
For a long moment, Tianjizi and Tianyuanzi just stared at each other, noticing the sleep dust in the other’s eyes…
The Mortal Realm was ending. The ghostly bugs deployed via Wishing Stones… that signaled disaster had struck Jiuxuanzi.
“Shall we visit the Hall of Fate?”
“Dare you, at this hour?”
“Shedanzi and Qingyunzi remain stationed there… it should be safe.”
“Hah! If Jiuxuanzi has fallen, they’re the first casualties.”
“What now? If we abandon these mortals, our Calamity Qi would increase tenfold, at minimum.”
“Looks like we must venture out ourselves. Find that Tribulation-Bearing Dragon. Though it seems unlikely. Whatever happens, we need options. Find the Eternal Life Real Person.”
“Who goes?”
“I will.” Tianjizi sighed heavily. A million miles… once, it was a mere wiggle of his backside to traverse. Now? Dodging countless warzones and forbidden lands? A round trip would take three days.
Agreed. I’ll guard your homes. For safety though, let’s consolidate. Coordinate your disciples. If disaster truly strikes across tens of thousands of miles… I couldn’t protect them otherwise,” Tianyuanzi advised.
“Done.”
Tianjizi gave swift orders and departed.
Meanwhile, wandering amidst wilderness far away, Lingjingzi remained oblivious. No cities. No people. Wishing Stones couldn’t find his disciples. Naturally, no ghostly bugs came calling.
Development? What development?
His ‘third-level pack’ was ready. Just wait for the final moment. Plunder a wave of Heaven and Earth Fortune, then slip away into the drifting Mist. Find a new Mortal Realm? Perhaps rebuild his glory. Luck running out? Impossible. The Lingjing Sect’s unique techniques minimized resource use while drifting. His prepared supplies would sustain him for two hundred thousand years. Still no new Mortal Realm found by then? Didn’t matter. Lifespan would be over anyway.
So be it.
—
Deep within the Five-Tone Ruins in the Illusory Realm, Jiuxuanzi still endured. No more raging. Eyes calm but determined, he held on.
Perhaps it was imminent death, a flicker of conscience… he should’ve crumbled into demonhood long ago. Yet he persisted.
His body, however, was utterly transformed. Thousands of tentacles, root-like, spread through the ruins. Only the head remained intact.
But not for much longer.
Vast piles of Wishing Stones surrounded him. Many already stained crimson with blood. Inside pulsed pale, despairing, furious, tortured souls screaming. Gray filaments of Calamity Qi drifted out, coiling around Jiuxuanzi. Several billion annihilated spirits watched him. Every instant, his Immortal Spirit echoed with tens of billions of wails and curses.
Yet… always a hair’s breadth away from full collapse.
Mysterious Bride Xia Xiaowan stood before Jiuxuanzi, eerily serene.
Abruptly, she flipped a token in her hand. The huge corpse of Mu’an, deep in the Illusory Realm, trembled violently. Turbid blood gushed, forming a river. This blood river pierced through to the Mortal Realm, connecting directly to the Blood Cloud.
In that instant, the aura of the Evil God Mu’an spread like wildfire across 5G—unimaginable speed, impossible scale, overwhelming power.
Every living soul in the Mortal Realm, regardless of who, felt Mu’an’s gaze directly upon them.
As if Evil Qi had surged back to life, every Evil Entity, every Evil Spirit, rapidly mutated and grew stronger. Wherever the Blood Cloud reached, Aberrant Corruption soared to one hundred per cent.
Meaning… any ordinary human without protection—or Cultivator below Golden Core without special defenses—exposed in such conditions would instantly die.
Even Li Si’s domain, once shielded by the Yunhua Law Seal over thirty thousand miles, shrank violently. The Blood Cloud compressed its protection to a mere ten thousand miles radius.
“Finished!”
Sensing the shift, Chisongzi and Yuqingzi bared their fangs in ferocious grins. They lunged towards the very Fortune of Heaven and Earth they were supposed to guard. Prepared long ago, this theft yielded much.
Chisongzi seized one hundred and fifty portions of Heaven and Earth’s Fortune. Yuqingzi took one hundred and twenty.
They discarded everything else, ripped open the void, and tried to flee.
They didn’t get far.
A middle-aged Scholar and a boorish Big Man intercepted them. Without a word, they struck them dead. Taking all the stolen Fortune.
“Delicious! Every Realm has its fools!”
The middle-aged Scholar laughed, especially pleased. Chisongzi and Yuqingzi had been spotless—not one strand of Calamity Qi on them.