Chapter 196: A New World
Chapter 196: A New World
"Interesting..."
Everything that happened in the Five Finger Peak was actually within Fang Xing's sight.
For him, it was just a matter of seizing the opportunity to give Qingxuzi a little tap. He even knew that the effect would only last temporarily, making Luoyi slightly more restrained, but what would happen afterwards was anyone's guess.
After all, occasional taps could only treat the symptoms, not cure the root cause.
However, by that time, he would probably have already left without a trace.
...
Several days later.
Five Elements Sha Hole Dungeon.
Fang Xing opened his eyes and glanced at his attributes:
[Myriad Worlds' Door: 100/100]
"Good... I wonder what kind of world this is, opened by the master of a sect after absorbing its essence?"
He had been waiting for the Myriad Worlds' Door to charge, and it had already been three years.
"The first time I opened the Myriad Worlds' Door, it seemed to use its own energy to send me to this cultivation world..."
"The second world... I'm truly excited."
Fang Xing waited for a moment, and a figure walked in; it was his cultivation doppelganger.
Along with his thoughts, three seconds later, a flash of silver light, and the cultivation doppelganger disappeared.
"Hmm... it's a world that looks relatively safe. At the very least, there's no immediate danger as soon as I arrive, just a bit disgusting..."
After using his cultivation doppelganger to confirm that it wasn't a deadly situation, Fang Xing immediately decided to go in person.
After all, there were battles from time to time on this side, and the cultivation doppelganger had to take the lead.
On the contrary, his original body had become much more relaxed after being admitted as a postgraduate student. Even if he took a month or two off, it wouldn't be a problem—because not reporting to the research group as a slave would only result in a loss of his own killing qi crystals.
...
The sky was gray and gloomy, as if it was about to rain.
Fang Xing stood on the dark gray earth, looking at an ancient tree in front of him.
This ancient tree was bare, without a single leaf, its body pitch-black, and it had many branches that gave one the feeling of gigantic antlers.
What surprised Fang Xing even more was that there was actually a person impaled on these branching ancient trees!
He was a man with deep facial features, brown hair, and some mixed-race characteristics.
At this moment, his hands and feet had been pierced by the tree's branches, and blood was constantly dripping down the trunk, some of it already turning black.
This was the reason why Fang Xing had felt a bit disgusted earlier.
Strangely, this scene also had a weird sense of beauty to it, as if one was looking at a 'tree of life'!
What surprised him even more was that when he spread out his spiritual power, it seemed to be slightly resisted by the man's corpse.
This feeling made Fang Xing think of rituals and the favored races of evil gods...
"He's probably not a lower servant; he's very weak... Most of him is human, but he has some characteristics of a favored race..."
"Because I opened the door by sacrificing the leader of an evil god cult, did I end up in a world of evil gods?"
"As expected, in places like this, my original body is much more useful than my cultivation doppelganger."
Fang Xing looked at this scene, and his heart was filled with mixed emotions.
He wasn't even sure if this place was still in the main universe!
"The humans here... seem to be trending towards becoming half-favored races... Could this be the product of long-term coexistence with evil god pollution?!"
"There are footprints and cart wheel marks on the ground... It shouldn't be far from human settlements..."
Fang Xing rubbed his brow and looked at the coarse hemp cloth clothing on the man.
The nano-suit on his body immediately began to change, transforming into a similar style to the man's.
...
After following the cart wheel marks for over half an hour, Fang Xing saw vast fields.
The fields were planted with turnips, wheat, and something similar to onions.
They didn't seem to be growing well, and in the middle of the fields, there was a small river flowing, with a windmill in the distance and a mill below it.
Fang Xing's Golden Core Domain unfolded, enveloping several farmers who were working.
They were short and thin, but they had large muscles, a sign of overworked bodies.
According to Fang Xing's feeling, they wouldn't live past the age of forty.
And... they also had some half-favored race characteristics, which made Fang Xing feel a little uncomfortable.
Even according to the laws of the Blue Star Federation, these half-favored race humans could be expelled from the 'human' category.
'But, none of this is the most important thing.'
Fang Xing's martial will moved, and this time, it was different from before. Instead of a forceful impact, it was like countless tiny threads, infiltrating the consciousness of these farmers.
Soon, scenes from their lives were extracted...
Scenes of daily life, language, and religious culture...
"After the Golden Core stage, I feel like I'm becoming more and 'inhuman'..."
Fang Xing sighed inwardly.
The knowledge he had gained allowed him to quickly extract useful information and, in an instant, master it.
In other words, he had just learned a new language from another world.
Of course, he couldn't read or write yet since these farmers were illiterate!
Fang Xing continued on his way and soon arrived at a small village.
The houses were short and dilapidated, most of them haphazardly put together with thatch and wooden boards, and some were even dugouts.
The only well-preserved brick structures belonged to the local landlord, Ba Yi.
While Ba Yi didn't hold a noble title, he was still a significant figure in this remote and impoverished area.
Interestingly, the best building in the village wasn't the landlord's residence but a... church?
The church seemed to have recently endured a battle; the ground was messy, and the windows and doors showed signs of being hacked and shattered.
A massive stele lay in four pieces in front of the church, seemingly deliberately placed there to be trampled upon.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be the original stele that stood atop the church, bearing the emblem of the sun and moon.
Something mysterious and terrifying lurked within the church, its bloodied maw ready to devour any who dared enter...
Outside the village, Fang Xing touched his forehead and smiled bitterly, "This place is intense... The taint of evil gods is everywhere. It's tough to survive here without becoming a half-follower."
As he entered the village, he immediately felt eyes on him—some curious, others hostile.
"Foreigner!"
A shrill voice rang out, and a woman clutching her child quickly rushed into her house and slammed the door shut.
"Am... I that scary?"
Fang Xing took slow steps toward the church.
Before he had gone far, a burly white man with a ruddy nose blocked his path. His hair was curly and red as wine, and his chest, half-exposed, was covered in thick hair, resembling a gorilla.
"Outsider... where are you from?" He sized up Fang Xing with a lewd smile.
"From where I should be from."
Fang Xing smiled in response.
Obviously, his enigmatic reply did not interest this thug; instead, it seemed to provoke him.
The white man spat a thick mouthful of phlegm on the ground, his face twisting malevolently, "Outsider... you're on Ba Yi's land now. You must pay the 'blood tax' to Lord Ba Yi!"
"Pay taxes?"
Fang Xing nodded, "How much?"
Having experienced the ridiculous toll of spiritual stones required to enter the Immortal City, Fang Xing was quite accustomed to such demands.
"The blood tax doesn't want your money, but your blood... and flesh!"
The man's expression turned manic, "One eye, one ear, and a bowl of blood..."
He wasn't making an empty threat; he brandished a dark red dagger, prepared to collect this 'tax' by force.
Moreover, judging from the filth in the dagger's grooves, this wasn't his first time doing this.
"Sorry, I lied to you earlier. Even if it's just money, I don't have any..."
Fang Xing suddenly smiled.
Then, with a light snap of his finger, the dagger shattered, and he kicked the man squarely in the chest.
Crack!
With a sickening sound of breaking bones, the burly man flew backward and crashed into a mud wall.
If Fang Xing hadn't held back, the man would've been dead instantly.
"What do you do with the blood tax you collect?"
Fang Xing approached the badly injured man, knowing that his internal organs had been pierced by his own broken ribs, causing a slow and painful death.
Fang Xing's psychic power suppressed the man's resistance, creating a hypnotic effect.
"The Sadhu wizard..."
Fear crept into the white man's eyes as he mumbled, "The Sadhu wizard killed the church servant and hung him from a tree as an offering to the nature spirit—the Stag-headed Spirit! This appeased the spirit's wrath... so Lord Ba Yi chose to convert to the Sadhu religion... The Sadhu wizard demands ten ears, ten eyes, and a pot of fresh blood to worship the 'spirit' he believes in..."
"The church servant?"
Fang Xing understood that they were referring to the unfortunate man hanging from the tree, his limbs pierced.
He turned away from the thug, now wailing and screaming, and walked towards the church.
According to the information he had gathered, the 'Sadhu' wizard should be inside.
The village fell into an eerie silence, with no one daring to venture out to investigate the commotion, despite the thug's cries and howls.
Fang Xing stood before the shattered stele, his eyes fixed on the figure within the church.
The person had dark skin, and their face and body were covered in tattoos, with silver rings piercing their lips and nose—a bizarre sight.
"A Sadoku Sect witch?" Fang Xing asked aloud.
"How dare you be so rude?" The tanned-skinned Sadoku Sect witch had been stirring a large pot, containing a dark red liquid that bubbled and boiled. Among the frothing liquid were eyeballs and ears, along with other human body parts.
The witch stopped stirring and stood up, his posture stiff and unnatural, more like a rigid corpse than a living person. He even emitted a putrid stench of decay. To Fang Xing, he felt like a 'living dead' man!
Furthermore, through Fang Xing's psychic power, he sensed what seemed to be a semi-transparent human-shaped entity attached to the witch's back, resembling some sort of spiritual parasite.
'Is this... some sort of lower-level subordinate? A spiritual being that lives in symbiosis with a human?' Fang Xing speculated.
"Mortal... how dare you look directly at a great Sadoku Sect witch?" The witch flew into a rage and pulled out a handful of pitch-black sand from his pocket, throwing it at Fang Xing. At the same time, he began to mutter an ancient curse:
"I curse you! I curse you to be bitten by venomous snakes, stung by mad bees, your corpse to be devoured by beetles..."
In Fang Xing's eyes, the sand transformed into snakes and bees. The curse carried an eerie oppression that even a third-level Jade warrior would struggle to resist. They would likely be entangled by snakes and stung blind by bees, just as the curse described.
"This... witchcraft?"
"No... It's the first time I've seen someone so infused with the taint of evil gods!"
Fang Xing rubbed his brow, and a blazing solar-like martial will surged from him.
The snakes and bees instantly turned into smoke and vanished.
"Show me what else you can do." Fang Xing goaded the witch, beckoning with his finger.
"Impossible!!" The witch's face contorted with disbelief. "I offered the sacrifice of a pair of children to bear the 'Nature Spirit'... How could I lose to a mere mortal?!"
He tore open his robe, revealing a skeletal frame covered in intricate and bizarre tattoos. The tattoos seemed to writhe like insects, causing the transparent and ethereal 'spiritual parasite' to merge almost indistinguishably with the witch.
"Wind! I summon the raging wind! Scatter my enemies! Blow away their flesh! Extinguish their souls!"
A fierce wind appeared within the church, or so it seemed to Fang Xing. In truth, the black wind was not a gust but a manifestation of the terrifying taint of the evil gods!
Within the taint, a human face emerged, gnashing at Fang Xing.
"We martial artists fear nothing, especially not this!" Fang Xing sighed and clenched his fist, infused with martial will.
With ease, he punched through the black wind, his fist retaining its power even ten steps away, and struck the witch on the forehead, knocking him unconscious.
"Woof!"
Something unexpected happened. The wind that had been scattered by Fang Xing's martial will suddenly reformed into a transparent and illusory human shape.
It crawled out from the witch's back, moving on all fours like an animal, then leaped to the edge of the pot and began to feed on the 'offering'.
The pot quickly corroded, rusting and extinguishing the flame beneath it. A putrid and foul odor emanated from the pot...
"Even a lower-ranked subordinate would have died from my punch... This spiritual parasite seems to have an 'immortal' trait? This world is truly interesting..."
Fang Xing turned his attention to the unconscious witch. He noticed that after the spiritual parasite had fed on the offering, it returned to the witch's back and became dormant.
'Earlier, the spiritual parasite seemed to have the intention to attack the Sadoku witch, but it was restrained by the tattoos...'
'This is what I observe with my psychic power... Ordinary villagers would probably only hear the wind and see the pot suddenly rust... They would be terrified, thinking that some evil spirit was at work - and from the results, they wouldn't be wrong.'
Fang Xing nodded, and the purple-veined golden pill within him rotated, altering his aura. He extended his hand, grasping the witch's head, and activated the 'Soul-Searching Art'!
Previously, his martial will could only search the soul of an ordinary person, a technique he had gained inspiration for from this very art.
But against a true 'superhuman', he needed to convert his spiritual energy and use the soul-searching art of the immortal cultivation world!
(End of Chapter)
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