Chapter 83: – Di Xin, Da Ji (46K) – Please Subscribe

Those human sacrifices arranged like dishes, and the houses behind them, like the avenue where Wang Wu and his companions stand, all emit a faint phosphorescence.

Even though the sky remains pitch black, visibility in this dark mountain far exceeds that of the outside Wang Gu Lin, or rather, it is even brighter than when you walk at night on the plain outside Wang Gu Lin.

Wang Wu even turned off the camera's night‑vision mode and could still see perfectly clearly.

The night here is quiet and peaceful; without these dish‑shaped Yin‑Shang corpses and without the eerie chanting from the distant pure white holy city, Wang Wu might even come to like this place.

Si Hun Shan is beautiful, its scenery immensely grand, and even on a night like this its charm can be felt. It truly is one of the sacred sites of the Yin‑Shang era.

"These people have all become sacrifices…"

Wang Wu maneuvered the spherical fortress, continuing along the avenue; upon seeing those dish‑shaped Yin‑Shang human sacrifices, he sighed.

"Some are terrifying…" In the cockpit, Shu Niang shrank her neck in fear. She is only a monster who has not yet taken shape for ten years, so she hasn't seen much. But it's not just her; Wu Er Niang and San Niang's expressions are also far from pleasant.

Conversely, Wang Wu is the calmest of the four monsters right now, though he is equally uneasy inside.

Nevertheless, the immediate priority is to find Yuan; even though Yuan says he will hide in the tomb and not come out, Wang Wu believes such a massive demonic disaster cannot leave Zi Yuan completely unaffected.

If it had been before, Wang Wu would have been powerless, but now that he has a fortress that can fully protect him, he is determined to come into Si Hun Shan to check on Zi Yuan's situation.

The sooner, the better.

However, after piloting the spherical fortress around the mountain for over an hour, Wang Wu suddenly realized he was facing an extremely serious problem, namely:

He doesn't know where Zi Yuan lives.

He only knows that Zi Yuan is of the Shang royal lineage, that Zi Yuan has an enormously grand and luxurious tomb, and that Zhao Xingyue's group intends to steal Zi Yuan's tomb in Si Hun Shan.

He also knows…

Alright, what he knows isn't few. Yet, regardless, he still doesn't know Zi Yuan's exact location.

In his mind he began recalling the things Zi Yuan once told him, as well as the death replays and memory fragments shown to him, but none of those scenes seem to pinpoint the tomb's location…

Wait.

The transmitted images in Wang Wu's mind froze instantly, then replayed, fast‑forwarded, fast‑forwarded again, slowed down, and replayed once more.

Then he operated the camera, turned on a filter—using a filter isn't cheating, of course… In short, an ultra‑clear image appeared before his eyes.

The camera rose high, high enough to encompass the entire mountain range beneath it. Moments later, Wang Wu located the spot that, in Zi Yuan's memory, they had just awakened and first saw after drifting out of the tomb.

All these operations can be performed by thought; in fact, the various levers and buttons in the cockpit are unnecessary. But there's a sense of ceremony, and when mental control fails one can switch to manual.

The location is still quite far; the control panel shows an arrival time of forty minutes.

"Found it."

Wang Wu said, "I've located Yuan'er's tomb; it's there."

He marked the location of Zi Yuan's tomb for the three demonesses; Wang Wu pulled the lever, and the spherical fortress instantly accelerated, racing toward Zi Yuan's tomb.

"Wu Lang, what do you think this is?"

The spherical fortress surged forward at eighty kilometers per hour; about ten minutes later, Wu Er Niang suddenly transmitted an image to Wang Wu.

Wang Wu saw the scene in the image and was instantly stunned.

There were people there; Wang Wu was certain they were humans because they wore Zhou‑dynasty‑style robes, the kind of "cultivator garments."

There were few symbols or markings; the attire looked plain, yet one could instantly sense the extraordinary quality of their garments.

There were three in total: a middle‑aged man with a long, graying beard; an elder whose eyes were pitch black; and a young man whose face was frighteningly pale.

"There's a problem with the tomb of the Yin‑Shang king's daughter Yuan," the middle‑aged man said, his gaze fixed on the destination of Wang Wu's party of demons—the great tomb of Zi Yuan.

"That great tomb has been sealed and a great formation activated," he said, then withdrew his gaze to look at his companion.

"Could it be that Luo Jia Qian did it?" the pallid‑faced youth guessed after hearing the middle‑aged man: "Without the Zi surname royal blood, there's no way to activate the great formation."

"Previously, the Luo family could open the great tomb and take the space vessel because they carried a descendant of Di Xin. Before leaving, they sealed the tomb and re‑activated the great formation to prevent later intruders from entering." he added.

"No, not just descendants," the elder among the three added: "Mere descendants are insufficient to open the great tomb, let alone take the space vessel. The Luo person must either possess the nation‑stabilizing jade pendant or be of Yin‑king blood."

"Impossible," the other two replied in unison.

"The Shang court's lineage has long been extinct; Di Xin and his offspring are dead, so where does the claim of Yin‑king blood come from?" the youth said. "Moreover, Chao Ge has become a demonic realm; even if one wishes to establish a new ruler, how could one reenact the coronation ceremony again?"

As the youth spoke, the middle‑aged man who had earlier challenged the elder wore a thoughtful expression.

"Da Ji," he said after the youth finished.

The youth was instantly stunned.

"Whoa, Da Ji really exists?"

Wang Wu was listening to their conversation beside the three, and was doing fine, but when he heard the name 'Di Xin' he was taken aback.

Although he knew little of ancient history, Wang Wu had heard the name Di Xin before—King Zhou of Shang. Of course, he wasn't entirely sure; he only recalled that he seemed to have heard it.

As Da Ji now appeared, he immediately understood why the name Di Xin felt familiar to him.

Damn it, the sentiment really is Shang‑dynasty.

But why does your Zhou still use the commandery‑county system? Then again, considering people can now fly in the sky, this alternate‑world Zhou's centralization isn't wrong at all.

"But Da Ji is a fox demon; how could she possibly bear offspring with Di Xin?" the youth asked, puzzled, but as soon as he said it he was stunned, then looked at the two:

"Do you mean Da Ji hasn't died??"

"What, what does that mean?"

In the cockpit, Wang Wu listened to their words, utterly confused.

What does 'Da Ji hasn't died' mean? Da Ji was King Zhou's wife, right? Where would she get Yin‑king blood?

Or perhaps in this world Da Ji and Di Xin actually share blood ties, and since there are no restrictions on close kin here, Da Ji became Di Xin's wife?

But that doesn't seem surprising; Wang Wu nodded at the thought. After all, in his homeland's history, rulers often chose close‑kin breeding to preserve purity.

For example, the famous Habsburg family.

Back to the point, can people here live over a thousand years? After pondering the tangled relationship between the other‑worldly Da Ji and King Zhou for a while, Wang Wu stopped and considered another question.

He never asked Zhao Xingyue's people how long humans generally live, but it's unlikely to exceed a thousand years, even for the extraordinary.

Monsters, however, can live a long time—eight hundred years is easy, a thousand is trivial, though the upper limit is usually around fifteen hundred.

Beyond that, they can still live, but obviously they are no longer counted as "demons".

Most demons, after surpassing a thousand years, become somewhat unmindful, or rather occasionally hazy—basically just a fleeting blur and a lapse of consciousness.

But as they age, the periods of unmindfulness and "blur" lengthen, and the negative effects grow stronger.

After fifteen hundred years, they will rapidly decay; at first there may be a few hours of lucidity each day, but that time shortens as time goes on.

This stage is what is called a "half‑demon"; they have already lain fully in the coffin, only the lid remains unsealed. Their mind changes, and their body undergoes earth‑shattering transformation.

At sixteen hundred years, almost no demon can stay lucid; they become completely demonic and will never be reborn.

From that viewpoint, being a demon is actually quite miserable. But then again, they have a thousand five hundred years; when they truly feel they can no longer control themselves, they could even consider suicide in human society.

However, Wang Gu Lin has an interesting feature: when demons sense their end approaching, they all rush into Wang Gu Lin.

This is what Wu Er Niang told him, saying that among demon circles there has long been a saying: on Si Hun Shan one can find a way to control demonic nature and reverse demonic transformation.

In fact this is not a rumor but the correct answer. Because Si Hun Shan indeed contains a means to "reverse demonic transformation", and that method is simple: "Demonic Cultivation".

However, the Shang dynasty has already perished. Moreover, whether the human path of demonic cultivation can apply to demons, given that demons cannot at all practice human True Dao techniques, it is probably impossible.

After those three people flying in the sky mentioned Daji, they seemed to instantly share some tacit understanding; they stopped speaking and simply stared quietly at the distant Zi Yuan's great tomb.

They were clearly interested in Zi Yuan's great tomb, but since the tomb is now sealed and the formation reactivated, they have no way to deal with it.

"Let's go."

The middle‑aged man flew forward a short distance, stopped there and stared at Zi Yuan's great tomb for a while. As he turned around, he spoke to the other two.

But at that moment, the middle‑aged man suddenly noticed the two were staring blankly at his side.

"How…"

The middle‑aged man was about to ask, but instantly reacted, his form vanished in an instant and reappeared hundreds of meters away.

After appearing in the distance, he immediately looked back at his original spot, but there was nothing—just pitch black.

Wang Wu was different; as a bystander aside from the three, what he saw was very clear:

When the middle‑aged man flew forward a distance and turned to look at his companion, a huge humanoid appeared behind him.

It stood over thirty meters tall, appearing just like that, silently floating in the air. Its hair was disheveled, and it bore an extremely grotesque, twisted human face.

That face inevitably reminded Wang Wu of a towel twisted tight.

A pair of blood‑red eyes stared fixedly at the middle‑aged man below; its huge mouth opened, revealing two hundred gleaming white incisors.

But the middle‑aged man reacted swiftly; when he tried to bite, the opponent had already vanished from the spot.

On the middle‑aged man's face, countless beads of sweat erupted, dripping down like a waterfall.

"Fuck, wh‑ how could this be…"

He muttered under his breath, then looked at his two companions, but at that moment he found they had already vanished without a trace.

"Fuck, how could this be!! How could this be!!!"

At this moment the middle‑aged man's eyes were wide open, his eyeballs nearly protruding from their sockets. He opened his mouth and shouted loudly:

"How could this be, how could you see, how could you see me!???"

While saying that, the man's form vanished again, and in the blink of an eye he was now nearly a kilometer away.

Wang Wu hurriedly maneuvered his camera to fly over, but at that moment he disappeared again, this time appearing directly on Wang Wu's camera.

Looking at the huge face on the screen, Wang Wu suddenly realized: its face had become extremely withered, like someone who had starved for countless days, lingering on the brink of death.

At this moment the middle‑aged man's eyeballs trembled, as if crushed by some enormous pressure.

He floated in the air, constantly twisting his head, looking here one moment and there the next. The expression on his face grew increasingly frantic, and beads of sweat kept appearing on his body.

"Fuck, where are you, where are you!!!"

Racing wildly around, the middle‑aged man roared, his voice sounding like summer thunder.

Then he flicked his large sleeve, and several streaks of cold light shot from his cuff, forming a steel storm that enveloped his whole body.

"Haha, hahahaha!!!"

In this steel storm, the middle‑aged man let out a mad laugh: "Come on!! You beast, you demon!!! Come kill me!! Come on!!!!!!!"

"Aaaaaaaah!!!!"

The man let out wave after wave of screams, each louder than the last. He stopped using that teleport‑like technique, his body surged forward violently, reaching a speed of three thousand kilometers per hour within mere seconds.

Even Wang Wu now, under the Heavenly Demon Form, tops out at only fourteen hundred kilometers per hour, whereas this middle‑aged man's speed was more than twice that.

This clearly is beyond the speed any ordinary True Realm cultivator can achieve; it is certainly a Break‑Delusion beyond the True Realm, perhaps an even higher realm.

"Haha, kill!! kill!! kill you all, you Yin people!!! Hahaha! Kill you all, you demons!!! Hahaha, hahahaha!!!!"

The storm swirling around the middle‑aged man engulfed the opponent, turning into a streak of light that shot toward the ground. In the air, bursts of Boom— and mist swirled, the debris produced when a wall of sound was shattered.

The man cackled wildly, leaving behind trails of utterly mad sound in the air as he charged toward the forest below, toward the dwellings that housed human livestock, and toward the jade stone avenue beneath.

He barreled on like that, shredding anything in his path with the high‑speed rotating blades. The man plowed a circle on the ground until the entire surface lay in ruins, then he returned to the sky.

Now he was no longer enveloped by the high‑speed rotating blades; he closed his eyes, hovering in the sky with an oddly eerie yet dignified and solemn demeanor, fingers forming a divine hand seal that made him appear like a noble deity.

The cold light that had previously swirled around the middle‑aged man now revealed its true form: six cold‑glinting longswords, three long and three short, floating behind him, forming a Dharma wheel.

"All phenomena seek truth; all phenomena break delusion; all phenomena eliminate emptiness."

"Truth is all things; truth transforms all phenomena; truth is the Dao of Heaven."

The middle‑aged man murmured, then suddenly opened his eyes.

Even though his appearance was withered, like a desiccated corpse, at this moment he looked like a deity descending to the world.

Divine, noble.

He opened his mouth, about to utter the next note, but at that instant the twisted humanoid reappeared, its blood‑red eyes fixed on the man below, its huge mouth gaping.

And the man's dignity, solemnity, and nobility on his face vanished instantly, replaced by endless terror and despair.

The huge mouth gaped wide and swallowed the middle‑aged man. He only managed to let out a scream before being devoured.

A moment later, streaks of cold light pierced the twisted face's skin, and desperate screams echoed from the wounds. But soon only the sound of metal snapping and flesh and bone being chewed remained.

(End of chapter)