Chapter 506: Village Chief's Hidden Books, Useful Records

"Completely unrestrained, has he gone totally insane?"

Facing the deep, massive crater caused by the giant resentment demon, Du En did not have the slightest ripple of emotion; as he thought this, his Dharma technique already shifted.

Amidst the wind and rain, in the scouring of the air currents, the chain blade suddenly turned and went away.

He gave Wu Rui another look.

On this side, there was still a tacit understanding; having just stood firm, she directly raised the slingshot in her hand and shot a pellet toward the top of the giant resentment demon's head.

Boom! The giant resentment demon truly took the bait, jumping up on the spot without a second thought, causing the crater to crack, and opened its mouth to bite at that spiritual purification pellet.

It exploded as a matter of course, but it had no lethality; it was meant to lure him into the trap from the start.

The next moment, the chain blade had already rapidly swum over, binding him circle after circle.

Naturally, this alone could not completely bind and restrain the opponent; it was instantly pulled taut, and intense resistance appeared.

However, immediately following this, Du En directly bundled the burning sword with the chains, the Dharma treasure's restrictions connecting and merging; while reinforcing and strengthening the chain blade, the raging Three Truths Divine Fire also spread over, instantly igniting the giant resentment demon.

"Ahhh! It is, it is a punishment!"

The giant resentment demon still had the strength to shout and scream there, clearly not so easy to deal with; he could even use this to briefly suspend his massive, fat body in the air, currently gathering strength to prepare for a leap, intending to step on the air and charge over.

But he was not given the chance to wait for that moment, because in the next instant, the flames turned into sharp teeth, the chains transformed into ringed jaws, and they combined to tighten and bite, beginning to rotate at high speed, turning into a terrifying meat-grinding cutter.

Blood and grease splattered, simply like being squeezed to pieces; the giant, obese resentment demon was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye, making Wu Rui, who had shown a very carefree attitude all along the way, unable to bear looking at this moment, turning her head to look silently at the perpetrator.

"Although the resentment and demonic energy are heavy and abundant, compared to the guardian warriors who can use them quite properly and whose forms are more suitable for combat, this guy seems very mediocre."

I am not trying to ask you for such judgment and reflection! She was somewhat speechless.

Du En knew but did not care.

However, cruel and tragic as the scene was, the effect was truly good; the giant resentment demon screamed repeatedly but could not break free, his resistance rapidly waning from its peak. He only silently increased the force and speed, cutting and crushing the bones that had already been reached in this rapid moment as well.

In the end, only a head that still looked like something, not so terrifying and ghastly, was left, tied up separately and hung in the air, preventing it from coming into contact with the meat paste and fragments in the crater on the ground.

The divine fire continued to burn in the pit, also blocking and evaporating the gloomy rain to avoid any other unexpected situations.

After confirming there were no errors, Du En took Wu Rui and flew into the air, in front of that head.

"Alright, purify it."

"……Oh."

Wu Rui seemed to have something to say but stopped, but in the end, she said nothing, just appearing somewhat helpless.

Then the green light of purification lit up.

"It is, for me, a chastisement……"

A deep, trembling murmur sounded in the pitch-black, airtight room.

The tall, heroic man looked at the window at this moment with somewhat dull eyes.

The gloomy rain fell incessantly, and the end could not be seen.

Humans and beasts underwent corruption in the rain, destroying the once peaceful and orderly village; bright flames ignited from time to time, only to be quickly extinguished, replaced by the shattering of walls and the collapse of houses.

Amidst the rumbling sounds, what made the man feel even more inexplicable emotion was that the culprit causing the destruction and collapse was the gunpowder bombs stored by the village.

"In the end, is it man's own fault?"

His pale lips trembled; moist water vapor carrying resentment and demonic energy was seeping in from the gaps, from the crevices gradually pried open by the continuous vibrations, gently disturbing one's mind like small hands, causing it to gradually fall and mutate.

The man's pupils began to fill with blood-colored threads, dividing his field of vision into fragmented, distorted areas, causing him to reveal various expressions of sorrow and regret.

Because.

"This must be due to the mistake I committed!"

He turned his head stiffly; in this room with excellent sealing measures, appearing airtight and solid, filled with bookshelves, in the deep light, in the gradually seeping water vapor, one could see the spines of the books on the shelves, which at this moment seemed to be writhing, emitting the mockery of resentment and demons.

"I shouldn't have collected so many heretical scriptures, really shouldn't have, shouldn't have, ah!!!"

Ultimately crossing the boundary line, spiritual energy was displaced, resentment and demons lingered and obsessed, and he began to undergo corruption.

He rushed out amidst the tragic and remorseful howling, pushed over the bookshelves, tore the books to shreds; amidst the fluttering paper scraps, tears flowed from a pair of tiger eyes, and the flesh and blood where the tears flowed squirmed, as if wanting to open eyes.

If he could have seen this consequence clearly before, that would have been good! All of this was the punishment brought about by his own deviation in devotion! The village chief of Station Village, this man faced the destruction brought by the gloomy rain, only roaring and shouting, only hating and regretting, only sincerely begging that if the Divine Tree truly sent down punishment, it should only punish him, this damned person who had fallen and deviated! Because of this intense emotion, his obsession and fixation became distorted, so resentment and demons took advantage of the opportunity to enter, turning him into that ugly, bloated, obese, single-winged, feathered posture.

He should have been a powerful warrior comparable to a guardian warrior, but in the end, he completely lost his own honor.

He should have been wailing and lamenting alone inside the building until he noticed the arrival of the Divine Tree maiden.

So he rushed out and broke through the solid house, leaving the fortress that bound him; his final will completely collapsed, and his form also rapidly mutated until he was crushed and squeezed into nothingness.

"Ugh……"

Wu Rui curled up in discomfort; this village chief's resentment and demonic energy were truly abundant, making her, who had been rushing about and fighting, unable to hold on. Fortunately, she had not purified the villagers and other resentment demons first, otherwise, there would have been problems by now.

As for now, with Du En sharing the burden, there was no actual problem; she just needed to slow down for a moment.

"Until the end, still because of my……"

The village chief was gradually turning to stone, a final flash of consciousness.

Then he was simply interrupted by calmness.

"A bit of a pity."

"Wha……"

"You ruined that room full of books; now there are many things I might have to go through a lot of trouble to figure out, and I don't know what fragmented content might be left over there."

This was Du En's only thought; he did not care about the village chief's remorse and obsession, his calm, ancient well of a mind not even having a single ripple.

After all, for a rather typical fanatic, there was really nothing to be sentimental about.

"……Go find the old warrior; if it is him, perhaps he can still hold on. After all, that is a person who has fought for decades on the Frontier Great Wall……"

The village chief did not say any more words of regret, as if awakened by the attitude here, or perhaps relieved of his previous remorse by the attitude here, noticing that the arrival of the disaster actually had nothing to do with his own actions. In short, in the end, he pointed out a certain place in the village with his gaze; that was an area Du En and the others had not yet reached, very ordinary, and even looking at it from afar, it appeared too ordinary.

Without obtaining information beforehand, one could probably only rely on a carpet search to find that place.

Looking at it this way, it did not quite match the various known information.

Du En was lost in thought.

The village head turned into a stone statue.

Without any delay, the chain blade relaxed and retracted; the massive stone head fell, kicking up a layer of lime dust, and was then quickly soaked by the overcast rain.

The divine fire had already been extinguished, because now it was necessary to be calculating; even consuming a little more mana would be inappropriate.

"How is it?"

"Not bad."

"Then let's go to the village head's house first to see if any hidden books or records can be salvaged; you can also take a rest while you're at it."

"Mm."

Wurei did not try to act tough, and was then carried along, quickly moving to the village head's house, where she sat in a relatively dry spot.

Watching Du En begin to busy himself, flying here and roasting there, he soon gathered a large pile of paper scraps; relying on viewing the memories of obsessions and his status as a Half-Step Void Refinement cultivator, he could already fully understand the various scripts of this world.

Most were doctrinal scriptures from a motley assortment of sects.

However, some basic information could also be gleaned from them.

For instance, when the Grudge Demons appeared and began to threaten the Qing Kingdom, people were initially completely helpless; the current Border Great Wall was actually not the original border at all, but a new border that only stabilized after the appearance of the Divine Tree Sect later on.

Before the appearance of the Divine Tree Sect, there were countless sects, or rather, many people in the Qing Kingdom were searching for ways to curb the encroachment of the Grudge Demons; whether it was ancient inherited immortal cultivation methods or people chasing after spiritual sustenance in their powerlessness, in short, a motley and uneven variety of sects and factions appeared.

However, after the Azure Sky Divine Tree grew out, these sects and factions quickly vanished like smoke.

Because people are always pragmatic, the establishment of the Divine Tree Sect allowed everything to quickly have a practical sustenance, and they began to discard various other paths, gathering closely around the Divine Tree and the Divine Tree Witch Priest.

Because the means to purify Grudge Demons were here!

Du En's movement of examining the paper scraps paused, which seemed very astonishing to Wurei, because she had actually seen a clear ripple of emotion in his eyes for the first time.

Was that surprise? Or, gravity? She couldn't help but be curious, so she immediately ran over, stretched her head out, and leaned in to look at it.

It was just another fragmentary record related to a motley assortment of sects and factions.

The difference was that this sect was called the Buddha Sect.

"In order to resist the Grudge Demons, every school and sect was studying hard, and when the Divine Tree finally responded to the prayers of the Shengmin people and appeared in the world, and after that Qinglan Witch Priest was able to successfully purify and curb the Grudge Demons, every school and sect was quickly abandoned and fell into decline; it was the same for my Buddha, completely unable to turn the tide."

"Not walking the righteous path, one will eventually fall into the demonic! This is a karmic obstacle!"

"Attempting to use human wishes to control human grudges will ultimately only create a Human-Demon Buddha-Enemy; that is the incarnation of the Heavenly Demon Bo Xun in the human world!"

A high monk wrote every word in blood; when Wurei read these words, she felt as if she saw a bald monk loudly wailing before a green lamp and an ancient Buddha in a trance.

Then, it and the Buddha also vanished along with the other sects, declining and disappearing from this kingdom, and even from above the stars.

Wurei blinked her eyes.

It seemed a bit special, but was there a need to be disturbed to such an extent?

She turned her head in surprise, only to see that Du En had already returned to calm.

"It's nothing, I just remembered something I had previously overlooked and forgotten."

At this moment, he clearly recalled again the various matters of the Great Sorrow Human-Demon and the River of Tears of All Living Beings.

So, this time is it a Great Grudge Human-Demon? The true precursor state of the Grudge Evil? And tracing the source further, is it the Heavenly Demon incarnation as the Buddhist follower said?

And, how did he overlook and forget these things before? Compared to before, was it because he already possessed the Dao? He couldn't help but look at the panel; at this very moment, that Zhujun Dao had already accumulated three points of proficiency, moving forward steadily bit by bit.

"The Buddhist school, ah, the Buddhas, they are always so sneaky..."

He seemed to want to say something more in evaluation, consistent with his calm yet sharp-tongued norm, but the words stopped at his lips, because he still couldn't see that level now; that should be a height beyond the human world, so making any judgment now was actually very inappropriate.

Although he already had a basic attitude in his heart.

"Let's not worry about this Buddhist school matter for now."

"Why? You were clearly quite concerned about it, and besides..."

"Those are just guys who will follow the trend to assist or drag things along a little; counting on them to be the main force or reliance to solve problems, perhaps it's only when one is sorrowful and desperate, experiencing the suffering of the world, and reaching a sudden enlightenment that there might be some possibility."

Du En said this without any sharp critique, but to Wurei, it already sounded very much like a sharp critique, the kind where unintentional sincerity hurts the most.

She shook her head slightly, not thinking too much about it, and feeling that she was already much better, she helped organize the remaining paper scraps.

The two quickly finished reading the rest; apart from records that were much the same, either lamenting the destruction of sects or rejoicing that the Qing Kingdom was saved, only two pieces of text were of value.

"The rise of the Divine Tree Sect was rapid, taking only a dozen years or so to occupy everything, and they even seized the underground secret grounds that previously belonged to my sect, using them to train their guardian warriors."

One piece was a doctrinal record originating from the Asura Sect, with a hurried handwritten note from a disciple attached: "Of course, I admire the guardian warriors; after all, that trial secret ground is really not a kind place. Even though it is no longer as dangerous as it was in the past due to the scarcity of spiritual Qi, the key is that immortal cultivators have already exited the stage of this world, yet they stepped into it with the bodies of ordinary people and were actually able to return safely—what kind of things are they?!"

There was another paragraph following it.

"Alright, now I have also become one of them, one of those 'things', but I am different from them. I can only rely on some foresight to barely mix into a bottom-tier seat; perhaps it was even specially approved by Lady Qinglan because of my background, not wanting to damage the face of my sect. Tsk! Sure enough, those guys are all a bit wrong in the head; normal fanatics simply can't compare!"

Looking at this, Wurei stroked her chin, feigning depth, and imitated Du En, making conjectures.

"So, the guardian warriors of the Divine Tree Sect are likely bestowed with certain things that make them appear different from ordinary people?"

"There is that possibility; the Divine Tree and the Guardian Birds are perhaps the essence blood of various strange birds or divine birds."

"Really?"

"Fake."

"Ah?"

(End of this chapter)