Chapter 341: Journey to the West?

On the third day after the Dragon King's Number dispute, Kongming called Tang Luo.

He told Tang Luo that regarding the matter of "sacrifice, change location," Chijing Daoist also knew about it.

He himself had done it once before, and then suffered a very tragic failure.

Counting two mission failures, after failure the sacrificial item definitely would not be returned, and later he again obtained a sacrificial item that met the conditions, and before entering the mission world, he wanted to try once more.

But there was no longer any related world.

Obviously, because having been there once, it no longer counts as an unfamiliar world, a realm of heaven and earth.

As for successful people, there are indeed some, namely Jiang Shang, who created the contract through the Martial Arts Myth.

He succeeded.

According to Kongming's feedback, Jiang Shang said the mission difficulty indeed becomes much harder than ordinary missions, like the first time entering the Divine Demon Game, with a feeling of nine deaths to one life.

However, he also said that mission difficulty is related to entering the world itself.

If it is like the real world, with no supernatural powers—at least on the surface none or extremely few—the difficulty will be relatively simpler.

Only relatively speaking.

Jiang Shang said that in his own case, he did not encounter any other divine demon wanderers.

Whereas Chijing Daoist's time, there were divine demon wanderers of different factions and different missions appearing, which is actually quite similar to Tang Luo's solo survival mission.

As for the mission, they were all their solo missions, with no other divine demon wanderers sharing the same mission.

In short, the difficulty is not small, so caution is paramount.

Tang Luo then went to visit Li Jue and his wife again, inquiring about the situation regarding that mission.

Li Jue and his wife's mission, like the Dragon King's, was somewhat similar to the survival mission, being an escape mission.

The place they appeared was an underground cavern, and after escaping, it counted as completion.

The shadow of the Sha Wujing brand they encountered was in the underground dark river; at that time, the Dragon King covered the rear while the other three went ahead first, seeking another escape route.

Later, that divine demon wanderer brought Li Jue and his wife back, and they saw the "red-haired person" Xu Xu slowly dissipate.

The Dragon King took his weapon.

Because the precious staff was obtained by the Dragon King in single combat, it naturally belonged to the Dragon King.

However, the terrifying might when they first clashed also left a deep impression on Li Jue and his wife, who eyed it covetously without cease.

After the Dragon King's death, they became somewhat impatient.

After all, having a powerful piece of equipment, strength increase could be more than just a little bit.

Later, the four people left the labyrinth-like underground cavern, completed the mission and departed, without having conducted any external exploration.

During that time, they also encountered strange monsters, avoided battle several times, and aside from the Dragon King's fight, they also fought twice.

Tang Luo also accidentally learned that the Dragon King wanted him to treat his leg injury, which was actually the injury sustained during that mission.

After inquiring about the relevant situation, Tang Luo left, leaving Li Jue and his wife wanting to pack up their belongings and flee outside to avoid trouble.

In the middle of the night, someone suddenly barged in, came up and first attacked, beat them up before asking questions, yet they were fundamentally no match—who could withstand it?

Returning home, Tang Luo briefly organized the information he had obtained.

The Dragon King's "run-through" underground cavern does not necessarily require going inside to look; the information left by Sha Wujing already states things quite clearly.

He headed west.

Moreover, according to the description, the Dragon King may not have truly killed the brand-shadow left by Sha Wujing; rather, the power of the brand-shadow was exhausted and dissipated on its own.

Added to the lack of information, it is obvious that a long time has already passed.

Therefore, the west is the most important point.

A few days later, on the Dragon King's Number.

Ao Yulie, Tang Luo, and the Heavenly Dog on his shoulder awaited the mission's descent.

With about half a minute left before activation, Tang Luo took out the Earth Spirit Pearl: "Sacrifice this item, change the mission world."

There was no special light; when the time came, Tang Luo's vision changed, and the Earth Spirit Pearl in his hand vanished without trace.

"Isn't it said this heaven and earth are about to die? The heavenly and earthly qi is quite abundant, and also, what does this mission mean?" Ao Yulie's voice came from nearby.

The Heavenly Dog meowed, rubbed its head against Tang Luo's cheek, curled its body into a ball, and lay steadily on Tang Luo's shoulder, eyes closed, looking as if asleep.

There was no separation as before after entering the mission world.

"Two people and one cat" were together.

Also, no other divine demon wanderers entered together to complete the mission; it was a solo mission.

As for this mission, in Ao Yulie's view, it conveyed a strange feeling: escort the scripture-seeker to reach the Western Pure Land, obtain the True Scripture for World Salvation.

The mission is very simple, just one sentence, clear and concise: escort mission, standard and proper, with nothing special.

But...

"Master, are you sure this isn't Journey to the West? We've become scripture-seekers again?" Ao Yulie couldn't help but say.

"Exactly, anyway we also need to go west." Tang Luo said.

"At least give us an appearance for scripture-seekers, if not give coordinates, what if we die before finding them?" Ao Yulie complained the mission was a pitfall.

Tang Luo remained very calm.

Such headless and tailless situations in the Divine Demon Game are not uncommon; one just gets used to it.

Upon careful thought, Ao Yulie had only properly participated in one mission before, namely the previous search for the seized "Book of Life and Death."

"Don't rush." Tang Luo surveyed the surrounding environment.

This is an extremely dark prison, not entirely man-made, but rather a cave or earth tunnel-like place that has been renovated.

Above, on the "ceiling" about seven or eight meters high, there is a cracked trace, a beam of light shines down, not enough to make this place pitch black.

In front are rust-streaked iron railings, an iron door sealing off the passage to the outside world.

Behind is a stone wall, and beneath the stone wall there is a small water channel.

However, there was only a very shallow layer of water in the ditch, emitting a foul smell, and it had basically stopped flowing.

It would be more appropriate to call it a sewer.

The sewer was no more than twenty centimeters deep; it was impossible to escape the cell through here.

There was still quite a bit of moss on the stone walls inside the cell, and many weeds near the corners.

Beyond the rust-mottled iron gate was a pitch-black passage, sloping slightly upward, and a distinct elevation change leading up could be seen at the far end.

"Master, shall we go?" Ao Yulie asked.

"Let's go." Tang Luo nodded.

Ao Yulie took the lead, walking in front, and kicked the iron gate; the gate fell with a crash, the impact echoing back and forth inside the passage.

The situation where Zhou Zhen'guo kicked the main gate and it didn't budge an inch would naturally not happen to him.

"Master, the door doesn't seem to be locked." Ao Yulie glanced at the iron gate and said; the openwork iron gate was merely closed normally, not locked.

Because it hadn't been opened or closed for a long time, iron rust grew thickly, jamming it shut and creating the illusion of being locked.

The two proceeded forward along the passage; at the end was a wooden door leading to the surface. Ao Yulie pushed it slightly, but it didn't budge.

There should be some heavy object pressing down on top, sealing it shut.

With a heave, accompanied by a series of sounds, Ao Yulie flipped over this fairly sturdy wooden door, and light projected inside.

Outside the dungeon was a courtyard, overgrown with weeds. A dilapidated small pavilion missing even its roof could be seen, and a three-story small building that was still fairly intact — wooden, antique style.

As for the heavy object pressing on the wooden door, it was actually a large boulder. Because of its massive volume, the whole thing exceeded the dimensions of the wooden door, yet it hadn't crushed the door flat.

Following Ao Yulie's heave, it had already rolled to one side.

"There are people in the building." Ao Yulie said.

Footsteps could be heard coming from inside the wooden building, and soon four people ran over.

All were men, and they looked to be not young.

Two wore coarse short jackets; the other two wore tattered, ragged armor vests likely stripped from corpses — not iron, mostly constructed of wooden plates, with a heart-protector mirror at the center of the chest.

Each was rather short and slight, built like skinny monkeys, holding wooden sticks, pitchforks — weapons that barely qualified as such.

Only one of them held a saber.

They gave the impression of lowly desperate soldiers fleeing for their lives after a defeat.

The four looked at Tang Luo and Ao Yulie, fell silent for a while, then began to laugh one by one.

Bloodthirsty, greedy smiles; one even licked his cracked lips: "Fine skin and tender meat, the taste must be good."

"Eat? Are you stupid! Prime goods like this should be sold!" the man with the saber said, revealing a ferocious grin, his black-yellow teeth uneven.

"Leave one alive for questioning." Tang Luo said to Ao Yulie.

"Okay." Ao Yulie stepped forward.

"Yo, young master still..." The provocation wasn't finished before his body was swept up into the sky by a violent gust of wind, then slammed down heavily, and together with two others, he fell to his death on the spot.

Only the man with the saber remained; this one, who looked like a minor leader, should know more.

"A ghost!"

Seeing his companions' corpses smashed beyond recognition, the saber-wielding man reacted, let out a miserable scream, threw down his saber, and turned to run.

Ao Yulie caught up in a step, shoved him from behind, sending him sprawling face-first, and stomped a foot on his back: "I say, you answer."

"N-no, not a ghost?" The man froze, then let out a huge breath of relief.

"Have you ever seen a ghost as handsome as this young master?" Ao Yulie said rather narcissistically.

"Yes yes yes!" The man lay on the ground nodding like a garlic-peeler, covering himself in dust and dirt — though he wasn't much better off before. "Young master is the most handsome; this lowly one has never seen anyone as handsome as young master."

"Enough bootlicking." After the other finished bootlicking, Ao Yulie said, "What place is this, and who are you people?"

Through this man's answers, Tang Luo and Ao Yulie gained a preliminary understanding of this mission world.

Productivity and cultural environment were similar to ancient Huaxia, but far worse; the vast majority of people lived hand-to-mouth.

There was no concept of a nation; there were only gathering places of people, small ones called villages, large ones called cities.

The reason for the precarious existence, besides low productivity, was all kinds of ghosts and monsters running rampant.

Different from Dayou where monsters occupied territories and seemed ready to counterattack.

Here, all kinds of bizarre events and bizarre things appeared frequently; their dominance proclaimed that they were the true masters of this world.

Humans were merely pitiful worms lingering on their last breath under the shadow of terror.