The young man carried the unconscious girl in his arms, the two terrifying bloody holes in his chest healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He walked step by step into the Earth God temple.
His footsteps were incredibly slow and steady, not daring to cause even the slightest jolt, afraid of disturbing her dreams.
Behind him.
The centipede monster looked down in disbelief at the massive hole where its dark aura had been blasted open.
Severed limbs were scattered across the ground, and a crimson, magma-like fluid gushed from the stumps, flowing like blood.
The edges of the hole were slowly writhing and healing, and the shattered limbs were gathering back together.
It was thoroughly enraged.
Its tearing roar threatened to destroy everything.
Once it finished regenerating, it would immediately tear that guy to pieces!
But Wu Li did not even turn his head.
He walked straight into the temple. With a sweep of his dark aura, he knocked the seated statue on the high altar to the ground, shattering it into pieces.
The high altar was now empty and relatively clean, covered with a layer of faded red cloth.
Hongjiao understood his intention, picking up two kneeling cushions from the floor with its mouth and laying them on top.
Only then did Wu Li bend down, carefully placing the person in his arms onto the altar.
His movements were so light, as if he were settling fragile glass, or enshrining an inviolable treasure.
At this moment.
Upon the high altar, it was as if the young man had found his one and only deity.
He leaned over, cupped her face, and pressed a light kiss to her forehead with the devotion of a true believer.
His gaze fell upon her forearm, which had turned black from the erosion of the evil aura. He took her hands, folded them against his lips, and drew the evil aura out from beneath her skin thread by thread, swallowing it entirely into his own body.
The heavy affection in the depths of his eyes was not concealed in the slightest, surging fiercely like ocean waves.
And amidst those countless churning threads of emotion, a streak of cold, terrifying killing intent flashed by.
"It hurt you, didn't it?" His fingertips gently caressed her peaceful sleeping face, brushing over her long, thick eyelashes like plucking the strings of a zither, murmuring as if coaxing her to sleep. "Be good and sleep, wait for me for a moment."
"I will make it pay back a hundredfold, a thousandfold."
Wu Li reluctantly withdrew his caressing hand. As he straightened up, the last trace of warmth in his eyes vanished completely.
Beside them, Hongjiao was intimidated by its master's current expression, so frightened it did not dare to move an inch.
Having followed its master for so many days and nights, it had never seen him reveal such a cold and cruel look.
It was far, far more terrifying than the time he had murderous intent toward it.
The centipede monster, wrapped in evil aura, had mostly healed its wounds, and its severed limbs were twisting and reconnecting.
Hongjiao stole a quiet glance, and only one thought floated in its mind: fend for yourself.
Look at you.
Of all the people you could have provoked.
You just had to hurt this little ancestor.
It had long seen through it; this was the treasure its master held at the very tip of his heart.
If he accidentally hurt her himself, he would bow his head and apologize. How could he possibly allow anyone else to hurt her?
The sensible snake had already coiled itself into a soft pillow, steadily cushioning Chai Xiaomi's head so she could rest more comfortably.
It watched its master's gloomy back, as raging evil aura poured continuously from his body.
At the same time, the Gu insects buried deep beneath the earth's veins were all awakened.
On the young man's pale skin, black totems wriggled into view like living creatures, crawling all over his body.
Up in the sky.
The cold, full moon had somehow become soaked in blood, hanging in the pitch-black canopy like an eye gradually filling with blood.
Scarlet light flowed down silently, coating the entire land in a thick, eerie dark red.
Across the Falling Star Plateau, everyone participating in the New Moon Arrow Competition could not help but raise their heads.
Looking at this bizarre astronomical phenomenon they had never seen before.
The bloody moon glared.
It was an ominous sign.
A sign that the gates of hell were opening.
Song Yueyao frowned deeply. She did not know why Wu Li had suddenly disappeared, but she faintly felt that this blood moon might be related to him.
From his abnormal attitude recently and the things he said after entering the Falling Star Plateau, Song Yueyao could not help but start doubting the young man's origins.
Recalling his unusual words and actions of late, and those obscure remarks after entering the plateau, a thought gradually emerged in her mind: Is this young man really just an ordinary person from Miaojiang? Did he take Xiaomi to Youquan Town really just to visit relatives?
Moreover, the Witchcraft and Gu clans have always strictly forbidden intermarriage with outsiders.
How could he and Xiaomi become husband and wife?
This question had been lingering in her heart for a long time, yet she had never voiced it.
*
The sight before him was a complete mess.
The ground was littered with shattered limbs, still twitching sporadically.
Wu Li barely found a small empty patch amidst the wreckage. As if feeling a bit tired, he unhurriedly crouched down.
He propped his chin on one hand and rested the other lazily on his knee, the lines of his drooping wrist pale.
He just waited quietly like this.
"Hurry up, ugly thing." After a long while, he tilted his head, a bizarre curve hooking the corner of his mouth. His tone was soft and gentle, yet it seeped with chill.
"Why aren't you healing yet? Don't be afraid. I won't kill you. I just want to make you remember the taste of pain."
It was unknown how many times this had happened.
He neither completely killed this monster nor devoured its ferocious evil aura.
He simply, patiently, time and time again, smashed it into unrecognizable muck.
Then he quietly watched it tremble in agonizing pain, piece by piece, as it reassembled its shattered body.
The demonic spirits within miles had long since fled. Those that could not escape in time had already melted away in his bone-chilling black aura.
The surrounding flora had all turned to scorched ash; it was no exaggeration to call it absolute devastation.
Only the monster before him, under his meticulous care, was kept hanging by a thread, unable to die and unable to escape.
Meanwhile, inside the barrier at the temple entrance, it remained as peaceful as before.
Hongjiao rested its head gently on the sleeping girl's shoulder, its scales trembling uncontrollably.
It watched helplessly as its master smashed the monster, and smashed it again.
This was his first time completely merging the power of the earth vein Gu with the evil aura in his body.
With every strike, the coldness of the Gu insects and the brutality of the evil aura intertwined, tearing open deeper wounds, while also causing a backlash against the caster himself.
The bloody color in those heterochromatic eyes grew thicker and thicker, so thick it was about to overflow, seemingly losing control.
It was terrified.
Terrified that if its master continued this madness, he would no longer be able to suppress his own Gu power, and ultimately be devoured along with it.
It couldn't help but secretly nudge Chai Xiaomi's cheek with its head.
The snake is scared...
Wake up quickly, little ancestor.
Only you can make the master stop.
Finally, under its persistent gentle nudging, Chai Xiaomi's eyelashes fluttered slightly.
Her legs ached, her shoulders ached, her bones ached; it felt like everything was aching.
Her whole body emanated an exhaustion of spent energy, as if she had just finished an eight-hundred-meter race at a sports meet.
She opened her eyes in confusion.
She had just had a very strange dream. She dreamed that Wu Li came to her house to propose marriage, carrying bottles of Moutai liquor, Chunghwa cigarettes, and a gunny sack full of jewelry.
It was absolutely ridiculous, beyond absurd.
Was this a pre-death hallucination?
Chai Xiaomi blinked slowly a few times. Looking at the mottled dragon reliefs on the stone wall, she suddenly felt they looked familiar.
Huh?
Isn't this still the same Earth God temple from just now?
She propped herself up and sat up.
Looking down at where she was sitting, she was instantly dumbfounded.
"Holy cow."
What in the world?
Did she... reincarnate as an Earth God?!
