Ascension Day

"I’m definitely human, not a demon! My home is in Xu Family’s Field. I have a father and mother, and they’re both human. My father’s name is Xu An, and my mother is Tian Ruijun, from Tian Family’s Field."

Xu Ying muttered to himself, "I still remember the way to Xu Family’s Field and Tian Family’s Field. I must be human..."

Snake Demon Yuan Qi listened to his incessant muttering and felt rather puzzled. ’If he’s really human, then how can he master our Demon Clan Technique and Fist Technique? It seems he doesn’t have much of a human component, and more of a demon one.’

Xu Ying set aside his worries and, as he walked, activated the Taiyi Guiding Skill to absorb the Sun Essence.

As he cultivated his Elephant Power Ox Demon Fist to the Sixth Layer, the storm of light particles formed by the sunlight with each breath became more and more distinct. The particles followed his breath, flooding into his body!

Xu Ying activated the Thunder Sound Body Tempering and Great Sun Body Tempering techniques to refine the residual True Yang Qi Blood in his body and repair his injuries.

However, he hadn’t opened his Mud Pill Secret Treasury, so he couldn’t heal his injuries as quickly as Nuo Masters like Ding Quan and Wei Chu.

Moreover, in his recent fight with Huang Siping, he had nearly been disemboweled, leaving a wound on his chest so deep the bone was visible. Even if it healed completely, it would leave a shocking scar!

Xu Ying sighed and thought to himself, ’If only I had the magic skill for Dragon Seeking Positioning and opening a Secret Treasury... that would be amazing...’

’Opening the Mud Pill Secret Treasury to achieve the Undying Body... it’s truly something to be envied!’

’And my face would definitely get much fairer. Maybe I could make a living off my looks in the future.’

The young man’s heart was filled with unrealistic fantasies. He said to Yuan Qi, "My godfather said that rich women in the city like fair-skinned boys. The year before last, when we didn’t have enough to eat, he wanted to sell me to a woman in the city, but he couldn’t because my skin wasn’t fair enough. The child from the Jiang Shouzheng family next door, though, sold for a good price and is living very well in the city now."

Yuan Qi was silent for a moment before saying, "Don’t you find that tragic?"

Xu Ying’s smile was quite innocent. "These days, just being able to live is good enough. He eats better than me and wears warmer clothes."

He seemed to truly envy the child who had been sold.

In the riverbed at the foot of the mountain lay a massive skeleton. A single one of its finger bones was taller than Xu Ying.

Xu Ying and Yuan Qi walked alongside the giant skeleton, passing through its rib cage to cross the riverbed. The man and the snake paused, looking up at the massive ribs, both feeling a sense of surreal wonder.

"Was this the being that attacked the ruined temple on the Naihe River last night?" Xu Ying murmured.

It was impossible to tell if this skeleton belonged to a god, a demon, or some other creature. It had been slain by the Big Copper Bell, its corpse falling into the Naihe River, where all its flesh and blood had been dissolved.

As they passed the skeleton, they heard a peculiar sound again, like thousands of people whispering among themselves.

Yuan Qi said, "Divine Spirits enjoy sacrificial offerings. It takes them a hundred years to cultivate Magical Power, and three hundred years to forge an Eighteen-foot Golden Body. This was definitely a Divine Spirit. The whispering is caused by the Divine Spirit’s Incense Smoke Qi. Incense Smoke Qi is a Divine Spirit’s Magical Power. Although this Divine Spirit is dead, its Incense Smoke Qi has not completely dispersed."

Xu Ying studied the skeleton, feeling utterly shaken. He asked, "A Divine Spirit this huge... how many years would that take?"

Yuan Qi shook his head. "An Eighteen-foot Golden Body takes three hundred years. This Divine Spirit’s skeleton is some three to four hundred feet tall. It would likely take over ten thousand years of worship to nurture such a powerful Golden Body Divine Spirit. But I’ve read so many books, and they all say recorded history only goes back three thousand years. Where would a god worshiped for over ten thousand years come from?"

Xu Ying stared at the flickering golden patterns on the skeleton, his mind also full of questions.

They continued onward, passing through the mountain forests of Anzi Ridge, and came across another corpse in the riverbed.

This corpse was even more massive. It was blocking the center of the riverbed and had no lower body, only an upper body.

The flesh on the corpse had not been completely dissolved by the Naihe River; there were still chunks of it clinging to the massive bones.

From a distance, they could see the flesh on the white bones was still slowly squirming.

Just as Xu Ying and Yuan Qi were about to walk past, a flock of wild birds flew over, a black mass in the sky above the riverbed. Suddenly, the flesh on the bones shot out—SWISH—like a frog’s tongues, sticking to all the birds and pulling them down into the riverbed.

The birds shrieked and feathers flew, but soon all was silent. All that remained was a pile of the birds’ clean-picked bones and feathers on the ground.

And on the corpse, the flesh roiled, now visibly more plentiful than before.

Xu Ying and Yuan Qi were horrified. They quickly held their breath and skirted around it, staying close to the edge of the riverbed.

Suddenly, the giant corpse jerked its head up. Its empty eyes "looked" in Xu Ying and Yuan Qi’s direction. Its head was like a mountain of meat, with fleshy tendrils squirming and crawling over it.

"Run!" Xu Ying shouted urgently.

The man and the snake ran for their lives. The half-corpse, using its two arms to crawl, moved with astonishing speed, hurtling down the riverbed in pursuit!

The corpse gave chase for a short while, but after losing track of Xu Ying and Yuan Qi, it finally gave up.

Xu Ying and Yuan Qi fled for their lives, unknowingly arriving at Jianshan. Seeing that the monstrous corpse hadn’t followed, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Look at Jianshan!" Yuan Qi said urgently.

Xu Ying looked up and saw that a huge chunk was missing from the peak of Jianshan, as if some giant monster had held the mountaintop and taken a bite out of it.

However, there was a lot of rubble on this side of the mountain, making it look more like something had smashed into the peak, creating the gap.

"The world is getting more and more chaotic," Xu Ying said, shaking his head.

Ahead of them was a wide mountain stream, about thirty to forty feet wide, with water murmuring gently. The water was so clear you could see the bottom. It was the dry season now. If it were the rainy season, flash floods would sweep down from upstream, and the stream would become extremely dangerous.