When Ning Xiu set off, several enormous hands reached out to grab him.
The surface of each giant hand had a texture like rock. They looked incredibly hard, and getting struck by one would surely end badly.
Especially unsettling were the eyes growing in the palms. Ning Xiu sensed something strange about them; they were definitely hiding some kind of trick.
Without hesitation, as he drew closer to one of the giant hands, Ning Xiu swung both arms and smashed his hammer down with all his might.
Internal Energy clung to the surface of the Startling Thunder Hammer. The instant Ning Xiu swung it, it surged out in a wave of scorching flames.
The hammer had not even struck the giant hand yet, but Ning Xiu's blazing, unleashed Internal Energy had already hit its surface, wrapping it in searing heat.
These flames were not real fire, but an anomalous manifestation of the Burning Sun Grand Radiance Scripture. Yet to Evil Spirits, they were even more lethal than true fire.
The giant hand immediately thrashed in the flames, but no matter how violently it flailed, it could not put them out.
With no other choice, it retreated underground, hoping to smother the flames by burying itself.
But Ning Xiu clearly had no intention of giving it that chance. Before the giant hand could slip underground, he brought his hammer down on the eyeball on its surface.
Bang!
In an instant, fluids sprayed everywhere, and bloody pus gushed out.
The giant hand had no mouth, so it could not howl in pain. It could only crumple to the ground, twitching and trembling. With its eyeball smashed, it had clearly suffered a serious injury.
In less than a breath, the giant hand fell completely still. It lay stiffly on the ground and began to shrivel, soon turning into a dried husk.
Killed Evil Spirit, gained Universal Proficiency +500
The instant the giant hand died, Ning Xiu received a notification from his panel. Judging by the amount of proficiency, this giant-hand Evil Spirit was around Eighth or Ninth Rank—not particularly strong.
But it was more than strong enough to deal with ordinary people who wandered into this place.
Still, this showed that the giant hands were not the true form of Jinzhao Temple.
The death of one giant hand did not frighten the others. Instead, it roused their ferocity.
Two giant hands rushed at Ning Xiu from either side, seemingly intent on attacking him from both directions. Just as they were about to slam into him—
Humm!
A deep, resonant bell toll suddenly rang out. A brilliant golden bell appeared around Ning Xiu, enclosing his entire body.
Divine Ability: Golden Bell Shield!
Boom!
The two giant hands slammed into the bell with all their strength, but it did not budge. Ning Xiu, inside, was completely unharmed.
Instead, the force rebounded and burst the eyes of both giant hands. They died on the spot.
Killed Evil Spirit, gained Universal Proficiency +500
Killed Evil Spirit, gained Universal Proficiency +500
Watching this, Ning Xiu laughed. "I didn't expect the Golden Bell Shield to not only block the enemy's attacks, but also rebound the force back at them. That saves me a lot of trouble."
Now that Ning Xiu had reached Martial Dao Fifth Rank, these low-level Evil Spirits could no longer pose any threat to him. He had dispatched three of them with ease. Looking at the remaining giant-hand Evil Spirits, he raised his hammer and charged without hesitation.
Even a mosquito's leg was meat. Kill them.
By the time Ning Xiu had killed all the giant-hand Evil Spirits, the crows that had spat out the eyeballs had long since flown off to who knew where.
From what he could tell, the Fierce God that was Jinzhao Temple seemed capable of transporting anyone who entered the temple to another place. Ning Xiu still did not know whether this place was an inner realm of Jinzhao Temple or a Sumeru world.
Hoisting his hammer onto his shoulder, Ning Xiu climbed the dead tree where the crows had perched and surveyed the surroundings from up high.
Unfortunately, everything farther away was pitch-black. He could not make out a thing.
To the north, however, a thick fog rolled over the land, so dense that no one could see what lay within.
"The Ren Qianxing and Monk Zhengwu I saw in the murals were standing in a vast white emptiness. Unlike the people in the other Jinzhao Temple murals, they had no scenery behind them. Could that white emptiness refer to this fog?"
Ning Xiu pondered silently. If that was the case, perhaps he really could find the two of them.
He immediately jumped down from the treetop and ran toward the northern fog.
"Lord Ning!" Xia Yunsi stared at the murals on the wall in disbelief.
Until now, they had shown only Ren Qianxing and Zhengwu. But now, a new mural had appeared out of nowhere, not far from the two men.
In this mural, Ning Xiu stood on a desolate stretch of black earth littered with ruins, a Startling Thunder Hammer slung over his shoulder. Nearby, countless crows perched on several crooked trees, making the scene look sinister.
Just moments ago, Xia Yunsi could not have said what had happened.
All she could remember was a sticky sensation closing in from every direction. Her vision filled with nothing but colorful bubbles. When her sight returned to normal, Ning Xiu, who had been standing beside her, had vanished.
The two Black Winds in the hall had disappeared along with him, as had the black tiger and the Iron Eater Beast.
As he stepped into the fog, his field of vision quickly shrank. Ning Xiu could only see the ground five paces ahead. Beyond that, every step held unknown dangers.
No one knew what might be lurking in the fog, whether Evil Spirits were present, or how many there might be.
Ning Xiu had the Golden Bell Shield to protect him, which gave him some confidence. Unless he encountered a truly powerful Evil Spirit, there was no way it could break through his shield.
Tidi-da, tidi-da-da-da!
After venturing several hundred paces into the fog, Ning Xiu suddenly heard a lively burst of drums and gongs beside him.
There was even a piercing suona, its high notes brimming with celebration and joy.
Ning Xiu had heard this sort of commotion before, in Chaotian Capital. It was what people put on when welcoming a bride.
Who could possibly be celebrating a wedding in this gloomy, sinister place?
Ning Xiu immediately went toward the sound. Trapped here, he would die if he simply waited around.
His only chance of escape was to find the Fierce God that was Jinzhao Temple and destroy it.
And the Evil Spirits living here might well know the answers he needed.
After walking more than a hundred paces through layer upon layer of fog, the view suddenly opened up before him. Following the wedding music, he had walked straight out of the mist.
Below him lay a slope. At its foot, a wedding procession of several dozen people was moving down the road. The musicians beat their drums and gongs, looking so merry that they seemed just like ordinary people.
Everyone in the procession wore bright red clothes. The groom, seated on a fine horse, looked as if he were riding on a spring breeze, his face filled with delight.
"Huh? How could..." Ning Xiu's expression suddenly turned utterly bewildered. He had checked the group with the Spiritual Eye Qi Observation Technique, and not a trace of Evil Qi clung to them. They were completely ordinary citizens.
In a place like this, ordinary citizens? Celebrating a wedding?
The whole thing was strange and utterly unbelievable.
To settle his doubts, Ning Xiu immediately charged down the slope and stopped directly in front of the wedding procession, blocking their way.
"Whoa!"
Seeing someone rush down the slope to block his path, the groom hurriedly pulled on the reins and brought his horse to a halt.
When he saw that the man was a Demon Subduing Captain wearing Mysterious Silver Lock Armor, he promptly dismounted and smiled. "This humble scholar greets you, sir. May I ask why you've stopped us?"
"Where are you going?" Ning Xiu asked.
"This humble scholar has come from Jingzhou and is on his way to Nanjiang City to marry my bride-to-be," the groom answered honestly.
Nanjiang City, the prefectural capital of Yunze Prefecture. That part checked out.
The problem was that these people were not even in Yunze Prefecture. No matter how far they traveled, it would all be for nothing. They could never reach Nanjiang City. Did they truly not know where they were?
Looking at the groom's brand-new clothes and the confused faces of the people behind him, Ning Xiu suddenly realized something. "Did you stay overnight at Jinzhao Temple on your way here?"
The groom smiled. "We did. How did you know, sir? A few days ago, it rained heavily, so we took shelter from the rain in Jinzhao Temple. We left once the weather cleared. But that was several days ago. Sir, you truly are a marvel."
These people believed they had left Jinzhao Temple and were now on their way to Nanjiang City. They had no idea that they had been trapped inside Jinzhao Temple from the very beginning and had never left at all.
Among the many murals on Jinzhao Temple's walls, one of them must have depicted this wedding procession.
They had been trapped inside the mural without anyone noticing, repeating the same journey to bring the bride home forever, yet never realizing that they were doing the same thing over and over.
The thought of such a terrifying divine ability sent an inexplicable chill through Ning Xiu.
Were these people dead or alive? Or were they condemned to live forever in the mural, trapped in a state that was neither one nor the other?
Ning Xiu suddenly asked, "Tell me, what year is it?"
The groom answered without the slightest hesitation. "Year 42 of Taiwu. Why do you ask, sir?"
Ning Xiu's expression turned complicated. He looked at the wedding procession, momentarily at a loss for words.
These people were from more than forty years ago.
They had been trapped in the murals of Jinzhao Temple for over forty years.
The groom's face was full of joy, but Ning Xiu's feelings were tangled and hard to put into words.
He had no idea that more than forty years had already passed in the outside world. The woman he had kept in his heart, the one he had longed to marry, was now a wife and a mother, with a house full of descendants.
Perhaps she had long since forgotten his name and face.
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