The room was small, but it had an altar table. On it stood a roughly one-foot-tall idol. It had a single horn growing from its head, scarlet hair and red eyes, and a furious glare. Its feet were like an eagle's talons, and it clutched a pair of hammers, poised to pounce. It was none other than the Guardian Deity the Du Family Couple had brought home and worshipped for many years.
Du Wu and his wife took out incense and candles, lit them, and respectfully bowed to the Guardian Deity before them. Then they offered up a prayer.
As the couple prayed, the idol radiated a divine light imperceptible to ordinary people, enveloping the entire Du household.
This Guardian Deity Light was exceedingly faint. Apart from some utterly powerless, low-grade malevolent spirits, any God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit with even a little strength could break through it. After all, when an idol received incense offerings from just one household, no matter how devout they were, the incense and fire prayer power it gained was scant. The fact it could emit protective light at all was already quite good.
But that didn't mean worshipping a Guardian Deity idol was useless. On the contrary, if a God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit actively broke through the Guardian Deity Light, the Guardian Deity would manifest and counterattack at once. Even if it proved no match, the idol's destruction would trigger an omen, drawing cultivators to slay the God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit.
Of course, if an idol held an abundant store of incense and fire prayer power, then it could do more than guard a household. It might even easily kill any God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit foolish enough to come and cause trouble.
Some lineages had thriving populations and long histories. Over the years, as countless clan members burned incense and made offerings, the idols of their ancestors or the guardian deities passed down through generations accumulated an astonishing amount of incense.
When faced with an idol worshipped by a lineage like that, even a cultivator of the Second Realm—or even the Third Realm—such as Wei Yang or Zhang Yan wouldn't dare underestimate it once its full power was unleashed and it manifested.
The Gods, Demons, and Malevolent Spirits born between heaven and earth had, over time, been divided by cultivators into levels according to the strength they could wield and the destruction they could cause: Village Destruction Level, Town Annihilation Level, City Destruction Level, Mansion Destruction Level, State Destruction Level, Nation Destruction Level, and so on. These corresponded to the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Realms of cultivation.
In other words, a cultivator of the Second Realm like Wei Yang could match a God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit capable of easily wiping out a town of several thousand people.
The Guardian Deity worshipped by the Du Family Couple had an exceedingly meager supply of incense and fire prayer power. It could barely contend with low-grade malevolent spirits and protect a household and its home. Most of the time, however, it served as an alarm.
Leaving the Du Family Couple to burn incense and pray for the Guardian Deity's protection, Huang Huai had left the Du Family Eatery, and darkness had already fallen.
Compared with the lively scenes of daytime, the number of people on the streets was now dwindling at a rapid pace. Seeing this, Huang Huai immediately hurried toward a certain part of town.
During the day, Huang Huai had already familiarized himself with the area. He had committed the locations of shops and inns to memory, and had already decided where he would spend the night. Now that dusk had fallen, he naturally needed to find an inn, and one stood just up ahead.
A night breeze swept by, stirring up dust and fallen leaves from the ground. They spun in circles, adding a few more degrees of chill to the dark night.
A web of narrow lanes and alleys connected to the main street. Like Huang Huai, most of the people still out were hurrying along, seemingly eager to get home.
In a desolate, unoccupied courtyard, weeds grew everywhere. A half-open window frame had long since rotted away, hanging crookedly from the window. The little courtyard had clearly been abandoned.
In the middle of the courtyard, a stone idol lay mostly collapsed, its body broken and battered. Its upper half was so damaged that its original appearance was impossible to make out. An incense burner lay tipped on the ground, covered in rust. From the sight, one could imagine that the idol must once have been the Guardian Deity worshipped by the family who lived here.
With a crash, a sudden noise broke the silence of the desolate courtyard. Had anyone gone to investigate, they would have seen a shadow climbing out of a dry well in one corner.
A hideous ghost face jerked up. Anyone fainthearted enough to witness the scene would likely have fainted on the spot.
The shadow soon climbed out of the well. It was clearly an Evil God, with a fanged ghost face, a crimson body, and a steel fork in its hand. A long tail, like a steel whip, trailed behind it.
In the next instant, the terrifying Evil God transformed out of thin air into a one-foot-tall idol. Carved from some unknown kind of wood, the idol looked exactly like the Evil God from a moment ago. The only difference was that one was an idol, while the other was a divine being made of flesh and blood.
"Excellent, excellent! Just another hundred or so living people for Blood Food, and my Naked Ghost-faced Yaksha God will be able to form a True Spirit, forge a Divine Body, and complete its ascension! Then I'll be able to wield the Naked Ghost-faced Yaksha God's abilities for myself! It'll even help me cultivate..."
At some point, a figure had appeared in the courtyard. He held the Naked Ghost-faced Yaksha Idol in his hands as if it were a precious treasure.
He Yuan, shrouded from head to toe in a robe, willed the Naked Ghost-faced Yaksha Idol into his body and enshrined it in the First Divine Court within his Sea of Consciousness.
Once the idol was installed in the Divine Court, He Yuan turned his mind inward. He felt streams of Divine Origin emanating from it, and the First Divine Court, built from spiritual power, absorbed them with ease. The sensation of his spiritual power surging and his cultivation advancing by leaps and bounds was so intoxicating that he couldn't help but lose himself in it.
After a long while, He Yuan had fully absorbed the blessings returned by the idol. Feeling the changes in his cultivation, he couldn't help but sigh wistfully. "I have cultivated painstakingly for years, tempering my soul and strengthening my essence, energy, and spirit, yet I only barely managed to open the First Divine Court in my Sea of Consciousness. Then I exhausted my wealth to obtain the Naked Ghost-faced Yaksha Idol and enshrine it in the Divine Court. I used incense and fire prayer power, even hampering my own cultivation, and nurtured it with my spiritual power. Years of effort only brought the idol to six or seven tenths of its divine nature. And yet, that was still no match for the effects of the flesh, blood, and soul essence of over a hundred people from one village."
Gradually, He Yuan's voice sank lower, filled with coldness and madness. "They say that humans are the foremost of all living things, and that their flesh and blood and souls are all treasures nurtured by heaven and earth. Sure enough, offering up the flesh and souls of the living as Blood Food to worship a divine being is the righteous path to cultivation for people like us!"
Since slaughtering Niujia Village and choosing to cultivate by using the flesh and souls of the living as Blood Food, He Yuan had been burdened by a jumble of emotions: fear, unease, guilt, excitement, and more. But as he digested his gains and his strength surged, they vanished in an instant.
He exhaled a breath of turbid air. The black-robed He Yuan disappeared in a flash.
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