Darkness Under the Night Sky

The room was not large, but it had an altar. On the altar sat a statue about a foot tall. The statue had a single horn on its head, red hair, red eyes, and a furious glare. Its feet were like eagle talons, and it held twin hammers in a striking pose. It was the Guardian Deity that the Du family couple had invited back and worshipped for many years.

The Du Wu couple took out incense and candles, lit them, and respectfully bowed to the Guardian Deity before them. Then, they offered a prayer.

As the couple prayed, the statue emitted a divine light, imperceptible to ordinary people, that enveloped the entire Du family residence.

This Guardian Deity Light was extremely weak. Apart from some very weak, insignificant Malevolent Spirits, any God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit with even a little power could break through this divine light. After all, relying solely on the Incense Offering of a single household, no matter how devout, yielded very little Incense and Fire Prayer Power for the statue. It was already good that it could emit a protective divine light.

However, this did not mean that worshipping the Guardian Deity statue was useless. On the contrary, if any God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit actively broke through the Guardian Deity Light, the Guardian Deity would manifest and counterattack immediately. Even if it was not an equal match, upon the statue's destruction, it would trigger an anomaly, attracting Cultivators to eliminate those Gods, Demons, and Malevolent Spirits.

Of course, if the Incense and Fire Prayer Power contained within the worshipped statue was extremely abundant, let alone protecting the home, it could easily kill any God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit that dared to intrude.

For example, in some families with many descendants and long traditions, over the years, with the incense offerings from numerous family members, the Incense and Fire contained within the statues of their ancestors or the family's protective deity passed down through generations would be astonishingly large.

When encountering statues worshipped by such families, once their power was fully unleashed and they manifested, even cultivators in the Second Realm, like Wei Yang and Zhang Yan, or even those in the Third Realm, would not dare to underestimate them.

Over time, cultivators classified the Gods, Demons, and Malevolent Spirits born between heaven and earth according to their power and destructive capabilities into levels such as Village Destruction Level, Town Annihilation Level, City Destruction Level, Mansion Destruction Level, State Destruction Level, and Nation Destruction Level. Correspondingly, there were the First Realm, Second Realm, Third Realm, Fourth Realm, Fifth Realm, and Sixth Realm for cultivators.

In other words, a cultivator in the Second Realm, like Wei Yang, could completely contend with a God, Demon, or Malevolent Spirit capable of easily annihilating a town of several thousand people.

The Guardian Deity worshipped by the Du family couple had extremely sparse Incense and Fire Prayer Power. It could only barely contend with insignificant Malevolent Spirits and serve to protect a single household. However, more often than not, it served as a warning.

While the Du family couple burned incense and prayed for the Guardian Deity's protection, Huang Huai left the Du family eatery as dusk began to fall.

Compared to the bustling scene during the day, the number of pedestrians on the street was rapidly decreasing. Seeing this, Huang Huai immediately headed in a direction within the city.

During the day, Huang Huai had already scouted the surrounding layout. He had memorized the locations of various shops and inns and had his own considerations for where to stay at night. Now that it was getting dark, Huang Huai naturally needed to find an inn to stay in, and there happened to be one not far away.

A gust of night wind swept across, stirring up dust and fallen leaves from the ground. It swirled, adding a bit of chilling coldness to the night.

Small paths and alleys connected the long streets. Like Huang Huai, most of the remaining people on the street were walking briskly, seemingly trying to get home as quickly as possible.

Inside a dark and dilapidated courtyard, overgrown with weeds, the half-open window frames had long since rotted and hung askew. It was clearly an abandoned small courtyard.

In the courtyard, a stone statue had collapsed for the most part. Its body was badly damaged, and due to the upper body's ruin, its original appearance could no longer be discerned. An incense burner lay overturned on the ground, covered in rust. Judging by its condition, one could imagine that this must have been the Guardian Deity statue worshipped by the former owners of this place.

With a crash, a sudden noise emanated from the once desolate and silent courtyard. If someone were to investigate, they would find a dark figure climbing out of a withered well in the corner of the courtyard.

A ferocious ghost face suddenly lifted. A timid person seeing this might be scared to death.

Soon, the dark figure emerged from the withered well. This dark figure was clearly an Evil God, with fangs, a ghost face, a crimson body, holding a steel fork, and a long tail like a steel whip.

The next moment, this extremely terrifying Evil God transformed into a statue about a foot tall, carved from some unknown wood. The statue looked exactly like the Evil God just now, except one was a statue and the other was a divine body formed from flesh and blood.

"Not bad, not bad. With about a hundred more living people as Blood Food, my Scarlet Body Ghost Face Yaksha God can condense its True Spirit, forge a Divine Body, and achieve godhood! At that time, the abilities of the Scarlet Body Ghost Face Yaksha God will also be available to me! It can also help me cultivate..."

At some unknown time, a figure appeared in the courtyard. As if holding a precious treasure, they held the Scarlet Body Ghost Face Yaksha God statue in their hands.

He Yuan, shrouded in a robe, moved his mind and took the Scarlet Body Ghost Face Yaksha God statue into his body, enshrining it in the First Divine Court within his Sea of Consciousness.

The statue returned to the Divine Court. He Yuan focused his mind within the Divine Court and felt streams of Divine Origin aura emanating from the statue. The First Divine Court, constructed from mental power, easily absorbed this aura. The feeling of a surge in mental power and a significant increase in cultivation made him unable to resist immersing himself in it, utterly captivated.

After a long time, He Yuan completely digested and absorbed the feedback from the statue. Feeling the changes in his cultivation, he couldn't help but sigh faintly, "To think I cultivated diligently for several years, condensing my soul and strengthening my essence, energy, and spirit, only to barely open the First Divine Court in my Sea of Consciousness. Then, I exhausted my wealth to invite the Scarlet Body Ghost Face Yaksha God statue to be enshrined within the Divine Court. Using Incense and Fire Prayer Power, I even burdened my own cultivation, nurturing it with my own mental power. After years of effort, it only managed to nurture six or seven parts of divinity in the statue, which is not as effective as the essence of flesh, blood, soul, and spirit of over a hundred living beings from a village."

Gradually, He Yuan's voice became low, filled with a touch of coldness and madness. "They all say humans are the most intelligent of all beings, and their flesh and souls are both great tonics naturally bestowed by heaven and earth. Indeed, offering the flesh and souls of living people as Blood Food to the venerable deity is the true path for our generation of cultivators!"

Since the previous massacre of Niujia Village, and choosing to cultivate using the flesh and souls of living people as Blood Food, He Yuan's inner turmoil of fear, unease, self-reproach, and excitement instantly vanished as he digested his gains and his strength surged.

Exhaling a breath of turbid air, He Yuan, clad in a black robe, suddenly disappeared.