Chapter 1072: The Nightmare of the Evil God
A beam of golden light lit up amidst the profound darkness. The golden light condensed into a bridge of divine sense, stretching into the distance.
Upon the bridge of consciousness, a speck of starlight ignited.
Then, ripples stirred in the void, waves of divine will surged, and one after another, primordial spirits appeared.
There was Wenren Wan, who took form through divine consciousness using the "Great Dream Guidance."
And from Qianxue Prefecture, fourteen cultivators at or above the Ascension Realm manifested their primordial spirits.
Among these fourteen, ten were at the Ascension Realm and four at the Void Crossing Realm. In the outside world, the Void Crossing cultivators would naturally take the lead.
But this was the world of divine will, the path to the nightmare of the evil god. Here, the one who must take the lead could only be the Grand Elder of Mysterious Mechanism Valley—Master Situ.
Master Situ looked around, then swept his gaze over everyone to confirm that Wenren Wan's manifested divine body was intact, and the others' primordial spirits had emerged without error. He nodded slightly, then his expression turned grave as he cautioned:
"This journey is extremely perilous. Remember to act with caution and speak with restraint. Never make rash decisions when uncertain."
"Before the 'Northern Dipper Seven Star Formation,' I've left a life lamp for each of you, guarding a wisp of your primordial spirit and preserving a trace of your essence. If things go awry, recite the karmic incantation, and the Seven Star Formation will forcibly summon your spirit back."
"But forced retraction will greatly damage the sea of consciousness. Unless it's a dire emergency, you must not use the incantation lightly."
"Also, keep the incantation buried deep in your heart. Do not think of it. Only recall it when necessary, lest it be sensed and your karmic life thread severed…"
The others, being divine sense cultivators, understood the stakes and all solemnly committed Master Situ's words to heart.
"There's one more thing…" Master Situ glanced at Wenren Wan again and addressed the group, "This girl from the Wenren family must be protected at all costs."
"Mother and child are connected by heart, their divine senses linked. If she is harmed, the bridge of consciousness will break. We will lose our path of return and be trapped in this endless nightmare—a ten-deaths-and-no-life situation."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Having finished his instructions, Master Situ sighed lightly and looked into the boundless darkness around him, sighing again in his heart.
He hadn't expected that, one day, it would truly fall to him to kill an evil god. As a "fated death," this was too grand a task.
But then again, as a divine sense cultivator who had studied the Celestial Mechanism since childhood, to one day bear the mission of all living beings, to invade the nightmare of an evil god's genesis and perform an act of "godslaying"—to accomplish such a feat, whether he lived or died in the end, it would be a life not lived in vain.
His only hope was that if he ever became corrupted, someone of righteousness would kill him—lest his tainted existence aid the wicked and bring disaster to the world.
Such righteous people surely existed.
And if he ever became a scourge to the world, surely he wouldn't live long.
With that thought, Master Situ felt peace in his heart.
"Let's go."
He spoke in a deep voice, then led the way alone.
Among the crowd, a white-robed female cultivator supported Wenren Wan and followed closely behind.
The remaining divine sense cultivators followed Master Situ, forming a protective formation around Wenren Wan.
The faint golden bridge of divine sense, sustained by the Great Dream Guidance, shimmered with a light violet glow as it stretched into the distance.
But all around was a boundless darkness.
The darkness was cold, oppressive, and ominous—it surged toward them, as if to devour all light.
The golden light of the bridge, the violet glow of the Great Dream Guidance, and the starlight of the Seven Star Formation—all were gradually being swallowed by the dark.
Amidst this endless blackness, only a thread of blood-like light, like an umbilical cord, extended from Wenren Wan's chest into the abyss, connecting to the far side without breaking.
A bond of mother and child, blood from the same source.
This was their only guide.
And in the vast darkness, their sole thread of life and hope.
Thus, they kept walking forward. No one knew how long they had gone before the bridge of divine sense reached its end—and the source of the darkness began to take shape before them.
It was a vast expanse of pitch-black mountains. As far as the eye could see, they stretched on and on, exuding a chilling and savage aura. They seemed forged from all the slaughter, despair, pain, and tragedy in the world.
Master Situ's pupils constricted.
The others' faces changed as well.
"This is…"
"The Great Wilderness' Three Thousand Abyssal Marshes?!"
Everyone involuntarily halted and looked toward Master Situ. His brows were tightly furrowed, and after a sigh, he said, "Let's keep going."
At this point, there was no turning back.
Even if there were blades and boiling oil ahead, they had no choice but to walk the path.
Bracing themselves, they pressed on.
Once they crossed the bridge and stepped onto the black mountains, the evil aura became intensely thick, as if it could seep into their very bones. The cold wind howled, filled with a bitter wail.
Master Situ quickly formed hand seals to summon the power of the Seven Star Formation to shield everyone, preventing the sinister wind and evil energy from invading their primordial spirits and harming their spiritual foundations.
Looking around, he saw the Three Thousand Black Mountains cloaked in ghostly mist, with white bones scattered everywhere and blood worms squirming underfoot.
As they continued, the surroundings grew desolate. Occasionally, strange and grotesque entities slithered past—bizarre in shape and unspeakable in form:
A single human eye atop a demon's leg, walking on its own.
A creature with severed hands for feet, and severed feet for hands, crawling upside down.
Beast-shaped, human-faced things with dislocated features.
Or single-eyed, double-mouthed beings with grotesque, malformed visages.
These strange apparitions seemed like toys casually assembled by some deranged creator—imbued with both childlike whimsy and malicious intent. They made one feel deeply unsettled, even nauseated.
Master Situ's expression turned grave.
The Three Thousand Black Mountains of the Great Wilderness—the endless abyss—was a place of death for countless living beings.
According to forbidden texts sealed away in Mysterious Mechanism Valley, this was also the very birthplace of the ancient evil gods of the Great Wilderness, and thus the original nightmare from which they could be reborn.
"Don't speak. Don't look around. Don't startle the evil spirits," Master Situ warned in a low voice.
The divine sense cultivators nodded.
Holding his breath and focusing his spirit, Master Situ followed the blood-thread connection between mother and child, fully alert, pressing deeper into the heart of the nightmare.
The Great Wilderness' Endless Abyss, the land of the evil god's nightmare—its horrors and dangers were beyond imagining.
Master Situ had no idea what resided in this dreamscape, nor what kinds of demonic abominations were hidden here. He had no intention, nor courage, to stir up trouble. He only wished to reach the birthplace of the evil god as swiftly as possible—and cut off this source of calamity.
Until then, the fewer incidents, the better.
But clearly, the world would not bend to his wishes.
The evil god's nightmare was a land of innate corruption, teeming with monstrous spirits and twisted creatures.
Every blade of grass, every tree, could be hatching some unknown "polluted entity." The soil underfoot might be rotting flesh.
The weeds by the roadside—perhaps worms.
The tree trunks—inlaid with bleeding bones.
The droplets falling from the sky—possibly the saliva of some abomination…
Perils abounded.
As divine sense cultivators moved through the foul mountains and corrupted waters, they had to maintain constant vigilance. Any lapse in focus could lead to contamination of the primordial spirit, leaving behind grave consequences.
Fortunately, the Seven Star Formation offered protection against much of the evil.
And the divine sense cultivators present were all skilled and experienced, with strong mental discipline. Watching over one another, they could resolve most threats.
Further ahead, they entered a withered mountain forest, where the sinister aura thickened and carried a deadly malice.
Master Situ stopped, frowning, then turned toward a nearby Ascension Realm cultivator who looked like a scholar and held a Bagua disk in his hands.
Immortal Master Situ halted in his tracks, furrowing his brows. After a moment, he turned to glance at the scholarly-looking Yu Hua Real Person beside him, who was holding a Bagua compass.
The "scholar" studied the compass, forming hand seals. After a short while, his gaze sharpened, and he pointed to a large tree about three zhang (ten meters) to the right.
From within the group, a Daoist immediately extended two fingers and, summoning his peachwood sword, thrust it forward.
The sword, imbued with the power to ward off evil, pierced the tree.
The tree let out a shrill scream. Its bark fell away, revealing mottled python skin that oozed poisonous liquid—clearly laced with deadly toxins.
As the wailing continued, the tree shook and transformed into a snake's body. At the top of the "tree," a massive human face emerged.
The tree was, shockingly, a terrifying human-faced giant python.
The human-faced python revealed its true form and clashed violently with the group of divine-sense cultivators. After an intense battle, it was finally subdued by a burly Yu Hua cultivator covered in talisman patterns, who used his divine sense to suppress it. A Daoist then offered a sword ritual, decapitating the creature in one stroke.
The Dongxu Patriarch of Little Spirit Sect followed with a fire incantation, burning it to ash.
Battles involving divine sense were no trivial matter. Exorcising evil and eliminating malevolent spirits was incredibly dangerous.
Many such evils couldn't be judged solely by appearance or cultivation level.
Because of this, even though the group had strong divine senses, they dared not show the slightest carelessness. Any evil spirit—no matter how weak or strong—had to be thoroughly annihilated.
Caution could never go wrong.
After eliminating the human-faced python, Master Situ used his fingers to touch his forehead and probe for remaining traces of evil qi. Only after confirming it was completely destroyed did he finally relax.
Yet at the same time, his expression grew even more solemn.
"From here on, we must be even more careful."
The appearance of such a powerful evil spirit meant that the road ahead would only grow more dangerous.
As they continued forward, just as Master Situ had predicted, more and more malevolent spirits appeared—each more vicious than the last.
These evils devoured people. Their desire to attack was overwhelming, and they were exceedingly insidious.
Fortunately, among the group was the scholarly-looking Yu Hua Primordial Spirit cultivator, who came from a family adept in divination. He was skilled in celestial techniques and possessed a life-bound treasure—the Bagua Evil-Warding Compass—which could reveal omens of danger and help avoid misfortune.
Whenever an evil spirit or disguised demon lurked ahead, the compass would tremble. The "scholar" could then foresee it in advance, discern truth from illusion, and locate the demon's hiding place—helping the group escape calamity.
Failing to identify a demon meant walking into an ambush.
But discovering it ahead of time meant they could strike first.
This shift between defense and offense made a world of difference.
Even if ten or twenty evil spirits were slain, it wouldn't matter to the evil gods.
But for this group of divine-sense cultivators, losing even one person was a massive blow. It could impact the success or failure of their entire mission—and determine life or death for everyone.
And so, amidst this land crawling with evil spirits, the group advanced with extreme caution and constant fear, inch by inch.
After several more battles and the elimination of several savage evils, the scenery ahead suddenly changed. Amidst the desolation appeared a forest of withered trees.
Suspended above the withered woods were countless hanging objects.
Master Situ raised his eyes, then immediately trembled and shouted:
"Don't look!"
The group didn't understand, but obeyed Master Situ's command and averted their gazes from the forest.
"Don't look, don't listen—walk from the left side. Keep walking. Don't turn back."
Everyone took his words to heart. They lowered their heads, eyes fixed on the ground, ears shut to everything else, and walked steadily forward along the left path, bypassing the forest.
At the end of the group walked the wandering Daoist.
He too kept his gaze lowered and continued walking forward. Suddenly, a coarse, raspy voice whispered by his ear:
"Look at me…"
"Look at me…"
…
Curiosity stirred in the Daoist's heart. For a moment, he truly felt the urge to turn back and see who was speaking.
But his rational mind warned him: this was a trick of evil spirits—not to be trusted.
He steadied his mind, focused his eyes, and kept staring at the ground.
Yet as he continued, the ground grew blurry—and a clearer voice echoed in his ears:
"You've seen me."
The Daoist's heart jumped. Impossible, he thought. I haven't turned around—how could I have seen anything?
He quickly turned his head to confirm—but the moment his head moved, even before he saw anything, a chill ran through his heart:
"Damn it—I've been tricked!"
But it was already too late. Though his soul was slow to react, his body had already moved.
As his consciousness registered the danger, he had already turned—and in that instant, he saw what hung above the withered woods.
It was a human head—just a head. The face was rotten and decayed, yet its eyes were perfectly intact, filled with an eerie gray-white glow—and they were staring straight at him.
It wasn't just one head.
As the Daoist saw that first head, he also saw the entire forest—and his face turned pale.
In that dead, barren forest, hanging from the gnarled branches were countless human heads.
"I see you!"
The head that was staring at the Daoist grinned with a twisted, eerie smile.
At the same time, all the heads in the forest turned toward him. Their mouths split open, and they began to laugh coldly.
In unison, they all said:
"I see you!"
In an instant, thousands upon thousands of chilling and piercing voices merged together, like demonic sounds piercing the ears, directly penetrating the daoist's eardrums and stabbing into his mind, causing his head to spin and his spirit to flicker unstably.
Walking ahead, Master Situ's expression changed drastically. Alarmed, he shouted, "Not good!" Immediately, he mobilized his primordial spirit, triggered his true technique, and summoned the Seven Star array's rays to shield everyone's divine minds.
But though the Seven Star array rays could resist evil energy, they were less effective against the corrupting power of the evil voices.
Around everyone's ears, the wailing cries still echoed relentlessly.
One by one, the ghostly human heads seemed to whisper right beside them:
"I see you!"
"You can't escape!"
"You'll stay forever..."
The one suffering the most was Wenren Wan.
His cultivation was only at the Golden Core stage, unable to project his primordial spirit. His divine mind was manifested from the Great Dream Heaven and was inherently the weakest in willpower. On top of that, he was forcibly connecting to the collective consciousness, bearing the heavy burden of helping everyone cross the black mist and enter the evil god's nightmare. His divine mind was already fragile, and the demonic voices' interference now made his soul show signs of fracturing.
Seeing this, Master Situ was greatly alarmed and urgently said:
"Quick, Three Pure Bells!"
The white-robed female immortal beside Wenren Wan endured the evil voices' interference, quickly forming the Lotus Hand Seal. A pure white divine light flowed and manifested before her, forming a bell made of gold and jade, engraved with ancient seal script.
This treasure was the Three Pure Bells, a supreme artifact of the divine path. Only those with true understanding of the great Dao and a pure, upright heart could refine and activate it.
She vigorously rang the Three Pure Bells, and a clear, resonant tone swept through, dispelling the evil sounds.
The disturbing voices around everyone's ears vanished, and Wenren Wan's condition improved significantly.
"Quick, move out!"
Master Situ said gravely.
Without hesitation, under the protection of the pure and clear tones of the Three Pure Bells, the group hurriedly withdrew, distancing themselves from the dead forest and the countless eerie human heads hanging above it.
After leaving the dead forest, they reached a black-gray mountain area. The group, still shaken, took a brief rest.
But time was tight; there was no room for extended rest.
"Keep moving. We must reach the depths of Black Mountain as soon as possible," Master Situ stood and was about to say more when his gaze swept over the group, and he suddenly frowned.
One is missing?
Everyone exchanged looks, their faces darkening as they realized the problem.
"Where's the scholar?"
"Wasn't he with us, escaping the dead forest?"
"Did he?"
"I can't quite remember if he made it out..."
Their expressions grew heavy.
Master Situ frowned deeply but only pondered briefly before saying, "Go back and look."
They had been comrades through this journey. If he was in danger, they would never abandon him.
Besides, this scholar was important — both his cultivation of heavenly secrets and his Eight Trigrams Evil-Averting Plate could prove invaluable.
They turned back and soon outside the dead forest spotted the scholar's figure.
He hadn't fallen victim to the dead forest, swallowed by the myriad demonic voices — a small mercy in a sea of misfortune. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
But before they could fully relax, the big man covered in talisman patterns frowned:
"Something's strange about him."
Though no one else was around, the scholar stood with his back to them, as if embracing something, performing intimate gestures.
The big man frowned again and stepped forward to pull him — then recoiled in shock, hastily pulling back.
When the scholar turned around, everyone saw his face and neck were covered in fresh red lip prints.
These lip marks were of unknown origin, blood-red and writhing like worms, sucking blood and flesh, causing the scholar's body to decay and rot bit by bit. The marks even continued to breed and spread...
Everyone's expression changed in horror.
Master Situ inhaled sharply.
The scholar's face was a mix of obsession and regret.
He seemed addicted to desire, unable to extricate himself, but his heart knew he had been trapped — struggling and bitterly unwilling to accept it.
Master Situ understood the danger and hesitated no longer. He took out a Pure Yang Talisman and pressed it on the scholar's chest, suppressing the spreading, vivid yet bloody and cruel "lip marks."
Under the talisman's suppression, the scholar's primordial spirit seemed to be scorched by the blazing sun, emitting white smoke.
But the evil energy continued to spread.
Master Situ's fingertip shimmered with starlight. Pointing at the scholar's forehead, he seized the brief clarity brought by the Seven Star array and urgently said:
"Quick! Chant the formula!"
The scholar's lips moved reluctantly.
Master Situ warned, "If you don't leave now, your body and spirit will be utterly destroyed!"
The scholar gritted his teeth, shame and pain etched on his face for his "helplessness," and silently recited the formula Master Situ had given him. Then, with a flash of the Seven Star array rays, his entire primordial spirit began to twist, forcibly pulled away from the nightmare by the array's power.
But he was already "tainted."
What happened after, whether he lived or died, Master Situ did not know.
He sighed deeply, looking around, his heart sinking.
He did not know exactly what had happened.
But clearly, some unknown monster had secretly struck, ensnared the scholar, and corrupted him.
Before they even faced the evil god, one of the fourteen was lost.
And the evil god's nightmare finally revealed its invisible, sinister fangs...
(End of this Chapter)