Chapter 44: Everyone Is Evil

Climbing out of the pool, Wu Chang did not act rashly, choosing instead to assess his condition.

Liu Shan’s vicious claw strike had torn a large chunk away from his cold-weather fur coat, and even left four distinct white dents on the earth-lizard leather armor he had purchased for six thousand decayed silver coins.

Had that blow landed directly on his flesh, he had no doubt that Liu Shan could have easily ripped off a limb or two.

He planted a kiss on his leather armor, singing praises to the greatness of pay-to-win mechanics.

The Year-Ending Festival was already drawing to a close. Initially, he had hoped to take advantage of the Year-Welcoming Person's loss of control to legitimately track down the evil entity, directly eliminate its true form, and accomplish both the main and side quests in one fell swoop.

Never had he expected that the hunter of geese all day long would finally be pecked in the eye by a goose.

As a veteran sneak-attacker who loved ambushing others, he had just been out-ambushed by an even more seasoned veteran.

Recalling the way Liu Shan had launched his attack just moments ago, contrasted with his usual facade of concealing his strength, Wu Chang found himself unable to determine whether Liu Shan had been influenced by the malevolent Qi to attack him, or if—as Liu Shan claimed—this was merely standard procedure to appease the evil entity.

Yet a problem immediately followed: if Liu Shan had intended to attack him from the very beginning, he had been presented with numerous opportunities over the past few days.

Especially when Liu Wu was still around; had the two of them coordinated a sneak attack, there was a very real possibility he might have completely capsized.

What had made Liu Shan suddenly decide to move against him?

He closed his eyes, mentally reviewing every conversation he had shared with Liu Shan, and then snapped his eyes wide open.

Could it be because he had expressed a desire to inspect this subterranean cavern?

Following a brief self-inspection, he pulled a spare torch from his travel backpack and proceeded toward the source of the malevolent Qi.

No amount of speculation could ever compare to seeing the reality with one's own eyes.

Due to the mishap during the Year-Ending Festival, the evil entity had become exceptionally active, and the overflowing malevolent Qi made no attempt to conceal itself.

Tracking the trail of malevolent Qi, he followed the subterranean underground river all the way down and soon arrived at the source.

It was a massive circular clearing, above which hung an enormous everlasting lamp, illuminating the underground space as brightly as day.

Forty-nine locust trees were arrayed in formation around the perimeter of the clearing, cutting off the inside from the outside.

Piled high in the center of the clearing was a mountain of corpses—human corpses.

Countless lingering grievances floated above the mountain of bones, radiating malevolent Qi outward.

Though these grievances existed as independent entities, with each individual strand reaching only a pale-red hue, they simultaneously formed a collective whole, their resentful energy converging into a deep-red cloud.

This was the true form of the evil entity.

The existence of this evil entity was quite similar to the phantoms haunting the Ghost Crying Forest; both were born of lingering grievances, yet Wu Chang could not directly perceive the scenes contained within their resentments.

The sole difference lay in the fact that Liu Wei and Liu Wu had acquired the monster-transformation cultivation technique, enabling them to control phantoms through masks.

Meanwhile, the evil entity within the cavern was bound by no constraints whatsoever; it would indiscriminately attack every living soul.

Sensing the arrival of a stranger, the crimson cloud of grievances roiled and surged, closing in around Wu Chang.

Within the crimson cloud, malevolent energy condensed into a corrosive drizzle, hissing as it struck the ground.

Wu Chang’s spiritual intuition warned him that he must not allow even a single droplet of that substance to touch him.

He drew out the Soul-Purifying Command Banner, stepped out the constellation paces, and chanted the incantation, driving a wave of pure white Qi outward from the banner.

Wherever the white Qi passed, the sea of blood roiled and fractured, and the bloody rain vaporized and dissipated.

The Soul-Purifying Command Banner was the natural nemesis of entities like phantoms and malevolent spirits; under the might of its divine power, the evil entity was completely helpless.

Moreover, after purifying the phantoms, Wu Chang had gained another two points of energy. Combining his own energy with the footwork and incantations, the might of the Soul-Purifying Command Banner was truly staggering.

In a mere three minutes, the tightly condensed crimson cloud began to totter and fracture, exposing the resentments churning deep within its interior to Wu Chang's view.

Putting away the banner, Wu Chang silently marveled at the profound mastery of Daoist Priest Chiyuan, who had successfully discerned the true nature of the evil entity and lent him a Dharma treasure so precisely suited to the task.

Without this prized banner, dealing with the phantoms and the malevolent spirit would have undoubtedly cost him a great deal more effort.

He cast his gaze toward the rent in the crimson cloud, eager to discover the exact origins of this evil entity.

Selecting a strand of resentment with a deeper coloration, he watched as the scenes within it unfolded, and a spectacle he had never imagined imprinted itself upon his vision.

The scene that initially materialized within the vision was none other than Locust Valley Village.

On that particular day, the weather was exceptionally fine, and a group of unfamiliar villagers toiled in the fields within the valley, the atmosphere serene and content.

Yet within moments, the wind and clouds changed abruptly, and a dense, oppressive pall of black clouds rolled in, accompanied by thousands of fierce bandits riding upon the shadows of the tempest.

The two figures in the lead appeared exceedingly familiar.

One was Chen Peng, the village chief of Chen Village, while the other was Liu Shan, the current village chief of Locust Valley Village.

During ordinary days, nothing about them seemed amiss, but as Wu Chang observed the two men within the lingering grievance, he suddenly realized where he had seen their faces before.

After a moment of contemplation, he remembered: upon entering the mountains, he had encountered a batch of wanted posters bearing official seals at the black-guesthouse run by the Mountain-Blocking Ghost. The wanted fugitives were members of the Black Mountain bandits who had infiltrated the hundred-mile Locust Mountain.

The portraits of the first and second chieftains bore an uncanny resemblance to these two men in spirit and features!

And Liu Shan—he was actually the supreme chieftain of the Black Mountain bandits!

The two men led their subordinates into the valley, and Liu Shan, gesturing toward the thriving crops growing luxuriantly in the fields, proclaimed:

"This truly is a treasured land—easy to defend and difficult to attack. Not only can we settle the families of our brothers here, but it can also serve as a stable granary."

Chen Peng nodded in agreement. "Good it is, except there are simply too many people here."

The subordinates trailing behind the two men acknowledged the command with understood expressions, drawing their long sabers as they charged toward the villagers in the valley.

With a fierce whoosh, accompanied by the whistling sound of swinging blades, the scene before Wu Chang's eyes went completely dark.

Damn it!

Recalling the scene he had just witnessed, Wu Chang wore the expression of a bewildered old man looking at his smartphone.

He had always assumed that Chen Village and Liu Wei were bandits, while the villagers of Locust Valley Village had simply succumbed to tyranny and been forced to cooperate with Liu Wei.

Never had he imagined that Locust Valley Village was entirely populated by villains—no, to be precise, Locust Valley Village was not a village at all, but rather the roost of the Black Mountain bandits who had usurped the magpie's nest.

He subsequently examined several other strands of resentment, and the scenes recorded within them were largely similar.

On the day the Black Mountain bandits set their sights on Locust Valley Village, absolute catastrophe befell the settlement.

Every single villager, young and old, was slaughtered, and whether they still breathed or not, their bodies were hauled into the mountains to be buried.

One particularly tenacious grievance, lingering on the brink of death, had overheard Liu Shan arranging a formation, declaring that their corpses would be utilized as nutrients to nourish this valley and ensure favorable weather for the land.

This also explained why, despite both having acquired the monster-transformation technique, the Mist Demon could only clumsily stab itself in its crude transformation.

Meanwhile, the two brothers Liu Wei and Liu Wu had been capable of establishing the Ghost Crying Forest to transmute phantoms.

He had previously wondered how the two brothers could have possibly comprehended such a complex technique for raising phantoms relying solely on that instructionless manual of ghost-scrawls.

Now, it appeared this was a secret art belonging exclusively to the Black Mountain bandits.

No wonder Liu Wu, upon discovering that Wu Chang could communicate with the wronged spirits, had told him that once he witnessed the core of the Year-Ending Festival, he would understand what the evil entity truly was.

No wonder Liu Wei, after having his bandit identity exposed by Wu Chang, had smiled and remarked that he did not die unjustly.

Aside from the pre-mortem scenes of the true Locust Valley villagers preserved within their grievances, the bloody last words also carried an appended sequence of images.

That occurred not long after their burial, when a subterranean upheaval shook the hundred-mile Locust Mountain, causing several mountains to collapse.

This violent tremor not only jarred loose long-hidden demonic entities, but also cracked open a bottomless cavern beneath the hollow mountains.

The skeletons of the villagers tumbled into the abyss, and under the influence of some unfathomable power, their lingering grievances fused into a single entity, transforming into the earliest iteration of the malevolent spirit.

Having witnessed the experiences of the true villagers of Locust Valley Village, looking back upon those brief, bloody final words within the crimson cloud, everything suddenly fell into place with absolute logic.

The bloody last words consisted of merely two characters:

[Revenge!]

Clutching the Soul-Purifying Command Banner, Wu Chang felt a wave of hesitation rise within his heart.

Between the side quest and the bloody final words, was it truly possible to accomplish both simultaneously?