Grotesque

Wei Yuan sat upright, contemplating the mysteries of the Dao. After a long while, his heart stirred, and he sent a strand of divine sense past his barrier. The instant he looked outside, he shrank back as if burned by fire, immediately retracting his sense behind the barrier. This was... far too grotesque. Outside the barrier, an unholy cacophony of wailing ghosts and howling wolves filled the air. Entangled bodies writhed together, stuffing every empty space they could find. The sheer ferocity of their motions, the bizarre sounds, and the outlandish contortions truly lived up to the word grotesque. "Enough!" Wei Yuan barked. A bolt of his divine sense struck down upon a struggling figure barely poking its head out. Arcs of lightning instantly engulfed the entire chamber, shocking every single mountain woman unconscious. Hule Gao'en wanted to let out a wretched scream, but with his mouth stuffed to the brim, he could only snort desperately through his nostrils. Deprived of the relief that screaming might bring, he nearly passed out from the lash of Wei Yuan's divine sense, despite being at the perfection of the dharma idol realm. He snapped awake, breaking into a sudden cold sweat. In an instant, the terror banished all his physical weakness, trembling knees, and dizziness. Scrambling to his feet, he peeled off the mountain women clinging to his body, dropped to his knees, and knocked his head against the ground. "This servant deserves death!" "Clean this place up. It is time for breakfast." Dragging his exhausted body, Hule Gao'en hurriedly cleared the scene. He piled the city lord's wives in one heap and the daughters in another, dressed himself, and used his magic power to wash the floor before quietly taking his place behind Wei Yuan. Only then did Wei Yuan dispel the barrier. A stench of rot and briny fishiness rushed toward him, making him feel as if he had stepped into a fish market. Wei Yuan channeled a streak of magic power from head to toe, directly refining the outer skin of this phantom body into a magic treasure to isolate himself from his surroundings. Then he said, "The city lord is already waiting. Let us head out." "Master, wait a moment! This shell of mine is a Liao body; I am afraid it cannot leave behind any seed. How about you go ahead first, Master, while I slip down to the lower tier, gather some seed, and plant it in them?" "No need for such trouble." Wei Yuan flicked his fingers, sending dozens of light motes into the bodies of the mountain women. A faint yet genuine spark of vitality immediately ignited within them. This trace of vitality would vanish after a few days, but by then, Wei Yuan would be far away. During the feast last night, Wei Yuan had known this was a custom of the Mountain Folk meant to ensure the vigor of their descendants; refusing would have been taken as an insult. Wei Yuan naturally had his ways of handling it. He had originally intended to borrow the power of the heavenly demon Jialuo from within the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven to cast an erotic dream over all the mountain women sent inside. Unexpectedly, upon seeing these women, Hule Gao'en had suddenly grown thrilled! Jinshi City was filled entirely with followers of Saha, who was said to be the True God's youngest son and the only blood descendant of the True God remaining in the world. According to legend, Saha had clashed with the Great Prophet, ultimately capturing and executing him. According to the Bloodline doctrine, Saha was the True God's earthly incarnation. The Prophet Faction, on the other hand, held that the executed Great Prophet was the true saint, while Saha had long been possessed by a heavenly demon. Hule Gao'en was a fanatical adherent of the Prophet Faction, so hearing Saha praised during the evening prayers had been an intolerable provocation that nearly made him run amok. In his eyes, subduing the mountain women of the Bloodline Faction was a way to practice the Prophet's path. Although Wei Yuan suspected the man was simply lustful and had little to do with faith, he took into account the third wisp of karmic luck Hule Gao'en had squeezed out at all costs. Wei Yuan personally intervened, refining his shell into the body of one of the Mountain Folk before sending him to wage a bloody battle against the city lord's wives and daughters in his stead. Meanwhile, Wei Yuan erected a barrier of Dao power in the room and hid behind it in quiet cultivation—truly out of sight, out of mind. As a result, Hule Gao'en had been majestic and invincible during the first half of the night, slaying in all directions. By midnight, he was barely holding on, praying for dawn. By the late hours, his heart was dead as ashes and his body thoroughly wrecked. What the city lord cared about most was leaving behind offspring. Wei Yuan had prepared for this, directly casting an illusion with the power of a heavenly demon. A mere Scenery Command cultivator could never hope to see through his methods. Once everything was tidied up without a trace of suspicion, Wei Yuan looked at the thirty-odd mountain women piled up in the room. A thought struck him, and he asked, "Do they possess karmic luck as well?" Hule Gao'en blinked, instinctively replying, "How could they possess karmic luck? Even if they did, it would be foul and unclean." According to Mountain Folk custom, mountain women held a lowly status. Even at the same cultivation realm, their standing was far inferior to that of men. In some Mountain Folk tribes, women were outright forbidden from cultivating. Drawing on past experience, Wei Yuan sensed that this might well become his primary source of Mountain Folk karmic luck in the future. However, figuring out how to begin would involve plenty of trouble. Perhaps... he could establish a Mountain Woman Bodhisattva seat? Wei Yuan turned to appraise Hule Gao'en, whose back broke out in cold sweat under his gaze. A short while later, Wei Yuan sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the city lord, facing a massive roasted whole bull. A Mountain Folk attendant quietly came over and whispered a few words into the city lord's ear, conveying that upon examination, nineteen women were found to be pregnant. The city lord was overjoyed. Slapping Wei Yuan heavily on the shoulder, he boisterously praised Wei Yuan's martial prowess, declaring that despite having numerous mighty warriors under his command, not a single one had ever withstood the ravages of his three daughters. Wei Yuan seized the opportunity to inquire about the ancient legends of the surrounding region. This time, the city lord held nothing back. Calling over the high priest and the prophet, he rattled off six locations in one breath. Four of them were areas where Mountain Folk frequently disappeared; one was suspected to be the place where an ancient Great Prophet had passed away; and the last showed signs of shifting time—a tribesman who had once gotten lost there returned to find himself thirty years younger. According to common knowledge in the cultivation world, these places were all likely entrances to secret realms or grotto-heavens. Yet true exploration was far from the romance found in popular tales. If a secret realm went untended and managed not to collapse over tens of millions of years, terrifying monstrosities might breed within. Other secret realms collapsed and fragmented, ultimately becoming scars and lesions upon the Native Realm. Furthermore, for reasons unknown, some ancient immortals deliberately set traps disguised as low-level secret grounds. For instance, a place that appeared to be the cultivation cave-abode of a Scenery Command cultivator might conceal the deadly trap of an immortal; a group of dharma idol cultivators venturing in could easily run headfirst into an immortal's fatal strike. Thus, under normal circumstances, exploring perilous sites was a matter of surviving against overwhelming odds—nine deaths to one life. Only a tiny fraction of fortunate souls ever reaped rewards, yet the world only remembered those lucky few while forgetting the vast majority who never returned. For that very reason, the city lord did not consider this information particularly precious; most Mountain Folk who vanished without a trace were cultivators who had gone exploring. Wei Yuan understood this reasoning, of course, but he believed he was destined to be that lucky soul. Having committed these locations to memory, and with time still remaining for breakfast, Wei Yuan inquired in detail about the going rates and trading markets for Mountain Folk slaves, as well as the methods used to control them daily. Upon learning that Wei Yuan intended to purchase at least a hundred thousand slaves, the city lord's enthusiasm surged even higher. He immediately summoned ten of his most cherished wives, whom he had previously been reluctant to display, to pour wine and keep Wei Yuan company. Slavery was rampant among the Mountain Folk. Every city lord was both the largest buyer and the largest seller of slaves in his territory. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, realized that the worship grounds Hule Gao'en had learned, paired with Mountain Folk slaves, seemed an excellent method for harvesting Mountain Folk karmic luck. As for the money needed for the purchase, that was simple; Wei Yuan did not even need to pay out of his own pocket. Hule Gao'en's personal wealth alone exceeded this city lord's tenfold. Consequently, Wei Yuan agreed to buy an initial batch of ten thousand slaves from the city lord, paid a deposit, and arranged to complete the handover upon returning from his exploration. With that, he took Hule Gao'en and headed west, plunging straight into the boundless mountains. Several days later, as Wei Yuan was walking, an apple falling from a tree suddenly struck him. Looking up, he saw the entrance to a secret realm suspended in midair.