"Before I died, I went down together with that bastard. These hundred Carefree Coins must be the reward for the kill." Sun Erlang was by no means foolish; after a moment of recollection, he deduced the origin of the Carefree Coins on his person.
"Speaking of which, just what on earth did we go through?" Wang Xuanba shuddered, instinctively clutching his chest, as if the wound that had pierced right through him were still there.
"Was it a dream? But the sensation right before death was far too real," Wang Xuanba murmured.
Sun Erlang stared at the lines of small floating text before him, trying to glean more useful information.
Regrettably, aside from the words themselves, there was no explanation whatsoever.
"It seems we'll have to figure it out ourselves after all." Sun Erlang's expression turned somewhat grim.
At that moment, Yue Zhenwei suggested, "Why don't we head back to the border where we encountered the dog-headed beasts to see how things stand?
"Those two beasts were actually around our level of strength. As long as we stay on guard and don't get ambushed, we should be fine."
"All right! I want to settle the score with them anyway! Dying like that earlier was far too humiliating!" A fierce glint flashed in Wang Xuanba's eyes.
The three set out once more toward the border of Qiuxi Province.
Along the way, Sun Erlang noticed that there seemed to be more cultivators than before. Furthermore, they no longer wore listless expressions; instead, they gathered in groups of three to five, seemingly conferring about something.
When Sun Erlang and his companions tried to get closer to eavesdrop, however, they discovered that these people were communicating neither by voice nor by divine sense, but through a method of transmission that the three of them could not observe.
"Maybe we can ask them for information." Wang Xuanba's eyes flickered as he eyed a group of five cultivators gathered not far away, all of whom appeared to be only at the mid Foundation Establishment stage.
Yue Zhenwei stopped him. "Xuanba, don't be rash! If I'm not mistaken, these people can probably 'revive' just like us. Brute force is useless if you want to pry information out of people who don't even fear death..."
"Let's check the destination first!" Sun Erlang said in a low voice.
Wang Xuanba nodded and finally looked away.
In this lifetime, Sun and Wang had acquired their formidable skills at a young age upon the Sermon Platform. Being young, frivolous, and proud, every formation array they encountered after leaving Great Xuan had crumbled at a snap of their fingers, inflating their arrogance even further. It was only the recent ambush and schemes of the demonic beasts that had forced them to temper their conceit.
Upon arriving at the spot where they had previously "fallen," the scene before them took them aback. "Why is the world across the boundary different from the one we saw last time?"
The boulder-strewn shore of Shilin Province was gone, replaced by a chilling Forest of Swords steeped in murderous intent. Millions of decaying swords were thrust into the earth, swaying gently with the breeze.
*Buzz...*
Perhaps because he stood too close, the moment the rotting swords in the forest vibrated in unison, Sun Erlang seemed to hear a resounding, collective sword chime in his ears.
A jolt went through Sun Erlang's heart, and he instinctively tilted his head to dodge.
An invisible strand of sword qi grazed his cheek, shaving off a slice of skin and flesh. Ignoring the sting, Sun Erlang darted backward in haste. He did not stop until the sense of danger subsided. There was no question that had he failed to dodge in time, he would have lost far more than a bit of flesh.
"Does this world appear even more dangerous than the three we encountered last time?" Yue Zhenwei guessed with a furrowed brow.
Next, the three conducted a rough reconnaissance of all the worlds bordering Qiuxi Province.
A sword forest, a deep ravine, and another that seemed to be the location of a demonic sect, housing no fewer than a thousand vicious, menacing cultivators.
Looking from afar, one could see these demonic cultivators feeding on humans, making sport of torture, and refining dharma artifacts from human bones.
The purgatorial spectacle sent Wang Xuanba's blood boiling. He longed to charge in right then and sweep away the entire demonic sect.
Yet Wang Xuanba was merely impulsive, not stupid. In the end, he refrained from acting recklessly and only spat viciously toward the other side.
The three gathered once more to confer. "Should we first question the local cultivators here to clarify some common knowledge, or brave another world?"
"The cultivators of the Carefree Paradise clearly know rules that we don't.
"If we ask rashly, we might expose our identities the moment we open our mouths."
"Our lives might not be in danger, but we might be kept here forever."
"What about trying soul searching? The Saint Teacher lectured on it. Though I've never officially used it on a cultivator, I think it's worth a shot," Wang Xuanba said, eager to try.
"Don't forget, we are very likely in a dream. Soul-searching arts might not even work."
After a brief silence, they decided to give it a try regardless.
"Find a weaker cultivator who's alone."
"Knock him out first."
After searching Qiuxi Province for the better part of a day, they finally found a suitable target.
This person appeared to possess only an early Foundation Establishment cultivation. Separated from his teammates for some reason, he was anxiously searching around.
"Strike!"
With a furious shout, the trio's lethal moves landed simultaneously upon the Foundation Establishment cultivator.
A black whirlwind, a gray giant axe, and Yue Zhenwei's longsword of purple qi.
Yet to their sheer bewilderment, their combined full-force strike—potent enough to grievously wound even a Nascent Soul cultivator—failed to inflict the slightest scratch upon the Foundation Establishment cultivator before them!
The Foundation Establishment cultivator's figure flickered with light and shadow, and all their attacks struck empty air.
He stared at Sun Erlang's trio with incredulous eyes and stepped back involuntarily.
At the same time, Sun Erlang noticed that the floating lines of small text before his eyes twitched.
Nothing else changed.
Only the quantity of his Carefree Coins had dropped to zero.
Sun Erlang's cheek twitched.
Wang Xuanba immediately wailed via divine sense transmission, "How can Paradise Coins be negative?! A hundred got deducted!"
Yue Zhenwei's face was equally dark. "Mine too."
In the brief moment they were communicating, a flash of white light suddenly burst from the attacked Foundation Establishment cultivator. The white light enveloped him, and after giving Sun Erlang and the others a look as if they were complete idiots, the Foundation Establishment cultivator vanished on the spot.
"..." The Great Xuan trio stared at one another in speechless silence.
"It seems this is another natural restriction of the paradise. We belong to the same category as these cultivators, while the monsters we met before—including those inside the border worlds—are probably another category. Cultivators cannot attack one another, and doing so even brings punishment. Slaying monsters in the border worlds, on the other hand, yields rewards, including Carefree Coins..." After a brief spell of dejection, Sun Erlang quickly rallied, reflecting and summarizing based on their experiences.
"We can't be sure what consequences arise if too many Carefree Coins are deducted, but we'd better not test it. Let's head to a border world first to earn back our negative coins."
With that, the three abandoned any thought of soul searching.
They couldn't even hit the man, so how could they search his soul?!
Pent-up with frustration, they conferred and, following their intuition, ultimately chose the demonic sect world that appeared to be the most dangerous among the three bordering worlds.
"Though that damn place looks like it has plenty of enemies, how high could the cultivation be of people who refine dharma artifacts from ordinary human bones?"
"Their spells are crude and vulgar too. Good enough to scare mortals, but all those flashy tricks won't withstand a single blow from my axe," Wang Xuanba asserted confidently.
"Still, we must be careful. After all, we've already died once. I have a hunch that this death count might be even more important than Carefree Coins," Yue Zhenwei said gravely, watching the fluttering characters before his eyes.
Having settled on their plan, the three charged back-to-back into the demonic sect world.
Inside the demonic sect world, tens of thousands of demonic path practitioners were stunned by the trio descending from the sky. After a moment of daze, they shouted in a tongue Sun Erlang could not understand and swarmed forward from all sides.
Blood qi towered to the heavens, accompanied by countless resentful souls. The sight was truly terrifying.
"Die for your grandpa!"
To their surprise, a gray giant axe effortlessly tore apart the bloody resentful souls unleashed by hundreds of demonic cultivators joining hands.
The giant axe swept left and right without losing momentum, reaping the lives of dozens of demonic cultivators with every swing.
Wang Xuanba fought until his eyes turned red, thoroughly thrilled.
"Erlang, these beasts are even weaker than we thought!"
Sun Erlang, who was likewise rapidly mowing down demonic cultivators, did not chime in. Instead, a faint sense of unease welled within his heart.
Just like when he had faced that dog-headed beast whose head had already been severed!
Sun Erlang swept his gaze over his surroundings, wiping out enemies while searching for the real target.
"Look there!" Yue Zhenwei alerted Sun Erlang to a colossal statue towering within the demonic sect.
This statue had not been visible when they observed from outside the world.
Even after Sun Erlang descended into this world, it had remained hidden.
It was only as the battle grew fierce that it subtly manifested without their noticing.
The statue seemed to be stitched together from countless human corpses, giving off a stench of foul evil that soared into the sky.
Its head possessed no distinct face.
There were only pairs of pale, ghastly arms reaching outward, waving continuously.
Every time Sun Erlang and his companions slew a demonic cultivator, another pair of arms sprouted from the statue's face.
It was as if these slain demonic cultivators were actually being devoured by the colossal statue.
Sun Erlang's slaughtering motions paused slightly.
Yet the crazed demonic cultivators had no intention of letting them off. Far from being frightened by their companions' deaths, they casually stuffed scattered pieces of flesh and bone into their mouths, howling as they launched even more deranged assaults.
"What do we do? Keep killing or not?"
Slaying demonic cultivators clearly charged the colossal statue in some way. Seeing the countless pale arms sprouting continuously like bamboo shoots after rain, Sun Erlang felt a tremor in his heart.
Yet his answer was decisive: "Kill!"
Purple qi roared like a plunging dragon. A single strike wiped out over a thousand demonic cultivators, emptying the tidal encirclement in an instant.
Soon, however, more fearless demonic cultivators surged in to plug the gap.
The only saving grace was that these demonic cultivators were not endless. As the Great Xuan trio fought in concert, the seemingly human yet subhuman cultivators swarming the plains finally began to dwindle in their line of sight.
After an unknown length of time, the nauseating stench of blood in the air had nearly condensed into a solid weight. Even when Sun Erlang and the others sealed their sense of smell, they could not prevent the bloody stench from burrowing into their souls.
The vast demonic sect grounds were covered entirely in the shattered remnants of exploded cultivators. Blood flowed like rivers, gradually swallowed by the demonic ground with every passing breath.
Sun Erlang panted heavily, his hands trembling slightly.
These demonic cultivators were indeed pitifully weak, incapable of withstanding a single bout against the Great Xuan trio. But there were simply too many of them. Even standing still and letting the three slaughter them was enough to leave Sun Erlang's arms weak.
*If I were at the Nascent Soul stage, how could I be in such an exhausted state?*
*With a grotto-heaven replenishing my spiritual energy, I wouldn't fear this human-wave tactic at all.*
Sun Erlang could not help thinking to himself.
Suddenly, as if realizing something, he frowned slightly. *A difficulty tailored just right?*
At this moment, aside from the Great Xuan trio, only the colossal statue remained standing in the demonic sect.
It was not that Sun Erlang and the others had not wanted to eliminate the hidden danger beforehand; rather, an invisible barrier had stood before them.
Unable to attack in advance, they could only wait for the colossal statue to complete its final metamorphosis.
*Rumble, rumble, rumble...*
The entire demonic sect grounds began to shake violently.
The colossal statue, which had remained frozen in a single posture, came alive in an instant.
It lowered its head and gazed down at the Great Xuan trio.
A pair of arms fell from the statue's face.
Then a second pair, a third pair...
*Swish, swish, swish.*
More and more arms dropped like a torrential downpour.
Sun Erlang and the others warded off the falling arms, their expressions grave as they watched the statue's true visage emerge.
It was the face of a pig.
The pig's head bore a compassionate expression, its eyes filled with sorrow. It looked down upon Sun Erlang with profound pity.
As though they had committed some unforgivable sin!
Gazed upon by the colossal pig-headed statue, Wang Xuanba felt a surge of nameless rage flare up within him.
Sensing that the invisible barrier blocking them had vanished, he was the first to charge forward.
"Today, your grandpa's going to turn your pig head into a side dish for wine!" Wang Xuanba roared. His gray giant axe had already expanded to the size of the statue itself.
Aiming straight at the pig's face, he hacked down violently.
The pig-headed statue did not dodge. Its eyes retained their compassionate sorrow, but its mouth opened to reveal rows of razor-sharp fangs.
It clamped down directly on the giant axe.
Then it chewed.
*Bang!* The gray giant axe instantly shattered into countless fragments, and even the gray qi was chewed up and swallowed by the pig-headed statue.
Wang Xuanba sprayed a mouthful of blood, yet a glint of madness flashed in his eyes.
"Detonate!"
The myriad strands of gray qi inside the pig-headed statue's mouth abruptly danced like a swarm of frenzied dragons. The pig head's cheeks bulged slightly, as if it were about to burst.
Yet to Wang Xuanba's astonishment, the pig-headed statue took a deep breath and forced all the gray qi down into its stomach.
One had to know that this gray giant axe was no ordinary dharma treasure; it was Wang Xuanba's own Foundation Establishment wonder, the Mottled Time Axe. It had been awarded to him personally by the Saint Teacher for placing in the top three upon the Sermon Platform.
Wang Xuanba's method of attaining the Golden Core had been founded precisely on comprehending the laws contained within this wonder.
The stone axe's gray qi contained the principles of the passage of time, harming foes through the force of fleeting years.
Yet after swallowing the boundless gray qi within the giant axe, the pig-headed statue suffered no adverse effects whatsoever. In fact, the statue's body became noticeably more solid.
With his Foundation Establishment wonder devoured, Wang Xuanba's aura plummeted at a visible rate.
Grievously wounded, Wang Xuanba hung on by a mere thread of breath, devoid of any strength to fight on.
The turn of events had occurred in the blink of an eye.
Before Sun Erlang and Yue Zhenwei could even move to assist, Wang Xuanba was already in mortal peril.
Taking advantage of the pig-headed statue absorbing the gray qi, Sun Erlang transmitted, "Something is definitely wrong!
"These worlds inside the Carefree Paradise ought to be trials of some sort. Given the strength this pig-headed statue is displaying now, even a Nascent Soul cultivator couldn't stand against it. For us at the Golden Core stage, it's an absolute dead end. If it's impossible to pass, it ceases to be a trial...
"So there must be some detail in this demonic sect grounds that we've overlooked." Yue Zhenwei came to his senses as well, surveying their surroundings once more.
Having devoured the Time Axe's gray qi, the pig-headed statue's aura fluctuated erratically, as if it were comprehending something and poised to break through to become even stronger at any moment.
"Damn it, we don't have much time left."
They had already searched the demonic sect grounds thoroughly more than once. Aside from the corpses and bones of the demonic cultivators carpeting the ground, there was nothing else hidden.
*Where on earth is the key to breaking this deadlock?*
In the face of crisis, Sun Erlang found himself growing calmer instead.
From the scenes he had witnessed before entering the demonic sect to everything experienced during the battle,
countless images slowed down, flashing past in sequence.
*The Saint Teacher once said: when pressed to an extremity, change must arise.*
*To the demonic sect, we outsiders are variables. Yet our variable was only enough to slaughter the cultivators; against this colossal statue, our strength falls short. Therefore...*
A brilliant light flashed in Sun Erlang's eyes. *We must seek out more variables!*
*This variable cannot lie with outside cultivators like us. Instead, it must be...*
A sudden flash of enlightenment surged in Sun Erlang's heart. He urgently transmitted to Yue Zhenwei, "Bypass the pig-headed statue! Attack the sky!"
A black whirlwind soared toward the heavens. Sun Erlang merged his figure with it, ascending directly into the clouds.
This black evil wind was naturally Sun Erlang's Foundation Establishment wonder, the Extinction Evil-Breaking Wind—likewise bestowed personally by the Saint Teacher!
The pig's head, which was absorbing and evolving, sensed Sun Erlang's movement. Within its seemingly eternal compassionate gaze, an expression of fury and dread abruptly surfaced.
It let out its first roar since the start of the battle.
Just as it moved to intercept Sun Erlang, a longsword of purple qi flew directly toward its face.
Purple qi swept across the heavens like the morning sun.
It was Yue Zhenwei's Foundation Establishment wonder, personally imparted by the Saint Teacher: the Vast Nether Purple Firmament Sword!
Within the purple qi, the faint roar of a dragon could be heard.
Awed by the vast purple qi, the pig-headed statue's movement faltered for a fraction of an instant.
It was precisely this split-second pause that allowed Sun Erlang, transformed into the black wind, to break through its defense.
He slammed violently against the canopy of the sky.
Fractures emerged across the heavens.
The high-hanging sun cracked inch by inch.
The false sky shattered with a resounding crash.
As countless fragments rained down, the reality beyond was revealed.
It was nothing more than a dark, colossal cavern.
The collapse of the false sky caused the pig-headed statue to let out a nearly hysterical roar.
Yet it no longer had any mind to deal with Yue Zhenwei and Sun Erlang.
As if something terrifying were about to descend, a streak of radiance flew out from inside the pig-headed statue, attempting to flee.
"Vile beast!"
A voice like a thunderclap suddenly sounded from beyond the heavens.
A bolt of purple thunder materialized out of thin air, striking the fleeing radiance dead-on!
Amid a bloodcurdling shriek, the creature within was reduced to ashes.
Sun Erlang caught a faint glimpse of it: an infant pig demon that appeared to have been born not long ago.
The purple thunder had descended without warning, and after easily slaying the pig demon, it never appeared again.
Within this demonic sect, aside from the Great Xuan trio, not a single living creature remained.
Sun Erlang felt a deep, marrow-deep exhaustion of the spirit.
Wang Xuanba and Yue Zhenwei, while thoroughly relieved, felt utterly bewildered. "We won just like that?"
"There was no need to fight that terrifying pig-headed statue to the death at all. Just breaking the false sky above our heads made divine thunder descend to kill the pig demon?"
"What kind of nonsense is this! Didn't I risk my life for nothing?!" Wang Xuanba coughed lightly, venting his frustration.
With his complaint, the surrounding scenery came to an abrupt halt.
Then, like tens of thousands of panes of glass, it shattered simultaneously.
Countless identical world images flooded into their minds. After a dizzying onslaught of rushing fragments...
The three found themselves back where they had started.
Five Elders Association, Qingxi Province.
"Huh? I'm fine again?" Wang Xuanba, whose cultivation had plummeted to the Qi Condensation stage and who had been on the verge of death during the battle at the demonic sect, was now completely restored to his normal Golden Core perfection cultivation.
Not only that, there was not even a trace of injury on his body. It was as if that life-and-death struggle had been nothing more than an illusion.
Yet clearly, what they had experienced was far from a simple dream.
"The sky has returned to its normal, bright color," Yue Zhenwei observed, looking left and right.
"And my Carefree Coins aren't negative anymore! They're at two hundred now!" Wang Xuanba said gleefully after checking.
Though he still had no idea what purpose these Carefree Coins served.
Sun Erlang stared at the lines of small text before him.
"Sun Erlang, Golden Core perfection, Deaths: 1."
"Paradise Experience Level: 1."
"Carefree Coins: 500."
Behind the Paradise Experience Level, a small progress bar had appeared.
A pink hue had dyed nearly thirty percent of its length.
Aside from these numerical changes, something else had appeared in Sun Erlang's mind.
"Man is the chief of all spirits."
"The human brain, ingested, enhances wisdom."
"The human liver, ingested, brightens the eyes."
"The human kidneys..."
Voices welled up in Sun Erlang's mind one after another.
There was no sinister or evil aura to them, only pure exposition and explanation.
Yet when the corresponding tastes and sensations of devouring each organ surfaced simultaneously in his memory—an experience so vivid it felt as though he had tasted them personally—Sun Erlang could finally take it no longer.
He vomited violently on the spot.
Seeing Sun Erlang suddenly retching without pause, Wang Xuanba and Yue Zhenwei were both bewildered.
Only after Sun Erlang struggled to his feet and recounted his experience did their faces turn pale as well.
"This... Erlang, you won't become addicted to eating human flesh in the future, will you?" Wang Xuanba shrank back.
"Could this Spirit Devouring Method be the cultivation technique practiced by that pig demon? Passing the trial of a border world might allow one to bring items that appeared inside back to reality?" Yue Zhenwei said thoughtfully.
"Erlang, try running this Spirit Devouring Method," he suggested.
Wang Xuanba jumped in fright, but after his complexion eased slightly, Sun Erlang nodded.
Enduring his nausea, he closed his eyes and sensed inward.
After a moment, he looked toward Yue Zhenwei. "I don't sense any other entity cultivating this method."
Yue Zhenwei stroked his chin. "The Carefree Paradise has existed for so many years, yet no second person cultivates this Spirit Devouring Method..."
Wang Xuanba's face turned solemn. "I get it. There's a problem with this technique."
Sun Erlang shook his head slightly. "That isn't the point. Although the Spirit Devouring Method was used by that pig demon to devour humans, the targets it can devour are by no means limited to humans. Anything endowed with spirit can be consumed.
"Therefore, while it can't compare to the Saint Teacher's personal teachings, this Spirit Devouring Method is undeniably an extraordinary technique. Cultivating it all the way to the Nascent Soul realm wouldn't be an issue. Even after the Nascent Soul stage, one could continue cultivating it, strengthening oneself by continuously devouring spiritual objects."
Wang Xuanba understood as well by now. "For such a technique, appearing in a world that newcomers like us encounter, yet bearing no trace of anyone else practicing it..."
"There are two possibilities. First, this Carefree Paradise dreamscape is not bound by the rule that dharmas cannot be practiced concurrently.
"Second, the dreamscape undergoes myriad transformations, generating new dreamscapes at every moment. The world we encountered just happened to be one that was born not long ago."
Chapter 1310