Read Novel Full Chapter 1244: Chapter 1238: You Have To Pay Me
Chapter 1244: Chapter 1238: You Have To Pay Me
The border of Grandhaven Prefecture.
By this time, Banshu Qingping had already exited the Void Refinement space.
Using his Dharma eyes to observe the Void Refinement space that was now completely submerged by the spiritual power of talismans, he wiped away a handful of cold sweat.
Aside from the relief of surviving a disaster after being rescued, there was even more confusion and disbelief toward the unknown.
“Prefecture Lord, are we… are we not going to help?”
As soon as the subordinate finished speaking, he instantly sensed the anger of his companions and the Prefecture Lord around him, and immediately realized: oh right, help? They had just barely escaped themselves.
Banshu Qingping swallowed hard; he had never seen such a bizarre person.
He only saw roars coming from within the space.
That fellow Li Tianming was using talismans to counter the thunderbirds—sometimes retreating cowardly, sometimes shouting with sheer madness, sometimes responding with absolute calmness…
Having lived for many years, he had never seen such a freak.
This person’s talisman cultivation was powerful, yet simultaneously bizarre to the extreme.
Sometimes he could coordinate with them, and sometimes he couldn’t distinguish friend from foe, as if there were many people fighting for control over his body…
If Li Tianming hadn’t switched to a kind-hearted personality for a brief moment, they really would have been killed by his talismans.
It was hard to imagine seeing a group of people within a single person’s body.
[Your descendant Li Tianming was taught by He Hao in the Thunder Fire Demon Cave, obtaining talisman summaries, and studied under He Hao for many years.
Under He Hao’s guidance, his first personality cultivated talismans, but felt deeply exhausted physically and mentally cultivating alone.
He subsequently went mad and started fighting the talismans, unable to suppress the splitting of his personalities. Acquired Trait: Thirteen Executions]
[Driven by the fury of the primary personality, ‘Born Bad Seed’, he severed his soul, creating thirteen personalities including the primary one, forged through self-execution.
The thirteen personalities are divided into: Bad Seed, Cowardice, Arrogance, Insidiousness…
Possessing 13 times the cultivation speed, his comprehension of rules and speed of talisman engraving increase exponentially.]
When Li Wei saw this trait, he thought that if there were such a thing as a top-tier trait, this would definitely be it.
He Hao’s guidance seemed to have accidentally triggered the most dangerous mechanism of the ‘Born Bad Seed’.
Inside the Void Refinement space.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
After a day of fierce battle.
Tier-4 talismans, one after another, covered the entire Void Refinement space.
The Lord of Thunder’s thunderbirds were few in number, and the lightning arcs grew increasingly weak.
The subordinates he brought were nearly all dead, and his mask was half-ruined, leaving him in an incredibly wretched state.
He took a terrified step backward, staring with eyes so wide they nearly tore as Li Tianming slowly approached.
He seemed to see twelve people walking toward him; amidst these people seemed to hide a true, great terror, gathering the absolute ‘evil’ of the world.
The Li Tianming at the very front still wore a timid expression. “Run away quickly, we really will kill you. I have seen them kill people.”
“…”
The Lord of Thunder looked around at the talismans plastered all over the barriers of the Void Refinement space.
These talismans seemed to be crafted by completely different people.
Having never seen such a bizarre thing in his entire life, he gritted his teeth and asked, “Daoist friend, can you make the decision?”
Li Tianming froze for a moment, turned his head to look—there was no one behind him—yet he still listened earnestly. Then, he turned back around, his face full of apology.
“I’m sorry, they said they prefer how arrogant you looked at the very beginning, so the answer is no.”
“Also, we are the ones who are truly from the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion.”
“؟”
…….
Half a day later.
Li Tianming emerged from the Void Refinement space looking thoroughly aggrieved; the disturbed ‘brothers’ in his mind were causing a tremendous uproar.
“We told Grandhaven Prefecture to make a decision many years ago, but they never contacted us.
They believed the Imperial Dynasty’s promises and stayed in Grandhaven Prefecture, waiting for the Imperial Dynasty to rescue them and resolve the Western Frontier.
This proves Grandhaven Prefecture has been heavily infiltrated.”
“Kill them all! Kill Banshu Qingping too, leaving them leaderless. Send their corpses back for Great-Grandfather to refine into zombies, jie jie jie!”
“Idiot, refining corpses takes time. The Blood Moon will reach our Azure Cloud Prefecture in two hundred years; there’s absolutely no time to refine corpses.
Great-Grandfather’s coffin still has many unfinished corpses. Dead people aren’t as useful as living ones, don’t you understand?”
“Hmph, they are nothing but a bunch of ants. Those who refuse to submit must die!”
“…”
Originally, there was only one bad person inside his body, but now there were many.
Li Tianming patted his cheeks. Usually, when no one disturbed them, it was fine, but now they had all come out at once.
Fortunately, he was used to it. He quickly steadied his mind and walked toward Banshu Qingping.
Then, the members of the Banshu family stepped backward in perfect unison.
In the Void Refinement space behind Li Tianming, the corpse of the Lord of Thunder plummeted from the sky, perfectly accompanying this awkward scene.
Li Tianming helplessly drooped his eyelids; he was used to this too.
With a thud, the corpse hit the ground.
Pointing behind him, Li Tianming addressed the highly vigilant Banshu Qingping:
“Our Azure Cloud Li Clan has intelligence that Grandhaven Prefecture harbors spies from the Peerless Hall.
They infiltrated every aspect of the major factions in Grandhaven Prefecture long ago, which is why your cultivators didn’t leave, making you all believe the Imperial Dynasty’s nonsense.”
“This person is the Lord of Thunder, an expert from the Auric Empire, and also a member of the Peerless Hall.
If they killed you, Grandhaven Prefecture would be left leaderless.
Under the manipulation of the Peerless Hall’s spies, the majority of you would probably just foolishly march to your deaths.”
“Oh right, my family elders said that until the very last moment, you wouldn’t believe anything our Li Clan said.
We, too, have our own selfish motives. If you truly evacuated, we would have one less source of strength when dealing with the Blood Moon.”
“…”
Compared to the terrifying figure from just moments ago, the current Li Tianming had reverted to the foolish and simple-minded appearance from when they first met, putting people at ease.
Regardless of what should or shouldn’t be said, Li Tianming completely blurted it all out.
Banshu Qingping was, after all, a Prefecture Lord.
As the massive amount of information flooded his mind, he quickly organized his thoughts and cupped his hands toward Li Tianming.
“Thank you to the Li Clan, and thank you, my young friend, for your assistance.”
However, unexpectedly…
Li Tianming walked over step by step.
Arriving in front of Banshu Qingping, he once again took out a steamed bun with his left hand and gnawed on it, while stretching out his right hand.
Banshu Qingping froze for a moment.
Chewing on the bun, Li Tianming mumbled indistinctly, his eyes brimming with innocence, “Saying thank you is useless; you have to pay me.”
“Hahaha!”
Banshu Qingping let out a loud, hearty laugh.
Compared to the lunatic inside the Void Refinement space just now, this silly demeanor was far too reassuring.
A moment later, Li Tianming was clutching a stack of spatial rings.
Don’t be fooled by his silly demeanor; he hadn’t lost a single bit of the plundering craft he learned from Li Tianyi and Li Tianqi, having stripped the numerous corpses completely clean of their treasures.
In the distance, the survivors of the Banshu family wore incredibly ugly expressions.
With their spatial rings gone, they secretly resolved to bury their spatial rings in the dirt before ever venturing outside in the future.
Banshu Qingping walked over to the Lord of Thunder’s corpse.
Li Tianming had wanted to leave him alive for questioning, but his alternate personalities had failed to stop themselves.
“When your Li Clan sent me the message mentioning the Blood Moon, I already sensed something was wrong.”
Li Tianming listened quietly. He didn’t bother analyzing these complicated matters, leaving that to the bad guys inside his body.
He watched as Banshu Qingping fiddled with the corpse, seemingly probing for a Dao Seed.
He must have found it, as his eyes narrowed sharply.
“Throughout the many years the Blood Moon has existed, I have also been investigating in secret.
The ‘immortals’ your Li Clan mentioned can only be found as faint traces within ancient texts. I would like to ask, what exactly have you discovered?”
“We didn’t investigate much; these past years we’ve just been preparing our defenses. But we are certain the Blood Moon is a Dao Seed, and there are immortals hidden inside.”
Li Tianming answered honestly.
Li Zhiheng had always told him that only by being sincere and honest could one guarantee perfect communication.
See, he wasn’t stupid; it was just that the bad guys in his mind were calling him stupid again.
“I have also found some clues. Immortals and gods were originally born of heaven and earth.
In the end, they are just a race that was born much earlier. They cannot reproduce, but they can reincarnate.” Banshu Qingping’s expression grew exceedingly grave.
“Reincarnate?” Li Tianming didn’t understand.
“Yes.” Banshu Qingping took a deep breath and slowly stood up.
“Immortals and gods rarely appear in the world, and ancient texts record very little about them.
Perhaps they have already manifested in other ways; based on our limited understanding, we barely know a thing.”
“The appearance of the Blood Moon—I have deduced this for many years—is a method by which a Dao Seed is somehow allowing immortals to reincarnate and manifest in the mortal realm.
Therefore, the Blood Moon’s continuous expansion is inextricably tied to this.”
“Have you ever wondered why the Blood Moon has constantly been expanding towards our South?”
Li Tianming froze for a moment.
All these years, they had been laser-focused on preparing to deal with the Western Frontier.
As for why the Blood Moon was expanding from the Western Frontier in the first place, they really hadn’t given it much thought.
Simply deciding not to think about it, he asked, “Do you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“…”
Li Tianming’s facial muscles twitched violently. Then why did you say it so confidently?
“But I do know why the Lord of Thunder came to intercept and kill me, and why our Grandhaven Prefecture harbors so many spies from the Peerless Hall.
Leaving Grandhaven Prefecture leaderless is only one of the reasons they want to kill me.”
“Hm?” Li Tianming held the bun in his mouth and scratched his head.
“Follow me.”
As Banshu Qingping’s voice fell, he dismissed his subordinates and led Li Tianming deep into a bizarre, jagged mountain.
Banshu Qingping concealed his aura, took out the ‘Banshu’ family token, and instructed Li Tianming to do the same. In a flash, they bypassed a barrier and entered a secret ground.
People came and went in this subterranean place, all in a state of absolute numbness, walking around clad in loose robes like empty husks.
Just as Li Tianming was feeling puzzled, he heard a powerful baby’s cry.
He didn’t know where such a soul-stirring cry from an infant was coming from. But suddenly, the unseen baby let out a piercing, unnatural screech: “Hungry! I’m hungry!”
Within the secret ground, the earth violently squirmed. Countless bloody tentacles pierced out from deep underground, brutally stabbing into the bodies of the numb, walking people above.
The gory sight of the tentacles made Li Tianming’s scalp tingle, and he forcibly swallowed his nausea.
He saw that these people, hoisted up into the air by the tentacles, actually revealed faces full of sheer, ecstatic happiness.
They allowed the tentacles to siphon their blood and vital essence like greedy tracheas, even letting out contented, euphoric voices: “May my Lord be eternal!”
Once these tentacles had eaten their fill, they left behind seven mummified corpses and retreated underground.
Using his Dharma eyes, Li Tianming clearly saw a baby floating in the very center of this chamber—it was exactly the baby who had just been crying.
The baby let out a satisfied burp, its breathing growing long and steady.
“This is…” Li Tianming swallowed hard. From this thing’s body, he felt an eerily similar aura to the one he had encountered on the Zhao Clan’s Old Ancestor in the past!
“This is the existence our Banshu family has guarded for generations, and the very thing that allows us to possess spiritual roots generation after generation.
My family’s Old Ancestor, Banshu Ao, achieved the strength of the number one person beneath the Body Integration realm exactly through it.
Our Banshu family refuses to let it eat its fill, mutually utilizing it to maintain a delicate balance.”
Banshu Qingping exhaled a long, heavy breath.
“It’s just that upon reaching the peak of the Void Refinement realm, my Old Ancestor could no longer advance a single inch.
This ghost-like entity never bestowed strength upon him again.
In order to perfect his ‘World’, the Old Ancestor had no choice but to set foot on the path to Azure Cloud Prefecture, ultimately losing his life at the hands of your eldest uncle.”
“Our Banshu family passes down an ancestral rule to never let it eat its fill, mutually utilizing it to maintain our balance.
Now that many people from the Peerless Hall have gathered in Grandhaven Prefecture, I suspect this is exactly what they are looking for.”
“The Peerless Hall couldn’t wait to make a move against me, possibly… because they discovered this secret.”
“Now, I suspect… that it is an immortal.”
Li Tianming blinked his large, innocent eyes and then scratched his head vigorously. His head was so itchy.
“Who goes there?!!”
Right at this moment, a stern, commanding shout rang out across the secret ground.
Banshu Qingping’s expression shifted in absolute shock. “Let’s go, it’s the Patriarch, Banshu Weide!”
Li Tianming didn’t have time to overthink.
Suppressing the numerous brothers in his body who were clamoring to rush out and fight to the death, he fled madly alongside Banshu Qingping.
He turned his head back slightly. Even though they were already fleeing far away, he still hadn’t forgotten that final, fleeting glance.
The mountain within the secret ground collapsed and the earth split open, revealing a massive, indescribable entity.
Those bloody tentacles were born exactly from it. The floating baby landed on the monster’s colossal body and seamlessly melded into it, disappearing from sight.
Finally, the monster’s giant eyes rolled rapidly before it transformed into ethereal clouds and vanished into thin air.
“That giant octopus…” Li Tianming looked at the endlessly terrified Banshu Qingping.
“That was the Patriarch, Banshu Weide. He violated the ancestral rules and has thoroughly become a running dog for the immortals.”
—
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