After rescuing everyone, including the old man from the village, Min Mingyue took them away from the village square and into the same remote house where the men were staying before.

There, after everyone had calmed down a little, the old man started to tell them about the past of this village and how this place had turned out to be like this.

As for he himself, he was one of the three people who had discovered the book containing the Demonic art and later, he had became a researcher who had deciphered this book.

Alongside the book, he had found a silver pendant which had disappeared as soon as he had touched it. Then that pendant had appeared inside his soul.

That silver pendant was also the only reason why he was still sane while everyone else had lost their mind. But even though he was able to keep his sanity intact because of the silver pendant, he was still extremely weak before the high grade Apparition that was controlling this village. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

For that reason, he was also unable of leave the village just like the other villagers. And his dark emotions were also used as food by the apparition.

...

Other than about his identity, the old man also told everyone about a few outsiders who had came to this village before them. He had tried to help almost all of them but for various reasons, he had failed every time except for once.

Among the people, there were a pair of travelling Martial Artists who had came to spend a single night in this village. But they were not able to leave it and had died here.

They were husband and wife. The apparition liked its food to be filled with fear, despair and such. So in order to create these emotions in the people, the husband and wife pair were made to betray one another and even cheat on each other before their partner’s eyes. They did all of this in order to save themselves and their partner from the Villagers.

But at last, this little bit of hope was also crush when the villager did not kept their words. So it turned out all the things that they had done and had endured, they were worth nothing. This fact and realisation had broken their heart and that had created a flavour in these two which was the Apparition really liked.

On the other hand, a noble’s son who had appeared in the village was made to participate in an auction with his everything on the line just like what was happening with the three men here.

But he had no one to save him. The old man at that time was even weaker than his current self, so he had no way to help him out in that situation.

One of the villagers was able to buy his whole existence at that time. In that process, the payment was supposed to be given to the noble but as he was under mind manipulation, he had rejected that. So he sold his whole existence for basically no cost.

But the villager actually needed to make a payment to get his body for his own and this payment was given to the apparition itself. As for what the currency used for this payment was, it was fresh and powerful negative emotions.

...

After telling a few depressing stories back to back, he also told the men a happy one. Actually, it was the only happy story regarding this village that he had.

And the main character of this story was none other than the merchant whom the scouting bandits had seen. He was also the only person in the last hundreds of years who had actually managed of leave the village with his life intact.

But in that process, he had lost vision from one of his eyes, his sense of taste and smell, four of his ten fingers and a part of his memories. These were not minor sacrifices.

Still, at the end of the day, everything was worth it as he was able to leave with his life intact. As for how this was possible, there was some luck involved in this, so for the men here, replicating it was going to be very hard, if not impossible.

This man had managed to break out of the mind control through his sheer willpower. And then, he had used various parts of his own existence as products and had negotiated with the villagers to buy his freedom.

This was a very dangerous process and just one mistake would have ended his life. But as the old man here had made sure that he never broke any limits that the apparition of this village had, he had managed to win this battle of survival using the few loopholes that this village was forced to have.

But after this incident, the villagers had became extra cautious. So using that same loophole once again was going to be very hard. But actually there was no need for the men and the only woman here to use the loopholes at all.

And the reason for that was the insane strength that this Beautiful lady here had. The old man had been alive for almost 500 years but he had never seen someone as strong as her. It was not just the young men here who had fallen for this lady, even this bitter old man had almost fallen for her after seeing her strength.

So for someone that strong, getting out of this village through brute force should be possible. Lady Min Mingyue just needed to find the apparition a few times and beat it up. In that way, the barrier covering the village would weaken and everyone would be able to leave it.

Hearing this, the men relaxed completely and started to cheer for the sexy Martial Artist lady before them. Now that their worries had lessened quite a bit, they had became even more enthusiastic in trying to get close to this beautiful lady.

Just as the atmosphere of the room was becoming light hearted from its previous serious state, suddenly, the old man spoke up and made a request to Min Mingyue.

"Lady Martial Saint, please get rid of this apparition and free the village and the villagers from this demonic curse. In exchange, I am willing to sacrifice myself to create a high grade Qi item for you.

I know that this is nothing for someone of your strength, but other than that I have nothing else to offer. But still, I will beg lady martial saint to free this village from the clutches of this demonic technique."

While saying this, the old man prostated himself and started to bang his head forcefully on the ground. This was the show outmost desparation in this world.

As the old man had tried to help them before, after thinking about a little bit, the other men also very naturally prostrated themselves before Min Mingyue and started to request her to help the village too.

So in this situation, what decision was Tetrasia going to make ?