A month had passed since Xiao Mo underwent his heavenly tribulation.

During this time, just as Bai Ruxue had said, she and Qin Siyao took turns caring for Xiao Mo. Jiang Qingyi also came to visit Xiao Mo often. Even though Jiang Qingyi looked displeased every time she came, she stayed for a long time each time.

Day by day, as he recuperated, Xiao Mo’s body gradually recovered. In the end, when Xiao Mo removed the bandages from his body, new flesh had already grown beneath them. Compared to before, Xiao Mo felt he was a bit fairer and a bit better-looking.

No wonder cultivators generally looked better than ordinary people. Fair skin covered a hundred flaws—so long as someone’s bone structure was not too unfortunate, they usually could not be ugly anywhere.

After achieving foundation establishment, Xiao Mo’s physique also became much stronger.

Not only that. Because Xiao Mo had continuously read Confucian classics for a full month, he actually managed to condense a strand of righteous qi within his chest.

At present, Xiao Mo planned to primarily cultivate sword technique, cultivate Confucian learning as a secondary discipline, and use fist technique to temper his body.

Even though, to most cultivators, this kind of approach was not a wise choice. After all, a person’s energy was limited.

In most cultivators’ eyes, mastering one method was better than dabbling in ten thousand.

But Xiao Mo had a sage’s heart, and he also had several rewards from the Book of a Hundred Lives that improved his innate talent. So Xiao Mo felt that cultivating in parallel should not be too much of a problem for him.

After his injuries healed, Xiao Mo continued «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» cultivating at the Asking-the-Dao Altar. Jiang Qingyi also continued teaching Xiao Mo sword technique as she always had.

Compared to the Qi Refining Realm, Xiao Mo—now in the Foundation Establishment Realm—learned far faster, so fast that even Jiang Qingyi found it somewhat unbelievable. Jiang Qingyi felt that Xiao Mo could even contend with her own innate sword-bone.

It was just that Xiao Mo spent time on Confucian learning as well, and even looked into spell formation, which slowed the pace of his cultivation in the Way of the Sword somewhat.

As for the lights of ten thousand households that Xiao Mo displayed during his tribulation—

Even though Bai Ruxue and the others were extremely curious, none of them asked much. They felt that even if they asked, it would be useless. Xiao Mo had stayed in the deep palace the whole time and had gone nowhere. Perhaps even he did not know what was going on.

In Bai Ruxue’s view, the only explanation was that the merit Xiao Mo accumulated in past lives had not completely dissipated. When Xiao Mo faced danger during his heavenly tribulation, the merit of the lights of ten thousand households would take the initiative to shelter him.

This, too, was a kind of cause and effect.

Time passed again. Xiao Mo consolidated his realm and prepared to advance toward the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

......

At the same time, within Liang, in a town.

A man in a black robe walked along an empty street, heading out of the town.

The summer wind blew from behind him, brushing the lanterns hanging beneath the eaves, brushing the wind chimes being sold at the street stalls.

But the market that should have been bustling was silent beyond compare.

Rats boldly climbed onto the tables of a tavern, then leapt down and slipped into their holes. The town’s brothels no longer rang with flirtatious voices. Only colorful ribbons drifted in the wind, then slowly fell back down.

Over the course of a single night, all two hundred thousand townspeople vanished without a trace.

This town had become an empty dead city.

After leaving the town, the man flew in one direction.

Two days later, the man descended from the sky.

“Greetings, Sect Master!”

At the foot of the mountain, two disciples guarding the sect gate saw the sect master return and hurriedly cupped their hands in salute.

“Mhm.” The man nodded in reply and walked into the sect.

Back on the sect’s main peak, the man arrived at a cave residence.

He opened the entrance to a tunnel within the cave and walked down step by step.

When he reached the bottom, he circulated a spell art and lit all the torches around him.

And in front of him stood a colossal stone statue, fully three zhang tall.

Around the statue was a spell formation carved so badly it was nearly ruined. Rusted longswords were stabbed into positions around the formation, like aged guards refusing to let whatever lay inside the formation see the light of day again.

“Master!”

The man dropped to one knee and bowed to the statue.

The statue’s eyes glowed with a dim green light. The mottled cracks across its body looked like green blood flowing through them.

“Did you bring it?” the statue asked slowly.

“I brought it, Master.” The man took a blood-red bead from his robes. “This contains the souls of two hundred thousand townspeople from Stonehead Town. Please accept it, Master!”

“Good!”

As the words fell, the statue trembled violently.

The blood-red bead floated up above the statue.

Inside the blood bead, the souls of two hundred thousand people wailed and wept without end, but it was useless. Under a tremendous suction, those two hundred thousand souls seemed to become a river, pouring into the statue’s mouth.

It continued for fully half an incense stick’s time before the cries of wronged souls in the stone chamber finally vanished.

The bead changed from blood-red to a solid emerald green, then floated back into the man’s hand.

RUMBLE—RUMBLE—RUMBLE!

Ripples of spiritual power blasted outward.

More and more cracks spread across the statue’s body. The rust on the longswords planted in the spell formation deepened even further, as if a single light touch would make them crumble into iron ash and scatter into the air.

“Continue!” Greed flashed in the statue’s eyes. “I want more souls. Not just ordinary townspeople—cultivators’ souls are best! The more the better! Especially cultivators at the Dragon Gate Realm and above! Do you understand?” 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

“Yes, Master!” The man nodded heavily, but a trace of difficulty flashed in his eyes.

He organized his words and spoke slowly. “But Master, this subordinate also wants to share Master’s burden and capture more cultivators for you. Yet unaffiliated cultivators are not so easy to encounter, and their realms are generally low.”

“If this subordinate captures disciples from sects on the mountains, once those sect masters and elders learn of it, they will surely surround and kill this subordinate.”

“This subordinate is not afraid of death, but I fear delaying Master’s great matter!”

“Heh heh heh heh...”

The statue let out a cold laugh.

How could it not know what this human cultivator was thinking?

With a single thought from the statue, a streak of green light sank into the man’s body.

A bottleneck that had trapped the man at the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm for five hundred years actually loosened faintly.

The man was overjoyed. He lowered his head and said, “Many thanks for Master’s reward!”

“Don’t worry. Once I break free, you will not be left without benefits,” the statue tempted. “You only need to do your work well. Do you understand?”

“Understood, Master!” The man’s words were far more sincere now.

“Enough. Go,” the statue said slowly. “Aside from collecting souls as food, there is another matter I need you to do.”

The man lowered his head. “Please give your order, Master.”

“Not long ago, I sensed an aura I detest to the extreme. It should be in the north!”

Bits of stone shook loose from the statue’s body. The stone fragments gathered together, wrapping around a drop of green blood.

“Take this stone and go north. The closer you are to him, the stronger the stone’s reaction will be.”

“I want you to find that man.”

“And then—”

Hatred surged in the statue’s voice as if it had condensed for ten thousand years.

“Kill him!”