103: Using heavenly punishment as bait, karma is added to one's body

The wind retreated in his ears.

Lin Gou's figure stretched into a blurred afterimage across the wilderness.

He did not look back.

The Qingyun Sect's mountain gate, Zhao Linger's tearful smile, and the Sect Master's admiring gaze were all far behind him.

Those affections and admirations were the cocoons he had meticulously woven.

They were both protection and restraint.

Now, he had broken free from the cocoon.

He had once again become the lone wolf who would stop at nothing to survive.

He stopped in a secluded, uninhabited mountain hollow.

Night was at its deepest.

He needed to rest, and even more, he needed to confirm some things.

He sat down against a cold rock, but what he took from his embrace was not a Medicinal Pill or a Magic Treasure.

It was a small, exquisite brocade pouch.

The brocade pouch was light green, embroidered with a small, somewhat clumsy herb in silver thread.

The stitches were dense but not very neat.

It was clear that the person who embroidered this pouch was very dedicated, but their craftsmanship was unpracticed.

This was secretly slipped into his embrace by Zhao Linger amidst the crowd and chaos before he left the mountain.

He opened the brocade pouch.

There were no Spirit Stones, no Medicinal Pills.

Only a warm Jade Slip and a few dried fruits, emitting a faint sweet fragrance.

They were her favorite snacks.

Lin Gou's Divine Sense entered the Jade Slip.

There was no Cultivation Technique, no secret art.

Only a passage of incoherent yet incredibly sincere words, imprinted by the girl with spiritual power.

"Senior Brother Lin, I don't know what you've encountered."

"Nor do I know how terrifying that 'Heart Demon' is."

"I can't be of much help to you."

"This Jade Slip was left to me by my parents; injecting spiritual power into it will let me know if you are safe."

"You... if you're tired, just crush it, and I... I'll come find you."

"These fruits are dried by my own hands; eat them on your journey, don't... don't always think about those troublesome things."

"You must come back."

His Divine Sense withdrew from the Jade Slip.

Lin Gou picked up a dried fruit and put it in his mouth.

That familiar, sweet taste spread across his tongue.

It dispelled some of the coldness and wariness towards the unknown world that Su Meier had brought to his heart.

He looked up at the crescent moon in the sky.

Zhao Linger.

This name was like an invisible anchor.

It firmly connected his small boat, drifting in the endless storms of death and resurrection, to this real world.

It made him understand that everything he did was not just for the sake of living.

But also for the sake of protection.

To protect that one light that shone for him in a cold world.

He carefully tucked the brocade pouch back close to his body.

The last trace of warmth on his face slowly faded.

It was replaced by an absolute calmness and focus, the kind one has when facing prey.

He opened the System map again.

The nearest red marker glowed on the dark map like a beating heart.

He stood up, his aura completely concealed.

His Golden Core Stage cultivation and the might of his Godfiend Undying Body were all dormant.

He became a Mortal who appeared utterly defenceless.

A perfect bait for fishing.

With a flicker of his figure, he vanished into the night... Tiannan County, Blackwind Valley.

As its name suggested, this place was barren, strewn with jagged rocks, and perpetually swept by eerie winds that sounded like ghosts wailing and wolves howling.

Legend had it that this place was once an ancient battlefield where countless lives perished, and grievances soared to the sky, making it a place ordinary Cultivators would never set foot in.

Lin Gou's figure appeared at the mouth of the valley.

Like a lost Traveler, he stumbled into the valley, his steps heavy and uncertain.

He did not release his Divine Sense.

He merely observed his surroundings with his eyes.

Soon, in the deepest part of the valley, he saw a strange sight.

A black-robed Loose Cultivator sat cross-legged on a bizarre Formation, newly arranged and constructed from countless white bones.

The Loose Cultivator was extremely disheveled.

His black robe was tattered, his hair withered, his eyes bloodshot, and his face was a mix of madness, fear, and a hint of unrealistic hope.

His cultivation was at the Early Stage of Nascent Soul.

But his aura was chaotic, as if forcibly built up with countless evil methods, his Foundation extremely unstable.

What concerned Lin Gou even more was the ominous aura, invisible to the naked eye, entanglement around the Loose Cultivator.

With a thought.

The System panel quietly appeared in his field of vision.

A line of blood-red text slowly emerged above the Loose Cultivator's head.

【Karma Entanglement (Elementary)】

【Status Description: This being, in pursuit of forming a Nascent Soul, once slaughtered a Mortal city, refining "Blood Nascent Soul Pills" with a million Souls. His methods were cruel, his Karma profound, triggering the "Heavenly Dao Reckoning" mechanism.】

【Heavenly Dao Reckoning (Elementary): The Heavenly Dao will unleash "Karma Fire Heavenly Punishment," completely incinerating his Physical Body, purifying his Divine Soul, and erasing all traces of his existence in this world.】

Lin Gou's lips curved into a silent smile.

Found it.

His first death experiment subject.

As Lin Gou observed the other party, the Loose Cultivator, who was sitting on pins and needles in the center of the Formation, also noticed him.

Upon seeing that Lin Gou was merely a "Mortal," the bloodshot eyes of the Loose Cultivator first showed a moment of surprise.

Then, that madness and fear were instantly replaced by an extreme greed and ferocity.

"Mortal?"

"Hahahaha! Heaven truly does not wish for my demise! Heaven truly does not wish for my demise!"

He let out a piercing, maniacal laugh.

"A Mortal actually delivered himself to my doorstep!"

"Boy, consider yourself unlucky! Your flesh and blood, your living Soul, will serve as the last Formation core for my 'Substitute Death Formation'!"

"Your life for mine! This is your honor!"

Before his words finished, he abruptly stretched out his hand.

A giant ghostly claw, formed from dense black Qi, appeared out of thin air, bringing with it a foul stench, and fiercely clawed towards Lin Gou.

This single claw strike was enough to crush a small mountain into dust.

Using it against a "Mortal" was like using an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken.

A look of extreme terror appeared on Lin Gou's face, perfectly timed.

As if scared senseless, he shrieked and turned to run.

His scrambling, panicked appearance seemed both pathetic and genuine.

"Trying to run? Too late!"

The Loose Cultivator sneered, controlling the ghostly claw to leisurely pursue Lin Gou, like a cat toying with a mouse.

He savored the feeling of controlling another's life and death.

This allowed him to temporarily forget the shadow of death hanging over his head, ready to fall at any moment.

Lin Gou "panicked" and fled ahead.

His footsteps were chaotic, each time narrowly dodging the ghostly claw's pounce.

He appeared to be desperately fighting for his life.

In reality, his mind was utterly calm.

He was calculating.

He was perceiving.

He was using his extraordinary spiritual sense to capture the increasingly clear, increasingly oppressive, destructive aura in this world.

Time.

He needed the most precise timing.

Soon.

It would be soon.

That aura, which had been ethereal, was now becoming substantial.

The sky, at some unknown point, had darkened.

It wasn't dark clouds obscuring the sun.

It was a deeper, more profound stillness, as if even light had been drained away.

The wind stopped.

The ominous wind that perpetually howled in the valley completely vanished at this moment.

All was silent.

A great terror, enough to make even a Nascent Soul Cultivator tremble, enveloped the entire valley.

The Loose Cultivator's sneer froze on his face.

He abruptly looked up at the sky, his momentary triumph instantly engulfed by boundless fear.

"No... don't..."

"How can it be so fast!"

He let out a desperate roar, no longer caring about chasing Lin Gou, the "Mortal."

He frantically activated the white bone Formation beneath him, and streaks of blood-red light shot into the sky, wrapping him in layers.

He also pulled out a dozen Magic Treasures, each glowing with different lights, from his Storage Pouch, suspending them above his head.

Even after doing all this, he still felt unsafe.

The shiver from the depths of his Soul drove him almost to madness.

And it was at this moment.

The sky, without any warning, split open with a pitch-black crack.

The crack was silent.

There was no thunder, no lightning, not a single trace of energy fluctuation.

It was as if a canvas had simply been gently cut.

Then.

A small, black lotus of flame slowly drifted down from the crack.

It was beautiful.

Eerily beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful.

Its petals layered, burning with a pure, black flame that carried no warmth.

But the moment this black fire lotus appeared.

All life in the entire valley was instantly drained.

The tenacious weeds growing in the rock crevices withered in an instant, turning to ash.

The jagged, strange rocks lost all their spiritual essence, becoming like rotten wood.

Even the air became filled with Death Qi.

The Loose Cultivator let out his last, and most agonizing, shriek in his life.

"No!!!"

The black flame lotus gently landed on the layers of blood-red light screens he had set up.

There was no explosion.

No roar.

The blood-red light screens melted and were devoured silently, like snow meeting a branding iron.

Next were the dozen Magic Treasures shimmering with precious light above his head.

Before the black flame, these treasures, coveted even by Golden Core cultivators, were as fragile as paper.

Their light extinguished.

Their spiritual essence dissipated.

One after another, they transformed into the purest particles, vanishing into the air.

Finally.

The black lotus landed on the Loose Cultivator's head.

The Loose Cultivator's wails ceased abruptly.

His body, from head to toe, was covered by a thin layer of black flame.

He did not struggle.

Because his Divine Soul, his consciousness, was completely "purified" the very first moment it was touched by the flame.

Lin Gou stood not far away, quietly watching this scene.

In his eyes, there was no fear, no pity.

Only an almost obsessive exploration and yearning for a higher level of power.

Was this the power of the "Heavenly Dao"?

Unreasonable.

Disregarding Laws.

Directly erasing from the root of existence.

Watching the Loose Cultivator's body about to turn into nothingness in the Karma fire.

Watching the black flame lotus about to dissipate after completing its mission.

Lin Gou moved.

He no longer feigned weakness.

The majestic aura of a Golden Core cultivator erupted instantly.

His figure transformed into a bolt of lightning, charging fiercely towards the dissipating Karma fire.

He wasn't going to attack.

He wasn't even going to get close to the core of the lotus.

His target was the last trace of residual wave that the lotus was about to spread after purifying the Loose Cultivator.

He calculated it with absolute precision.

He wanted to "just happen" to place himself in the path of that destructive residual wave.

He wanted to use his body, his Soul, to personally experience it.

The taste of this so-called "Heavenly Dao power."

He wanted to exchange a death of the highest caliber.

For the most generous rewards.

A wisp of black flame, thinner than a strand of hair, almost dissipated, gently touched Lin Gou's clothes.

Lin Gou's body suddenly stiffened.

He didn't even have time to let out a scream.

He didn't even have time to form a single thought.

His entire being was "purified" by that wisp of flame in an incomprehensible way.

No pain.

No sensation.

It was like a figure in a painting, gently erased by the artist with an eraser.

Completely clean.

Leaving no trace.

The cold System prompt sounded loudly before his consciousness completely dissipated.

【Ding! Detected Host completed a special death method—"Purified by Heavenly Punishment Aftermath"!】

【Death method rarity being judged...】

【Judgment result: Rare!】

【Death rating: A+!】

【Death reward settling...】

【Congratulations to Host for obtaining the following rewards:】

【1. Heavenly Dao Insight Fragment x1!】

【2. Special Passive Skill: Karma Perception!】

【3. Free Attribute Points +100!】

In the valley, a light flashed.

Lin Gou's figure re-condensed at the exact spot where he had just been "purified."

He was completely unharmed.

Even the creases in his clothes were identical to before his death.

He slowly opened his eyes.

The entire world, in his eyes, had become completely different.

He closed his eyes.

Then opened them again.

In his vision, there was an additional layer of peculiar "colors" that ordinary people could not see.

He looked at a stubborn rock at his feet; a faint, almost imperceptible gray aura lingered on its surface.

He looked at a skeleton in the distance, weathered for an unknown number of years; a denser, black aura entanglement around it.

That was Karma.

It was the concretization of all "Karma" that everything, from birth to destruction, accumulated during its process.

Killing produces Karma.

Hatred produces Karma.

Even destroying a rock or a blade of grass produces extremely faint Karma.

This ability... in the grand context of "Heavenly Dao Reckoning" about to descend.

It was simply a divine skill!

He could easily distinguish who was "innocent" and who was "deeply sinful."

He could, like the most cunning hunter, precisely find those unlucky prey about to be named by the "Heavenly Dao."

Then, when Heavenly Punishment descended, he would join in and take a share.

An indescribable excitement surged in Lin Gou's heart.

However.

Just as he was immersed in the joy of his new ability.

A sudden, bone-chilling coldness, without warning, shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.

His inner alarm blared wildly!

He abruptly looked up, his gaze like lightning, piercing towards the distant horizon.

In the Void Realm, so far away that even Divine Sense could not reach.

He felt a gaze.

An extremely subtle, yet truly existing gaze.

That gaze seemed to have gently swept over the spot where he had resurrected.

Cold.

Greedy.

Full of scrutiny.

Like a lofty being examining a novel toy that had piqued its interest.

Lin Gou's heart instantly sank to the bottom.

Had he been discovered?

Was it that "Flame Emperor"? Or the "Traveler" mentioned by Su Meier, or someone else from the Alliance?

He dared not linger for a moment.

Although that gaze was merely a fleeting glance, the sense of crisis it brought him even surpassed the Karma Fire Heavenly Punishment he had just faced.

He immediately activated his escape technique, pushing his speed to the limit, transforming into a streak of light, and frantically fleeing in the opposite direction of the gaze's source.

He dared not gamble.

Gamble that the other party was just passing by coincidentally.

But what he didn't know was.

Soon after he left.

At the spot where he had just resurrected.

In the air, countless tiny specks of light began to quietly condense.

They gathered together, eventually forming a beautiful butterfly composed entirely of pure light.

The butterfly gently flapped its wings.

Then, it silently flew in a fixed direction.