42: Chapter 42 The Demon Seed Descends, Hungry? My Candle Dragon Seal is hungry too!

That locust tree... every single branch is writhing!

Like the tentacles of some living creature, from trunk to treetop, every inch of bark is slowly rising, contracting, and expanding, with an eerie yet steady rhythm, like...

"It is breathing!"

Fang Hao's voice sounded hollow.

What made one's scalp tingle even more were those leaves.

All the locust leaves on the tree had fallen off, and hanging on the bare branches were not leaves, but translucent membranes one after another.

Inside the membranes, the outline of a human body could be vaguely seen, but it was not human.

Twisted limbs, wide-open mouths, and hollow eye sockets, as if living people had been stuffed into vacuum packaging bags and wrapped layer by layer onto the tree trunk.

Around the locust tree, forty-nine white candles as thick as an arm formed a perfect circle. The flame was an eerie green, unextinguished by the wind, and the flames tilted uniformly toward the direction of the tree, like forty-nine servants bowing in kowtow.

And on the square, there were at least hundreds to thousands of people!

Men, women, old and young, wearing pajamas, bare-chested, barefoot, or holding children, everyone knelt on the ground facing the locust tree, their foreheads pressed against the floor tiles, chanting...

At first, it was still recognizable scriptures, but by this moment, it had become some kind of language that humans completely failed to understand!

Li Yan's teeth began to chatter, "Oh no, why are so many people mentally controlled?"

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan opened his mouth, suddenly as if thinking of something.

"Not right... Not right, not right, not right... This is not a ghost..."

"Captain Zhao?" Fang Hao had never seen this expression on him.

A layer of fine cold sweat oozed from Investigator Zhao Pingchuan's forehead.

He remembered when he was on duty in the provincial capital's intelligence room three years ago, he had flipped through a highly classified file stamped with a scarlet "Top Secret" seal.

That file recorded a case.

More than twenty years ago, in a port city of a certain island nation in Nanyang, over three hundred citizens collectively disappeared overnight.

The local authorities searched for three days with no clues, until the fourth day someone smelled the stench drifting from the dock warehouse, and after forcing the door open...

What he saw caused six law enforcement officers to suffer a mental breakdown on the spot.

More than three hundred corpses were twisted and fused by some power into a huge flesh tumor. In the center of the flesh tumor, a monster with a blurred human face took shape.

The codename given to that thing in the file was "Unformed Demon Seed"!

Remarks: Three five-star challenger teams took joint action, barely annihilating it at the cost of eight deaths and eleven serious injuries.

And at the end of the file, there was a chapter called "Summoning Conditions", in which the first item wrote...

"It is necessary to continuously pollute the will of the crowd with a specific ritual, converting them into evil god believers, and cooperate with the formation, sacrifices, and a sufficient concentration of grievance power to open the summoning channel. Once the ritual starts, it is irreversible. Once the evil god descends, it will devour the flesh and blood of all living creatures around in a very short time, to complete the first metamorphosis of the demon seed."

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan repeated this passage at the fastest speaking speed.

Li Yan's and Fang Hao's faces turned pale.

"Evil God Summoning Ritual..."

Fang Hao's voice was as dry as sandpaper, "In other words, the square we are stepping on right now is the summoning formation?"

He finished saying this sentence.

The faded red floor tiles on the square, under the reflection of the green light, could faintly reveal patterns.

Complex lines and distorted runes radiated from the locust tree as the center in all directions, covering the entire square.

They had been standing inside the formation from the very beginning!

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan's hands were trembling slightly.

The third team of that city in the file consisted entirely of three-star and four-star challengers, yet they were completely wiped out within ten minutes of encountering the demon seed.

And right now they only had two people, plus two newcomers who had just entered for about a year.

No, there was one more!

He turned his head to look at that slender figure.

Lin Ye still maintained that calm standing posture, except that the dragon-coiling mark on his wrist was much brighter, and a golden shimmer leaked out from the gaps of his cuffs.

He did not look at the formation patterns on the ground, nor did he look at the kowtowing townspeople.

He stared at the trunk of that locust tree.

"Interesting... No wonder the zhulong seal reacted so strongly..."

Lin Ye muttered to himself.

Right at this moment, a voice came from across the square, harsh and withered.

"Since you are here to see the evil god, why haven't you knelt yet?"

The four of them turned their heads simultaneously.

On the east side of the square, beside a toppled stone pillar, a withered old man less than one meter tall stood there with a hunchbacked body.

A grey cloth long robe, sparse white hair plastered against his scalp, and a pair of eyes flashing with a sinister green light.

His gaze slowly swept across the four people, finally nailing onto Lin Ye, "And you... you actually managed to kill Hongxiu. But that's fine, saving this old man from purging the sect later... As a reward, you will witness the descent of my god with your own eyes, and then..."

"Too much talk."

The old man was indulging in his art, yet before his voice fell, Lin Ye interrupted his spellcasting.

The zhulong staff flew out of his hand!

The staff body surged instantly, bright golden lightning wrapped around the entire staff, and the air was torn apart producing a sharp cracking sound!

"Hum!!!"

The withered old man's sinister smile was still hanging on his face.

"Boom!"

The zhulong staff smashed into his chest, and the staff body instantly pierced through his entire torso.

Flesh and blood exploded.

The withered body directly burst into a ball of black mist, but a moment later, it re-condensed, contracted, and took shape.

Three seconds later, the old man stood intact in place, the corner of his clothes unbroken.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan's pupils shrank sharply: "He can immunize against that lightning of yours?!"

The withered old man let out a sharp, weird laugh: "Not bad, you still have some discernment—"

Lin Ye's second staff strike had already arrived.

This time the old man did not let the staff hit him; he raised his hand and waved, a wisp of black Qi darting out from his sleeve, swelling against the wind into a python-like black mist, opening its big mouth to bite Lin Ye's wrist.

"Watch out!"

Just as Fang Hao's words came out, the black mist had already collided with Lin Ye's right arm.

With just a hiss, the black mist began to evaporate crazily from the front end, turning into a wisp of blue smoke without even touching Lin Ye's sleeve.

A trace of surprise appeared in the withered old man's sinister eyes.

"Your physique... can immunize against evil Qi? Ol—"

Lin Ye ignored him.

The staff momentum did not stop.

The withered old man no longer received it head-on, his figure flickered, and his entire body turned into a grey afterimage, moving sideways three zhang away the moment before the zhulong staff could hit him, landing on the left side of the locust tree.

He violently plunged both hands into the ground.

Ten withered-wood-like fingers pierced through the floor tiles, plunging deep into the soil. The entire soil beneath the ground began to turn black, spreading in all directions centered on his fingers.

"Audacious! Defying the evil god will eventually receive judgment!"

He screeched!

Every time they wouldn't let him finish speaking, he was enraged!

The black ground suddenly surged, and dozens of leg-thick black bone spikes stabbed out from underground, piercing Lin Ye simultaneously from all angles of front, back, left, right, up, and down.

At the same time, his other hand drew virtually in the air, a dark red talisman forming at his fingertips. The talisman exploded, transforming into dozens of fierce ghost phantoms, opening their fangs and roaring as they pounced toward Investigator Zhao Pingchuan and the other two.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan drew his saber, the blade slashing against the first fierce ghost phantom, the web of his arm cracking from the recoil force.

"Leave these two to me!"

The instant Fang Hao's spiritual power was injected, the talisman paper burned with a crimson flame, yet it was blasted away in one stroke!

"Behind!"

Li Yan only felt a chill on his back; three fierce ghost phantoms had already pounced from behind.

He gritted his teeth, "Damn it, didn't expect to die here today, whatever..."

This was probably the sorrow of living in this era; from the day demons revived, he had prepared himself countless times in his heart to face death.

Yet...

A golden light swept past his side, and the three fierce ghost phantoms were evaporated into three wisps of white smoke without even a chance to scream.

Lin Ye withdrew his left hand, and his right hand swept the zhulong staff across half a circle on the ground.

The bone spikes snapped uniformly, and the shattered black fragments turned into powder before they even hit the ground.

The withered old man's arms that had ten fingers grabbed into the underground were rebounded back, tearing the webs of his hands.

He abruptly raised his head, seeing that Lin Ye had already walked up in front of him.

His left hand formed a fist, the dark golden patterns on the fist surface, matching the light of the yellow emperors essence blood, looked like a mini sun.

One punch!

Smashed onto the old man's crown.

The withered old man's body began to collapse downward from the top of his head, his grey cloth long robe sinking in and then bulging out, and his entire body was flattened, burned, and evaporated in the golden light.

He couldn't even manage to let out a scream.

Fang Hao let out a long breath, "No way? It's solved???"

Li Yan's hand holding the tactical dagger was still shaking, "Brother Lin, thanks for saving my life..."

Before his voice faded, a roar came from the center of the locust tree.

No, it didn't come from inside the trunk, but from deep underground!

That roar pierced through the soil, pierced through the bricks of the plaza, pierced through the soles of everyone present, and poured directly into their bones.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan, Li Yan, and Fang Hao simultaneously felt their knees go soft; that sense of oppression was a pure suppression on the level of life itself, like a rabbit suddenly hearing a tiger's roar.

The trunk of the locust tree began to split open.

The bark rolled back from the middle to both sides, revealing a pitch-black crack. Inside the crack, something was writhing, breathing, and whispering in a language so ancient it didn't belong to this world.

The candle flames in the plaza suddenly surged, turning from ghost green to a deep blood red. Forty-nine pillars of fire shot up into the sky, intertwining in mid-air into a huge fire net that enveloped the entire plaza.

The dark red vortex in the sky slowly sank, and the black hole in the center of the vortex directly aimed at the crown of the locust tree.

A beam of dark red light descended from the center of the vortex, connecting in a straight line with the crack in the locust tree.

At this instant, heaven and earth were connected!

"The great moment has arrived..."

The shriveled old man's voice sounded once again.

That voice came from all directions.

From the mouths of those fallen townspeople, from the gaps in the floor tiles, from the air...

His illusory figure slowly condensed in front of the locust tree, spreading his arms and looking up at the dark red vortex in the sky.

On that wrinkled face, a kind of piety bordering on madness emerged.

"Your humble servant is willing to offer this body and soul entirely to my god!"

He turned his head to look at Lin Ye, the corners of his mouth splitting into a bizarre arc, "You think this can stop me? No... You are only accelerating the completion of this sacrifice. No one can stop the descent of my god. No one!"

Lin Ye didn't interrupt him this time.

His illusory figure began to burn from the soles of his feet.

The green flames spread upward along his body. Every inch that burned away made an inch of his body disappear, but the smile on that face became increasingly brilliant and unbridled.

"The long night is undying!"

He let out a final screech, and his entire illusory figure completely turned to ashes in the green fire.

All of it drifted into the crack of the locust tree.

The townspeople kneeling on the ground simultaneously let out a uniform sigh, their bodies collapsing together, the backs of their heads hitting the floor tiles with a crisp sound.

No longer chanting, no longer moving, breathing was still there, but consciousness had completely vanished.

The crack in the locust tree violently expanded, and the tree trunk exploded from the middle. A zhang-wide dark shadow rushed into the sky from the crack, wrapped in evil qi thick as ink.

It crashed straight into the dark red beam of light in the sky.

The beam of light shattered.

Dark red ripples rippled in all directions with the locust tree as the center, and the surfaces of the buildings swept by them instantly crawled with black mycelium.

The ground swept by it began to ooze foul-smelling mucus, and the air swept by it became sticky and heavy.

Every breath felt like inhaling fine glass shards.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan, Li Yan, and Fang Hao simultaneously felt a tightness in their chests, and the circulation speed of their spiritual power plummeted by at least ninety percent!

A figure walked out from the locust tree.

"This... What the hell is this?"

Fang Hao staggered backward and fell to the ground with a pale face.

It was as if he had seen the most insane scene of his life.

That thing was seven or eight meters tall, dark cyan all over, its skin covered with a layer of fine scales.

Its upper body could barely be recognized as humanoid, with two arms reaching past its knees, six fingers, each growing a curved black nail.

Its lower body, however, was a churning mass of black fog without a physical form. Twisted human faces occasionally flashed within the black fog—the faces of those townspeople who had long lost consciousness emerged and sank from the surface of the black fog, opening their mouths to scream but making no sound.

It slowly straightened its body, a dark red liquid oozing from the gaps in its scales.

It had no eyes.

But it had a voice, except that voice didn't come from its mouth, but directly vibrated within people's consciousness!

"Hungry..."

An extreme, instinctive, and deeply greedy sense of hunger surged into the perception of Lin Ye and the other three along with this word.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan's pupils were contracting violently.

"Not a ghost... It's truly a demon... Everything written in the files is true!"

Demons are divided into Demonic Seeds, Demons, Demonic Generals, Demonic Marshalls, Demonic Kings, Demonic Lords, Demonic Gods, and Evil Gods!

His voice sounded like it had been fished out of an ice cellar, "A low-tier Demonic Seed is equivalent to exceeding a Fierce Ghost, even reaching the peak of a Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost! Moreover, its source of power is different from ours; it doesn't need cultivation, it devours its way up! As long as it devours the flesh and blood of living beings, it can metamorphose!"

"The peak of a Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost..." Li Yan's voice was drifting, "Isn't that even more... than that female ghost?"

"Not on the same order of magnitude."

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan interrupted him, his speed of speech as fast as if he were reciting a file he never wanted to recall again in his life, "In the nineties of the last century, during that case in Nanyang, a newly descended high-tier Demonic Seed wiped out three three-star squads within ten minutes. Once it metamorphoses into the demon-creature tier, that's a solid high-tier malevolent fiend! Most of Qingzhou's strength has currently gone to support the provincial capital; I'm afraid all of Qingzhou won't be enough for it to devour!"

Fang Hao's lips trembled, forcing down the half-sentence "Then what are we fighting for".

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan didn't know whether Lin Ye could still create a miracle.

But the files also recorded a case where a Demonic Seed in Sakura Country managed to escape by a fluke after its descent.

Devouring villages, towns, and small cities all the way, it finally completed its metamorphosis on the seventh day, growing into a Demonic General...

An existence equivalent to the Ghost King level.

Sakura Country paid the price of over three hundred four-star and above testers dying in battle before sealing it.

Merely sealing it.

And that battle, it was said, left all of Sakura Country prostrated and devastated, almost failing to recover!

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan's hands were shaking.

He knew that once this thing walked out of the plaza, walked out of Heqiao Town, and walked out of Qingzhou,

the entire region would become a dead zone!

The Demonic Seed was chewing.

Its vertical mouth opened, revealing rows of sharp teeth arranged in a spiral. The teeth from outside to inside were smaller circle by circle and denser circle by circle, with pure darkness at the deepest part.

It was eating those black mycelia.

The human faces on the mycelia were pulled off one by one and stuffed into its vertical mouth. Every time it swallowed a human face, its figure became a fraction more solid, and the dark red patterns on its scales grew a fraction brighter.

Suddenly, it paused.

Its vertical mouth slowly turned toward the location of the four people, the cracks on its face opening and closing as if sniffing something.

"Hungry..."

That consciousness vibrated once again.

Then the Demonic Seed moved.

The mass of black fog on its lower body suddenly expanded, lifting its entire body. Its speed wasn't considered fast.

At least Investigator Zhao Pingchuan could see its movement trajectory clearly, but his feet seemed nailed to the ground, his spiritual energy anchor points screaming wildly, and every single cell in his body was sending out the same signal.

When a person is in a state of extreme fear,

they really will become like a frightened rabbit, completely out of control!

Li Yan's hands were shaking so much that he couldn't even hold onto the tactical dagger.

Fang Hao pulled out his last two spiritual talismans, but before the flames could ignite, they were extinguished by the surrounding thick evil qi.

"I can't move..." Li Yan's voice was squeezed out from between his teeth.

Investigator Zhao Pingchuan suddenly turned his head to look at Lin Ye, "You go, if you can take one away, then take—"

He froze.

Lin Ye stood in place, not looking at the approaching Demonic Seed.

He was looking at his own wrist.

The coiling dragon mark on the inside of his wrist was glowing brightly like a flashlight. The golden light shone through his skin, and a dragon-shaped light pattern could be faintly seen swimming across his muscles.

The zhulong seal was trembling.

But it wasn't out of fear for the Demonic Seed, but out of excitement!

The kind of excitement only a top predator has when sniffing prey.

Lin Ye raised his head, met the vertical mouth of that Demonic Seed, and suddenly smiled slightly.

"Hungry, are you?"

He moved his wrist holding the zhulong staff, the cracking sound of his knuckles sounding exceptionally crisp in the silent plaza.

"What a coincidence, I'm hungry too."