Chapter 37

Lin Du’s patience was wearing thin, especially when she knew roughly what to expect.

The Yin spirit in the skull remained silent, with no response.

With a crack, the skull shattered.

Then came the sound of a whipping, and the seated bones scattered in a mess.

The onlookers shivered again.

“Now, what about you?”

This time, Lin Du received a response.

She closed her eyes and saw the answer the spirit gave her.

This place was called Reims City, the largest central city in the Lan Ju Realm.

At first, no one thought there was anything wrong with the Lan Ju Realm until disasters became frequent, the seas turned into lakes, and the sun and moon gradually dimmed.

And for a thousand years, no one had ascended, the spiritual energy grew increasingly thin, and spiritual veins and mines seemed to require even more time to generate spiritual energy than before.

Only then did high-level cultivators confirm that the Lan Ju Realm might be collapsing.

A collapsing small world would gradually become impossible to exit from internally, unable to ascend, and eventually exhaust its spiritual energy, with the first to die being cultivators.

No one wanted to die.

When the sun and moon were no longer visible, people’s last connection with the Dao disappeared, leaving only pure rule-based suppression.

So the high-level cultivators united, trying many methods to open the realm gate, but with no success.

Their final desperate measure was sacrifice.

Sacrificing those with lower cultivation who would die first, gathering their spiritual and soul power, and channeling it to the two hundred and seventeen highest-level cultivators in the world.

When their cultivation exceeded the realm’s suppression in an instant, perhaps they could force the small world to send them out.

But the rules of the collapsing small world’s Dao were incomplete, and they failed.

The enraged world unleashed the strongest sandstorm in history, completely burying Lans City.

The two hundred seventeen high-level cultivators were thus covered.

The accumulated resentment of a millennium caused the grand formation to change quietly.

Lin Du finished reading the story the spirit had told her, paused for a moment, and then smiled, “At this point, there’s still a mix of truth and deception. Who are you putting on a show for?”

The words were full of desperate struggle, but who cares about the thousands of insignificant lives?

Such a tale might deceive minor cultivators like Jin Xuan and Yuan Ye, but it couldn’t fool her.

The grand formation was layered upon layered. With just a walk through the city, she could discern the extent of the formation and their backup plans.

“Not honest, huh?” Lin Du said, applying more force.

With another crack, the spirit let out a final, unwilling howl before Ni Jin Xuan smashed it with her whip.

Lin Du casually looked up, “This is Lans City. A natural disaster buried it, but most things are still here. If you need something, go ahead.”

The onlookers hesitated, “You… you go first?”

Lin Du shook her head and placed her hand on another skull, “I’m not done asking.”

The crowd exchanged glances: Wasn’t she done? It seemed she hadn’t finished smashing yet.

“Yuan Qing, you come too.”

Yuan Qing’s face remained calm and serene, but his heart was tumultuous.

He remembered that after the spirit communication technique was used, it was necessary to reason and emotionally persuade the spirit. If the spirit was willing to speak, the technique would succeed.

Unlike Uncle Junior Master, who threatened the spirits outright, which only showed the spirits were forced by her intimidation.

Yuan Qing raised his hand, cast the spell, but soon felt the fierce tearing of the vengeful spirit. He quickly kicked the skull and then drew out the large knife on his back, cleaving the bone in half.

“Possessing a body damages your soul virtue. Senior, please take care.”

The blade’s aura was extremely fierce, even carving a deep scar on the altar’s surface.

The cultivators stepped back in unison. They had initially thought Yuan Qing was the most normal among the four disciples of the Supreme Sect and thus were closest to him. The blade’s aura nearly touched their toes.

Now they realized none of the Supreme Sect’s disciples were normal; they needed to stay away.

More people arrived, one after another.

The previous arrivals stood in the corners of the altar, shrinking back. Among the scattered bones, the four Supreme Sect disciples were busy: one wielding a knife, one wielding a whip, one playing a zither to perform a soul-appeasing tune, the zither’s mournful and shrill sounds sending chills down one’s spine.

The remaining one, looking incredibly weak and disappointing, used his bare hands to crush a skull.

Then, the girl in a pink skirt, holding the whip, cracked it.

“Damn, what are the Supreme Sect disciples doing? Shattering bones and whipping corpses??? What a grudge!”

The scene was so bizarre that no one noticed a person in the corner suddenly clutching their head, silently screaming in agony.

Lin Du finally got the answer she wanted.

According to the spirit, the two hundred or so cultivators had made two preparations back then.

If the sacrificial power wasn’t enough, they would activate the Yin Gathering and Evil Cultivating Grand Formation to prevent the souls from dispersing after death. Normally, a person’s three souls and seven spirits would dissipate completely within forty-nine days, and with the small world having collapsed, reincarnation was impossible. Thus, they had to wait for an external force to open the realm gate to see the light of day again.

The Red Willow was an accident but not entirely.

From the moment the Red Willow became demonic, the person who set up the formation came up with a better plan. Since the Red Willow grew at the formation’s core, as long as they continuously supplied it with Yin spirits’ resentment, it could transform into a major demon.

Possessing a body was difficult and could lead to more anomalies, such as dual souls in one body or cultivators exploding themselves in desperation.

But if the Red Willow, after consuming people, transformed its branches into human forms, and their Yin spirits entered the willow branches, using power and the Red Willow to sever ties, they could regain their original identities. When the time for the secret realm’s trial ended and the external forces opened the realm gate, they could blend in with the crowd and enter the new world intact.

“Eating people is the willow’s doing. What does it have to do with us?”

The spirit’s eerie laugh echoed, “If we could leave, who would want to be trapped in this world?”

“After all, the ones who really caused the deaths of those one hundred ninety-seven cultivators were not us but the external cultivators who opened the Magic Box, weren’t they?”

Lin Du smiled, “No, that’s not right. Of course, it’s not right.”

She lifted her eyes and crushed the spirit’s skull, “Of course, it’s not right.”

“From the moment you sacrificed all those innocent lower-level cultivators and even civilians, it was wrong.”

If it weren’t for those thousands of uninformed sacrificed civilians, the Red Willow wouldn’t have become demonic.

Just the resentment of two hundred seventeen cultivators couldn’t nurture a major demon.

“Your escape was carved open with the blood and hatred of countless living people.”

Lin Du prided herself not as a righteous person. She didn’t think her views were particularly correct. She only knew that she would never involve innocent people in her affairs.

“Anyway, they were all going to die! Dying early and being sacrificed still has some value!”

Lin Du blinked, “According to you, if you’re worthless now, then you should die.”

“Jin Xuan, the whip.”

The whip sliced through the air with a sharp sound. The struggling spirit tried to escape, emitting a piercing howl and gradually showing a gray-black phantom in the air.

At that moment, someone in the corner tilted their head, grabbed the neck of a person beside them, and then directly threw the person into the altar.

The shadow immediately collided with the thrown cultivator’s body.