Chapter Ninety-Three: The Strange Affair of an Ancient Creature’s Awakening

Bi Fang, an ancient aberrant beast and one of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven’s subordinates, had reached the ninth stage of the Origin Realm before the end of the primordial aberrant age.

He often incinerated human villages and cities with raging infernos, plunging humanity into the terror of fire. For that reason, people came to believe that Bi Fang’s appearance heralded conflagration.

In the final years of the aberrant age, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven defected to the gods, and the forces of aberrant beasts under his command shattered and scattered.

A resurrection altar could only be activated with the help of other aberrant creatures. After all, the energy within such an altar would have mostly dissipated after a few thousand years, unless one had reached a realm like that of the Evil King and the Poison Empress.

So the usual pattern for the subordinates of the Evil King and the Poison Empress was simple: build a resurrection altar, then wait through the aberrant revival for their leader to bring them back to life.

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven and his former subordinates, however, were in miserable shape. He had betrayed the aberrant creatures and thrown in with the gods, only to somehow fall out with the gods later and build a resurrection altar of his own.

Aside from the Great Sage Equal to Heaven setting up an altar for himself, none of his former subordinates trusted him anymore. They would rather find their own way.

Some had gone over to the Evil King and the Poison Empress, some had given up on resurrection entirely, and some had sealed their soul bodies away in some hidden place, waiting for a destined person.

As for Cheng Lian, he clearly had no intention of serving the Evil King and the Poison Empress, nor did he want to abandon resurrection. Waiting for a fated person, however, was far too unlikely, almost hopeless. So he devised a plan.

Plan one: find a village secluded enough, set a great fire there, pose as the heroic savior, and build an altar dedicated to preserving his source power.

Plan two: seal his soul into something valuable enough that everyone would want it. In the end, he chose that jade pendant.

Thereafter, the pendant nourished his soul by absorbing the terror of whoever wore it, allowing his spirit to remain undispersed even thousands of years later.

Once his soul awakened at the appointed time, he could go search for the altar’s location, and if other aberrant beings were willing to help him, all the better.

The early stages of the plan had been perfect. The one thing he should never have encountered was Feng Tianlin.

Thus his grand resurrection effort had only reached halfway before it was cut short. Before he could even recover his strength, Feng Tianlin killed him, and his source power was absorbed by Feng Tianlin as well.

According to the two subordinates of the Evil King and the Poison Empress who had fought Feng Tianlin earlier, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven also seemed to have failed in awakening.

Still, that made sense. There were only two factions interested in the altar: one was the Evil King and the Poison Empress, and the other was Fan Tianxing, who was guided by the Book of Divine Words. Neither side wanted him to awaken, so of course he was never going to succeed.

That also meant the demon race belonging to Qi Xuan and the cat in this era would find it very difficult to gain a secure foothold.

But was that really the end of it? Would matters end there so simply?

After the ghost train vanished completely, a beetle peeked its head out from beneath the great tree Feng Tianlin had burned earlier. In the next instant, it transformed into a stylish, handsome young man with a welding cigarette holder between his lips.

He looked toward the direction in which the ghost train had disappeared and clicked his tongue in wonder.

“I never thought the world contained such a rare thing. This old Monkey has truly broadened his horizons.”

Then he glanced at the burned traces on the ground behind him and said, “The master of this demon domain truly has some skill. Not only can he absorb Cheng Lian’s divine art, he can even see through my Seventy-Two Transformations.”

That’s right. He was the legendary Demon Emperor, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Once he had commanded all demons beneath the sky, but now he stood alone.

He recalled how he had just been disguised as a tree, only for Feng Tianlin to fly over, glance at him once, and then launch a decisive attack. His heart tightened.

“He was warning me,” he murmured.

Shaking his head, he decided that he must never provoke the master of this demon domain, and then he took out a map.

“Cheng Lian losing to this man is no loss. It’s a pity that another failed to awaken. When will I ever recover my former subordinates?”

Awaken failed?

A joke.

The resurrection altar was merely a smokescreen. He never relied on any altar to come back to life, or rather, he did not need to be resurrected at all.

Why did those aberrant creatures build an altar, then sleep and wait to awaken?

Because after the aberrant age passed, the world lost the energy that could activate terror. Without that energy, aberrant creatures could no longer absorb fear, and in the end they would simply die from energy exhaustion.

Even if you conserved your power all along and lay low the whole time, lifespan would not agree.

And who was he? He was the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, one who had consumed immortal elixirs. A single Nine Revolutions Immortal Pill had given his body such formidable strength that he no longer depended on the energy within himself, and his lifespan had been extended beyond measure.

Indeed, he had lived in the mortal world for thousands of years, all the way until today.

If there was anything that had kept him going this long, it was unquestionably his hatred of the gods.

At the thought, he clenched his fist hard.

“One day, I will make you pay. The price for deceiving this old Monkey!”

Having lived for thousands of years, he had learned one thing: everything else was empty talk. Only caution was real. This time, it was as if he had lived again. He would use patience and concealment to dominate the world.

From now on, he would not do anything with even the slightest risk. He would develop quietly and obscenely.

Lowering his head to look at the map in his hand, he began sorting through the intelligence.

“The Evil King has been controlled by that human brat. The Poison Empress’s side now has sixteen subordinates still in that era, all of them recovering their strength. The fellows on my side were never many to begin with, and now that Cheng Lian is dead, there are only seventeen left.

“The next one to awaken is Fang Yue. Aside from him, the others have all chosen to awaken five years later. I hope he can forgive me.”

He put away the map. A cloud drifted down from the sky, and he stepped onto it, letting it carry him away.

Over the past thousands of years, he had traveled throughout all of China, searching one by one for the resurrection altars of his former subordinates, marking each of them personally on the map so that he could seek them out one by one now.

Meanwhile, Feng Tianlin had already arrived in Spirit City. The moment he got off the train, he invited all those humans out, letting them get acquainted with the life they would be living from now on.

The fear-emotion factory in Spirit City was still under construction, so these people were of no use for the moment. Feng Tianlin simply locked them all up in prison.

Those villagers looked around the city, their heads turning left and right, the skyscrapers here shaking their hearts again and again.

Yes, no mistake about it. This really was a city. Feng Tianlin had not lied to them after all.

After sending those people to prison, he decided to make a trip to Spirit City and tell Qi Xuan about Cheng Lian, since the two of them knew each other.

When he arrived in Spirit City and Qi Xuan did not see Cheng Lian’s figure, she unsurprisingly asked, “Where is Cheng Lian?”

“I killed him,” Feng Tianlin said without hiding anything, telling her everything about Cheng Lian.

“I killed him. You won’t blame me for that, will you?” Feng Tianlin asked cautiously.

In truth, the reason he had so painfully killed Cheng Lian was that Qi Xuan seemed to have only an ordinary relationship with him. Otherwise, out of consideration for her feelings, Feng Tianlin would not have killed him so decisively. He might even have hesitated for a second or two before doing it.

Sure enough, Qi Xuan spread her hands. “The Great Sage Equal to Heaven has tens of thousands of subordinates. Both he and I are just rather high-ranking ones. We only know each other; our relationship is nothing special.”

Then she looked at Feng Tianlin again. “How did you get to the seventh tier just from going out once?”

Feng Tianlin grinned. “Heh, I went and bloodied a city. My strength shot up like lightning.”

This time, he had not merely advanced to Class A. He had also absorbed Cheng Lian’s source power.

After absorbing that source power, he had tasted the sweetness of it. Not only had he gained a pair of wings, but his Nightmare Body had also advanced two levels. Such opportunities were better the more of them there were. It was a pity he still did not know where the resurrection altars of the other ancient aberrant beings were.

Thinking that his Nightmare Body had leveled up, he immediately opened the system and tried to upgrade, only to find that the level restriction still had not been lifted.

Though mildly disappointed, he was delighted overall. He was terrifyingly powerful now. With the Nightmare Body raised by two levels, his strength had increased substantially. Add to that the formidable attack power and flight ability of the Wings of Fire, and he was simply unstoppable.

But at that very moment, the orange cat sniffed the air.

“A dangerous scent, meow~”

Hearing this, Feng Tianlin narrowed his eyes.

“Someone’s got their eye on my city again? Good. Let’s see what my fighting power looks like now.”