Chapter 453: The Godchild Shocks the Cathedral
After eating the leaf, Qing Qiu felt even more misgivings than before, and she looked suspiciously at Xu Qing and the Captain. For some reason, this entire situation felt vaguely familiar, and she suddenly found herself thinking about the detestable Ghost Hand and Mad Dog. But then she thought about how the Nightshade godchild had been treating her and decided there was no way he could be Ghost Hand. After all, she and Ghost Hand had never gotten along, and if he had the chance to kill her, he definitely wouldn’t hold back.
As Qing Qiu pondered the subject, Xu Qing was off to the side looking at the leaves and licking his lips. He was about to go grab one when the Ten Entrails Tree trembled even more intensely than before. The branches that extended into the sky swayed, creating a strong wind that swept through the area.
Seeing that, Xu Qing changed his mind.
Meanwhile, the Captain looked at Qing Qiu and chuckled. “You want some of this good fortune? Fine. Considering that you’re... ahem. Anyway, let’s just count you in for now.”
With that, the Captain waved his hand, and the evil ghost scythe appeared, which he tossed to Qing Qiu.
Stunned, Qing Qiu caught the scythe. Instantly, the evil ghost started wailing accusingly in her mind. She looked at the Captain and Xu Qing.
Xu Qing also waved his hand, sending her bag of holding flying out to her.
Breathing heavily, she caught it. The first thing she did was take out a new mask and put it on. Now she felt more suspicious than ever about Xu Qing and the Captain. In fact, she even reached out to the evil ghost in her mind, only to get no answer.
Finally, she just said, “Just who exactly are you two?”
The Captain glared at her. “How dare you speak to our godchild like that!”
Xu Qing, meanwhile, cleared his throat to remind the Captain not to hassle Qing Qiu.
The Captain chuckled darkly. Saying nothing further, he leaped onto the Ten Entrails Tree, then looked back and waved at Xu Qing for him to follow.
Ning Yan was visibly stunned, and was also starting to get suspicious about the situation. He looked at Xu Qing and the Captain thoughtfully. However, before much else could happen, the vines attached to him yanked him into the air after the Captain. Grief and indignation swept the suspicion out of Ning Yan’s mind.
Xu Qing’s expression remained the same as ever as he flew onto the Ten Entrails Tree and started moving up.
Qing Qiu gritted her teeth and flew after them.
The Ten Entrails Tree seemed to get closer and closer to waking. As it swayed violently, the four of them flew up one of the main branches until they were about three hundred meters up. From that point, it was possible to look down at the jungle. However, they weren’t high enough to be able to see the treeline itself.
Even as he was looking out at the jungle, Xu Qing suddenly felt the back of his right hand itching. When he looked down at it, his pupils constricted. Right on the back of his hand was a blister with a slit down the middle of it. And right when Xu Qing looked at it, it opened.
It was an eye! And it was looking right at him!
Right behind him, Qing Qiu was experiencing something similar as an eye appeared on her arm. It was the same with the Captain, as an eye appeared on the back of his head beneath his hair. Ning Yan seemed to have it better off in some respects. He just had small bumps on him that seemed like they would only eventually become eyes.
“Perfect!” the Captain said with a hearty laugh. “We’re finally experiencing Beesah’s Eye Tribulation!”
He looked back excitedly at Xu Qing. “Little Ah Qing, the amazing good fortune your Eldest Brother mentioned is about to appear!”
The Captain lifted his arm and bit off an eyeball that had just popped into place there. After a few chews, he swallowed, then continued moving up.
Ning Yan felt sick to his stomach at the sight of it, and was apparently recalling some bad memories. His anger intensified.
Looking at the eyeball on his hand, Xu Qing sent some taboo poison out. The eyeball immediately turned black. Next, he expressionlessly pulled out a dagger and started cutting into the rotten eye. With a few deft swishes of the dagger, he cut it out of his hand. Instead of tossing it to the side, he put it into his bag of holding. As he continued moving, more eyes appeared, and he used the same method to get rid of them. Considering how rapidly the eyes appeared, he was soon covered with wounds. He frowned as he realized the effect was only speeding up. A moment later, over a hundred bumps covered him, all of them turning into eyes. After about seven or eight breaths of time passed, his arms, legs, chest, neck, and even face had eyes on them.
As the eyes appeared, his sea of consciousness was thrown into chaos. It was as if mysterious and unknown souls had appeared inside of him. They looked like him, but were not part of him. However, they all had different facial expressions. Some were vicious, some wept. Some laughed, while others howled in grief. A few seemed decisive, while a few were cowardly.
When Xu Qing sensed the souls inside of him, his expression turned somber. As it turned out, each of the eyes related to one of the souls in his sea of consciousness. They weren’t able to possess him, and each had a different personality. It was as if they were independent entities that wanted to enter his own soul and influence him. If they succeeded, then he would transform into a person with multiple insane personalities.
Meanwhile, the Captain had a host of eyes all over him, as did Qing Qiu.
Only Ning Yan looked normal. He still didn’t have any eyes on him, only bumps. The bumps had slits, yet apparently his skin was too tough, and thus they couldn’t open and reveal the eyes beneath. Eventually, after the countless bumps realized they couldn’t open, they disappeared on their own.
When Xu Qing sensed the unique nature of the souls, it was without the slightest hesitation that he called on the Ghost Emperor mountain to crush them. Xu Qing’s Gruegloom Daoseizing Art was used to extract gold cores from enemies, which would bring along with them the impurities of those enemies’ souls. The entire purpose of having the Ghost Emperor mountain was to crush those things.
Light glittered as the souls in his sea of consciousness collapsed one by one. As they collapsed, they actually provided some nice benefits to Xu Qing by nourishing and strengthening his own soul. That realization caused his eyes to light up, and instead of immediately attacking the eyes with poison, he let them grow a bit first.
The others were dealing with the eyes in their own ingenious ways.
The Captain started by plucking them out and eating them. But as the eyes proliferated, he used some unknown method to cause mouths to appear all over his body. They would slide across his skin, find the eyes, and then devour them.
Ning Yan was still in the same position. The bumps on his skin would eventually collapse on themselves in fury, and wouldn’t even be able to turn into personality souls. Intrigued, the Captain used the vines to yank Ning Yan over to and look at him closely.
As for Qing Qiu... she actually didn’t need to get rid of the souls. Personalities were good fortune for her. Her blood will domain required numerous personalities, and thus her eyes shone as she came to realize how much she was benefiting. At a certain point, she started pulsing with an aura that even Xu Qing found astonishing.
However, the eyes eventually reached a certain threshold. After the time it takes an incense stick to burn, and they had climbed to a height of about 2,400 meters, the eyes stopped forming.
Feeling a bit disappointed, Xu Qing sent out his poison. Hundreds of eyes rotted, and black blood flowed down him.
It was around that time that the Captain stopped in place. While looking around he performed some calculations with his fingers. Then, to the surprise of everyone else, he shoved his hand into his belly, pulled out a rope-like intestine, then ripped off a piece and threw it onto the branch he was standing on.
As the entrails were sucked into the tree, the Captain looked back at Xu Qing, his eyes shining.
Xu Qing spent a few moments in thought, then sliced open his belly and calmly ripped out a chunk of his entrails to throw onto the tree.
As the tree absorbed the entrails, the Captain looked at Qing Qiu, anticipation in his eyes.
Now that she had her mask on, no one could tell if her facial expression was changing. However, after a moment, she looked away. Clearly she wasn’t going to cut out her intestines.
The Captain seemed a bit disappointed.
Meanwhile, Ning Yan inhaled sharply. Though he had already experienced a lot of strange things, as of this moment, he was starting to think that these two Nightshades really were crazy. And that was because, as they continued on their way, the Nightshades would stop every few hundred meters and rip out more of their entrails. Considering that it wasn’t even possible to see the top of the tree, an absurd thought suddenly occurred to Ning Yan.
Do they even have enough entrails? And if they run out, will they start ripping out mine? I should be fine. They won’t be able to rip me open.... Wait! That Nightshade is obviously extremely dangerous. What if he actually does have a way to rip out my intestines?
The thought threw his mind into chaos and filled him with sorrow.
Thus, the four of them continued to climb higher and higher on the Ten Entrails Tree. It was hard to say how much time passed. Eventually, dawn broke, and the morning sun spread out like an endless burning fire.
***
Far over the horizon, a great distance away in the Holytide’s kingdom of Heavengale, a cold wind blew across the lands. There was no sun in the dome of heaven, only a red glow like evening.
A black beam of light shot up from the center of the capital city, rising high into that red sky. The black light contained boundless power; it could devour all brightness, devour all magical law, and assimilate all radiance and light. What had once been a bright sky now turned into something pitch black. From a distance, the sky looked mottled; it was mostly black with only a few bits of red left behind.
Beneath that darkness was a temple. It was the Nightshade Cathedral!
Bells tolled in the cathedral, a sound like something from the most ancient past. At the same time, the mottled darkness up above turned into the massive face of a Nightshade. It was an old member of that species, with white hair and extremely wrinkled skin. Whatever redness remained in the sky was absorbed and became his eyelids.
All Holytides in the Heavengale capital city were shaken to the core, and quickly prostrated themselves reverently.
In the royal palace, the king and his ministers all bowed their heads and dropped to their knees. As they kowtowed, the face in the sky opened its eyes. The eyes were profound and contained countless dao lineaments. At the same time, the mottled darkness grew blurry, as if countless motes from different points in time were converging on the face.
In the surrounding sky, countless minor worlds formed and then spread out. Then the minor worlds turned into trillions of streams of black energy that swirled about, devouring all the light around them. They were like rivers, lands, and even living beings. From a distance, it looked like they were forming a major world. However, it was only a major world in embryonic form, not complete. That said, it was easy to imagine how, once that major world formed, it could rest on one’s shoulders. Once that happened, this individual wouldn’t be in Void Returning. Rather, he would be... a living Smoldering God!
Everything went absolutely silent as all the people in the city bowed their heads. Shortly after, an ancient voice filled the city.
“Master Heavengale.”
“Here!” the king responded.
“Bring the godchild here!”
“Your orders shall be followed!”
The wind... grew stronger.