Chapter 1543: Strange and Bizarre

Chapter 1543: Strange and Bizarre

What exactly had Master Wu encountered?

And who—or what—had reduced the all-powerful Master Wu to such a state?

A chill ran through Lord Qingchou's heart as he watched Master Wu still desperately trying to gouge out his own eyeballs.

Lord Qingchou had no choice but to draw four short blades and pin Master Wu's limbs firmly to the ground.

Yet even so, Master Wu refused to give up. With his limbs pinned, he slammed his face against the ground, smashing it into a bloody pulp until both eyes were finally crushed and split open.

Lord Qingchou watched, his heart pounding with dread.

With his eyes destroyed, Master Wu finally calmed down somewhat.

It seemed that without eyes, he could forget the things he had seen, and instinctively feel a measure of relief.

Master Wu's features were now a mangled mess, and his limbs slowly drooped like those of a corpse. He stopped struggling.

The eerie atmosphere in the Grand Hall of the Thousand Spider Temple gradually subsided.

Lord Qingchou slowly let out a breath.

But before he could fully relax, Master Wu's limbs suddenly twitched again.

Lord Qingchou's heart leaped back into his throat. He looked down and saw black blood beginning to seep from Master Wu's bloodied, mangled face.

Master Wu's features had been smashed flat, fused into a single mass.

And from that mass of torn flesh, the black blood began to trace out a new human face.

The face was abstract, formed from nothing more than a few simple lines, yet it radiated an indescribable blend of innocence and eerie malevolence.

Lord Qingchou's pupils contracted. A bone-deep cold swept through him.

Before he could decide what to do, the abstract face's lips slowly curled upward, as if it were smiling at him.

“Damn it!”

A chill crept up his spine and into the back of his head.

Lord Qingchou's expression changed drastically, as if he had been struck by a plague.

He immediately abandoned Master Wu and retreated dozens of zhang, his heart seized with terror as if a great bell and drum were clanging inside him, his guts trembling without cease.

What in the hell... was this thing?!

It was just a smiling face, how could it be... so terrifying...

Even Lord Qingchou, who had killed without mercy and devoured without mercy, felt his six spirits unsettled and his seven souls disturbed.

And after Lord Qingchou retreated to the side, another change occurred.

[Master Wu], now wearing that sinister black-blood smile, stood up stiffly.

His limbs were still pinned to the ground, but the four short blades could not hold him.

Master Wu's limbs lost their bones, stretching like rubber bands to an impossible length, and then with a sudden exertion...

Four muffled thuds rang out as he tore free from the restraints of the four blades.

Lord Qingchou's eyelid twitched violently. His mind raced:

“No, this is wrong. Should I... run first?”

Master Wu's condition was clearly the result of backlash from the Unorthodox Path, something sinister had taken possession of him.

If this continued, the entire Thousand Spider Temple, every disciple and descendant, would likely fall victim, transformed into something neither human nor ghost.

But Master Wu was crucial to him.

The Qingchou Prefecture Realm was already in chaos, disasters spreading far and wide, this was surely an age of calamity and ruin. Without a master of the Unorthodox Path like Master Wu to aid him, his great undertaking will be difficult to accomplish.

Lord Qingchou was a body cultivator, he charged into battle, drew blood, and tore flesh.

But the Unorthodox Path Arts were different. They killed without spilling blood, struck fatally without form. That was what made them truly fearsome.

Without Master Wu's aid, if he were ever cursed to death in the future, he wouldn't even know how he died.

Lord Qingchou hesitated, but ultimately instinct won out. He steeled his heart and decided to flee first and foremost.

As long as the green mountain remains, there will be no shortage of firewood.

Better that a fellow daoist dies than this poor daoist. If Master Wu had met with misfortune, it was because his own cultivation of the Dao was lacking, he had no one to blame but himself.

His own promising path of cultivation could not be buried alongside Master Wu's.

Lord Qingchou was about to flee, but when he turned to look, he was suddenly taken aback.

He had originally assumed that once Master Wu was possessed, he would surely seek people to kill, to devour. But that wasn't the case at all.

At this moment, Master Wu wore an ink-black face—innocent yet abstract, a demonic visage—crawling on all fours like a human-shaped spider.

Yet he was eerily calm. He wasn't attacking anyone. Instead, he crawled back and forth across the room, as if intently searching for something.

Searching for something?

What was the possessed Master Wu searching for?

What could there be in this great hall worth searching for?

Lord Qingchou couldn't help but feel a flicker of curiosity, forgetting to flee.

And in that brief moment of delay, the crawling [Master Wu] suddenly seemed to catch a certain scent. In his pitch-black, hollow eyes, a burst of frenzied, ecstatic light exploded in an instant.

Lord Qingchou froze, then watched as [Master Wu], using all four limbs, crawled into a pile of rubble and broken clay jars. He dug through it for a long while, finally pulling out a strand of hair—black as ink, stained with the Five Poisons.

“Hair?”

Lord Qingchou thought for a moment, then immediately recognized it.

This was the lock of hair he had cut from the pterion of that handsome, disgustingly beautiful black-robed cultivator, the strand Master Wu had used as a medium for his Gu Arts to cast the curse.

But... what was [Master Wu] doing with this hair?

Lord Qingchou was puzzled. Just as confusion set in, he suddenly saw [Master Wu's] two pitch-black pupils dilate abruptly, drool dripping from the corners of his mouth. The already excited aura instantly escalated to the peak of madness.

As if he had found the rarest treasure in all the world.

Found... the true cause and effect of his own body...

Then [Master Wu] hesitated no longer. Pinching the strand of hair, he tilted his head back, his mouth splitting open wide—nearly taking up half his face—as if to swallow this ink-black strand of hair into his belly.

The hair fell bit by bit, like descending into the deep abyss of cause and effect.

At that moment, within the great hall of the Thousand Spider Temple, a sinister wind suddenly rose, cold air spreading, a biting frost nearly freezing the ground.

Boundless darkness surged in from all directions.

As if some existence were about to be born into the world, even light itself was being devoured.

Lord Qingchou, at the Late Golden Core Stage, felt his pupils contract. Standing there in the flesh, he felt as though some immense terror loomed over his head.

Even breathing became difficult, and his heart nearly leapt out of his throat.

He was the most notorious villain in the Qingchou Prefecture Realm, a man who killed without mercy, who savored blood and flesh as a matter of course.

But at this very moment, watching Master Wu about to consume that strand of hair, his instincts screamed that this was the most cruel, the most bloody, the most horrifying thing in all the world.

Far, far more terrifying than his own daily habit of eating people...

As if, once Master Wu truly devoured that strand of hair, endless darkness would spread, earth-shattering terror would descend, and countless people would die.

Even for him, an exalted one at the Late Golden Core Stage, there was no escape, he would be devoured by the darkness and die in a way beyond imagination.

No number of lives would be enough.

Lord Qingchou shouted in terror, “Master Wu, stop! Don't eat it!”

But Master Wu had already fallen into utter madness.

Some invisible, terrifying Evil Thought was seeking a tangible vessel.

And he was about to merge the formless with the tangible, making them one.

The hair was about to enter his mouth.

At that critical moment, the terrified Lord Qingchou, with no time to think, transformed into a bloody wind and lunged at [Master Wu] like a fanged beast, snapping Master Wu's arm and seizing him by the throat.

Master Wu's attempt to swallow the Origin Source hair was blocked, and he flew into a rage, letting out a piercing shriek like a newborn infant.

Lord Qingchou grew even more terrified, and even more unwilling to let go.

Though he didn't know why, he knew that if he released his grip, the consequences would be unimaginable.

He could only turn his head aside, refusing to look directly at [Master Wu].

And though Master Wu was possessed, his flesh grotesque and unnatural, he was fortunately not a body cultivator by nature. In terms of raw physical strength, he could not compare to Lord Qingchou.

Thus, in a short time, he was pinned to the ground, throat gripped by Lord Qingchou.

[Master Wu] struggled for a long while, then suddenly grew calm and lay still.

Lord Qingchou had not dared to look at [Master Wu], but when the piercing shriek abruptly ceased, he felt something was off. He shifted his gaze slightly, stealing a glance from the corner of his eye to check on [Master Wu's] condition.

But the moment he looked, every hair on his body stood on end.

[Master Wu's] neck had twisted at an exaggerated angle like a serpent, his face turned directly toward him.

The moment Lord Qingchou turned his head, he met [Master Wu's] gaze.

Those were eyes utterly hollow, yet seeming to hold phantom visions of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, cruel and horrifying.

This bloody phantom was not the true body; separated by two mortal shells and the barrier of reality, it was merely a faint, blurred projection of the Fate Pattern.

But even so, one glance struck Lord Qingchou like lightning, his body went ice-cold, his bones turned to jelly, and the Blood Qi in his meridians seemed drained by something.

As if a thousand, ten thousand Jiangshi were gnawing at him.

(TN: Jiangshi (僵尸) a.k.a. zombies/stiff-corpses)

The strength in his grip weakened by the moment.

And [Master Wu] slowly broke free of his hold, once again raising the hair toward his mouth.

Lord Qingchou knew his blood power was draining away, as if Jiangshi were devouring him, sucking at his flesh and blood.

Yet he knew with certainty that his body was intact, there were no Jiangshi at all.

This pain, half real and half illusory, half tangible and half phantom, drove him to madness.

Seeing that Master Wu was truly about to swallow the hair, and the surrounding darkness beginning to churn violently, Lord Qingchou was frantic with desperation.

He was a body cultivator, unversed in the Unorthodox Path, unskilled in Fāng Arts. That he had survived this long was already heaven's blessing.

At this moment, he could not stop Master Wu at all. He could only channel his Golden Core Power and roar with all his might:

“Master, wake up now! Or all is lost!”

The roar carried the force of Golden Core Power, thunderous as a great bell, shaking the four pillars of the hall until they trembled.

Master Wu was jolted as well, blood streaming from his facial orifices.

The blood he shed was bright red, proof that what the roar had wounded was his true self.

Master Wu, jolted by the shout, did indeed regain some clarity. The black abstract face on his own faded slightly, revealing a hint of his original features.

Lord Qingchou was overjoyed and shouted again, “Master Wu, don't eat the hair! Whatever you do, don't eat it!”

Master Wu seemed to understand Lord Qingchou's meaning. His features contorted, showing intense inner struggle.

As a master of the Unorthodox Path, steeped in Divine-Sense Thought Arts for years with profound cultivation, his mind was far more resolute than that of an ordinary person.

But the problem was that the unclean thing he beheld went beyond the bounds of the Unorthodox Path.

Even as Master Wu forcibly marshaled his mind and fought desperately to resist, he still could not break free, his mind was no longer his own to command.

Watching that wisp of pitch-black, venom-laced, terrifying hair about to be stuffed into his own mouth, threatening to trigger some even more dreadful calamity of the Unorthodox Path...

Driven by the despair of life and death, Master Wu summoned his last shred of strength, bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, spat out a drop of essence blood, and activated his life-saving measure.

The Heart-Protecting Mirror on his chest shattered with a crack.

This was a protective treasure passed down from the founder, but when Master Wu had been contaminated, it had caught him off guard, he'd had no chance to use it.

Now, at the critical moment, he seized a sliver of clarity, allowing him to bite through his tongue, expend his essence blood, and activate the Heart-Protecting Mirror.

The moment the mirror shattered, a faint yellow Divine Sense Thought Power enveloped Master Wu's chest, dispelling a trace of the Evil Thought's gloom.

Only then did Master Wu regain a modicum of control over his body from the contamination.

But a wave of backlash from some Evil Thought surged over him instantly, and his mind was on the verge of collapse.

Clinging to his last hope, he activated a Fāng Art, blood-tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, his throat torn as he rasped:

“Lady Thousand Spiders...”

“Most merciful and compassionate Lady Thousand Spiders...”

“Save... me... please...”

As the words fell, the great hall fell silent enough to hear a pin drop. Nothing happened.

But in uttering those words, Master Wu had already expended his final use of the 【Unorthodox Path Deity-Summoning Secret Art】. He had no strength left to struggle, and that sliver of clarity gradually faded away.

The ink-black hair slowly descended toward his mouth.

The darkness around them surged like a tide, sweeping toward the great hall, threatening to turn the entire Thousand Spiders Temple into a deep abyss.

Lord Qingchou's iron-gray face had now gone as pale as paper.

Master Wu's blood-tears had nearly run dry.

Just as Master Wu was about to meet his final despair...

The entire Thousand Spiders Great Hall suddenly trembled. An unfathomable divine aura slowly permeated the scene.

An invisible, bright-purple phantom loomed over the entire Thousand Spiders Temple, suppressing the surging darkness.

Then a mighty pulse of Divine Power shook the air, and the Thousand Spiders Temple seemed to come alive.

A rustling sound arose, and from above the great hall, one after another, purple aberrant spiders began to rain down.

Dense and countless, like a spider downpour.

These spiders landed on the ground, then crawled onto [Master Wu's] face, onto his forehead, bit down once, and drank of Master Wu's Divine Sense Thought Power.

With a single bite, each spider would be contaminated and die on the spot.

But there were enough of these spiders—one after another, they crawled onto Master Wu's head, feeding on his Thought Power.

One by one, the spiders died.

Master Wu's Sea of Consciousness was being drained dry, but his contaminated Divine-Sense Thoughts were also being drawn out of his body.

The darkness around them, deprived of its supply, grew restless and agitated, but was suppressed by the purple Divine Power.

Finally, after who knows how long, Master Wu's Sea of Consciousness was drained completely dry.

The ink-black human face on his visage surfaced with abstract but ferocious lines, casting a venomous glare toward the great hall above. A cold smirk curled at its lips before it gradually dissipated.

Master Wu collapsed to the ground like a puppet drained of all life, utterly pitiful.

Then the darkness receded, the Evil Thought dissolved, and the contamination was temporarily purged. All the anomalies, along with that suffocating terror, vanished without a trace.

All that remained was a hall full of spider corpses.

Lord Qingchou lay sprawled on the ground, his heart still pounding with dread. Gazing at the scene around him, it truly felt as though he had just woken from a nightmare...

...

Meanwhile, at the outskirts of the Thousand Spider Forest.

Mo Hua, who had been meditating, slowly opened his eyes, his brow furrowing slightly.

Gu Changhuai, his wounds not yet healed and his face still somewhat pale, was keeping watch over their surroundings. Seeing this, he asked:

“What's wrong?”

Mo Hua said, “I was trying to learn how to harm people...”

Gu Changhuai was puzzled. “Do you need to learn that?”

Mo Hua paused. “I just wanted to play around…”

Gu Changhuai let out a sigh, unsure whether Mo Hua had picked up some new trick to harm others, and asked:

“And then? Did you manage to harm anyone?”

Mo Hua nodded, then shook his head. “My skills aren't refined enough. I'd only gotten halfway through when I was discovered...”

Gu Changhuai frowned. “That doesn't sound good.”

“It is indeed rather bad…”

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then said slowly, “If it were me doing the playing, that wouldn't be so bad, I'm quite gentle with my methods. But if it's not me playing, and some other 'thing' takes over instead... that would be a bit... terrifying...”

“Some other thing?” Gu Changhuai was slightly alarmed. “...What thing?”

“I...” Mo Hua's gaze darkened slightly as he murmured, “I can't quite explain it either. It seems to be...”

“Something very complex, very ferocious, very much of the Primordial Chaos...”

...

(TN: Hùn Dùn (混沌): Primordial Chaos) 

(End of Chapter)