Bai Xiaochun’s face went completely ashen, and not because his cultivation base had been affected, but because of the fear he felt; within the group of hundred gathered in the square, there were a few with Nascent Soul cultivation bases. That left Bai Xiaochun feeling thoroughly petrified.
He started backing up, and yet, had only taken a step when he realized that there were people in the square that he recognized.
“Zhao Long.... Master God-Diviner....” The two of them were behaving just like everyone else in the square, staring at the platter of blood-soaked buns, their expressions those of savage madness.
By this point, Bai Xiaochun was starting to struggle over what to do.
“Zhao Long has been a loyal and devoted follower of mine for years now. Back when I got stuck on the battlefield, he led the charge to try to reach me....” Slowly but surely, Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were starting to turn bloodshot.
“I'm the one who forced Master God-Diviner to become my Dao protector, and I'm also the one who conscripted him into the army. The tribulation the two of them are facing today all has to do with me....” Bai Xiaochun was so torn he could hardly breathe straight. His eyes were completely bloodshot, and yet, at the same time, he was scared! The terror he felt at the thought of dying was almost completely overwhelming.
Clearly, the square that stretched out in front of him was a location of extreme danger. If he turned and left now, he would most likely be able to get away safely. But if he stepped into the square, who knew whether or not he would get swept up into the calamity?
As he stood there wallowing in indecision, it was almost as if there were two people on either side of him, one telling him to go save his friends, the other screaming at him to flee immediately.
Bai Xiaochun couldn’t help but think back to the situation with the Luochen Clan all those years ago. Although his current predicament wasn't exactly the same, it was certainly similar....
As he stood there vacillating, the flames on top of the huge candles suddenly danced wildly, which caused the several hundred cultivators in the square to suddenly howl madly as they rushed toward the platter of blood-soaked buns. To their eyes, what lay on the platter in front of them was not a pile of blood-soaked buns, but rather, the ability to live forever, or to increase their cultivation bases, or other types of amazing good fortune.
In the briefest of moments, all of them went crazy, even going so far as to start fighting each other to be the first to grab a blood-soaked bun. Those who did manage to get ahold of one of them would excitedly take a huge bite and then start cackling madly.
Any who didn’t get one of the blood-soaked buns would fly into a rage and look for someone to steal a bun from. The scene playing out in front of Bai Xiaochun right now left him trembling with fear and terror!
Furthermore, because he was watching from an outsider’s perspective, he quickly realized that none of them were actually eating blood-soaked buns! What Bai Xiaochun had assumed to be corporeal buns were actually not real. The people in the square were actually fighting over nothing!
Furthermore, those who believed they were eating a bun were actually voraciously devouring their own hands!!
Some of them had already ripped their own fingers off, causing blood to spray about everywhere. And yet, they weren’t satisfied! It was with complete insanity that they went on to bite their palms, crunching them all the way down to the wrist!
And some of them were even chewing their way down to their own elbows, expressions of delight on their faces the entire time....
Those in the square who weren’t able to snatch one of the “blood-soaked buns” were madly trying to rip the hands and arms off of those who had. Bitter fighting was already playing out everywhere.
Some people were cut down by magical attacks, and as their flesh and blood exploded out, others in the area would pile onto them and start to feast....
As all of these things began to happen, the flames of the two enormous candles danced, and female voices could be heard, singing....
“Eat up, eat up.... Delicious, isn’t it...?”
Bai Xiaochun felt like his mind was being struck by countless lightning bolts, and he was shaking visibly at the horror in front of him!!
That was when he saw Master God-Diviner finally get one of the “blood-soaked buns” and then begin to laugh uproariously as he lifted his hands up toward his mouth. Off to the side, Zhao Long, who hadn’t managed to get his hands on the prize, was now starting to fight over one of the corpses of the other cultivators....
In that moment, Bai Xiaochun’s hesitation vanished. Eyes bloodshot, he made his decision. Throwing caution to the wind, he took a step forward.
The instant his foot touched down in front of him, everything around him seemed to slow down. At the same time, his frigid qi rushed out in all directions to fill the square. In the next instant, Bai Xiaochun moved with such incredible speed that, combined with his frigid domain teleportation, he appeared right in front of Master God-Diviner. Without hesitating at all, he reached out and grabbed Master God-Diviner’s hand in the instant before it reached his mouth. Jerking the hand back, he shouted, “Master God-Diviner, wake up!!”
A snapping sound rang out as Master God-Diviner’s teeth clicked down on nothing but air. Then he looked up at Bai Xiaochun and howled; clearly, anyone who interfered with him in any way was little more than an enemy.
Master God-Diviner’s hand blurred in an incantation gesture and then shoved out at Bai Xiaochun. At the same time, he lunged forward like a rabid dog as he tried to bite down onto the hand Bai Xiaochun had grabbed.
Bai Xiaochun looked over anxiously at Zhao Long, who was now laughing madly as he dragged one of the corpses off to the side. Unfortunately, Bai Xiaochun’s vision was starting to cloud over. In fact, the blood-soaked buns on the platter up ahead were now starting to transform into Live-Forever Never-Die Pills!
The mere sight of such pills caused Bai Xiaochun’s mind to reel. However, he bit down onto his tongue to clear his mind. Already, the frigid qi in the area was beginning to fade away, meaning that time was very limited.
“Dammit!” he yelled. With that, he reached out with his left hand and grabbed Master God-Diviner by the throat. Holding him fast no matter how he struggled, he rushed over to Zhao Long, who was just in the middle of taking a bite of bloody flesh, and grabbed him up. Then he rushed back toward the tunnel mouth.
Suddenly, two soul-chilling screams erupted from the candle flames as two women became visible. They looked exactly the same, middle-aged with disheveled hair, and they were both looking straight at Bai Xiaochun.
“How dare you meddle in our affairs! You’ve disturbed our sacrifice of flesh and blood, and therefore, you will not leave this place alive!!”
In response to the voices, Bai Xiaochun shuddered. Then he looked around, and saw everything in the area slowly becoming piles of Live-Forever Never-Die Pills.
“Live forever.... Live forever....” Even as he felt himself descending into madness, all of a sudden, a tiny strand of Willpower rose up in his Gold Core.
The Willpower poured into his mind like boiling water poured onto snow. Instantly, the illusions he had been seeing vanished, and he looked around ashen-faced to find that more than eighty percent of his frigid qi had been melted by the candles.
Once it was completely melted, he would be incapable of teleporting away, and would have to rely only on his fleshly body speed to escape, which wouldn’t be sufficient....
By this point, many of the cultivators in the area had caught sight of Bai Xiaochun, and to them, he was good fortune to be had! They quickly began to turn and head in his direction.
Roaring, Bai Xiaochun called upon all the power he could muster to teleport through his frigid qi. Even as it collapsed, he appeared right at the edge of the square, and then bolted into the nearest tunnel entrance.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw the two women floating in the candle flames, screaming at him.
“Think you can escape just like that?” they screamed, suddenly flying into the air toward him.
Even as he fled at top speed, the air rippled in a different tunnel, and Gongsun Wan’er appeared. Striding forward, she shoved her right hand out viciously in the direction of the two women.
“Screw off! How dare you try to mess with one of my people!”
The two women screamed miserably. Although the wave of Gongsun Wan’er’s arm had not contained even a bit of magical power, the two women flickered as if they might vanish. At the same time, expressions of unprecedented shock and terror appeared on their faces.
Not daring to move forward even an inch, they dropped down and kowtowed.
“Get back to your sacrifice of flesh and blood,” Gongsun Wan’er said coolly. “And from now on, mind your own business.” As she spoke, the tiny second pupil in each of her eyes began to shine with a mysterious light.
It was that very light that caused the two women to tremble in terror, and creep backward toward their candles.