I Killed Gods and Demons in Song Dynasty

Chapter 172 The Origin of Fengcun

Feng Yaqin and Qi Shaowei followed the old woman into the hole under the stove and found that the dim corridor inside was extremely narrow and they could only pass through by crawling.

The corridor was filled with an indescribable smell of decay, as if some living creature had been buried here for a long time and was slowly decaying.

The two were forced to follow the old woman closely, crawling carefully. The stone wall under their feet was icy cold, and there was deathly silence all around, with only their breathing echoing in their ears.

After walking for more than ten feet, a dim light suddenly appeared in front of them, and the three finally came to a secluded cave.

The cave is not big, only about ten feet in circumference, and there are deep cuts on the walls, which shows that it was obviously opened by humans.

Qi Shaowei stopped and sensed the power surrounding him. He was suddenly surprised and said:

"This is... the Brahma Mantra Soul Binding Array!"

There was a strong sense of shock in his tone, because this formation was the highest level of Buddhist trapping formation, capable of restraining powerful spirits. It was used in Shaolin Temple specifically to imprison evil spirits such as demons and ghosts.

It is powerful but extremely difficult to deploy. It is also the secret of Shaolin Temple, but no one knows why it appears here.

Hearing this, the old woman slowly turned around, with a cold smile on her face:

"You actually recognize this formation..."

As soon as she finished speaking, she took out an ancient white lantern from somewhere and slowly lit it.

The faint light illuminated the surroundings, revealing the strange scene inside the cave - the walls and the ground here were engraved with scriptures, mixed with a large number of unknown tadpole characters, twisted and strange in shape.

The words seemed alive, wriggling slightly under the light with a strange rhythm, like crawling insects, which made people shudder.

In the center of the cave, kneeling was a naked bald monk.

There were nine deep scars on his head from his Buddhist rituals, and his hands were clasped together, motionless, like a wooden sculpture or clay statue.

The monk's exposed skin was also covered with densely packed spells, like ants lurking on his body, emitting a strong smell of death.

When Feng Yaqin saw his face, her eyes fixed, her expression suddenly changed, and she exclaimed in a low voice:

"You are... Master Kongjian from the Shaolin Temple in Songshan! Why are you here?"

The monk remained kneeling, motionless, as if he had already lost all breath of life, leaving only an empty shell.

There was no sign of life in his lifeless eyes, only a creepy silence.

When the old woman heard Feng Yaqin's words, she said calmly:
"It's been more than 20 years, and I didn't expect that there are still young people who can recognize me."

Feng Yaqin's eyes widened, shocked beyond words.

She turned her head to look at the old woman, then looked at Master Kongjian who was kneeling on the ground, her tone filled with great fear and disbelief:

"You... who are you? What is going on?"

The old woman sighed, her tone was as if coming from another world:
"I am Monk Kongjian..."

This sudden change left Feng Yaqin and Qi Shaowei stunned for a moment.

Master Kongjian?

This old woman is actually Master Kongjian?

Feng Yaqin's eyes fixed, and she was about to step forward to question him, but she was shocked by the other party's next words...

"Back then, the old city of the Ula tribe of the Liao Kingdom suddenly suffered an accident, and I happened to be in the city.

"In order to resist the curse and avoid having my life taken away by thieves and becoming a walking corpse, I had no choice but to shed my own spirit and live in the body of this old woman. That is how I have managed to survive until now.

"More than 20 years have passed, and I have been trapped here."

The old woman paused, her eyes revealing deep resentment. She pointed at the monk who was kneeling on the ground like a dead man and continued:

“In order to preserve my body, I have set up this great soul-binding formation with a Sanskrit incantation, sealing my magical power and fate here. Otherwise, I would have become a puppet of the thieves long ago.

"Now I am imprisoned by the formation, my magic power is gone, my body and spirit are separated, and I can only live in this decaying body. Once this old woman's body collapses, I will die."

After hearing this, Feng Yaqin felt her scalp tingling, her head buzzing, and her heart beating wildly.

Master Kongjian is the top figure ranked fifty-seventh on the list of seventy-two heroes of the Earthly Fiends. It is incredible that such a profound Buddhist master could survive in this way.

She forced herself to calm down and asked:

"You said you are Master Kongjian, what evidence do you have?"

The old woman laughed bitterly:
"Now I am trapped in this body, in the same desperate situation as the two young Taoist friends. What good will it do me to tell lies?
"However, if you need proof, it is not difficult. I have a close personal relationship with Master Meng, and I once gave her a jade Buddha pendant. Since you are her disciple, you must have seen this thing, right?"

Feng Yaqin's heart moved slightly. Her master Meng Jianfang did have a jade Buddha pendant magic weapon. He never showed it to anyone, but he would occasionally play with it in private.

If the old woman in front of me was not Kong Jian, how could she know such a secret?

Her doubts gradually faded, but she still did not completely relax her vigilance and continued to ask:
"Since you, the senior, encountered an accident in the old city of the Ula tribe, how did you end up in this 'Feng Village'?"

The old woman slowly put down the lantern and sighed deeply:

"Alas, little Taoist priest, there is no such thing as 'Feng Village' in Liaodong. This is the ancient city of the Ula tribe. What you see is only the ruins of this city-state."

Fengcun is actually the ancient city of the Ula tribe?
Feng Yaqin was stunned. This village didn't look big, with no more than a hundred households. It was hard to associate it with the famous big city in Liaodong.

Monk Kongjian's words made her feel like she was trapped in an endless fog, and all her previous cognitions were completely overturned.

The old woman continued:

"Since the God's Descent Ceremony in Bianliang City more than 20 years ago, the world has changed drastically, with Liaodong bearing the brunt of the impact. A large number of ghosts and evil spirits have infiltrated from the spirit world, wreaking havoc in various places and attacking cities.

"The old city of the Ula tribe was the first to be hit. Within a dozen days, nine out of ten houses were empty. It was a horrible sight..."

Feng Yaqin frowned, as if she suddenly realized something, and interrupted the old woman:
"Senior, you just mentioned the God's Descent Ceremony? Tell me again, when did that happen?"

The old woman was slightly startled, and after a moment's hesitation she said:
"About twenty-two or twenty-three years ago... It's hard to tell the years in Feng Village, and I can't remember the exact time.

“Since you are still young, you might have just been born at that time, so it is normal that you don’t know these past stories.

"Back then, there was a 'Wushi Sect' that attempted to hold an evil sacrificial ceremony to bring down the evil gods from the upper realm. Although it failed due to the intervention of a master, it still tore a crack in the barrier between the human world and the spirit world. The demons and monsters with lower cultivation in the spirit world took the opportunity to infiltrate and disrupt the human world, while the powerful gods were still trapped in the spirit world and could not cross the barrier to descend.

She paused, shook her head and said:

"I don't know if the strong men in the world have solved this problem after so many years. But judging from your appearance, it seems that there hasn't been any major chaos in the outside world."

The old woman spoke casually, but Feng Yaqin's face suddenly turned extremely pale:

"No, Senior, the God's Descent Ceremony you mentioned did not happen more than 20 years ago, but more than a month ago..."

The old woman was stunned at first, then showed an expression of disbelief, and even her voice was trembling: "A month ago? You mean... another divine descent happened in the human world?"

Feng Yaqin took a deep breath, tried to steady her trembling voice, and said slowly:
"Senior, there has only been one divine descent ceremony, which took place in June of the first year of Jiayou in the Song Dynasty. Now it is August of the first year of Jiayou, and only a little over a month has passed."

As soon as these words were spoken, the air seemed to freeze in an instant.

The old woman's cloudy eyes suddenly widened, and the wrinkles on her face seemed to deepen at this moment. She muttered to herself:

"The first year of Jiayou... Only two months have passed outside? I have been trapped here for more than twenty years..."

Her voice echoed in the cave, carrying endless shock and fear, as if the entire space was shaking with it.

Feng Yaqin and Qi Shaowei looked at each other, and both were filled with deep doubt and fear.

"Could it be that this land has been completely isolated from time and space by some force?"

An extremely terrifying thought arose in Feng Yaqin's mind: this strange village and lost ancient city seemed to have sunk into a cursed river of time. No matter how the outside world changed, this place was forever trapped in a horrible cycle.

But she also knew that the most important issue at the moment was how to rescue Gao Renan and try to escape from Feng Village. Therefore, Feng Yaqin suppressed her fear and prepared to find out the whole story.

So she continued to ask:
"Senior, since you personally witnessed the incident at the ancient city of the Ula tribe, what exactly happened at that time?"

The old woman hesitated for a moment, as if recalling those long-ago dark past events, and then slowly said:

“When I came here, the evil spirit had already swept through the old city of the Ula tribe. The city collapsed, and the people were devastated and corpses were everywhere.

“Although I am a Song Dynasty monk, I am a compassionate person and naturally cannot stand idly by. So I joined the Liao Dynasty cultivators to resist the demonic tide.

"However, the demons kept coming and we couldn't kill them all. Some powerful demons were even as powerful as cultivators at the fifth level. We tried every possible way, but we still couldn't resist the wave after wave of demon attacks and couldn't turn the situation around.

"Finally, with nothing else to do, the remaining civilians and cultivators, under the guidance of a mysterious person, decided to take extreme measures."

Hearing this, Feng Yaqin's breathing paused slightly, and she recalled the tide of ghosts she encountered on the way to Liaodong.

After the god's descent ceremony in Bianliang City ended, the entire cultivation community was immersed in the joy of surviving the disaster. They did not expect that there would be so many aftereffects.

I only heard the old woman continue:
“They began to build altars in the city and hold sacrificial ceremonies to beg for protection from the gods above.

"The initial sacrifices were still normal, but as they failed time and time again, they began to go crazy and their methods became more and more evil. In the end, they even resorted to human sacrifices... In order to protect themselves, they were willing to sacrifice their companions and even sacrificed the children in the city to unknown gods."

Feng Yaqin was horrified. As an orthodox disciple, she naturally knew that it was an extremely dangerous thing to rashly pray to an unknown secret existence in the mysterious world. It would often only lead to terrible disasters and would never get the expected protection.

She asked in disbelief:

"Senior, is there no one who can stop such a dangerous thing?"

The old woman smiled bitterly and said helplessly:
"How could there not be? I have tried my best to stop it! But by then the situation had completely collapsed. Seeing countless compatriots die tragically, the desperate survivors had already been blinded by hatred.

“At that time, the city was under siege, and 90% of the people had lost hope of survival. No one would consider the consequences!

"Their only thought is to drag those demons down with them to their deaths!

"Even though I have tried to persuade them everywhere, human sacrifices are still being carried out in every corner of the city. Their actions have already spread and are impossible to prevent.

"In the end, these people did attract some powerful existence, but the price was a catastrophic disaster."

Feng Yaqin lowered her beautiful eyes, vaguely guessing what would be said next.

The old woman continued to recall:

“These sacrifices opened a portal to horrors far greater than they could have imagined.

“That force cleared the demons in the city, but it also devoured the entire ancient city of the Ula tribe, taking away everyone’s life and turning all the surviving mortals into walking corpses.

"Even the surviving cultivators were no exception. All their struggles were ultimately in vain."

Feng Yaqin's face turned pale. Thinking of the scene in the village, she couldn't help but ask:

"Then what about the black fog that just enveloped the village?"

The old woman replied coldly:
“Those are the curses and rules set by the terrifying beings that descended from the upper realm: you cannot break into an empty door, you cannot make loud noises, you cannot leave your home after dark, and you cannot leave the village after dusk.

“These rules are a trap he set, specifically targeting monks.

“Anyone who violates the rules, no matter how high their cultivation level is, will suffer an extremely horrific curse and will surely die.

“Although that terrifying being is powerful enough to make his words come true, he seems to be restricted by certain constraints and cannot fight against others personally.

“So he used these rules and curses as weapons to kill the remaining monks in the city one by one.

"After the ancient city of the Ula tribe was transformed into 'Feng Village', those cultivators who were lucky enough to survive were unwilling to be trapped here and looked for ways to escape. However, they accidentally violated the rules and were eventually cursed and tortured to death.

"For example, the black fog you saw just now after the lights in the village were turned off was one of the curses. If you were just a little slower, you would be swallowed by it, and your body would disappear and become a part of it.

“Before you, there were cultivators who mistakenly entered Feng Village and were also killed by these curses.

"So far, no one has been able to walk out of the village alive."

“I saw that the situation was hopeless and there was no hope of escape. I could only follow the rules I had summarized and guessed, seal all my magic power in the Soul Binding Array, disguise myself as a mortal and live on, hoping for a miracle to happen.

“Maybe only a month has passed outside, but I have been suffering for more than 20 years…”

Feng Yaqin finally figured out the whole story, but the weirdness here actually involved the terrifying existence from the upper realm, which was definitely not something that she and Qi Shaowei, two Nascent Soul masters, could solve.

She bit her lips lightly, hesitated for a moment, and said decisively to the old woman:
"Senior, I have a solution!

"Before this trip, Master gave me a 'Golden Light of Escape' talisman, which allows me to return to Longhu Mountain at any time.

“Since we cannot leave the village after dusk, I will use the magic talisman to return to the sect early tomorrow morning, report to Master, and ask the strong men on the Tiangang Ranking to come and help us!
"I believe that once they know the cause and effect of the matter, they will be able to find a solution!"

The old woman nodded and said:

"That's the best. But the rules here cannot be violated lightly. If you leave rashly, you will bring great disaster.

"You two will stay in this 'Soul Binding Formation' tonight. Although this is a trapping formation, it can prevent you from being deceived by the outside world and stepping out rashly to trigger the curse. Wait until dawn and act according to the plan."

Feng Yaqin nodded, but the next moment, her pupils suddenly contracted!
I saw countless black spots quickly covering the old woman's face and hands, and large areas of skin were rapidly drying up and rotting.

The black spots continued to expand, and in some places black pus and blood even flowed out. The stench of putrescence instantly filled the entire cave.

"I……"

The old woman wailed with difficulty, but her body disintegrated uncontrollably. Her skin and flesh peeled off piece by piece, and before she even hit the ground, she turned into black mist and dissipated into the air...

……

(End of this chapter)