I Killed Gods and Demons in Song Dynasty

Chapter 224 The Power of the Immortal
Looking in the direction of prayer, Li Qingyun suddenly saw a vast wilderness before his eyes.

There were starving people everywhere and people were living in misery.

The long dusk cast a cold afterglow, and the dark red glow was like flowing blood, dyeing the vast fields a dead and desolate scene.

The wind blew through the withered yellow wheat stalks, making a rustling sound like a low whine.

There was almost no life on earth except for faces haggard due to famine and fear.

The air was filled with a sour and rotten smell, which was the devastated smell emanating from the fields after a locust plague.

Dozens of skinny, ragged villagers dragged their half-crippled bodies and staggered over, kneeling silently in front of the makeshift altar.

Their eyes were empty, their souls had long been drained of hunger and despair, leaving only waxy yellow skin, like rotten clay dolls about to collapse.

These people's calloused hands trembled slightly as they held the only remaining tributes here - skinny cow heads, pig heads covered with fungi and beginning to rot, and sheep heads with sparse fur.

The three animal sacrifices were placed on a crude and simple altar, on which were stuck a few black candles. The candlelight was dim and weak, as if it would be extinguished by the wind at any time.

Leading the group was the oldest man in the village, with a bent back like old dried bark and old hands holding a bowl of clear water with a few wormwood leaves floating in the water, swaying slightly.

His voice was hoarse and low, as if coming from deep underground, and every syllable carried the decay of time and the vicissitudes of life:
“I beg the Immortal to have mercy on this place, use his supreme magical powers to dispel the disaster, and give us ignorant common people a glimmer of hope…”

As he was chanting, he stood up, walked towards the altar with several older villagers, and began to dance a mysterious dance.

Their movements were slow and stiff, and every step was like dragging a weight of dozens of kilograms. Their muddy feet rubbed against the rough altar, making a suppressed friction sound.

Their dance steps sometimes extended outward, sometimes moved inward, their limbs twisted into strange postures, everyone had ferocious eyes, saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths, and they were caught up in some kind of uncontrollable frenzy.

When the dance reached its climax, the candles all around were extinguished and the sky and the earth suddenly darkened.

Just as darkness fell, a boy and a girl were brought to the altar.

Their faces were filled with fear, their bodies were shaking like sieves, and they let out terrible wails, but struggling was of no avail.

Several young and strong villagers had stiff expressions as they pushed the two men down in front of the altar and forced them to kneel on the ground.

None of the villagers kneeling on the ground had any mercy. They stared at the boys and girls like hungry beasts, as if their lives were the key to open the door to life.

"Please come and bless me, Immortal!"

The elders made their final prayers in hoarse voices; their low prayers echoed in the air, spreading like invisible ripples in circles, stirring up a gust of cold wind in the air.

The cold wind blew, and the chill was biting. Many villagers could not help but tug at their tattered clothes, but the enthusiasm in their eyes did not diminish in the slightest, as if they saw a mysterious response from somewhere.

However, after a while, there was no movement on the altar.

The villagers kneeling below the stage gradually began to become anxious and agitated.

Three years have passed. After the drought came the flood, and then the plague. We finally managed to get rid of the disease, but then there was a locust plague. If the gods don’t show up, we simply can’t survive…

Just when the villagers lost hope, a strange light suddenly appeared in the distant night sky, like a cold blue-black lightning, cutting through the night sky, carrying an indescribable eerie and evil feeling.

The light slowly spread out, as if countless ghost fires were jumping in the void, flickering.

Along with the light, there is a low and distant humming sound, like weeping and complaining, like the murmur in a dream.

The boys and girls on the altar looked pale under the light, fear in their eyes became more intense, and their lips trembled slightly, as if they wanted to ask for help, but no sound came out.

Along with the green light, a vague shadow suddenly appeared above the altar. It was neither human nor animal, with a distorted shape, and it seemed that there were countless tentacles dancing slowly in the air.

A faint red light flickered in the shadow, like a spark in the underworld, or like a peek from the abyss, cold and ruthless, with a creepy sense of oppression.

As the shadow appeared, the villagers chanted prayers more and more rapidly and loudly, with expressions of piety and fanaticism on their faces. They called out a certain honorable name with increasingly rapid and high-pitched tones, as if they had finally received the salvation they had longed for.

Just as everyone was dazzled, the shadow seemed to move, and the green light enveloped the boy and girl. The two let out a scream, but the next moment they were completely swallowed up and the sound stopped abruptly.

There was no blood splattering, no painful struggle, the bodies of the two young men turned into nothingness in the green light, without even a trace left.

At the same time, a rustling sound was heard in the darkness, and countless cooked rice, sweet potatoes, poultry and livestock fell from the sky, instantly covering the entire land.

"The immortal has appeared!"

The hungry villagers looked at the food falling from the green light with shining eyes. They rushed to pounce on it, grabbed anything they could get their hands on to satisfy their hunger, stuffed it into their mouths frantically, and began to devour it like wild beasts.

Their prayers were answered and their wishes were fulfilled.

Cheers rose one after another, praising the gods, singing praises of miracles, and praying for the next blessing.

In this ecstasy, all the villagers underwent drastic changes.

Their bellies swelled rapidly, their bodies expanded, their muscles became knotty, long horns grew on their heads, scales grew on their bodies, their hands turned into long claws, their legs turned into giant hooves, they gasped heavily, and constantly emitted a fierce and foul breath.

These villagers were bewitched by something indescribable, degenerated into demons, and completely lost in madness.

Suddenly, the desolate fields were ablaze with flames, demons were dancing wildly, and it turned into a hell on earth...

……

Li Qingyun witnessed all this and couldn't help but frown.

It seems that this dream world, at least in terms of the relationship between gods and mortals, is not much different from the real world he lives in.

Looking directly at gods, blaspheming gods, and accepting unknown gifts from gods are all catastrophic for mortals.

However, there are no gods in the human world anymore, so even if ordinary people pray, it is difficult for their prayers to reach the upper world, and it is unlikely to receive such a terrible response. In this respect, the human world is very lucky.

If gods could roam the world freely as they did before the two wars of gods, I'm afraid humans would live in even greater misery, and it would be impossible for a civilization as prosperous as that of the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties to emerge.

Could it be that this is the reason why the gods left the human world?

Li Qingyun did not dare to make any guesses. He gathered his scattered thoughts and re-examined the situation in the dream world.

What just happened confirms what the predecessors of Longhu Mountain said.

In this dream world, besides him, the "foreign immortal", there are indeed other powerful creatures.

So, how can we improve ourselves and gain godhood in this world?

Should we respond to prayers, recruit believers, establish our own religion, spread the title, and elevate our status?
Or should we find those powerful immortals, start a war with them, and seize the benefits from them?
The former does not require wasting time looking for other "immortals" or taking the risk of fighting with them, and is obviously safer. But in fact, according to the notes left by the predecessors of Longhu Mountain, most of them use the latter method.

After all, as "foreign immortals" who entered the dream, they could only stay in this dream world for a short month. It would be quite difficult in terms of time to attract enough believers and spread their own names widely enough.

Therefore, most of the senior Heavenly Masters and Taoist disciples would immediately try to find and kill the "original immortals" with the lowest cultivation level, improve their cultivation level, and then join the war between the "ancient immortals" and the "old immortals", accumulating cultivation level and improving status through killing, and finally obtaining the gift of the fallen immortals who sleep here forever.

This method has a great deal of uncertainty. Most of the celestial masters who come here to enter the dream cannot survive a full month in the great war between the immortals. There are even a small number of "foreign immortals" with extremely bad luck who were born in the "starry sky" at the beginning. They don't even have time to descend into the human world in the dream, and are killed by the "old immortals" in the starry sky.

Of course, there were also a small number of Heavenly Masters who were extremely lucky and successfully gained benefits from the war and survived. In the process, they also absorbed and developed some believers, increased their own status, and finally obtained the gift of the fallen immortal, but their final gains were extremely limited.

It is said that among all the generations, only the thirteenth Heavenly Master "Dongxuan Patriarch" finally obtained the godhood, achieved the semi-god status of "Return to the Void" in the dream world, and ascended to the upper realm. But precisely because he ascended to heaven directly, he did not leave any experience or notes. No one knew what he had experienced and how he obtained the godhood from the fallen immortal dream.

Li Qingyun carefully recalled the various information he had read in the Tianshi Mansion, but he had no clue for the time being, so he simply activated his supernatural powers and began to divine his next plan.

As soon as he thought about it, the mysterious palace came crashing down, completely ignoring the huge gap between the dream world and the real world.

Along with the sacrifice of qi and blood, Li Qingyun soon obtained two completely different divination results.

In response to prayers, he recruited believers, spread the name, and received the revelation of "great luck".

Instead, he went looking for immortals to start a war with, and seized the methods of evolving the immortals' cultivation in other dreams, and received inspiration from "Xiao Xiong".

The result is already very obvious. The best option is to not act rashly, but to sit in the abyss for the time being, to perform miracles, to establish a sect, and to enhance one's strength and status in the dream.

But how to do it specifically?
Li Qingyun thought for a moment and decided to do a small experiment first.

So he thought about it and chose a prayer that no one had responded to yet. He put his mind into it and immediately saw another scene...

What appeared before him this time was a gorgeous boudoir, filled with fragrance, and red candles and curtains.

A slender young woman in her mid-twenties, with a natural beauty and extremely charming manner, was kneeling in front of the incense table, whispering devoutly:
"May the gods show their power...give us a son...the lowly maidservant of the Weng family...died young..."

As she spoke, her expression began to become distorted, and her tone became more and more resentful, almost gritting her teeth.

Judging from the young woman's prayer, she is a concubine of a wealthy family. Because her mistress is infertile, she has always dreamed of giving birth to a boy, hoping that a good mother will be honored by having a son.

However, after living there for more than three years, she only gave birth to a daughter and there has been no news since then. The master of the house no longer dotes on her as before. Today he even married a younger and more beautiful concubine named Weng. He spends all day lingering in his new lover's room and completely forgets about her.

The young woman was naturally unwilling to accept this, and she knew in her heart that if she continued like this, she and her daughter would have no way out, so she risked praying to the "immortals", cursing the master's newly accepted concubine, Weng, and hoping to regain the favor of the master's family and give birth to a boy so that she could regain her position of favor in the mansion.

Li Qingyun sneered. This young woman had evil intentions, so she could be used as a test subject without any psychological burden.

What he wanted to try was to what extent the mortals in this dream world could withstand the power of the immortals.

The purpose of this experiment is to find out the most effective way to communicate with mortals in this world.

After all, if he wants to spread his name and attract believers, he must have one or more means of issuing oracles and performing miracles.

Just now, he had witnessed with his own eyes the process of the villagers losing control and falling into depravity, and realized that he could not descend directly before mortals, nor could he bestow gifts on mortals at will.

So Li Qingyun gathered his own strength to the smallest possible level, and responded to the prayer with a whisper as thin as a mosquito's:

"My honorable name is 'Ji'. I know all your requests. I will bestow my grace upon you and make your wish come true."

In an instant, his words followed the direction of prayer, crossed the boundless void, ignored time and space, and were directly transmitted to the ears of the young woman.

At the same time, the young woman knelt on the ground, concentrating and praying earnestly, quietly waiting for the response from the "immortal".

The next moment, a huge, terrifying, catastrophic whisper came crashing down.

This voice transcends all languages ​​in the world. It is obscure and indescribable, but the young woman seemed to have a telepathic connection and understood its meaning at once.

The immortal responded to me!

She was immediately overjoyed and uttered a sharp and piercing cry of joy:

"#%%&……*&!"

At the same time, her eyes bulged, veins on her forehead bulged, and her originally fair and delicate skin suddenly turned purple and black, with layers of scales growing on it.

Two long horns grew out from her head!

The young woman's eyes turned gray, and her pupils turned into golden vertical pupils. She let out an extremely shrill yet incomprehensible howl.

Just by hearing the whispered words of the "outer fairy", she fell into madness and degenerated into a demon...

……

(End of this chapter)