All the evil beasts in the world, I feed on demons and monsters

Chapter 393 Feast of Merit
The light drizzle couldn't conceal the sunset; as the last rays of the evening glow on the horizon were wiped away like bloodstains.

On the desolate south bank, when absolute darkness reached its peak, an unexpected change occurred!
Swish!
Without warning, thousands of lights blazed forth simultaneously, their brilliance dispelling the rain, and embroidered curtains seemed to fall from the sky! What was just a barren, muddy beach had transformed in the blink of an eye into a dazzling, bustling city. Yet beneath this splendor lay an eerie emptiness—aside from a solitary inn, there were no other buildings.

The lights were bright, yet no one was there.

Da da da.

The sound of crisp footsteps broke the silence. A tall figure strode out from the boundary between light and shadow; it was a vigorous old man with blond hair and piercing eyes.

He walked towards the fox demon in front of the door, cupped his hands in greeting, and smiled, his voice as clear as a jade chime.

"Fox Spirit Lord!"

As the old man with blond hair spread his sleeves, the street scene behind him rippled like water, and the phantoms of pavilions and towers overlapped and appeared.

"My 'Dream of the Capital' is derived from the power-hungry dreams of a former prime minister. Is it worthy of today's feast?"

"Hahaha!"

A booming, maniacal laugh suddenly erupted from the ground, followed by a rapidly moving wave of earth rising from the earth! Only the sound was heard, but the person was nowhere to be seen.

"That's not quite right! Smell my treasure—"

Before the words were finished, with a loud "boom", a cherry blossom tree burst forth from the ground, its branches and leaves shimmering with spiritual light, and its fragrance instantly filled the night sky.

"This stuff was borrowed from the back mountain of the Quanzhen Sect. If an ordinary person smells it, all their ailments will be cured!"

"Giggle..."

A woman's laughter drifted in on the night breeze. On the Huai River, a carriage with swaying gauze curtains crossed the water without a boat or oars. One could only see countless ghostly hands peeking out from beneath the ruts.

A woman's voice, soft and alluring, came from behind the curtain: "Then, is my 'Intoxication from the Womb,' brewed from the heart's blood of newborns, worthy of your immortal flower tree, brother?"

……

One after another, spirit lords appeared, some displaying extraordinary abilities, others offering astonishing treasures.

Several distinct styles—human prosperity, Taoist herbs, and bloody elixirs—are brutally mixed here, transforming this muddy wasteland into a place brimming with spiritual energy and overflowing with extravagance for a celestial banquet!
Fox Spirit Lord's eyes flickered slightly as he swept over the bizarre and fantastical scene, a faint, enigmatic smile playing on his lips.

Without uttering a word, she gracefully turned to the side and lightly pushed open the wooden door of the inn that had been tightly closed behind her.

"Greetings, fellow Daoists."

The scene inside the inn remained unchanged, a sign of respect for the old Dragon Lord. The group of spirits and demons understood this perfectly. After entering, they found seven or eight square tables placed together and took their seats.

Almost every demon brought a dish.

Each one of them was considered a rare treasure in the eyes of these powerful demons. The fox demon had mentioned Li Hanzhang before, saying that he possessed an aura of nobility and was most likely a member of the human royal family.

The black-clad creature was captured to be made into a dish called "Purple Qi Coming from the East." The method was similar to eating monkey brains: the person was pinned to a table, their seven orifices were torn open with a saw, and then a burst of evil energy was used to squeeze out the noble aura from the seven orifices. Consuming this aura was said to increase one's wisdom.

Upon hearing this, Li Hanzhang turned pale with fright. He readily agreed to the rescue mission given to him by the Double Flower Red Stick, only wishing to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.

now.

Dishes were laid out on the table, mostly wine, fruits, and delicacies.

Several demons also brought cages, large urns, and wooden boxes, but they hadn't yet set them on the table. They were just instructing their accompanying lesser demons to prepare the tools.

In the inn's kitchen, Ji Ran sat calmly on an octagonal chair, his gaze clearly seeing the group of fourth-rank demons through the thin gauze.

The double-flower red stick stood silently beside Ji Ran.

A thin layer of mist rose from the flowing water, obscuring the two and isolating them from sound. This was the territory of the Double Flower Red Stick, and it was clear that he had made considerable progress in his field over the past month.

"Compared to when I came here before, many powerful new monsters have appeared in the Demon Forest."

At this moment, Shuanghua Honggun spoke up: "I asked the fox demon on the way, and she said that a year ago, a Taoist celestial being let all the demons in the world run wild."

"Oh?"

Upon hearing this, Ji Ran also looked at the Double Flower Red Stick. He had to admit that seeing so many fourth-grade demons now made him feel somewhat unreal.

You should know that the last time I traveled, a fourth-rank Mirage Scale Beast was already at the level of influencing the fate of the nation!
"and then?"

"She said that once a demon in this world breaks through to the fourth rank, they all hide their tracks and secretly cultivate. Because once a fourth-rank demon approaches the Dragon Leap realm, heaven and earth will send down lightning to kill it! This is what non-orthodox cultivators in the mortal world call the Ascension Tribulation." "But a year ago, the hundred-year spring lightning was borrowed by that celestial being in one fell swoop, and for a hundred years, there has been no more lightning tribulation in heaven and earth!"

"These spirits and demons nearing the Celestial Realm couldn't hold back any longer. This hundred years is their chance; as long as they accumulate merit from heaven and earth, they can ignore the tribulation lightning and break through!"

"The merit and incense offerings of the world are almost monopolized by the Taoist sects. If one simply hides in the mortal world and earns them little by little, it may be difficult to accumulate enough merit even in a hundred years. But right now, the Purple Rain of the Southern Kingdom, that group of Jianghu people tainted by calamities, has become the best source of resources."

Ji Ran's eyes flickered!
A thunderclap after a century! That person was Jiang Rao!

Suddenly, a question popped into Ji Ran's mind!

Was Jiang Rao's true purpose simply to annihilate the demons of Southern Han?
Undeniably, he achieved his goal. The Southern Han Dynasty has now been destroyed, and the purple rain is even threatening to wipe out all living things!
But as a Taoist priest from one of the three major schools of Taoism, how could he not know about the tribulation of lightning?
He must know!
Ji Ran thought of the sword strike Jiang Rao used on the mudflats to awaken his inner power! Within the sword intent, all the demons surrounded him, and he sat atop the mountain, like the lord of all demons!

In addition, he borrowed the merit of the spring thunder to slay demons and monsters! He also subdued three great demons as his generals!
He knew perfectly well that if the world's hundred-year-old spring thunder was borrowed, the demon race would inevitably revolt!
Could it be... that this was Jiang Rao's true purpose? Otherwise, with Jiang Rao's meticulous planning in the martial arts world, she would never have made such a mistake!
now.

Ji Ran looked at the horde of demons in the inn, knowing that with his current information, he couldn't yet fathom Jiang Rao's purpose.

The demons in the inn all had human forms, yet they still retained the characteristics of their original forms.

The succubus carrying the wine had a soft, seductive voice, but she was actually a long-necked water snake with a neck that was at least a meter long. She swayed and waved to people.

The scholar in white robes had a pair of wings hidden in his sleeves, and his eagle-like eyes on his hooked nose kept a close eye on the kitchen.

There was also an old man with blond hair who had been lecherously staring at the fox demon since he came in. He held her hand and kept talking. A monkey tail was curled up behind him, carrying wine. He and Fox Spirit Lord were exchanging toasts.

……

"The Hundred-Eyed Spirit Lord has arrived—!"

A sharp, long shout, like a cry, pierced through the clamor, and the once bustling and leisurely banquet instantly fell silent.

Lord Baimu Lingjun.

The name itself is a deterrent.

He is the leader of the Sixteen Cave Spirit Lords. It is said that he has touched the threshold of the Heavenly Demon realm and has even used heaven-defying techniques to slay a celestial being! He hid for hundreds of years because he was afraid of the lightning tribulation, and only reappeared in the world ten months ago.

I've heard that he's been posing as a god of incense offerings for hundreds of years and has made a lot of money from incense donations.

Da da da.

Heavy footsteps approached from afar, and a figure draped in a wide, dark yellow robe parted the rain and strode towards them.

He was tall and slender, almost ten feet tall, unlike any other human. His head vaguely resembled a human, but was unusually flat, like a stone slab. Instead of ordinary eyes, there was a pair of huge, smooth organs on either side of his head, like perfectly cut mirrors, reflecting countless tiny points of light, as if cutting the entire distorted world into countless pieces and containing them within.

"What's wrong, fellow Daoists?"

A soft laugh came from the flat head, and the mirror-like eyes slowly swept across the entire area, causing every demon being watched to unconsciously tense up.

"Are they all waiting for my main course?"

With a casual wave of his withered hand, four ancient black banners burst forth from the sky!

Bang bang bang bang——!
The array flags were precisely nailed to the four corners of the main table. An invisible force then rippled outwards, pushing all the delicacies on the table to the edge, clearing out a round table area in the center.

The next moment, a strange phenomenon occurred—

At the center of the table, the air began to distort, and a hazy, incense-scented phantom slowly emerged and coalesced.

It was a miniature city! Towers and streets were faintly discernible, and countless tiny, bean-sized human figures walked, talked, and struggled within it, lifelike. The entire city was permeated with a thick, impenetrable gray-black aura, an aura filled with pain, despair, and foreboding.

Calamity!

Slay them, and you will gain merit from the Heavenly Dao!
The intensity of the aura of calamity on each figure in the Phantom City directly indicates the extent of their merit!
In an instant, the breathing of all the seated spirit lords and demons became heavier, and naked greed burst forth from their various pupils without any concealment. The lesser demons were even more terrified, prostrating themselves on the ground.

The Hundred-Eyed Spirit Lord glanced around. Although not all of them had arrived, he didn't care much—the Spirit Lords from the previous caves were already there, enough to share in the merit.

Deng!
He took his seat first. Almost simultaneously, the little demons standing outside the door deftly lifted the velvet curtain, opened the wooden box, and lifted the large urn, revealing a group of living people and rare spirit beasts with empty eyes, ready to be cooked and served as hot dishes to the Spirit Lord.

With another wave of his hand, the rising incense and prayer power solidified in his palm, transforming into pairs of translucent long chopsticks that accurately flew down in front of each demon.

This is the instrument for seizing merit.

The feast of merit shall now begin!
(End of this chapter)