We agreed to seek enlightenment together, but how did you end up seeking enlightenment for my mother

"change?"

Xu Zhou squinted and looked him up and down, only to find that he was not mistaken after all. Chi Feng's skin was not only sickly pale, but his eyes had also turned completely red, as if cold blood was flowing deep in his pupils.

Even more bizarrely, all the hideous scars that used to cover his body had disappeared, leaving his skin smooth and flat with clearly defined muscle lines, as if his entire body had been reshaped.

In the dim candlelight, he appeared exceptionally pale, yet exuded a dangerous aura.

"Did you get your skin smoothed with filters? And are you wearing colored contact lenses?"

"I'll take it as a joke."

Chi Feng finished dressing, put on his sunglasses, took a cigarette from his breast pocket, put it in his mouth but didn't light it right away.

"To tell you the truth, after all these years of struggling in Zoroastrianism, I've gradually learned a lesson."

He paused for a moment.

"Human capabilities have limits."

"So?" Xu Zhou asked.

"The more cunning a person is, the more likely they are to fall into unexpected predicaments. This is the constraint of mortals... unless, they transcend humanity."

Chi Feng spoke calmly, ignoring Xu Zhou's earlier warning. He struck a match, lit his tobacco, took a deep drag, and slowly exhaled a plume of smoke.

"Xu Zhou, I am now a blood servant of my senior, no longer bound by the Zoroastrian Church... and this is my true purpose."

Xu Zhou didn't quite understand. To put it bluntly, wasn't this just jumping from one pit into another?

But he still asked the question he cared about most first.

"Don't you want to die in silence?"

"It would be a lie to say I don't want it." Chi Feng flicked his cigarette ash. "But I have a clearer goal. I know what I should do, and I'm willing to pay any price for it. The pursuit of a silent death is just a means to an end, not the result."

"I don't understand, why are you telling me all this?" Xu Zhou frowned, a vague premonition creeping into his heart.

As expected, Chi Feng raised his hand and casually pointed forward with two fingers.

I want to win you over.

Hearing this expected remark, Xu Zhou remained expressionless, but inwardly he was cursing.

How could he possibly bring himself to say that?

Doesn't this old man have any self-awareness about his own credibility?

However, Chifeng continued to persuade him:

"I know you have many secrets, but I won't tell anyone. At the same time, I've proven my abilities to you, and I believe we can work together to go further on this path."

The air fell silent for a moment.

Xu Zhou remained silent for a moment before saying, "Chi Feng, is your new backer necessarily better than the Zoroastrian Church?"

"Of course not." Chi Feng grinned, his voice suddenly rising several octaves. "So I won't stop fighting! Join me, and together we'll crush those high and mighty saints, those arrogant fools who block the path to the future, under our feet!"

He became more and more excited as he spoke, veins bulging on his forehead, his bloodshot eyes almost burning with fire, the cigarette butt trembling slightly between his fingers, sparks falling lightly to the dusty wooden floor.

"He can be replaced!!"

After he finished speaking, the corridor fell silent once again.

Chi Feng took a deep drag on his cigarette, slowly suppressing the turmoil in his chest as he awaited Xu Zhou's reply.

However, in reality, Xu Zhou never considered the options offered by the other party from the beginning; his goal was equally clear.

"You're right. If I cooperate with you, perhaps I can advance to the Transcendent level very quickly." Xu Zhou closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stared straight ahead. "However, I refuse!"

He squinted, scrutinizing the confident middle-aged man in front of him.

"Chifeng, you are the truly arrogant one. You take yourself too seriously."

"Oh?" The priest raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms with the cigarette between his fingers, and exhaled a smoke ring.

"You naively thought you were able to navigate between the powerful and the sages, but you don't realize that from beginning to end, you've never escaped the grasp of those so-called sages." Xu Zhou paused, "I'll only ask you one question."

"What's the problem?" Chi Feng chuckled.

Xu Zhou said, word by word:

Did you look up on the night of the fire-worshiping ceremony?

A genuine look of doubt appeared in Chi Feng's eyes.

"Look up? What are you looking at?"

Xu Zhou smiled too, a smile of relief.

Sure enough, the heights they were looking at were not even on the same level.

"It's just like a frog in a well gazing at the bright moon."

He once thought that Chi Feng was like himself, struggling to survive between the fingers of those powerful figures who could cause strange phenomena in the world. Before that, he even had a little admiration for this person.

But after a frank conversation today, I realized that Chi Feng thought he had escaped the Saint's chess game, but in reality, he couldn't even distinguish where the boundaries of the chessboard were. The things the two of them carried on their shoulders were worlds apart.

Chi Feng didn't seem surprised to be rejected by Xu Zhou.

He casually tossed the cigarette butt aside, crushed it with the tip of his shoe, and extinguished the sparks under the sole.

"It's a real shame, it seems we ultimately failed to reach an agreement."

After saying that, he put his hands in his pockets, straightened his back, and looked at Xu Zhou. A murderous intent gradually welled up in his eyes, or rather, he removed the last layer of disguise.

Xu Zhou was not afraid at all. With a whoosh, he drew his short knife and blocked the doorway.

"It's finally time for the fight. I haven't gone inside yet, not to guard against you, but because I'm afraid you'll escape, Father."

Before he could finish speaking, Xu Zhou suddenly raised his hand and launched a sneak attack. The strands of his True Words hair shot out instantly, binding Chi Feng's body tightly. The golden threads sank into the fabric, forming a spiral shape.

However, just as he was about to summon the iron golem and interrogate it about its true purpose, he saw the priest close its eyes and rapidly recite:

"Supernatural Power - Body Melting and Blood Transformation Technique".

The next second, Chi Feng's entire body turned dark red, and then his whole body melted and collapsed like a wax figure, turning into a pool of viscous blood that splashed onto the ground, quickly seeped into the cracks in the floor, and disappeared completely in the blink of an eye.

The strand of Zhenyan's hair lost its target and collapsed to the ground.

Xu Zhou stared in disbelief, then hurriedly drew his knife and stepped forward, but Chi Feng was nowhere to be seen in the house.

"What? This is a power that someone at the Third Awakening Transcendent level can master?"

Can clinging to someone's powerful backer really grant you such outrageous supernatural abilities?!

For a moment, Xu Zhou was even a little tempted.

Bang!

The sound of a door slamming shut came from behind me.

The sound seemed to strike Xu Zhou's heart like a hammer blow. He turned around abruptly and saw that the door was tightly closed. An ominous premonition rushed from his tailbone to the back of his head.

He practically leaped back to the door, but just as his fingers were about to touch the handle, boundless darkness surged in from all directions, instantly swallowing up all the surrounding scenery.

Xu Zhou felt his body becoming increasingly difficult to control, as if he had fallen into a dark space where he couldn't distinguish up from down, left from right, or any other reference point.

"Damn it, you old sly fox!"

We still suffered from a lack of experience!

He was already being cautious enough, but Chi Feng had anticipated that he would block the door, so he simply set the trap at the last moment, and he cooperated perfectly by stepping into it.

Looking back now, Xu Zhou felt his face burning.

But he quickly forced himself to calm down and did not rush to summon the iron golem. It was not advisable to reveal too many of his trump cards before determining the source of the danger.

A decisive tool must be used at the moment when it can make a decisive decision.

"Strange, if this is the effect of the relic, why didn't 'Rotten Wood Blossoms' provide any hints?"

Xu Zhou did not act rashly, but calmed down and carefully observed his surroundings. Although all he could see was pure darkness, he could clearly see his own body.

The fact that objects can be seen even without a light source suggests that this place is most likely not a real space.

To verify his judgment, Xu Zhou flicked out a strand of his True Word hair, consuming mysterious energy to extend it to twenty meters, and then swung it around his body once.

The golden thread encountered no obstacles in the darkness, smoothly drawing a complete circle.

"It's not reality, yet it consumes mystical energy... Could this be a domain?"

"Did someone use a domain-type supernatural power on me?"

A flash of inspiration struck Xu Zhou, and he vaguely grasped the key point.