Free Web NovelChapter 201: Chapter 123: Chaos
But in just ten days, his body had visibly withered away. His face was ashen, his cheeks were deeply sunken, and even his hair had started to turn gray...
Now, if you said he was a middle-aged man of forty, no one would doubt it!
He was holding a large gourd, taking a couple of swigs from it every so often. But just moments after drinking, he’d take another couple of swigs... His whole expression was dazed and vacant.
And people like that...
He was far from the only one!
Almost all the members of the Nanhe Gang, including that Second Uncle Yuan... were all like this!
Second Uncle Yuan was already getting on in years, somewhere in his forties or fifties.
Now, his hair was completely shot with gray, dry and brittle as withered grass, without a hint of its proper sheen.
He had never been fat to begin with, but now he was nothing but skin and bones... looking just like a refugee on the road to exile...
And it wasn’t just the Nanhe Gang!
The entire market was undergoing this drastic change...
No, perhaps it wasn’t just Wanshui City!
It was the entirety of True Martial...
All the markets...
Anyone who had taken the Qi Blood Pills...
They were probably all like this!
It was as if they had aged twenty to thirty years overnight, their bodies emaciated, their spirits dazed.
Seeing this, how could Qin Fang possibly stay?
’...Leave. I have to leave!’
’Even if the Prefecture City is a huge trap, I have to go!’
He immediately packed his things, took Xile with him, and set off at once, preparing to head for True Martial County Town!
On the way, he passed through Fisherman City and saw a scene almost identical to the one in Wanshui City... No, it was even worse.
Fisherman City had first been ravaged by that band of Water Pirates, causing its vitality to plummet. Then came the army’s suppression of Ganlu Hall, which extinguished what little life was left. freewebnσvel.cøm
Some time after the incident, a bit of that life had returned, but now this bizarre change had occurred... The number of people left was pitifully small.
Qin Fang saw only a dozen or so skeletal figures, sitting listlessly in front of their stalls, staring into space...
A strange, unsettling feeling quietly spread. Qin Fang pressed his lips together, looked away, and ran quickly toward the county town.
Xile’s speed was no less than his. Running wild for the first time, it seemed a little excited, darting ahead one moment and falling back the next.
Qin Fang paid it no mind, a grave look in his eyes...
’The change is too shocking. I have no idea what the situation is like in the county town...’
Just then, a sudden series of barks startled Qin Fang. He whipped his head around and saw Xile standing on the mountain path, barking furiously in one direction.
Qin Fang’s heart tightened. He subconsciously walked over, and when he looked again... freёwebnovel.com
Standing on the mountain path and looking down, he saw a village. When he saw what was happening in that village, Qin Fang sucked in a sharp breath...
The village was only about two or three hundred meters away from him, down below the mountain path. At this moment, his gaze was filled with bodies strewn across the ground!
His Eye Power was astonishing, allowing him to see the state of the corpses... They were skeletal, their faces twisted in agony, and every one of them had graying hair, like old men.
Regardless of gender, their chests had all been sliced open, as if their internal organs had been gouged out.
But that wasn’t the main point... The main point was...
In the middle of the village, there was a round, rolling monster!
The monster was devouring something in huge mouthfuls.
And upon a closer look...
They were things that looked like fleshy tumors.
They were bloody and covered in slime, clearly nothing good.
At the edge of the small village stood several figures in black robes. They stood outside the village, unmoving, as if watching the monster feed...
’...It’s the Mysterious Power!’
’They’re... ’
Qin Fang watched in shock.
Then, as this scene unfolded before his eyes, a series of mysteries in his mind suddenly found their answer...
’Blood food!’
’The purpose of the Qi Blood Pills... is to cultivate blood food for the monsters to eat?!’
He stared blankly at the monster. It was no different from the three he had seen before, with one single exception...
Its body wasn’t covered in much slime, only dark red protrusions that looked like blood vessels.
But more importantly...
It was clearly much larger than the three he had seen before!
Those three had been less than a meter tall.
But this one was nearly 1.5 to 1.6 meters tall, almost twice the size of the previous three, approaching the height of a full-grown adult!
It chewed the blood food before it with great bites, and with every swallow, it seemed to change faintly. The "blood vessel"-like things on its body writhed...
’But why?’
’Why do they have to cultivate them with Qi Blood Pills first?’
’...Why not just eat people directly?’
Qin Fang couldn’t figure it out.
But now, the reason for it no longer seemed important.
What was important...
...was that he now knew their goal.
He stared intently at the small village in the distance. Everyone inside must have been dead.
He saw some of the bodies—not just the ones that looked horrific, who had clearly taken Qi Blood Pills.
There was another group of bodies that were relatively normal... Although their deaths were brutal, they were indeed relatively "normal." Those must have been the ones who hadn’t taken the pills.
’...After all, even though those Qi Blood Pills are widespread, people who don’t practice Martial Cultivation naturally wouldn’t take them.’
This small mountain village had been annihilated.
Qin Fang pressed his lips together. He had no intention of rashly charging down the mountain to pick a fight with these mysterious people and their monster...
’I don’t know what the situation in the county town is right now. I need to get into the town as soon as possible, meet up with Master and Senior Brother, and figure out our next move!’
’...If we still don’t hear back from Senior Sister, then we’ll have to figure something out on our own.’
