Chapter 74 - 74 74 The Human Heart Conceals a Ghost

74: Chapter 74: The Human Heart Conceals a Ghost 74: Chapter 74: The Human Heart Conceals a Ghost From behind the crowd, wretched screams of bodies being torn apart filled the air; howls of pain and sorrow reverberated everywhere. The already sizable group was quickly overrun by the dark tide of corpse demons. Baili An didn’t look back, no trace of pity arose in his heart. With his sword raised, heads dropped! Finally, Baili An broke free from the encirclement and, following the Seven Ashes Steps towards the southeast, he made his escape. Watching Baili An escape further and further away, the furious and violent roars of Yang Zhao and Huang Kang faintly followed from behind, their aura bursting forth and blasting the sea of corpse demons within a ten-meter radius around them into the air. Bones shattered! Flesh flew! Corpses strewn across the field! Yang Zhao, looking at the sword Wen Yu clutched tightly in his hand, realized something was amiss. His eyelids twitched violently as he demanded, “Where’s the Yuanli Sword?!” Huang Kang’s gaze also turned icy. With a mournful expression, Wen Yu said, “That little beast threatened me with the wind bell, and I had no choice but to give him the Yuanli Sword.” Hardly able to restrain his fury, Yang Zhao said with an aura of deadly intent, “That Yuanli Sword is the key object to lure the fourth sword here and to kill her! You actually gave it away so easily!” Huang Kang coldly uttered, “Useless trash!” Wen Yu shouted, “I didn’t want to! It’s the Yuanli Sword! Do you think it was easy for me to give it away? But I wanted to live even more!” Yang Zhao looked at Wen Yu as if he was looking at an idiot, his gaze almost predatory as he said, “You foolish thing, you were so frightened by a mere pair of Demon-suppressing Wind Bells. Can’t you use that pig brain of yours? If the people here were to leave alive and reveal the news that you are about to inherit the River of Blood, where in this Mortal World would there be a place for you?” Wen Yu stood there, dumbstruck like a wooden chicken. With a voice cold as a blade, Huang Kang said, “If we didn’t still need you to inherit the River of Blood, I would already have chopped off your stupid head and fed it to the corpse demons!” Wen Yu, in despair, suddenly remembered Jin Sheng and Meng Zifei, who had escaped. He realized that if the Thirteen Swords managed to successfully return to their sect, he would face endless pursuit by the World Sword Master. For him, a mere Kaiyuan, surviving a single day at the hands of the Sword Master would be a miracle! “I must not… let those four go!” Wen Yu’s features twisted into a ferocious snarl! … … “What movement technique is this that allows you to cross a hundred meters in one step?” Lin Yuan hugged Baili An’s neck tightly, speaking with a hint of surprise. Baili An navigated through the dense forest paths and, with Lin Yuan’s guidance, avoided the various barriers and forbidden lands, responding, “I heard from Wen Yu, it seems to be called the Seven Ashes Steps, a cultivation technique from the Taixuan Sect.” Lin Yuan exclaimed, “Taixuan Sect? Are you from the Taixuan Sect?” Baili An replied with a bitter smile, “I don’t know. I have no memories from before. When it’s safe, I’ll take the chance to head up to Taixuan to find out about my past.” Lin Yuan frowned deeply and said nothing. Inside the Mountain Realm, although much smaller than Kongcang Mountain in terms of area, it was still vast with treacherous terrain. Baili An had yet to see even a shadow of the barrier exit that Lin Yuan mentioned. However, during their flight, Baili An also learned the specifics of what had occurred from Lin Yuan. On the night he was forcibly taken from Kongcang Mountain by the Mountain God, it marked the beginning of the Night of Bloodshed. At that time, the bodies of Yang Zhao and Huang Kang had not yet awakened. Jin Sheng was meditating and regulating his qi. Lin Guiyuan was busily managing the affairs within the Mountain Realm, while Wen Yu’s female disciple would occasionally cozy up to Lin Guiyuan, implicitly hinting at romantic entanglements. But behind those romantic overtures hid the woman’s vicious intent to kill! Luckily, that naive Lin Guiyuan was not blinded by lust. Removed from the worldly desires of the Mortal World for years, he failed to detect Wen Zhendong’s implicit intentions of courtship. Here, Wen Zhendong entangled persistently, casting pearls before swine. Meanwhile, tragedy was brewing quietly on the other side. Through Lin Yuan’s recounting, Baili An learned that the majority of those living in the lake were from the Merfolk tribe. They were meant to dwell in the ocean, but the Merfolk greatly valued the purity of their bloodlines. Typically, the offspring of purebred Merfolk would have pitch-black scales or tails, signifying a pure lineage and increasing the likelihood of transforming into a Black Dragon with time and cultivation. But those with red or purple tails were the most mixed, occupying the lowest status within the ocean Merfolk and often used as slaves within their tribes. The laws of the Heavenly Dao are omnipresent, and within the Merfolk, clearly so. They only respect the power of bloodlines and will not show kindness just because one is of the same race. If your bloodline is impure, you can only be used and discarded. To hasten their cultivation progress, the purebred Merfolk would arbitrarily accuse those of mixed bloodlines, forcibly breaking their tails to assume human form and then sell them off like goods to human cultivators out at sea in exchange for large numbers of Spirit Stones for cultivation purposes. The Merfolk are known for their graceful figures and beautiful faces, and even though being forcibly transformed would cause them to lose their ability to walk, they still become sought-after playthings for human cultivators. Over time, this led to the perception in the Mortal World that one could buy red-tailed or purple-tailed Merfolk as female slaves for a mere Crystal Stone, and many viewed them as cheap playthings to be bought with money. However, the Merfolk in this Mountain Realm were not like that. Unwilling to be toys of fate, they left their families and crossed oceans to reach this land teeming with sea demons rather than return to the chilling tribe they hailed from. They preferred to become prey for sea demons than playthings under humans. Fortunately, their bravery was rewarded with luck. Drifting in the Endless Sea, they were finally pitied and granted a boon by the god of Kongcang Mountain, who created a ten-mile lake within the Mountain Realm, giving these homeless Merfolk a place to survive. But the visiting humans did not share this sentiment. After surviving numerous battles and fleeing exhaustion, both their bodies and souls were like tightly wound strings. Among them were three young masters of noble birth, brimming with repressed malice, who upon seeing the beautiful mermaids in the lake, immediately harbored sinister thoughts. Seeing the red and purple tails, recognizing them as servant Merfolk women that could be purchased with Crystal Stones, they thought indulging themselves wouldn’t be a big deal. That night, the three stealthily subdued their aura and approached the lake’s edge. Together, they knocked out a lone Merfolk woman who sat by the lake, enjoying the moon. They dragged her into a nearby grove where the leader cruelly used his personal sword to force the woman’s tail apart, transforming it into bloody human legs, and the three then committed brutal acts upon her throughout the night. Merfolk women not naturally transformed into humans not only lost the ability to stand but also their capacity to survive in the water realm. S~eaʀᴄh the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.