Huh? Isn't this an adventure kingdom building game?!

Chapter 1173 - 922: Came All This Way, Might as Well Make the Most of It

"Oh? How about you hold that thought and keep talking in a bit; I’ll go kill those useless things first." Jiang Yuan realized he was getting a little too absorbed, so he took a deep breath and seized the chance to cut it off.

His rich experience told him that when righteousness and evil face off, you must never let the villain lead you by the nose.

All the more so because this whole description didn’t sound very credible.

First of all, there was zero corroboration—just because it claimed its Divine Sense was strong enough that it didn’t pass out, he was supposed to buy that?

In the World Tree instance, countless plots of land were crammed with all kinds of weirdness, and there was no shortage of once-supreme experts among them. Yet not a single "weird" could clearly explain what happened after they entered the black hole, before they became neither human nor ghost.

The old scholar’s Realm wasn’t high and his strength wasn’t great; as for how strong his Divine Sense supposedly was, the system had never emphasized it, so who knew if it was true.

Second, "weird" entities were only good for listening to with a grain of salt—they’d do anything to stay alive.

Granted, that Ghost Realm was indeed formidable. No matter how noble and upright someone had been before, once polluted they were full of malicious scheming, lies poured out of their mouths, and their brains were filled with nothing but spreading the pollution, wrecking other worlds, and crowning themselves king.

The way their minds were twisted was genuinely terrifying.

The old scholar, who’d been lost in his memories, was suddenly interrupted, his face full of confusion, thinking, I just worked up the atmosphere and you’re cutting me off already, what are you doing?

But seeing the other party grab the Soul Hook and walk toward his companions, he didn’t even dare breathe too loudly.

The remaining weird entities trapped in the net were all in a blind panic—It’s over, he’s coming for us!

"Don’t kill me! Fellow Daoist, please show mercy, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t kill me!"

"I never meant to go against you, it was all the old scholar egging us on. I—I contributed several Pill Formulas, please, I’m begging you, spare me."

"Don’t listen to that old codger’s bullshit! Creator God, my ass—how come we never saw any? Once we went into that black mass, we all blacked out, and when we came out we’d turned into this freak show. He’s lying to you!"

"That’s right, my Realm is low; I didn’t even see anything beyond that blackness spreading over me before I blacked out. He’s definitely talking nonsense, trying to trick you into letting him off."

"If it’s about making stuff up, I’m way better at it than the old scholar. I can even say I saw the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden and the Celestial Emperor in the Ghost Realm. Fellow Daoist, interested in hearing about it? If you spare me, I’ll spin you a new tale every day, no repeats..."

......

Jiang Yuan swung the Soul Hook and said with a smile, "I did say it beforehand: as long as you lot don’t break the agreement, if I take your stuff I’ll naturally fulfill my side of the deal.

Too bad you harbored malicious thoughts. Whether it was your own idea or the old scholar’s instigation, either way, he’s already spun me a version I’ve never heard before, so you bunch of casual bullshitters can just die early and reincarnate early."

With that, he stopped listening to their wails and screams, and swish-swish-swish, sliced them all to pieces.

The Array circle was only so big; those few who’d escaped by sheer luck couldn’t get out either. As long as they so much as poked their heads out, he could click to select them and slice them on the spot.

The old scholar, still trapped in the net, watched all this—nothing short of killing chickens to scare the monkeys—and trembled in terror.

"Alright, you can go on now." Once he’d cleaned out all the weird entities, Jiang Yuan sat down cross-legged and smiled brightly at the other party.

"You’re way too scary..." The old scholar was on the verge of tears. When the number of weird entities had still been large and they’d ambushed him earlier, he’d been busy thinking of ways to hide, and hadn’t actually watched how that hook killed weird entities.

Now, pinned in the net and unable to move, he could only stare as they were shaved off piece by piece; the feeling of waiting for death was heart-poundingly dreadful. Yet there was still that faint, nebulous sliver of hope—what if the Creator God really did respond?

It blamed itself for its own stupidity. Why hadn’t it thought of praying to the Creator God earlier? Last-minute praying—who knew if it would work.

"They said it was daybreak then, but that wasn’t quite right. Strictly speaking, first we were in pitch darkness, and then everything around us turned white. No sky, no ground—aside from the world fragment beneath our feet, there was nothing to see, just pure white."

Steadying his nerves, he went on, "At that point, no matter how strong my Divine Sense had been, I’d already reached the end of my tether. I just felt dizzy and drowsy, like I wanted to close my eyes and rest.

But when I turned my head, I saw all the other fellow Daoists lying there motionless, the Demon Beasts in the mountains and forests all as if dead, and even the flowers, plants, and trees had lost all vitality and were steeped in dead silence. I realized I absolutely could not fall asleep, or who knew what might happen.

Honestly, I’d already heard about the Ghost Realm and weird entities before, so I had a bad feeling.

’What if I fall asleep and wake up as a weird entity?’ To bolster my own courage, I muttered to myself. I hadn’t expected that sentence to get a response!

An indescribable voice—solemn, dignified, yet ethereal—suddenly rang out: ’Oh? There’s actually someone still alive, how rare.’"

Jiang Yuan was once again drawn in by his vivid description and pressed, "The one who answered you was the Creator God? What did they look like?"

"You must not gaze upon a god directly!" The old scholar frowned slightly. "You don’t even know that much? If your own Realm isn’t high enough, looking directly at a god will get you killed!

But at the time, I didn’t know the other party was the Creator God, and I couldn’t see any suspicious shadow either, so I braced myself and asked who he was, and whether everyone else and all the living creatures were dead, or else why he’d be surprised I was still alive.

The voice fell silent for a moment, skipped my earlier questions, and replied: ’Calling it death isn’t quite accurate, since true death is when the soul is utterly scattered and enters Celestial Dao Reincarnation.

Let’s just say that all living things on this entire land are in a state between life and death.

If left alone, once they leave this heaven and earth, they’ll be truly dead. It’ll be no different from the usual deaths you see—ordinary beings’ souls, Cultivators’ Spirituality all return to the Netherworld, their bodies rot and eventually turn to dust, drifting aimlessly through the Void.’