Chapter 442: Faces In The River

After Kui Longzi and the others were killed, their Yuan Shen secret realms burst apart turned into the secret realm dimensions shrouded in godly rays.

The Heavenly Dharma secret realms could last for a few hundred years after the expert's death. Kui Longzi and his followers were the Heavenly Dharma Qi Practitioners, and thus, their secret realms remained.

"Expert of the Kui Long Celestial Race, I'm not afraid of you at all. The whole idea of ambushing with the array formation is to lure more idiots into my trap."

Yan Zhen sneered frigidly and flicked his finger, shattering the Yuan Shen secret realms into pieces. Immediately, the treasures contained in the secret realms rained down across the floor, including Kui Longzi's divine weapon.

"Divine herb!"

Yan Zhen kept the divine weapon, and his eyes brightened up as he gazed at the one-person tall jade vase. There was a divine herb blooming intriguingly in the jade vase. It looked like a soaring phoenix and contained immense Wood Qi; it emanated a vigorous force of vitality!

It was as if the divine herb were alive, casting the totem patterns around it and pouncing around incessantly in the jade vase. It tried to escape from the jade vase but it was to no avail. The jade vase seemed to be a unique soul weapon meant to trap and contain the treasures.

"The Phoenix God Plant! These Kun Lun Qi Practitioners are really not weak either, to be able to capture a divine herb!"

It was the first time Yan Zhen was seen with a surprised expression on his face. He raised his hand and kept the Phoenix God Plant in his Yuan Shen secret realms. He then glanced at the dead bodies on the ground, and suddenly, some noises came rushing into his ears. Happiness flashed past Yan Zhen's eyes, and he whispered, "Demon slave, clear the bodies and leave no tracks behind!"

Black smoke billowed behind him, and a huge creature walked out of the dark smoke. It opened its mouth wide, and with its long and barb-like tongue, it curled on the bodies and ate them one by one.

The demon creature then opened its mouth wider and sucked all of the treasures into its stomach.

A wave of darkness swallowed the place, and as soon as lights shone again, the demon creature disappeared.

"Some celestial idiots again, I wonder what I will plunder this time."

Yan Zhen swung his hand and ploughed the garden, turning the blood-soaked soil around and burying the banners in the ground. He then turned into a wave of billowing smoke and dispersed in thin air.

...

On the Crimson Water River, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er were walking on the water surface while the huge carrot, Husan Weng shrunk his body into a 3-4-inch-tall carrot and stood on Zhong Yue's shoulder. Its so-called hair was waving in the breeze while it stared carefully at the river and was mumbling incessantly, "Don't come out, don't come out..."

Zhong Yue's brow raised high as he noticed a face floating up from the bottom of the red waters, it was pallid and white like snow, dying the red river with a different color.

"Don't move, act dead." Husan Weng said terrifyingly.

Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er then quickly stopped, they stood unmoving on the river surface and watched as one pallid face after another floated up and filled the river surface. Moments later, the whole river was dyed white by the pallid faces.

Abruptly, the pallid face right below Zhong Yue opened up. There were no eyeballs, and the empty eye sockets were filled with green burning flames.

Then the faces across the water surface opened their eyes as well, painting the red with some greenish, burning dots.

The breeze blew over, but the little flames were unaffected.

Cold sweat slowly seeped out from Zhong Yue's and Qiu Jin'er's pores. They were trying their best at maintaining their current posture and meticulously surged their arcane energies so that they would not plunge into the water.

Aren't the gods in the Returning Ruins cursed and turned into skeletons? Why are there suddenly so many faces? Who are they and why didn't they turn into bones?

Zhong Yue looked at the faces floating on the river survive, it felt like the eyes were staring at him as he thought, Where do they come from?

These faces weren't looking the same, some of them belonged to the monsters, some demons; the birds and the dragons, the beasts and the creatures. Even more, there were also a few faces belonged to the young ladies of the Western Mother Celestial Race, so beautiful and well-preserved that they looked as though they were real.

Suddenly, his body stiffened up, he saw some threads connecting the back of the faces and oscillated freely with the flow of water, lending some liveliness to the dead faces.

While on the other end of the faces, there were many thin and narrow treads linking them to the bottommost of the river where an immense darkness engulfed it. So dark that even Zhong Yue couldn't see through the shadows and reach to the end.

What will be there, at the bottom end of the river? Just thinking of it bristled Zhong Yue's hairs in terror.

Moments later, these faces then finally closed their eyes, they then slowly sunk back into the river bottom.

Husan Weng heaved a breath of relief, its hairs softened down and said, "They didn't notice us..."

The huge carrot then started boasting, "If it weren't for me, you two would be one of them already! I, Husan Weng..."

Qiu Jin'er smiled and said, "Didn't you say that you are a big figure in the Returning Ruins and that anything you do can ... can scare the shit out of them?" She blushed as she felt embarrassed at cursing in front of Zhong Yue.

The carrot, however, was nonchalant and replied, "Didn't you realize that I was just holding back to test your capabilities in handling the situation? Those faces were just like you - they have traveled across the river and somehow, alerted the big guys beneath the river and oh uh, bad luck for them, the big guys have skinned their faces away. It's just their hobbies, collecting different kind of faces and I don't know, appreciate the beauty of the many faces?"

Qiu Jin'er was shocked, the faces that filled the river surface comes from many races and from what she had seen, these skinned faces could easily exceed a ten thousand in numbers. Doesn't that mean that there were over ten thousand of cultivators were killed by the big guys and skinned off their faces?

Zhong Yue's face suddenly changed drastically, his muscles stiffened up and whispered softly, "There are still a few faces left!"

Husan Weng's heart skipped a beat and pounded heavily, it quickly looked over at the direction Zhong Yue was pointing at, and indeed, there were a still a few faces floating on the river surface, their greenish burning flames were looking at them.

The carrot's leaves bristled right up as if it were struck by lightning. It screamed from the top of its lungs -assuming it even had any- and shouted, "RUN!!!"

Without further due, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er raised their speed to the peak in seconds and blasted out like a flash of lightning.

Boom! Boom!

Despite them traipsing across the river surface, their speeds were no weaker than traveling on the ground. Two blunt sounds blasted the air as they broke through the sound barrier and stirred the river waters while leaving two trails of sky-high waves behind them!

Meanwhile, right at the moment they moved, the faces that had sunk into the river bottom shot out from the water surface and hung in mid-air.

These pallid faces seemed contorted in pain as they pierced through the clouds with grievous cries of agony.

Even so, there were still a nearly infinite number of faces extruding out from the red river, with the hair-like treads connecting on the backs, hindering Zhong Yue's and Qiu Jin'er's paths.

As they were running, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er had accidentally run into a few threads of the hairs. Immediately, the thin and yet seemingly feeble hairs had created deep cutting wounds on their considerably powerful mortal bodies!

Just as Qiu Jin'er was going to slow down her pace so that she could evade the thin hairs. Zhong Yue shouted in her ears and said, "No, Jin'er! Don't slow down, just stick close to me! Golden Peng Sword, come!"

The Golden Peng Sword flew out, and Zhong Yue clenched it. He flashed out like lightning and shouted, "Big!"

The golden sword enlarged into a thousand feet giant sword and Zhong Yue swung it like a child waving a broadsword.

Zheng, zheng, zheng --

Instantly as the golden sword was slashed over, the hairs were broken into halves, and the pallid faces fell back into the river.

However, with every thin hair he slashed through, he would stifle a deep groan as his muscles started to shake. Blood seeped out from his arms and cracks emerged on his hands!

These thin hairs were in fact, stronger and more durable than he imagined, even better than some of the god's corpse he had met. The counter-impact of continually hitting them still inflicted considerable damage to his body!

Huala--

A small island rose from the water surface, it was spherical in shape and appeared like a skull of a giant being. The blood-like water gushed out from the skull's eye sockets and jaws.

"Don't go!"

On the skull's head was the other end of the hairs that moved the faces. The pallid faces were flying everywhere in mid-air, but they were all staring at Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er, saying in unison, "Please, don't go, don't go! We are a family, and a family stays together!"

Zhong Yue gritted his teeth hard and strode faster than ever. The giant sword slashed even faster and heavier at the hairs as he forcibly opened a way through the faces. Meanwhile, Qiu Jin'er was feeling anxious and followed close to his back.

Suddenly, the water surface around them rose high, and another skull emerged. Hundreds of thin hairs curled together into a thick rope, hissing like a black serpent and slithered toward the two humans!

While on the serpent's head, it was formed by many pallid faces that were still shouting at Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er.

Husan Weng was clenching Zhong Yue's hairs with its carrot hands and shouted as well, looking at the incoming hairs in great terror.

Zhong Yue then immediately took out the shabby copper lamp, and he shouted out loud, "Xin Huo!"

A little flame flew out from his psyche ocean and entered the copper lamp. Right away, the copper lamp started emanating a faint and warm light and shone to the surroundings.

As the hairs entered the light radius of the copper lamp, it started burning, and the pallid faces were crying in pain. They all flew up and landed on the skull's head. Immediately, the skull head beneath them had over thousands of faces on them, burned and partially destroyed.

Zhong Yue held the copper lamp in one hand, and Qiu Jin'er in the other as he blasted out like an arrow. Wherever he went, the hair would move out of his path, returning to the skull's face.

The two of them dashed out like a flash of lightning. Suddenly, another huge skull rose from the bottom of the river again. Many pallid faces were flying out from the skull's head in all directions, and as soon as they came out, the lights of the copper lamp shone on them. Unsurprisingly, they let out a shrill cry and flew back to the skull's face.

Qiu Jin'er looked back and saw the three huge skulls paved with the many faces, forming into a bizarre head with eyes, mouths, ears and noses.

The three skulls were following behind them, they wanted to go nearer but were also afraid of the light.

The two of them were still striding forward. The Crimson Water River was huge and vast. It was miles in width, and it took a long time before the two of them reached the riverbank on the other side.

Zhong Yue turned his head and looked back. The three skulls stopped beside the riverbank, and the pallid faces fell off from the skulls. The three skulls then sunk into the waters while the faces floated on the river surface for some time before disappearing into the river as well.

"Phew..."

Zhong Yue heaved a long breath of relief, and he exchanged a look with Qiu Jin'er. They had just slipped through death's clutches while Husan Weng collapsed down on Zhong Yue's shoulder, panting heavily from terror.

The copper lamp then slowly dimmed down, and Xin Huo's feeble voice sounded in Zhong Yue's mind, "Brat Yue, I've lit the lamp twice in a row now, this took ... a great toll on my essence ... I have to ... rest, it will take ... some ... time ...to recove-...."

"Noo!"

Zhong Yue was shocked, but it was too late as the little flame had already fallen into a deep slumber.

After Kui Longzi and the others were killed, their Yuan Shen secret realms burst apart turned into the secret realm dimensions shrouded in godly rays.

The Heavenly Dharma secret realms could last for a few hundred years after the expert's death. Kui Longzi and his followers were the Heavenly Dharma Qi Practitioners, and thus, their secret realms remained.

"Expert of the Kui Long Celestial Race, I'm not afraid of you at all. The whole idea of ambushing with the array formation is to lure more idiots into my trap."

Yan Zhen sneered frigidly and flicked his finger, shattering the Yuan Shen secret realms into pieces. Immediately, the treasures contained in the secret realms rained down across the floor, including Kui Longzi's divine weapon.

"Divine herb!"

Yan Zhen kept the divine weapon, and his eyes brightened up as he gazed at the one-person tall jade vase. There was a divine herb blooming intriguingly in the jade vase. It looked like a soaring phoenix and contained immense Wood Qi; it emanated a vigorous force of vitality!

It was as if the divine herb were alive, casting the totem patterns around it and pouncing around incessantly in the jade vase. It tried to escape from the jade vase but it was to no avail. The jade vase seemed to be a unique soul weapon meant to trap and contain the treasures.

"The Phoenix God Plant! These Kun Lun Qi Practitioners are really not weak either, to be able to capture a divine herb!"

It was the first time Yan Zhen was seen with a surprised expression on his face. He raised his hand and kept the Phoenix God Plant in his Yuan Shen secret realms. He then glanced at the dead bodies on the ground, and suddenly, some noises came rushing into his ears. Happiness flashed past Yan Zhen's eyes, and he whispered, "Demon slave, clear the bodies and leave no tracks behind!"

Black smoke billowed behind him, and a huge creature walked out of the dark smoke. It opened its mouth wide, and with its long and barb-like tongue, it curled on the bodies and ate them one by one.

The demon creature then opened its mouth wider and sucked all of the treasures into its stomach.

A wave of darkness swallowed the place, and as soon as lights shone again, the demon creature disappeared.

"Some celestial idiots again, I wonder what I will plunder this time."

Yan Zhen swung his hand and ploughed the garden, turning the blood-soaked soil around and burying the banners in the ground. He then turned into a wave of billowing smoke and dispersed in thin air.

...

On the Crimson Water River, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er were walking on the water surface while the huge carrot, Husan Weng shrunk his body into a 3-4-inch-tall carrot and stood on Zhong Yue's shoulder. Its so-called hair was waving in the breeze while it stared carefully at the river and was mumbling incessantly, "Don't come out, don't come out..."

Zhong Yue's brow raised high as he noticed a face floating up from the bottom of the red waters, it was pallid and white like snow, dying the red river with a different color.

"Don't move, act dead." Husan Weng said terrifyingly.

Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er then quickly stopped, they stood unmoving on the river surface and watched as one pallid face after another floated up and filled the river surface. Moments later, the whole river was dyed white by the pallid faces.

Abruptly, the pallid face right below Zhong Yue opened up. There were no eyeballs, and the empty eye sockets were filled with green burning flames.

Then the faces across the water surface opened their eyes as well, painting the red with some greenish, burning dots.

The breeze blew over, but the little flames were unaffected.

Cold sweat slowly seeped out from Zhong Yue's and Qiu Jin'er's pores. They were trying their best at maintaining their current posture and meticulously surged their arcane energies so that they would not plunge into the water.

Aren't the gods in the Returning Ruins cursed and turned into skeletons? Why are there suddenly so many faces? Who are they and why didn't they turn into bones?

Zhong Yue looked at the faces floating on the river survive, it felt like the eyes were staring at him as he thought, Where do they come from?

These faces weren't looking the same, some of them belonged to the monsters, some demons; the birds and the dragons, the beasts and the creatures. Even more, there were also a few faces belonged to the young ladies of the Western Mother Celestial Race, so beautiful and well-preserved that they looked as though they were real.

Suddenly, his body stiffened up, he saw some threads connecting the back of the faces and oscillated freely with the flow of water, lending some liveliness to the dead faces.

While on the other end of the faces, there were many thin and narrow treads linking them to the bottommost of the river where an immense darkness engulfed it. So dark that even Zhong Yue couldn't see through the shadows and reach to the end.

What will be there, at the bottom end of the river? Just thinking of it bristled Zhong Yue's hairs in terror.

Moments later, these faces then finally closed their eyes, they then slowly sunk back into the river bottom.

Husan Weng heaved a breath of relief, its hairs softened down and said, "They didn't notice us..."

The huge carrot then started boasting, "If it weren't for me, you two would be one of them already! I, Husan Weng..."

Qiu Jin'er smiled and said, "Didn't you say that you are a big figure in the Returning Ruins and that anything you do can ... can scare the shit out of them?" She blushed as she felt embarrassed at cursing in front of Zhong Yue.

The carrot, however, was nonchalant and replied, "Didn't you realize that I was just holding back to test your capabilities in handling the situation? Those faces were just like you - they have traveled across the river and somehow, alerted the big guys beneath the river and oh uh, bad luck for them, the big guys have skinned their faces away. It's just their hobbies, collecting different kind of faces and I don't know, appreciate the beauty of the many faces?"

Qiu Jin'er was shocked, the faces that filled the river surface comes from many races and from what she had seen, these skinned faces could easily exceed a ten thousand in numbers. Doesn't that mean that there were over ten thousand of cultivators were killed by the big guys and skinned off their faces?

Zhong Yue's face suddenly changed drastically, his muscles stiffened up and whispered softly, "There are still a few faces left!"

Husan Weng's heart skipped a beat and pounded heavily, it quickly looked over at the direction Zhong Yue was pointing at, and indeed, there were a still a few faces floating on the river surface, their greenish burning flames were looking at them.

The carrot's leaves bristled right up as if it were struck by lightning. It screamed from the top of its lungs -assuming it even had any- and shouted, "RUN!!!"

Without further due, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er raised their speed to the peak in seconds and blasted out like a flash of lightning.

Boom! Boom!

Despite them traipsing across the river surface, their speeds were no weaker than traveling on the ground. Two blunt sounds blasted the air as they broke through the sound barrier and stirred the river waters while leaving two trails of sky-high waves behind them!

Meanwhile, right at the moment they moved, the faces that had sunk into the river bottom shot out from the water surface and hung in mid-air.

These pallid faces seemed contorted in pain as they pierced through the clouds with grievous cries of agony.

Even so, there were still a nearly infinite number of faces extruding out from the red river, with the hair-like treads connecting on the backs, hindering Zhong Yue's and Qiu Jin'er's paths.

As they were running, Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er had accidentally run into a few threads of the hairs. Immediately, the thin and yet seemingly feeble hairs had created deep cutting wounds on their considerably powerful mortal bodies!

Just as Qiu Jin'er was going to slow down her pace so that she could evade the thin hairs. Zhong Yue shouted in her ears and said, "No, Jin'er! Don't slow down, just stick close to me! Golden Peng Sword, come!"

The Golden Peng Sword flew out, and Zhong Yue clenched it. He flashed out like lightning and shouted, "Big!"

The golden sword enlarged into a thousand feet giant sword and Zhong Yue swung it like a child waving a broadsword.

Zheng, zheng, zheng --

Instantly as the golden sword was slashed over, the hairs were broken into halves, and the pallid faces fell back into the river.

However, with every thin hair he slashed through, he would stifle a deep groan as his muscles started to shake. Blood seeped out from his arms and cracks emerged on his hands!

These thin hairs were in fact, stronger and more durable than he imagined, even better than some of the god's corpse he had met. The counter-impact of continually hitting them still inflicted considerable damage to his body!

Huala--

A small island rose from the water surface, it was spherical in shape and appeared like a skull of a giant being. The blood-like water gushed out from the skull's eye sockets and jaws.

"Don't go!"

On the skull's head was the other end of the hairs that moved the faces. The pallid faces were flying everywhere in mid-air, but they were all staring at Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er, saying in unison, "Please, don't go, don't go! We are a family, and a family stays together!"

Zhong Yue gritted his teeth hard and strode faster than ever. The giant sword slashed even faster and heavier at the hairs as he forcibly opened a way through the faces. Meanwhile, Qiu Jin'er was feeling anxious and followed close to his back.

Suddenly, the water surface around them rose high, and another skull emerged. Hundreds of thin hairs curled together into a thick rope, hissing like a black serpent and slithered toward the two humans!

While on the serpent's head, it was formed by many pallid faces that were still shouting at Zhong Yue and Qiu Jin'er.

Husan Weng was clenching Zhong Yue's hairs with its carrot hands and shouted as well, looking at the incoming hairs in great terror.

Zhong Yue then immediately took out the shabby copper lamp, and he shouted out loud, "Xin Huo!"

A little flame flew out from his psyche ocean and entered the copper lamp. Right away, the copper lamp started emanating a faint and warm light and shone to the surroundings.

As the hairs entered the light radius of the copper lamp, it started burning, and the pallid faces were crying in pain. They all flew up and landed on the skull's head. Immediately, the skull head beneath them had over thousands of faces on them, burned and partially destroyed.

Zhong Yue held the copper lamp in one hand, and Qiu Jin'er in the other as he blasted out like an arrow. Wherever he went, the hair would move out of his path, returning to the skull's face.

The two of them dashed out like a flash of lightning. Suddenly, another huge skull rose from the bottom of the river again. Many pallid faces were flying out from the skull's head in all directions, and as soon as they came out, the lights of the copper lamp shone on them. Unsurprisingly, they let out a shrill cry and flew back to the skull's face.

Qiu Jin'er looked back and saw the three huge skulls paved with the many faces, forming into a bizarre head with eyes, mouths, ears and noses.

The three skulls were following behind them, they wanted to go nearer but were also afraid of the light.

The two of them were still striding forward. The Crimson Water River was huge and vast. It was miles in width, and it took a long time before the two of them reached the riverbank on the other side.

Zhong Yue turned his head and looked back. The three skulls stopped beside the riverbank, and the pallid faces fell off from the skulls. The three skulls then sunk into the waters while the faces floated on the river surface for some time before disappearing into the river as well.

"Phew..."

Zhong Yue heaved a long breath of relief, and he exchanged a look with Qiu Jin'er. They had just slipped through death's clutches while Husan Weng collapsed down on Zhong Yue's shoulder, panting heavily from terror.

The copper lamp then slowly dimmed down, and Xin Huo's feeble voice sounded in Zhong Yue's mind, "Brat Yue, I've lit the lamp twice in a row now, this took ... a great toll on my essence ... I have to ... rest, it will take ... some ... time ...to recove-...."

"Noo!"

Zhong Yue was shocked, but it was too late as the little flame had already fallen into a deep slumber.