novelraw Chapter 326 : Who Is the Real Hunter
Chapter 326 : Who Is the Real Hunter
Chu Sang was suddenly pulled into the center of the sand vortex. Within a few breaths, more than half of her body had sunk in.
Ji Mo Shan, standing nearby, quickly tried to pull her out, nearly getting both of them trapped. The vortex seemed to possess an immense suction force, frantically pulling them downward, sinking deeper and deeper.
Simultaneously, thousands of sword shadows appeared overhead, threatening to descend at any moment and slaughter everyone.
Panic reached its peak in an instant.
"What do we do now? Are we going to die here?" Ji Mo Shan was terrified. Apart from the previous time when they were chased by fierce beasts, this was the second most life-threatening situation he had encountered.
Last time, at least Chu Sang had descended from the sky to save them. This time, she was trapped in the predicament with them. Where could they find help now?
"Don't panic, they're here," Chu Sang said softly.
"Huh?"
Ji Mo Shan was stunned for a moment, then suddenly sensed something. Following her gaze, he saw another large group of people approaching under the sky. The attire these people wore was all too familiar to her—they were from the Yu family!
The Quan family members outside also panicked, their hands suddenly in disarray, nearly causing the formation they were maintaining to collapse.
"The Yu family? How could the Yu family possibly come here? Didn't they withdraw from the world long ago?"
"Stop talking, let's go quickly!"
The Yu family had brought far more people than they had. If they weren't mistaken, the person leading them was none other than the legendary head of the Yu family, one of the strongest deities in the Upper Realm! All the dirty deeds the Quan family had been doing over the years were carried out in secret, how could they possibly have been discovered? To think the Yu family head would come in person!!!
How could they arrive so timely? Could someone have sent a message in advance?
As panicked as the Quan family members were, they had no time to think further. There was no way to escape, and they were quickly subdued by the Yu family's troops.
As for the entrapment formation, it was complex but not insurmountable. Chu Sang spent some time dismantling it, leading her dozens of deities out of the formation to join the Yu family's forces.
Who was the real hunter?
The answer was clear.
"Thanks to your risk-taking in luring the snake out of its hole, we've managed to flush out those behind this," the family head said with a smile.
If it weren't for Chu Sang leading her people to act as bait in this risky operation, they might not have obtained evidence against the Quan family so easily, capturing so many "witnesses" at once.
"It was the family head's foresight," Chu Sang politely complimented in return.
This plan was a last-minute strategy devised by Chu Sang and the family head to lure out the enemy.
In fact, the Yu family head had been suspicious for some time. Most of the properties under attack belonged to the Yu family, while the Quan family's assets had suffered little damage. She didn't believe this could be mere coincidence.
Moreover, this wasn't the first time the Quan family had targeted the Yu family in secret.
Her suspicions were natural. However, she was also reluctant to believe that the Quan family would truly commit such atrocities against deities!
Even if these acts were indeed committed by the Quan family, the Yu family lacked concrete evidence. This time, by capturing solid proof, they could announce it to the Upper Realm, dealing a fatal blow to the Quan family.
Chu Sang wasn't particularly interested in the affairs between the major families of the Upper Realm. Her true enemies were only Quan Yi and the Quan family. If the Yu family could gain an advantage and suppress the Quan family because of this, it would naturally be beneficial for her as well.
However, besides this, there was one more thing she wanted to know.
"May I ask the family head a question?" she inquired.
"Please, go ahead."
"What exactly was that black energy surrounding Quan Yi's body?"
The only regret was that they hadn't captured Quan Yi, who had escaped again. If it weren't for that strange black energy at the last moment, her sword would have certainly beheaded him.
"...If I'm not mistaken, that black energy on his body must be the legendary source of evil spirits," the Yu family head said after a moment of silence. She muttered to herself, "No wonder evil spirits have reappeared in the world. The source of evil spirits was actually residing in his body..."
Chu Sang's heart suddenly skipped a beat. Her understanding of the Upper Realm was still too limited, and her knowledge of evil spirits was confined to the few words mentioned by the Ji Mo Shan sisters. It seemed the family head knew much more. "Could you tell me more about this?" she asked.
"This is a long story. You just saw those black shadows summoned through sacrifice. These are called evil spirits, and they are extremely dangerous. They devour the consciousness of deities, assimilating them into these monstrous evil spirits. They can even transform an entire Upper Realm into a playground for evil spirits in an extremely short time. When that happens, the Upper Realm will cease to exist," the family head explained.
"How are these evil spirits created? I saw them grab a deity and throw them into the sacrificial formation, and then those evil spirits were summoned. Were they summoned through those formations?" Chu Sang asked.
The family head shook her head and said, "To be precise, it's not that the sacrificed deities become evil spirits after death. Evil spirits are born from the dark side of deities—fear, anger, pain... these are all nutrients for evil spirits to grow. By making deities experience extreme fear before death, they can cultivate the strongest evil spirits."
Chu Sang found this utterly bizarre and clicked her tongue. "How could such strange things be born in the Upper Realm?"
"How long evil spirits have coexisted with the Upper Realm can be traced back to a very, very distant history. According to literature, it seems that traces of evil spirits existed even in the first era when the Upper Realm was established... However, that time is too far removed from the present, and our generation of deities is not clear about the earliest history of the Upper Realm," the family head sighed and continued.
"In the records left by the Yu family, the Upper Realm has been invaded by evil spirits more than once. The war between evil spirits and the Upper Realm has continued for an unknown duration, and it has always been difficult to eradicate them completely."
"Until many years ago, when the entire Upper Realm was invaded on a large scale by resurgent evil spirits. Fortunately, divine beings descended, and the evil spirits were burned by the fire of creation."
"Everyone thought that the evil spirits had been completely incinerated in that war and would never have the possibility of revival. But no one expected that the evil spirits from that time hadn't been completely eradicated, and a source remained dormant within Quan Yi's body."
The family head looked at Chu Sang, "You are a deity who ascended from the Lower Realm and haven't heard about the history of the Upper Realm. You probably don't know how terrifyingly persistent these evil spirits are. As long as a source remains, even a tiny fragment of the source that hasn't been completely eradicated, they will seize any opportunity to make a comeback, endlessly reproducing and expanding... But in the end, it was our oversight. We didn't expect the evil spirits to leave behind a source, let alone that the source would reside in the body of the Quan family's second young master..."
However, it was too late for regrets now. The evil spirits had re-emerged and would rapidly expand in a short time. The current Quan Yi had long been controlled by evil spirits, and with the backing of the entire Quan family, the evil spirits' erosion of the Upper Realm would be even more rapid.
"Is there any way to truly kill him?" Chu Sang suddenly asked.