Chapter 171: Killing Gods, the Feast Begins

Chapter 171: The God of Slaughter, Feast Begins

A group returned to the village, passing by the dilapidated temple.

Suddenly a sturdy man said, "Since the Foxtail Grass God is gone, why don't we sell his statue... maybe we can get some grain in exchange."

The others all looked at the broken statue, their eyes gleaming.

"The Foxtail Grass God's statue could probably fetch a few hundred cornbreads, right?" The fat man's eyes shone.

Shen Tu immediately grew anxious: "The deity has protected our Qingshui Village for so long—how can we smash the statue!"

If the statue were smashed, he as the priest would have no standing at all.

"The Foxtail Grass God blessed us in life; after falling, he surely wouldn't watch us starve and would be willing to sacrifice himself for us," the fat man said.

The other villagers also stared at the statue, eyes glittering.

Since the Foxtail Grass God was born from the statue, he hadn't really protected Qingshui Village much.

After all, the village had no food or offerings back then.

The Foxtail Grass God might have long since fled or starved to death.

"If we smash the statue, Qingshui Village will suffer divine wrath, and no deity will ever protect us again!" Shen Tu said anxiously.

The statue's existence meant the legacy remained.

If they prayed devoutly, knelt, and offered sacrifices, perhaps a new deity would emerge from the statue.

"This statue is too low-level. We can't even feed ourselves—how can we make offerings and think of the future?

I think selling it for money is better—enjoy ourselves before we die!"

"Right, most villages around here worship new gods.

Those of us who don't believe in new gods will be killed off sooner or later.

Might as well trade the statue for cash.

I hear the Fairy Temple on Old Immortal Mountain has some beautiful female demons, each like a celestial maiden descended to earth.

For just a few coins, you can spend a night with those demons, blissful as immortals." The fat man's eyes lit up.

The temple on Old Immortal Mountain had many alluring female demons, specializing in draining life essence, running an euthanasia business.

But before death, those demons would serve you wholeheartedly, letting those who wished to die experience the ultimate tenderness of the world before their end.

In the surrounding villages, people who couldn't go on often saved up for euthanasia.

Anyway, the Fairy Temple on Old Immortal Mountain was always busy.

For decades, prices never rose—it was considered a blessed immortal abode.

The villagers of Qingshui Village were trapped in the village, lacking food and drink, with no hope in life.

If they died in the Fairy Temple, it would actually be a good thing for them.

"No!" Shen Tu blocked the temple entrance. "A while ago, I heard the statue manifest—it seemed a deity was born inside!"

"Shen Tu, stop making things up. No one here offers sacrifices—how could a new deity appear?"

"Unless someone has been secretly worshipping?"

"What if Shen Tu is telling the truth? After all, a newborn deity is also a life. If we sell the statue, it will die young!"

The villagers argued among themselves.

Some wanted to sell the statue, others hesitated.

"I think Shen Tu is just making it up because he doesn't want to lose his position as priest," an old man said weakly, wanting only a quick euthanasia.

Nearly a hundred villagers made up Qingshui Village's able-bodied force.

They were the ones who went for water raids and hunting.

But now, most of them were skin and bones from hunger.

The village chief, Yu Lei, watched this scene, his old eyes murky, saying nothing.

That Qingshui Village, once proud, should fall by his hand—it was truly... a disgrace.

He would become a sinner.

Just then, suddenly, a fierce wind swept through.

The villagers were momentarily stunned.

They saw the dilapidated statue suddenly explode.

"What's happening?"

"The statue exploded?"

"Damn it, no money!"

The villagers were full of regret.

The statue meant money!

But at that moment, a light, airy voice sounded: "A new game? My subjects?"

Everyone turned to look, and there in the ruined temple stood an extraordinarily handsome man.

On his back was a sword, and his entire bearing was extraordinary.

"A deity?"

"God!"

The villagers present were stunned.

Because they clearly sensed that this man was their deity.

They found his sudden appearance inexplicable.

After all, since the Foxtail Grass God had vanished, how could another god be born in Qingshui Village?

They had made no offerings, nor prayed devoutly.

This deity that emerged... was probably the weakest kind, right?

And the statue's shattering meant this was Qingshui Village's last god.

Their minds churned; the broken statue brought them some sorrow.

No more euthanasia.

"Let's go."

"Everyone back home."

These villagers were not as reverent toward the deity as legends said.

Still, most stayed, watching the newborn god.

One old man even dared to ask, "Your Holiness, are you hungry? I have half a cornbread at home—would you like some?"

This deity was, of course, Qi Yuan, who had entered the game.

Hearing these words, a thread of strange unease crept into his heart.

“I am either a deity or a player, how could I possibly feel hunger?” Qi Yuan declared, as if it were the most natural law of the universe.

Yet at that exact moment, a treacherous, low rumble echoed through the air.

The gathered villagers all fixed their eyes upon Qi Yuan, their expressions alight with a collective, knowing amusement.

Qi Yuan himself froze, utterly stupefied.

For that treacherous rumble had undeniably betrayed him, emanating directly from his own midsection.

Against all reason, his stomach was growling with a desperate emptiness.

It defied all comprehension; anyone who had achieved Foundation Establishment was supposed to be sustained by air alone, freed from mortal sustenance.

He was a true Master of the Primal Core now, so how could hunger dare touch him?

“Great Deity, you had best rest yourself before you starve to death,” the local villagers chimed in, their voices tinged with dry irony.

Seeing this, Shen Tu gritted his teeth and dashed behind the shrine, emerging to proffer a half-eaten flatbread to Qi Yuan.

Staring at the dry crust which still bore the distinct imprint of someone else's teeth, Qi Yuan turned his head away in disgust: “Is this the meager slop you offer to your sovereign god?”

Instantly, the courtyard erupted into a wave of hearty laughter from the villagers.

“Great Deity, having anything at all to chew on is a blessing in these times!”

“Do not turn your nose up at it; if you delay any longer, even this will vanish!”

These peasants seemed altogether too familiar with such absurd spectacles.

As Qi Yuan surveyed the crowd, a flash of genuine astonishment flickered within his gaze.

He discerned three who possessed the divine Infant Soul, while every single soul remaining held the rank of Primal Core.

A gathering of such formidable power could easily establish a dominant sect back in the Great Shang Kingdom, living in absolute luxury and terrorizing lesser mortals.

Yet in this wretched realm, they lived like starving vagrants?

It was a spectacle of the highest absurdity.

Furthermore, why on earth were these cultivators, himself included, plagued by the gnawing pangs of hunger?

“As my chosen subjects, you have truly disappointed me to the core!” Qi Yuan barked.

Upon arriving in this strange world, the very first quest bestowed upon him was to assume the mantle of protector deity for Qingshi Village, keeping its flock safe.

“Great Deity, why not grant us your divine blessing so we can march forth and annihilate those bastards over at Stone Village?” the stout man from earlier suggested.

In truth, he harbored no illusions that this newborn deity possessed any surplus divine energy to bestow upon them.

Starving to such a pathetic degree, this god would likely prove no more potent than the previous, useless Weed Deity.

At that moment, Qi Yuan cast his gaze upward toward the vast vault of heaven.

He saw the celestial canopy crowded with a dense tapestry of stars.

The most radiant among them was a star stained a deep, ominous crimson.

The sun and moon of the Blue Vast Realm were nowhere to be found in this sky.

Piercing the stellar expanse with a single look, Qi Yuan instantly located his own Golden Core nestled among the cosmic lights.

“Why bother with blessings when I can simply ride out and slaughter them myself?” In accepting the quest, Qi Yuan had also absorbed a fragment of the fractured memories lingering within the ancient idols.

This domain was known as the Mortal Heart Realm.

Here, mortals offered worship to deities, receiving divine blessings or protection in return.

In reciprocal fashion, the mortals were bound to honor their gods, providing sacrifices and sustenance.

The relationship between god and mortal was one of mutual dependence.

When a deity grew powerful, the mortals under its wing flourished in strength as well.

This in turn allowed them to offer grander sacrifices and richer foods to aid their god's ascension.

However, several millennia ago, the sudden descent of New Gods shattered the ancient equilibrium of this world.

An increasing number of villages, grand cities, and entire empires chose to bow before these new entities.

The New Gods were far more potent, and infinitely more malevolent.

Those who pledged their souls to the New Gods found their minds and spirits warped, succumbing to a feral bloodlust that drove them to constant warfare against neighboring settlements.

Qingshi Village had originally shared a border with Shijia Village, each controlling a branch of the river, coexisting in a fragile peace.

Yet everything fractured when Shijia Village abruptly turned its devotion to a New God.

They launched vicious incursions against Qingshi Village, driven by a desire to seize the remaining stream.

In every skirmish that followed, Qingshi Village suffered bitter defeat; after all, lacking the blessing of a guardian deity, their warriors possessed no supernatural enhancement.

“Let a few men step forward to guide the way; I shall go and slay the New God of Shijia Village myself!” Qi Yuan commanded.

The gathered villagers exchanged bewildered glances, completely dumbfounded.

They had lived out the better part of their lives, yet never had they heard of a deity personally marching into a rival village to do battle with another god.

In the natural order of things, should a god not simply bless his followers and send them to fight in his stead?

“Great Deity, surely you cannot be serious?” The stout man found himself thoroughly stunned.

Once a deity ventured beyond the threshold of its shrine, its divine authority would inevitably wane.

For this reason, no matter how catastrophic the wars raged between villages, no deity would ever dream of joining the fray in person.

The absolute limit of their intervention was the granting of blessings.

Yet this entity before them spoke openly of personal slaughter from the very moment of his arrival.

The notion felt entirely unbefitting, a bizarre inversion of reality.

What kind of deity would lower themselves to such a vulgar, unseemly display?

“Lead on without delay, my stomach is hollow and I am eager to attend the funeral feast!” Qi Yuan grumbled impatiently.

These ragged, half-starved peasants bore absolutely no resemblance to exalted cultivators.

For all he knew, they probably had to empty their own chamber pots every single morning upon waking.

“A funeral feast?” The stout man swallowed hard, utterly lost in confusion.

“Once I slay their god, they will naturally have to hold a wake, and I can slip in to gorge myself on their food,” Qi Yuan remarked, silently applauding his own brilliant intellect.

What more elegant method could there possibly be to secure a free meal?

“There does seem to be a certain twisted logic to that,” Shen Tu, the divine official, murmured thoughtfully.

The village chief, however, intervened: “Great Deity, you are newly born and your power is still fragile; to recklessly invade Shijia Village is to court grave peril.”

The stout man nodded in agreement: “Once you step outside the sanctuary of the shrine, your divine radiance will diminish, rendering you weaker and far more vulnerable to being consumed by rivals.”

Though Qi Yuan's proposal of killing a god to crash a funeral feast sounded deeply amusing, it lacked any practical realism.

“What peril? The brow above my left eye has been twitching incessantly, which always heralds a massive windfall of fortune!” The more Qi Yuan spoke, the sharper his hunger grew. “You are the divine official—come, lead the way at once, and waste no more of my time!”

Shen Tu's expression shifted through a rapid succession of doubts: “Does the Great Deity truly refuse to reconsider this path?”

The others could still refuse the gods, but as a priest, he could not.

“Go!” Qi Yuan waited for the feast to begin.

Shen Tu’s face showed helplessness, and at last he said, “I shall lead the divine lord there!”

With that, he pushed through the crowd.

Qi Yuan followed Shen Tu, walking out of the village.

The remaining villagers watched this scene, all finding it utterly baffling.

“Is this new god… brain-damaged?”

“Alas, it’s our fault for not offering good sacrifices—the god is malnourished, his brain not fully developed!”

“Village chief, the god going like this is suicide. What should we do?” the fat man asked the village chief, Yu Lei.

“This god is newly born—how can he be a match for the evil god of Shi Family Village?” another villager sighed.

And going to the enemy’s own turf!

This was pure suicide.

Village chief Yu Lei’s expression shifted, uncertain, but finally he said, “Let’s go. We follow him!”

Of the villagers present, about two-thirds chose to go with the chief.

The rest couldn’t be bothered to watch the spectacle.

After all, that god’s fate was sealed; better to go back and eat some cornbread now.

“Divine lord, are you the Origin Heavenly Venerable?” on the road, Shen Tu couldn’t help asking.

In his last dream, he seemed to have heard the name Origin Heavenly Venerable.

“Yes.” Qi Yuan looked at Shen Tu. “You, a dignified Divine Infant cultivator—how did you end up so miserable?”

Qi Yuan found it hard to understand.

“No reliable backing, no money, no food,” Shen Tu said weakly.

“No reliable backing” naturally referred to the god worshipped by Qingshui Village.

“Generally speaking, once you reach the Foundation Establishment stage, don’t you not need to eat?” Qi Yuan asked.

He was hungry himself now, and he found it strange.

“Not eat? Wouldn’t not eating mean death?” Shen Tu looked at Qi Yuan with equal puzzlement.

“Alright.” Qi Yuan could only attribute this to different worlds, different customs.

“Divine lord…”

“Hm?”

“That flatbread I gave you earlier—are you sure you won’t eat it?” Shen Tu clutched tightly the flatbread with teeth marks, stealing glances at Qi Yuan as if afraid he might eat it.

Qi Yuan saw this and was speechless: “I won’t eat it!”

Hearing this, Shen Tu beamed with joy: “Good, then I can fill my stomach before dying. Even if I die, I won’t be a starving ghost.”

“To have a lackey like you is truly my… blessing.” Qi Yuan was resigned.

This Qingshui Village was dirt poor—probably didn’t even have a suona horn.

Otherwise, he’d have Shen Tu help him form a band.

Shen Tu ignored Qi Yuan’s words, wolfing down the flatbread as if afraid Qi Yuan would snatch it.

And at that moment, Qi Yuan stopped.

From the village ahead came the sound of gongs and drums.

“They’re quite lively over there,” Qi Yuan remarked.

Shen Tu looked at the village of a hundred households before them.

“Today is the day of sacrifice. They’re offering three male children to the new god to eat.” Shen Tu’s expression grew heavy. “These damn new gods are all evil gods—what god ever eats humans!”

According to the records of the Ancient Clan, gods were mighty humans, heroic spirits who died fighting for humanity.

These spirits guarded humans, mutually benefiting each other.

The new gods, the evil gods, fed on humans instead.

And at this moment, Qi Yuan’s gaze pierced through the village; he saw a weeping woman and a man pinned to the ground.

“Wuwu, Xiao Qian, Xiao Qian…” the woman wailed and struggled.

Because among the offerings this time was her young child.

“Sister Li, it is our honor to offer sacrifices to the god!” said a burly man, one of his eyes flickering with bloodlight.

This showed he had already been influenced by the new god, gradually assimilated, and would soon become the god’s most loyal guard.

Another man sighed, “Over a dozen children each year in exchange for good weather in our Shi Family Village—this deal is worth it.”

“Sister Li, look at neighboring Qingshui Village—they refused to believe in the new god. Look at them now. In another month, everyone there… will probably die,” said a fat, big-eared man, his hand stroking the woman’s chin.

“Pah! Evil god!” The woman spat a glob of phlegm onto the fat man.

The man’s face instantly darkened: “Sister Li, I spoke to you nicely, but you won’t listen. It seems you are disloyal to the god—send her to the Red Pen!”

Hearing this, the woman struggled even more fiercely.

The man pinned to the ground shed tears from his tiger-like eyes.

Since the new gods appeared, a new term had entered the world.

The Red Pen.

The new gods loved to eat young children.

But what if there weren’t enough children?

Then they would specially pen up some women, lock them in the Red Pen, and use them solely for… breeding.

This kind of behavior treated humans like pigs.

It could be called utterly heinous.

“This Shi Family Village is the domain of us Shis. You Wangs, behave yourselves. If you anger me, I’ll send you all to the Red Pen!” said the fat, big-eared man.

Shi Family Village wasn’t exclusively surnamed Shi; there were other surnames too.

But the summoning of the new god had been orchestrated by the largest Shi family in the village.

Because of that, that family truly held complete control over Shi Family Village.

As for the others, they had anger but dared not speak.

Offend the house of Shi Dalang, and they might offer your child to the new god!

“Heaven has no eyes, letting you evil gods descend…” the woman wailed.

The fat, big-eared man laughed: “What evil god? This is a true god, the future ruler of the Mortal Heart Realm!”

Everyone knew that the new gods were slowly devouring the territories of the old gods.

Now in the Mortal Realm, two-thirds of the regions worship the New Gods.

The Old Gods struggle on, but before long, they will be utterly annihilated.

"Evil God, come out quickly and meet your death!"

"I'm hungry, waiting for you to die so we can feast!"

Just then, a clear voice rang out from the sky, and two figures appeared in the heavens.

One was Shen Tu, the other was Qi Yuan.

The people of Shijia Village, seeing the two in the air, showed expressions of surprise.

"The deity of Qingshui Village?"

"A new Ancient God?"

"Come to Shijia Village to die?"

Many villagers surnamed Shi had red glints in their eyes.

If this were in Qingshui Village or in a temple, they might still be afraid.

But here was Shijia Village, their home ground.

They were both puzzled and astonished.

Was this Ancient God's mind addled? How dare he leave his temple and come here?

Generally speaking, gods rarely leave their own temples or domains.

Meanwhile, the woman on the ground, gazing at Qi Yuan in the sky, her eyes full of devotion, kept kowtowing until blood covered her forehead: "O God, save my son."

Just then, a seductive voice came.

"Oh my, a newborn little cutie has come to me—do you want to merge with big sister?"

A wolf-dog in a blood-red long dress appeared, looking extremely bizarre.

The villagers of Shijia Village, seeing the deity manifest, all knelt down.

"We pay homage to the deity!"

The New God was the true god, their sky.

The fat-headed, big-eared man stared at the wolf-dog woman with fanatical fervor.

As for the newly born Ancient God of Qingshui Village—what was he worth?

Shen Tu stood beside Qi Yuan, trembling, but remembering he had eaten some cakes and thus had not lost out, he grew bolder.

"Presumptuous evil god, bringing calamity to the mortal world! The deity of our Qingshui Village shall slay you!"

(End of this chapter)