Six Days in a Deserted Village (XI)
The corpse of Yue Zushen was indeed huge.
It almost filled the entire coffin, its skin and flesh were firm and plump, its eyes were closed, its face was peaceful, and its hands were placed on its chest. If you didn't look closely, you would mistakenly think that its chest was rising and falling, but that it was just asleep.
The corpse's face was quite beautiful, but the limbs on its back ruined the beauty. Nine arms grew out from the sides of the body, squeezed together on both sides of the shoulders, and each hand had nine fingers, which made my scalp tingle.
What's more... only the upper body was left after being bitten.
A large hole had been eaten away at the corpse's abdomen, with the remaining waist and legs missing. Some residue remained at the bottom of the empty coffin, reminding everyone of its existence.
The edges of the bites were jagged, and the tooth marks didn't look like they were made by humans, but rather like they were made unconsciously by a hungry animal.
Xu Wei immediately thought of the fox fairy.
The village chief had moved a corpse before, and the process had to be concealed, so he couldn't gather too many people to help, as too few people would easily make them lose their guard.
Perhaps something went wrong along the way, allowing the fox fairy, who was still a weasel, to steal the corpse, which is why the latter gained intelligence.
Sun Yi obviously thought the same thing as her: "The fox fairy also said that Yue Zu Shen would take priority over it."
Xu Wei stroked his chin and fell into deep thought.
Considering the previous inference that the ancestor’s divine power was becoming weaker and weaker, the loss of divine power may be due to two reasons.
First, it passes naturally over time.
Second, the power is taken away by other evil things.
If the fox fairy gains some power by devouring corpses, it will aggravate the weakness of Yue Zu Shen. The latter will find it difficult to influence reality on his own and can only rely on the fox fairy body that has some of his power.
This is why the fox fairy was chosen among so many humans in the village.
"I don't understand. Didn't they say before that the Yuezu God could return to his peak through the power of sacrifice? They did it twenty times..." Chen Yu was puzzled.
Is it that the setting of this copy is that sacrifice is meaningless?
But the village chief was clearly very afraid that the sacrifice would be interrupted.
Xu Wei's clear thoughts became confused again.
Sun Yida said: "I have another question. What do the nine arms and fingers of the corpse mean?"
In the portraits and statues of the village chief’s house, the body of the Yuezu God is clearly shown with normal limbs.
It must have a special meaning.
Lu Fanye said solemnly: "Either the portrait was modified in later generations, or it can continue to grow after death."
This question had to be answered by the village chief, but after realizing that he was trapped and the sacrifice could not continue, he felt as if the sky was falling and the earth was collapsing, and he did not respond no matter how much he was threatened.
Everyone couldn't help but recall what Lu Fanye had just said.
He is afraid of something else.
Zhang Hao frowned: "Besides Yue Zu Shen, are there any other evil gods in the village?"
"No way, this dungeon has only been going on for six days, and it's already the third day. We've been investigating for so long and didn't find any relevant clues. Now you tell me there's something else, so we have to start all over again?" Lu Qian complained, "The bracelet doesn't even have any task prompts so far. What a crap dungeon!"
Chen Yu hurriedly comforted him: "Okay, don't worry, the copy will not give irrelevant clues. Even if it is useless, there are still clues. In addition to the information we found before about Yue Zu Shen, are there two more strange stories? Mrs. Zhang and Wang Niu, maybe they are related to them."
Lu Qian: "Didn't Xu Wei experience both? She didn't find anything wrong?"
Xu Wei did not find anything wrong. These two ghosts were ridiculously weak to her and should not be strong enough for a BOSS.
She took a deep breath.
What is important is the other information hidden in the strange stories.
"Little boy."
If the story of the graveyard nursery rhyme is true, then it has always been present in the story, but its identity has been strangely hidden.
Xu Wei had only vaguely guessed that it was not simple, but she was not sure that it was the final big BOSS. After all, the power of the little boy on the grave was not strong enough to kill her, and he was successfully killed.
But along the way to the Yuezu Temple, first the temple that had been worshipping for a thousand years was powerless to resist, then the corpse of the evil god was stolen and moved by his descendants, and finally even most of his body was eaten...
Which evil god who dominates a region would live such a miserable life?
Xu Wei even suspected that Yue Zushen took on the form of a fox fairy and attacked the players at night in order to give them a hint.
"The little boy on the grave is the big boss?" Sun Yi disagreed, "Didn't you kill him? He wasn't that strong."
Xu Wei: "Its power was indeed not strong at the time, but that was a rule level, where both players and monsters had their powers restricted. If it was an evil god, I'm not sure if I really killed it. In addition... the wooden sign on its body had a great impact on me."
Everyone couldn't help but recall her brief period of amnesia.
An evil, mind-boggling force.
"On the other hand, I briefly held the village chief's life-saving amulet, which was made of unknown material and was very similar to other places, and I was not affected at all," said Xu Wei.
When she first saw the life-guarding plaque at the village chief's house, she guessed that he had stolen it, as the corpse in front of her was indeed not wearing the wooden plaque.
But...is the piece in the village chief's hand real?
Before, he relied on the blessing of the ancestor god Yue to prolong his life, and later he held the life-protecting tablet and survived for a while. But now, the life-protecting tablet is gradually losing its effectiveness. In just two days, his face has an abnormal number of wrinkles.
A true life-guarding amulet is nourished by divine power and will not decay along with the body. The original meaning of this sentence should be that the material of the amulet itself will also decay after thousands of years.
There are now two intact signs, one is made of unknown material and the other is wooden.
"The village chief stole it," Xu Wei said with difficulty, "so he used materials that are not easy to rot and difficult to identify. The one I picked up is probably the real one."
Now that the sign has disappeared, it's obvious that something has picked it up.
Lu Fanye frowned: "Sorry."
He threw the sign away on his own initiative.
Xu Wei shook his head: "I can't blame you. None of us has the ability to keep the life-saving card. At best, we will lose our memory like me, or at worst..."
Thinking about it now, the situation at that time was also very strange. After she got the wooden sign and dealt with the long-necked ghost that was the incarnation of Mrs. Zhang, she became dazed. Then the fox fairy appeared immediately and attracted most of their attention.
It's hard not to suspect that this was a deliberate arrangement.
"So, the thing behind you is waiting for you to take out the sign, and then takes it away while you are affected?" Chen Yu suddenly realized.
Magoichi: "Doesn't this conflict with the fact that the little boy is the big boss? You got the wooden sign from him."
"But what if he was trapped there before, and is waiting for me to release him?"
Perhaps it was the rules of the copy, or the former power of the Yuezu God. The little boy was confined to the nursery rhymes in the graveyard and could only use part of his power to influence reality. Xu Wei's knife did not kill the other party, but... removed the restrictions.
All was quiet.
"I'm getting goose bumps..." Chen Yu said bitterly, touching his arm, "What should I do now..."
Sun Yi concluded: "The known information is that there are two evil gods in this village. The first is the weakened Yue Zu God, and the second is the thing that took away the life-guarding tablet. Now we highly suspect the little boy on the grave. Then we will start with the little boy and his origins, and start with Zhang Pozi's strange talk."
Xu Wei nodded: "Perhaps the suspension of the sacrifice is good news for us. After all, the village chief is on the side of the ghosts, and anything they try their best to promote is not good for us. No matter who we sacrifice to, it will only increase their power to deal with us."
After saying that, she was stunned.
Lu Fanye immediately reacted: "Maybe the one being worshipped this time is not the Yue Zu God?"
Lu Qian was at a loss: "Ah?"
Xu Wei frowned: "It's possible."
Lu Qian continued to be at a loss: "But the villagers all said that it was a sacrifice to the Yuezu God. Everyone said so, and this festival is the Yuezu Festival that comes every fifty years, right?"
"Let me ask you, if you were a newly born evil god and there was already an old god with weak power in the place where you were, what would you do?" Xu Wei said.
"Kill it?"
Xu Wei looked at the hideous corpse in the coffin and said, "What if you don't have the ability to completely destroy it for the time being? This village is full of its fanatical believers, and the festival that comes every fifty years is coming. When it recovers its strength, you will be destroyed. What should you do?"
Magoichi: "Take advantage of its weakness and replace it."
"I guess it has done it," Xu Wei walked to the coffin and stared at the extra arms and fingers on the corpse, "once every fifty years... one thousand and fifty years."
Excluding the factor of later generations modifying the portrait, perhaps the Yuezu God himself only had two arms.
Sacrifice to allow its body to continue growing after death.
Every hundred years, one arm grows after every two rounds of sacrifices.
But it added only nine.
Nine hundred years.
A cool breeze swept through the stone chamber.
Zhang Hao looked around and scratched his head: "It makes me feel cold all over."
Xu Wei lowered his eyelashes, and glanced at the doorway from where he came, and continued: "In the remaining 150 years, it has received the power of sacrifice twice on behalf of Yue Zu Shen. This time may be the last time."
"Well, now it has the life-saving card in its hand..." Lu Qian hugged himself, "Won't it be even more difficult to deal with?"
"So what do we do? Is there any way to stop it?"
Xu Wei turned and walked towards the village chief, who was drooling and twitching all over.
He held down his dead son, staring at the stone slab above his head without blinking.
His face was rapidly withering, and in just a few minutes it became as dry as if it had been dehydrated.
"You have lived for two hundred years, so you should have participated in the remaining three rounds of sacrifices," Xu Wei looked at him for a while and whispered, "How about I take you to the sacrifices?"
"Okay, okay..." The village chief raised his mummy-like hand and stretched it out to her, "Sacrifice, longevity...immortality."
His eyeballs almost popped out, he took a few breaths, waved his hand, and died completely.
"Does the village chief know about the existence of the new god?" Chen Yu asked after seeing the commotion here.
Xu Wei: "What he seeks is immortality, and his respect for his ancestors is not as much as you might imagine. Since the old gods cannot satisfy him, he will definitely look for new ones to rely on."
"Why did it happen suddenly..." Chen Yu turned his face away and avoided looking at the nightmarish scene on the ground.
Xu Wei: "Whether it is the temple or the coffin where the corpse is placed, they have the ability to resist external intrusion and erosion, and protect the remaining power of Yue Zu Shen from leaking out."
"The new god is getting stronger and stronger, and it already has the ability to influence reality, but it is very cautious. It doesn't dare to act rashly without knowing the details of Yue Zu Shen. Even if it wants to deal with us, it only dares to act in secret."
“As soon as the coffin lid was opened, the power dissipated faster. Perhaps it realized that Yue Zu Shen was no longer a threat, so it let go.”
"Then, then, then, now..." Lu Qian was horrified.
"Now, it may well be a full reality."
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