Catching water monsters
"Huh? Okay." Xu Yi gritted her teeth, braced herself, and ran out, shouting loudly, "We don't agree to the monthly sacrifice..."
But her voice was too soft and didn't stand out at all in the noisy environment...
She channeled her ghostly energy into her chest and shouted with all her might, "We... we don't agree to a monthly sacrifice..."
Because she had added internal energy to it, a chilling aura, carrying with it her voice, spread out layer by layer, causing goosebumps to rise on the skin of everyone present...
Under such a chilling sensation, everyone finally fell silent.
Xu Yi quickly ran over and helped the first woman from the farming family who had stood up to her feet. He bowed his head and said, "If we don't agree, we might have to offer the sacrifice again next year. Don't you want your children to spend more time with you?" Then he shouted loudly towards the river, "For hundreds of years, the sacrifice has always been held once a year. Why do you suddenly want to change it? Aren't you a god? How can a god go back on his word?"
Someone recognized Xu Yi as the one who had accused the river god of being a demon, and quickly stepped forward to wave her hand at the crowd, explaining, "She's the woman who caused a ruckus at the sacrificial ceremony before. She's not with us, so don't listen to her."
Xu Yi panicked a little and didn't know what to do when she heard Wu Zi say, "Don't panic, just say it's a demon, not a god at all."
"I just want to tell you, it's a demon, not a god... How could the divine decree go back on its word?" Xu Yi looked at the person who pointed her out and asked him, "Then tell me, why did it go back on its word? Also, if it were truly a god, why would it want mortal treasures? Tell me, tell me..."
The man remained silent for a while, so Xu Yi quickly continued to guide him: "It's not a god, it's a demon, that's why it went back on its word and demanded worldly possessions... It's also keeping women in other towns... You've all been deceived by it..." Xu Yi didn't even know what she was rambling on about... but the people around her began to whisper among themselves: "The river god wants possessions? What's going on?"
The person next to him whispered, "I heard from the officials that this river god takes away the money the imperial court gives us to build the dikes every year, just in case we stop doing business with him..."
Hearing this, Xu Yi finally breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought public opinion would turn in her favor, but then someone else stood up and said, "Impossible, you're talking nonsense..."
"I'm talking nonsense?" Xu Yi's heart skipped a beat. She forced a smile and looked at Qu Yi: "Lord Qu, tell me, doesn't it take away the money for building the dike every year...?"
Qu's eyes darted around, and she quickly admitted, feigning embarrassment, "Perhaps the River God has other uses..."
"Other uses? What uses? To keep women?"
"This..." Qu Yi shook his head, feigning difficulty, "This humble official doesn't know either..."
Some villagers began to whisper among themselves, but some loyal ones still stood up and said, "You're talking nonsense... The River God is a god, how could he keep a mistress? Don't slander the River God."
"I'm slandering them? Then tell me, what do they need the money for?"
“This… the river god must have other uses… anyway, he can’t possibly be keeping women…” the villager insisted.
Xu Yi quickly asserted, "It is a womanizer. I saw it. It's not a god; it's just a mortal who knows magic..."
The word "god" has always been mysterious and sacred... but it has one major flaw: it cannot be tainted by any human influence. If you worship only a mortal, someone who, like you, bows down to beauty and desire... without reverence, divinity naturally disappears...
Similarly, the same applies to demons. Being non-human, humans always perceive them as stronger, possessing powers they lack. This creates a sense of hierarchy and a significant difference, naturally leading to feelings of submission…
In his panic, Xu Yi hit the nail on the head: if people realize that what they believe in are just ordinary people like themselves, and they lose their aspirations... then naturally they will no longer bow their heads...
The water demon, enraged by Xu Yi's fabricated accusations, struggled with all its might, but the powerful Taoist magic of Qing Dao was far beyond the reach of this three-hundred-year-old little demon...
He could only roar in frustration, hoping someone would understand his meaning in his roar... Unfortunately, no one present understood; people were simply lost in Xu Yi's lies... and began to re-examine their beliefs of so many years...
Building faith requires a long period of accumulation, but the collapse of faith can sometimes happen in an instant...
People began to leave amidst the silence and whispers... one, two... slowly a group of them quietly departed...
Once most of the people had left, only a sour, ironic smell remained in the air…
Xu Yi never imagined that he could send these obsessed villagers away just by talking nonsense...
Seeing that the once overflowing venue was now reduced to just herself and Qu Yiwu on the stage, Xu Yi felt a wave of relief wash over her, and collapsed onto the ground as if all her strength had left her… Not forgetting to look up at Wu Zi on the stage, she exclaimed happily, “Wu Zi, I did it! I did it…”
"Hmm," Wu Zi nodded, walked down, patted Xu Yi's hair, and said in approval, "You succeeded."
Qu Yi laughed heartily twice and gave Xu Yi a thumbs up: "Brilliant, Miss Xu, how did you come up with the idea of keeping a woman?"
Xu Yi stood up sheepishly, patting the dust off her bottom: "I just said it randomly, I don't know how I ended up talking about women..."
"In any case, this matter has finally been accomplished, and it's worth celebrating..." Qu Yi said with a smile.
Just then, Yi Qing's voice came from the riverbank: "Wu Zi, Xu Yi, come quickly, let's take this beast down in one go..."
Wu Zi quickly took off his high priest's robes and ran to the riverbank with Xu Yi in a few steps. They saw that the river water had risen to the height of a seven or eight-story building and was frantically pounding against the golden rune barrier...
Wu Zi quickly formed hand seals and chanted incantations to reinforce the runic barrier with Yi Qing. He then turned to Xu Yi and said, "Xu Yi, go down and extract his inner core..."
"Huh? How do I take it out?" Xu Yi's mind didn't process it for a moment.
"Just like last time in the cave, take a look at where his inner core is, and then take it out."
Xu Yi, realizing she could see the wolf demon's vital point inside the cave, suggested, "I can also see its vital point, should we kill it?"
Wu Zi didn't speak, but Yi Qing was surprised for a moment: "You can see the demon's weakness?"
"Ah..." Xu Yi nodded, then asked again, "Should we kill him?"
"No need, no need..." Yi Qing shook his head: "Just take out its inner core. Then I will take it back to the Imperial Observatory and hand it over to the Director for judgment."
“Okay,” Xu Yi nodded and plunged into the river. When he saw the water demon in the river resisting the golden magical light barrier above his head, Xu Yi quickly used his ghost energy as a barrier to try to trap the water demon first.
The water demon tried to escape as soon as it realized what was happening, but it was trapped by a light barrier formed by black ghostly energy. Seeing the water demon trapped, Xu Yi approached it, trying to concentrate his ghostly energy on its eyes to examine its inner core. However, just as he managed to gather some ghostly energy, the light barrier was shattered by the water demon. Before Xu Yi could react, the water demon unleashed a water blade at him. The water blade, formed from demonic power, pierced through Xu Yi's chest with incredible speed...
Xu Yi was still reeling from the hole in her chest when the water demon swayed and fled. Xu Yi quickly gave chase, only to find herself slowing down... She looked at her chest; the hole had grown even larger, and wisps of ghostly energy were constantly dissipating from it... Xu Yi frantically tried to replenish the hole with the surrounding ghostly energy in the water, but the amount was limited, and the yin energy couldn't keep up with the speed of the ghostly energy... This only made the hole in her chest grow larger...
However, Xu Yi intuitively felt that it would still take some time to completely exhaust all the ghostly energy in his body, so he simply ignored the wound on his chest and focused all his attention on chasing the water demon...
However, the water demon was very familiar with the underwater environment, so its speed was incredibly fast... Xu Yi could no longer rely solely on absorbing the surrounding yin and ghost energy, and could only consume his own original ghost energy—the black bead inside his body... but even that was barely enough to keep up...
Xu Yi was getting anxious. At this rate, when would she be able to catch up with the water demon? Xu Yi focused more of her attention on the black bead, but felt that the ghostly energy should be able to connect together. So Xu Yi tried to connect the black ghostly energy into a thread... After failing two or three times, she finally succeeded. The black energy connected thread by thread, like a very elastic jump rope. Xu Yi quickly moved this black thread forward, trying to entangle the water demon in front of her...
However, as soon as the black threads left his body, they gradually thinned and stopped forming. Xu Yi quickly used his mind to mobilize more ghost energy to fill the threads in front of him. He needed to speed up the mobilization of ghost energy to barely prevent the threads from breaking...
Xu Yi is stubborn; once she's done something, she'll want to keep doing it... so she keeps trying different things...
The water demon darted swiftly among the rocks and weeds. Xu Yi, relying solely on her tenacious spirit, relentlessly followed it, while also having to divert her attention to replenish the energy of the black bead to make the threads grow longer and longer. She was finding it increasingly exhausting, and her speed was slowing down. Just as she was wondering what to do, she heard Wu Zi send her a message: "Xu Yi, force the water demon to the surface. My senior brother and I have set up an array; as soon as it emerges from the water, we can trap it."
Force it out of the water? How do I force it out? That's it, use ghost energy... As long as I completely cover the surrounding environment with ghost energy, the water demon won't stay in the water anymore... Xu Yi quickly mobilized the ghost energy to cover the area within five miles around, and this coverage used half of the black bead's energy...
Xu Yi felt that if she continued to release the ghostly energy, the black bead would eventually cease to exist... but she didn't know what the black bead meant to her, so she only focused on activating the black bead to force the water demon to the surface...
As the ghostly aura slowly approached from a distance of five miles, until it completely enveloped the water demon, the demon could no longer break through the dense ghostly aura... Helpless, the water demon could only swim away from the surface. As soon as it surfaced, it saw golden array runes above its head. It tried to return to the water, but found that the eerie ghostly aura was rising from the surface, giving it no chance to re-enter the water...
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