[You are walking across the Nightmare Realm, about to find a place to rest, when you see two people fighting.]
One of them was bloated and ugly, with pale, swollen exposed skin, resembling a bloated corpse that had been submerged in water for a long time.
Those who frequently throw bodies into the water and often return to the crime scene to admire their handiwork know that this is called gigantism.
This person resembled a giant, a waterlogged corpse, with over a dozen large blisters on his body, some of which had burst and were oozing pus.
One of the forty-six paths he took was "floating life," which could also be called "corrupt life."
According to the people of the Nightmare Realm, the great deity at the end of this road is the "Lord of Decay," who governs all rotten and decaying things.
[It certainly sounds like a deity, but we can't rule out the possibility that it's a supernatural system that concretizes the phenomenon of "decay."]
This person occupies the eighth rank on the Path of Corpse: "Swelling Person".
His opponent was a young man who appeared to be a Taoist priest. He was fair-skinned and handsome, with an ethereal figure, as if he had transformed into a gust of wind, wielding his longsword and cutting through life with it.
He is the eighth-rank official on the River Lord's Path: "Flowing Wind".
One is like a monster from a horror movie, the other a dashing swordsman, but in reality, they are both equals in the "eighth rank," only their paths are different.
[You might even discover, after observing the battle for a while, that the villain is the Taoist priest.]
The Taoist priest was an elite disciple of the "Heyuan Temple." After being promoted to the eighth rank, he traveled the world and arrived at "Xiaoning Village."
Seeing the villagers' emaciated appearance and their reliance on rotten meat for sustenance, he felt his eyes were offended.
[It just so happened that this village was located in the wilderness, with no other houses for dozens of miles around, let alone any way to report the injustice to the authorities. So he drew his sword and killed more than twenty villagers, until the remaining ones fled far away and called out the name of the "swollen man."]
"Does this mean they think they're extraordinary and no longer human?"
The "swollen man" was also someone who had a fortuitous encounter. He unexpectedly obtained a fragmented version of the Path of Life system, and after transforming himself into something neither human nor ghost, he was taken in and cared for by the villagers of Xiaoning Village.
So he settled there and lived there for decades. Now, in a year of famine, having risen to the eighth rank, he possessed the ability to grow flesh from the soil, so he cut off his own flesh to feed the villagers.
This meat isn't good quality, and it even contains some toxins that could harm your health... but it's still better than starving to death!
[After that, the swollen man kept chasing and killing the Taoist priest. The Taoist priest bullied the weak and feared the strong, and tried to escape whenever he saw other "summoners of spirits." As a result, he was relentlessly pursued. After being chased for more than ten miles, he finally lost his temper and, while retreating, used his flying sword to stab the swollen man.]
The swollen man was a melee tank, while the Taoist was a ranged attacker with low health. After dozens of rounds, the swollen man had been slashed multiple times, with pus constantly oozing from his wounds. However, he would occasionally bend down, grab a handful of dirt with his fan-sized hands, and stuff it into his mouth to help his wounds heal.
"We are both those who invoke the gods, must we fight to the death because of those mortals!?"
"I've already admitted defeat, what more do you want?!"
The Taoist priest was panicking. His supernatural power had dwindled considerably after this period of use. If someone got close, he, whose body was barely stronger than an ordinary person, would be killed in a few blows.
[Meanwhile, the swelling was worsening; the healing was slow, and he was losing too much energy. He couldn't hold on for much longer.]
This is a war of attrition.
[...]
Finally, the Taoist's supernatural power was exhausted first. This was because he had just broken through, otherwise, if he had allowed himself some time to consolidate his power and perfectly apply it to himself to increase his speed, he could have left the enemy dozens of miles behind and escaped without even seeing his shadow.
The swollen man stepped forward and slammed his fists down, instantly breaking the Taoist priest's bones and tendons, nearly shattering his internal organs.
After striking the Taoist priest more than a dozen times, leaving only a lump of mangled flesh, the swollen man finally left.
[After watching the swollen man smash things up in an open space and leave, the Taoist priest, panting heavily, thanked you: "Brother, you must be the summoner of the 'Old Dream' journey. This time, I'm so grateful for your help in misleading that fellow."]
Having said that, he thrust his sword at the swollen man again, aiming straight for the back of his head.
[The previous exhaustion of your supernatural power was merely an illusion you created in the eyes of the demons; in reality, a small amount still remains within the Taoist's body.]
But the sword exploded as soon as it flew out, and you calmly held the Taoist priest down.
"Don't get me wrong, I just think it would be too easy on you if you were smashed to death in a few blows."
After dealing with the Taoist priest properly, you pull some silver from the ground and throw it into the swollen man's hand.
Although an eighth-rank expert is unlikely to be able to take on a hundred opponents single-handedly, he is still a powerful figure in his own right. The swollen man's behavior stems from his inferiority complex and the fact that the place he came from didn't recognize his worth, which is why he, an elite figure even within the official special operations group, was regarded as a monster.
In the Summoning Gods system, the Zero Realm corresponds to Rank 9 to Rank 7, the First Realm to Rank 6 to Rank 5, the Second Realm to Rank 4 to Rank 2, and the Third Realm to Rank 1, Super Rank, and Supreme Rank.
The four realms are the guardians of the gods, the five realms are the servants of the gods, and the six realms are the apostles of the gods.
[Song Bai hasn't yet rebuilt this system, and the Nightmare Domain has just been captured. The strongest beings in the entire Nightmare Domain are only a few fourth-realm Divine Guardians.]
You calmly created your 26th incarnation, sculpted a plain yet handsome face of your own, and began your journey of reincarnation.
"This is what's called the ability to combine the ordinary with the handsome, creating a kind of 'minor handsomeness'."
[On April 13, 3082, you used a valley wind, 14 pairs of wings, and 32 bird feathers to arrange yourself in a specific ritual, creating a resonance between yourself and the heavens and earth. This is known as the "First Step in Summoning the Gods," and you have advanced to the ninth rank of the River Lord's Path—Qi Movement.]
[It didn't consume two hundred times the amount of ritual materials, because these materials are merely a trigger to evoke resonance. Afterward, you'll need to absorb energy from heaven and earth to advance, and that energy will require two hundred times the amount.]
The path to the River God points directly to the Milky Way, but it's impossible to go all out from the start; we must gradually approach it from similar points first.
[Among the nine ranks, this path embodies the concept of wind control.]
[With a simple push, it can generate an airflow several times stronger than a high-speed electric fan, capable of knocking over a toddler a meter away or extinguishing a candle twenty meters away.]
[Not much stronger than an ordinary person, but able to catch them off guard by blinding them with sandstorms.]
[But in your hands, it's like a wind force amplified more than eight thousand times... You could cosplay the Big Bad Wolf from "The Three Little Pigs" with that kind of lung power.]
[Even more powerful, because while a wolf can't blow away a brick house, you can certainly knock it down.]
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