Chapter 1078: Civil and Military Affairs Reversed (Part 7) [Seeking Monthly Tickets]
What kind of monster is this?
Even Gong Xiqiu was almost intimidated by so many strange faces.
Is this...is this even a human being?
Gong Xi Chou's subtle expression caught the attention of Chu Yao and the others, but their master spoke first: "Gong Xi Chou, is he troublesome?"
Shen Tang's first reaction upon seeing Black Bone was to frown, a feeling of inexplicable disgust and anxiety rising in her heart. Both were skeletons, but Gong Shuwu's aura was simply death energy, and getting close to him didn't cause discomfort, while Black Bone's death energy was murky and evil.
Even though they are so far apart, they can still have an impact on her.
Gong Xiqiu's reaction did not seem to indicate that he was confident in dealing with Ji Moqiu.
She had prepared for the worst.
If Ji Moqiu is truly no match for Hei Gu, then she must seize the opportune moment to intervene and rescue him. She absolutely cannot allow the only high priest of the Gongxi clan to perish on the battlefield. At this moment, Shen Tang was grateful that she had mastered the [Transplant] spell to perfection.
It can also come in handy at crucial moments.
Gong Xichou truthfully replied, "This person's entire body is covered in faces."
Upon hearing this, Shen Tang looked up in astonishment at Hei Gu, who was completely shrouded in black armor, with only the holes under his mask visible. What face? Or was it covered in faces? Gong Xi Chou never bothered to lie, nor would he play games at this crucial moment; this could only mean he had seen something ordinary people couldn't: "Face? How many? Could you describe in detail what those faces looked like?"
Gong Xichou roughly counted them.
"There are over a hundred faces, and they look all kinds of things."
He briefly described the features of these faces.
Nearly half of them have black hair and black eyes, while the remaining individuals have skin ranging from light to dark, hair ranging from short to long and from straight to curly, and eye colors ranging from blue, green, black, and brown. They are mostly found in the Northern and Ukrainian states. To be precise, they are mostly found on the borders of the Four Corners Continent.
If the entire continent is considered as a square region, the various kingdoms occupy the most habitable circular part, while the remaining corners are places like the Northern Continent and the Wuzhou Continent. Over the years, he has traveled north and south, traversing many places, and discovered that most of these people are concentrated in these areas.
What kind of collecting obsession does Black Bone have?
Otherwise, how could there be so many human faces on his body?
Gong Xichou added a key point: "I don't know if these faces have their own consciousness or if they are controlled by the same body, but they have obvious hatred towards Big Brother."
One generation plants the trees, another enjoys the shade.
Those brothers are lucky; they run into the grudges accumulated by their ancestors wherever they go. If they weren't so strong, how could they have survived this long?
Gong Xichou's doubts were soon resolved.
Upon hearing Ji Moqiu admit to being from the Gongxi clan, Hei Gu unusually refrained from drawing his sword to kill him, instead offering a sinister, eerie laugh that made it impossible to discern whether he was male or female. Two clusters of black flames flickered twice in his eye sockets.
Under Ji Moqiu's watchful gaze, he raised his finger and pointed to his chest, where a face with its eyes closed and seemingly asleep was visible.
The face was squeezed together by seven or eight other faces nearby, making it impossible to discern its original appearance. The only clue was that it was a woman's face, which could be vaguely identified from the jawline.
"My surname in life was Wei, my given name was Cheng, and my courtesy name was Yucheng." Heigu also introduced himself, then changed the subject and said, "Since your surname is Jimo and you are a member of the Gongxi clan, you must be the high priest of this generation, right? Do you recognize this face?"
Wei Cheng knew that the High Priest could see these faces.
"I don't recognize him."
Ji Moqiu replied calmly.
"Don't recognize her? Hehehe, High Priest, how could you not recognize her?" Wei Cheng laughed again. The overlapping of a hundred or so male and female voices was chilling. What was even more terrifying was what he said: "She might be one of your ancestors."
Ji Moqiu's gaze fell on the face. Due to the restriction of his divine power, he could only see the existence of these faces, but could not see what caused this situation, nor did he know the circumstances of the owners of these faces. He chose to ask the person involved directly.
"Ancestor, what happened to her?"
"Naturally, it's about atonement."
"What sin requires such atonement?"
"To fool."
Wei Cheng spread his five fingers wide, and endless black mist surged from his palm, condensing into a jet-black mace. Countless skull faces were engraved on the long handle, while the front end was a melon-shaped hammerhead covered with blunt-angled spikes. Such exquisite craftsmanship seemed disproportionate to Wei Cheng's physique.
The moment Gong Xichou saw the mace, a flash of inspiration struck him. Despite his poor memory, he immediately remembered where he had seen this thing before. He cursed and was about to go into battle when Shen Tang grabbed him with lightning speed: "Gong Xichou, now is not the time."
“That thing—” Gongxi Chou tried to calm his agitated emotions, pointing at the mace, “is the High Priest’s token!”
That's not a mace at all!
It was the staff of a certain high priest!
He saw it on the wall of the secret chamber where the longevity lamp was enshrined!
Normally, after a high priest falls, the wooden staff would be burned as a burial item and ascend to heaven, leaving nothing behind, much less ending up in the hands of outsiders. Shen Tang was aware of this: "But that's not a mace? Are you sure you're not mistaken?"
"I won't admit I'm wrong."
Because he was holding Ji Moqiu's wooden staff at this moment, he could clearly see that the "mace" in Wei Cheng's hand was not only surrounded by filthy and evil death energy, but also entangled with the divine power unique to the high priest! This divine power was irrefutable proof! What exactly did this Wei Cheng do?
Gong Xichou felt a chill run down his spine when he thought of Wei Cheng's words, and was overwhelmed by extreme anger and humiliation.
Ji Moqiu's gaze was also drawn to the mace.
"Did your ancestors fool you?"
This question is somewhat redundant.
Which of those old men from Wu Kingdom wasn't fooled?
Ji Moqiu, this is a rhetorical question.
Wei Cheng sneered: "Is she just trying to fool me? Ha, why don't you ask her that question yourself?"
These seemingly ordinary words reveal an important piece of information.
"You mean you ate your ancestors too?"
Wei Cheng seemed to have heard an interesting question, and his laughter grew even sharper. After finally stopping, he followed the Grand Preceptor behind him and sighed, "Uncle, we old bones have truly been far removed from worldly affairs for too many years, and now young people actually ask me such a question. Don't you all know what I did in the past?"
His abilities during his lifetime were not particularly outstanding.
At that time, the Fiend Star had only recently descended to earth, and people lacked understanding of cultivating both literary and martial prowess. Wars between warlords in various regions were still conducted using the most primitive methods of combat with cold weapons. In order to protect his hometown from being slaughtered, he, his uncle, and a group of clansmen also went to the battlefield.
That war was truly brutal.
The battle was so brutal that they ran out of ammunition and food, so brutal that they even used the corpses of enemies and comrades as sustenance. Even he himself, in a brief moment of conscious awareness after being severely wounded, begged his uncle to give him a final blow: "Ah, Uncle, save the best piece of flesh for you. If you survive, a hundred years from now, don't forget to come back and tell your nephew how that piece of flesh was different from the flesh of the others."
His experience is probably unprecedented.
When he regained consciousness, he sat up abruptly, turned his head, and saw his own flesh and entrails churning in the pot. Everyone else was terrified and ran away in panic. Only he touched his empty abdomen, leaned close to the pottery jar, sniffed it for a while, and then buried his head in it.
It tastes sour and isn't tasty.
In the end, they won that battle.
After that, in every battle, he would make jerky from the corpses of enemy soldiers and those captured, only then could his soul find a brief moment of peace. The First Emperor felt this was excessively cruel and brutal, admitting that if he didn't carry these specially made jerky with him when he went to war, his soul would suffer excruciating pain, like being torn to pieces. The location of the excruciating pain matched the location of his dismemberment before his death.
The former ruler had no choice but to back down.
Let him desecrate the corpses of the fallen enemy soldiers.
"Keep the living people. You can kill one in the blink of an eye, but it takes their parents ten or twenty years to raise them. The future prosperity of the Wu Kingdom depends on living people. I heard from your uncle that you still have dried meat from sixty or seventy years ago in your storehouse."
When Wei Cheng gave gifts to his colleagues, he would give them dried meat from different years.
Especially when colleagues celebrate their birthdays, they give gifts based on the number of years the colleague is old enough.
The Wu Kingdom is unique!
His name was once said to stop children from crying at night.
But times have changed, and now an ignorant child is asking him such a question. It is both laughable and lamentable: "I not only ate your ancestors, but every face you see now is food."
Wei Cheng commented on the taste of the ingredients with a sly smile.
The meat of most of the people he ate was sour, smelly, and tough; eating them was like chewing wood, especially rotten wood covered in moss. His uncle didn't like him eating them raw, so he had to cook them, which smelled like boiling broth.
Wei Cheng was dead, reduced to nothing but bones, and naturally lacked the digestive organs of a living person. Therefore, the food he consumed would not be digested, but would instead become nourishment for his soul, merging and intertwining with him. His "stomach" was an arena where the souls of these foods would be forever trapped, experiencing the torment of immortality alongside him.
Among the hundred or so ingredients, there were some rather unique ones.
That's the owner of the face on his chest.
The culprit who deceived him and trapped him in one place back then!
Her flesh was exceptionally pure, with a subtle woody fragrance; it was the most satisfying ingredient Wei Cheng had ever found, and even his soul, which had suffered for over a hundred years after death, found solace. Sadly, he had never encountered it again since. Years later, it still haunted his thoughts.
As she spoke, her eyes, like two clusters of black flames, stared at Ji Moqiu as if she were prey, her tone as if she were savoring the memory: "You are also a high priest of the Gongxi clan, so the texture of your flesh should be similar to hers, right?"
How could Gong Xichou possibly hold back upon hearing this?
In his impulsive act, he forgot that he was no longer a valiant martial artist, but a scholar with only a smattering of martial prowess. He didn't remember, but someone else did—Ji Moqiu's attack wasn't aimed at Wei City.
Gong Xichou had a crimson shackle weighing down his shoulders.
The chains at both ends of the shackles are connected to the ground.
Gong Xichou: "..."
He was immediately dumbfounded; these shackles must weigh over a hundred pounds!
Ji Moqiu said gently, "A-Nian, don't make things worse."
After brutally attacking his own brother, Ji Moqiu turned to Wei Cheng and said, "I've never eaten my own flesh, so I don't know what it tastes like. If you have the ability, please take it yourself."
"As expected of the Gongxi clan, they are indeed stubborn."
There's nothing more to discuss at this point.
A sharp whistle pierced the sky.
Puff puff puff puff—
Countless bones burst from the ground, forming the skeleton of a warhorse in less than a breath. As the last bone settled, the warhorse reared up and neighed. Four flames rapidly spread upwards from beneath its hooves, transforming into grotesque shapes of horse armor wherever they passed. This warhorse was twice the size of an ordinary martial artist's horse; with a single thud, it left a black afterimage in the air, and a powerful shockwave surged in all directions.
It instantly approached Ji Moqiu's face.
The horse's hooves flew high, as if it wanted to trample him into mincemeat.
It crashed down with tremendous force.
Ji Moqiu used his spear to defend himself.
When the two collided, the gun barrel showed a distinct concave arc under the immense pressure, and a barely noticeable cracking sound was heard from the middle.
puff--
A black flame ignited on the horse's back.
Wei Cheng emerged from the flames, arm raised high, all his strength concentrated in the mace in his hand, aimed directly at Ji Moqiu's head. Don't let the small size of the mace fool you; it may seem harmless, but this small weapon can easily pierce the armor of a martial arts master, possessing the remarkable ability to break through defenses from a single point. If Ji Moqiu were to take this blow head-on, even if his helmet remained intact, the top of his head would be shattered.
Using a clever move, Ji Moqiu pulled himself back and retreated rapidly.
As he withdrew his foot, the horse's hoof suddenly lost its target, landing with a cloud of dust and cracking ground beneath its feet, the fissures spreading outwards like a spiderweb. The horse's stomp had created a dent two or three zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) deep. The mace also missed its target at the same time.
Ji Moqiu raised his hand and made a gesture.
The broken spear beneath the horse's hooves transformed into martial energy and flew towards his palm.
"Heh, you're a better fighter than your ancestor."
Wei Cheng's words were tinged with contempt and mockery.
Instead of feeling any urgency, he seemed like a hunter with victory in his grasp, watching with great interest as his prey desperately tried to save itself from a desperate situation. Ji Moqiu said, "You shouldn't use our ancestors to measure my strength; that will only put you in a corner."
His brief encounter confirmed one thing for him.
The strength of Wei Cheng before them was far inferior to that of a 20th-rank Marquis.
It is weaker than the avatar that Yunda created.
However, this also conveniently proves why the Eternal Life Cult's elders didn't let Wei Cheng directly intervene. A 20th-rank Marquis, practically invincible and on the verge of death, is even more difficult to deal with than Yun Da at his peak. Yun Da would be severely injured if he lost an arm or leg, but this man wouldn't. There's always a strategy of playing to one's strengths and avoiding one's weaknesses; there's no way one would play to their weaknesses and avoid their strengths! There must be something fishy going on!
This trick has been solved.
Because of Wei Cheng's strength.
Most of the power was used to suppress something, which Ji Moqiu guessed was probably the hundred or so souls devoured by Wei Cheng. The Grand Preceptor probably knew this too, so he used a method that reversed the civil and military aspects—suppressing the enemy was equivalent to improving himself! Limiting the strength of the two armies and suppressing the ceiling of their top combat power to the tenth-rank Left Vice Minister realm was undoubtedly the most beneficial method for Wei Cheng.
Wei Cheng stood on his horse, twirling the mace in his hand.
"Yeah?"
As soon as the words were spoken, the face that had been squeezed suddenly opened its eyes.
Her gaze was fixed on Ji Moqiu.
Wei Cheng chuckled sinisterly, "Then let's have a competition?"
He raised the mace high, and the lips of the face belonging to a high priest on his chest moved slightly. Ji Moqiu understood lip reading and knew at a glance what the other was saying. It was—a spell's prayer!
Gong Xichou: "...How could he possibly succeed—"
He was like a goose with its neck being choked, unable to make a sound.
_(:3」∠)_
I've been quite busy lately, and the plot is moving too slowly. My courses at the Lu Xun Academy are almost over, so I'll go back in a couple of days and sort things out.
(End of this chapter)
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