Chapter 152 Devouring the Evil God (Bonus Chapter) Head empty, stomach empty...
Zhou Fangdong stepped out of the elevator and arrived at the corridor on the 15th floor.
Most of the ghosts in the corridor have hidden themselves, and the few that remain are motionless—the higher the floor, the more deeply affected they are by the restless yin energy.
These ghosts are not very active during the day, and coupled with Zhou Fangdong's intimidating appearance, not only did no ghosts dare to approach him, but they also spontaneously made way for him.
Zhou Fangdong stopped at the corner of the elevator and the corridor and didn't go any further. While Miao Zheng was on his way, he made a phone call to the director of the Supervision Bureau.
On one hand, it was to reassure the bureau chief that he was responsible for the current anomalies in Linjiang City and that he was preparing to eliminate the evil spirits of the Sigu Society. On the other hand, it was to have the bureau chief organize a team to take advantage of the domain's existence and have investigators clean up all the ghosts and monsters that appeared in the black fog and blood rain in the city.
The bureau chief visibly breathed a sigh of relief upon receiving Zhou Fangdong's call.
Although he had witnessed the situation at Liwan Hospital and knew that the sky turning red again might be related to the mysterious landlord of Liwan Apartments, he could only feel completely at ease after receiving confirmation.
After hanging up the phone, Zhou Fangdong used his Nightmare clone to observe Miao Zheng's location.
Upon seeing that she had reached the vicinity of the evil god's hiding place, he immediately activated the purification function of the domain, transferring all the debuffs on the citizens to himself.
These debuffs haven't been detonated into curses yet, and Zhou Fangdong's body doesn't feel anything for the time being.
Having confirmed that the negative states of the citizens had been transferred to himself, Zhou Fangdong directly appeared beside Miao Zheng in his true form.
He did not release the purification field of the [Ksitigarbha Prayer Bead], as he still needed its binding effect to control the evil god.
Moreover, this domain has no time limit; while controlling evil gods, it can also imprison wandering ghosts in the city, allowing the Bureau of Inspection to carry out a major cleanup.
Since a thousand reputation points have already been spent, maximizing the benefits is the obvious choice. Besides, the citizens are generally quite resilient after the paranormal events, and they'll get used to the eerie atmosphere after a while.
Everything went smoothly, but Zhou Fangdong was still startled when his true form descended—he almost stepped on the face of the evil god.
Zhou Fangdong didn't expect Miao Zheng to be so brave, running straight up to the evil god and unleashing his ultimate attack right in his face.
He had already told Miao Zheng beforehand that she was going to the place where the evil god of the Heirs of the Bone Society was located, which was very dangerous. He thought that Miao Zheng would not go any closer once she reached the vicinity of the unfinished building.
Unexpectedly, during the short time he was purifying the citizens' debuffs, Miao Zheng ran directly into the unfinished building, and coincidentally ended up directly below the evil god... The evil god was on the top floor, and Miao Zheng was on the first floor.
Zhou Fangdong, who descended to the top floor in his true form, stepped out of the crack. As soon as he took a step forward, he found the densely packed faces of the evil god right at his feet.
Basic human courtesy made Zhou Fangdong hesitate for a moment, and he reflexively wanted to pull his foot back, since putting his foot on someone else's face was really not a good thing.
But then he suddenly remembered that this was an evil god, not someone else.
Realizing this, Zhou Fangdong kicked the evil god and landed successfully on his foot.
Cool.
Seeing the evil god sitting motionless on the ground, Zhou Fangdong, thinking that it would be a fool not to take advantage of the situation, kicked it several more times.
...You damn bastard, you caused all this trouble. It's all his fault, making him worry and mess around for so long, and even wasting a thousand reputation points.
The evil god has now possessed a cultist in an ordinary human body.
It didn't react after being kicked to the ground by Zhou Fangdong, as if it was frightened by Zhou Fangdong's entrance. All its faces were staring at him in shock, and it didn't react to his beating.
After a long silence, the evil god finally spoke, muttering, "So I guessed wrong. You are not the world consciousness. Although you have a bit of the world's original power, you are mostly filled with the aura of the void and the aura of the ancient gods of this world."
"Compared to that barely perceptible power of the world's origin, the aura of the void around you is much stronger."
"The aura of the ancient god must be because you devoured that body... I understand now, you are another Outer God projection that emerged from the cracks in the collapsed apartment, possessing the ability to devour and assimilate! This explains why you were able to erode my power."
Having sorted out his thoughts, the evil god stood up, patted the shoe prints on his face and body, and said with a sneer, "I never thought that after cooperating with the main god and working hard to build up this world for so many years, I would have my fruits stolen by an unknown nobody like you."
"Heh, you think you've won by taking over the apartment, preemptively devouring a bit of the world's origin, and pushing me to this point? Pray that our true forms won't appear in the void, or I'll tear you to shreds." The evil god waved his hand, as if he had caught something. "It's still uncertain who will emerge victorious. If I'm not having an easy time, then nobody else will either."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized that all the debuffs on him had been triggered into fatal curses, and his health bar began to drop rapidly.
Looking at the hideous wounds on his body, Zhou Fangdong was somewhat surprised.
It didn't hurt as much as I had imagined.
He seemed quite used to the feeling of his body being torn apart... his pain threshold was much higher than he had imagined.
For Zhou Fangdong now, the physical pain is far less than the headache and discomfort caused by the drop in mental energy.
Mental health issues would make him more irritable, while physical problems would be neither painful nor bothersome.
Zhou Fangdong suspected that the pain might be due to incomplete regeneration, since his body had not been fully repaired and the pain sensation might be delayed.
However, after consuming 40,000 ghost coins and seeing his health bar still decreasing, Zhou Fangdong couldn't hold back any longer.
That damned evil god, just how many debuffs did he inflict? Can his ghost money balance even hold up?
After losing 80,000 ghost coins, the health bar finally stopped dropping.
Looking at his remaining 30,000 ghost coins, Zhou Fangdong fell silent. When he looked at the evil god again, his eyes were filled with genuine killing intent.
Physical pain is nothing compared to the mental blow—that was 80,000 ghost coins! Gone in an instant! So heartbreaking!
The evil god was stunned once again after seeing what had just happened to Zhou Fangdong.
It sensed the aura of the curse it had set on Zhou Fangdong, and a large amount of it at that. Conservatively speaking, the curse of the entire city should be on this kid in front of it.
The evil god's face turned ashen with rage. Pointing at Zhou Fangdong, its fingers trembled, it demanded, "You even eat this?! What exactly is your true form???"
At this point, the evil god seemed to get angry, and the densely packed faces on his face began to merge together.
It took a deep breath. "Since you can take over the apartment, it proves that the world's consciousness has almost completely collapsed, and it can't even maintain a conscious state... In that case, the remaining world essence in the apartment will all belong to me."
The evil god seemed to have thought of something, and suddenly laughed: "Do you know why I lured the ghost into the apartment?"
"At first, I thought you were the world consciousness. On one hand, I wanted to attract ghosts to disrupt the yin-yang balance of the apartment and accelerate your collapse. On the other hand... naturally, it was to open up a passage for myself."
"You've been killing those ghosts I lured to the apartment, haven't you? Thanks a lot."
As he spoke, the faces on the human bodies of the evil god began to fade, and Zhou Fangdong suddenly had a bad feeling.
The evil god sent cultists to the Liwan Apartments, forcing them to sacrifice their lifespans using a supernatural artifact resembling a crystal ball. The human sacrifice, the dissipation of the ghosts summoned by the artifact, and the resulting fluctuations of yin and yang energies, combined with the use of specific talisman arrays, allowed the artifact's ghost-summoning effect to temporarily become a channel for the evil god's descent.
—The evil god of the Bone Inheritance Society has officially invaded the apartment.
The evil god abandoned its human body and directly projected its mental image to the Liwan Apartments. It intended to enter the first floor and devour the tenants to find a body for itself, but unexpectedly, it was repelled by an unknown protective force from the first to the third floor.
With the powerful protective forces of the three-story building stacked on top of each other, the evil god's mental projection was bounced up to the fifteenth floor like a bouncy ball.
It got up in a daze, looked around the corridor, and couldn't understand why the apartment not only showed no signs of collapsing, but its protection was even stronger than before.
—This state doesn't seem like a situation where the world's consciousness is completely asleep and its origin has been devoured by an outer god, does it?
What's the deal with the world's origin within that reincarnated outer god body of a starving ghost? Was it a free gift from the world's consciousness? Are you kidding me...?
I'll stop thinking about it for now. That hungry ghost god is probably catching up soon. Restoring my strength is the priority.
The same goes for devouring ghosts; whether it's the yin energy in the apartment tainted with the power of the void or the origin of the world, it's all nourishment to it.
The evil god directly possessed the soul of a vengeful ghost. For this kind of external god, which possesses countless transformations and no fixed form, whether it is a human, a vengeful ghost, or the remains of a native ancient god, it can become its body.
It's just that due to its own preferences and habits, it tends to prefer things that have a physical form.
When Zhou Fangdong deactivated [True Form Descends] and returned to his apartment, the evil god had already devoured more than a dozen vengeful spirits.
Because he had just been on the 15th floor, Zhou Fangdong knew all too well how many vengeful ghosts lurked in the corridor. He stared in disbelief at the fact that so many of the ghosts had disappeared from the corridor, his eyes wide with rage.
—How dare this evil god steal his ghost coins?!
The evil god's actions not only cost him a thousand reputation points and eighty thousand ghost coins, but it even dared to come to his apartment to steal his ghost coin resources!
All the ghosts in the apartment were Zhou Fangdong's reserve funds, and he wouldn't eat them unless absolutely necessary. This evil god actually ate so many of them so brazenly—it's simply too much!
Fortunately, the first and third floors were under renovation and were protected, keeping the evil spirit at bay. If this guy had stolen from the tenants as well, Zhou Fangdong would have completely lost his composure.
Zhou Fangdong used the [Judgment·Decision] Devouring skill on the evil god.
But unexpectedly, the skill that was invincible against other external god projections only managed to bite off a tiny bit when facing the evil god, earning a pitiful thousand ghost coins.
Although the resurrection ritual was incomplete, the evil god with the descent ritual and faith was much more difficult to deal with than other external god projections.
The evil god was devouring the ghosts in front, and Zhou Fangdong was devouring them from behind. However, Zhou Fangdong's devouring speed could not keep up with the evil god's recovery speed at all.
...There's no way I can finish it all, there's simply no way I can finish it all. Using the [Judgment] skill to devour it is too slow. And inside the apartment, I can't use [Dead Zone Invasion].
Enraged, Zhou Fangdong glared at the evil god who was feasting right in front of him, his lungs practically bursting with rage.
Okay, so you stole from his house and caused damage, huh?
It's a competition to see who can eat the fastest, right?
Today, it's either you or me who dies.
Zhou Fangdong immediately summoned the [Half-Body Shrine]
With a 50% chance of regaining consciousness, let's take the gamble.
...It was a dilapidated shrine.
Damn luck, I knew it would be like this.
Zhou Fangdong glared fiercely at the evil god, then took four sticks of incense and placed them in front of the shrine.
The next moment, his expression faltered for a moment, his eyes gradually turned crimson, and a violent and bloodthirsty killing intent slowly emerged from his face.
Sensing the terrifying aura, the evil god, who had been devouring ghosts, froze in fright, not even noticing the vengeful spirit in its mouth escape.
It turned around in disbelief to look at the thing behind it that it had originally thought was an Outer God.
In the instant his consciousness shifted, Zhou Fangdong did not attack the evil god. He didn't even look elsewhere. He decisively and without the slightest hesitation, he stuck his hand into his head and stirred it vigorously.
He pulled something out of his head as if he were taking something out of his pocket, and a lump of tofu-like substance slipped from his palm and fell to the ground.
Zhou Fangdong lowered his eyes and looked at the lump on the ground.
"Ah, it's not in my mind..."
Zhou Fangdong then used his hands to cut open his abdomen, pried open his ribs, and pulled out all his internal organs, throwing them aside.
"It's not in the stomach either..."
The broken and twisted ribs, like fences violently forced open, flared out at their maximum angle like a sliding door, revealing the clean, dark red chest cavity below. No heart, no lungs, no intestines, no internal organs; the body was completely unburdened, as light as if it had been detoxified.
The bits of flesh, brains, and entrails that fell from Zhou Fangdong melted into pools of blood, the crimson color spreading out from beneath his feet, a river of blood rising from the ground and staining the entire corridor floor red.
Countless numb and docile demonic shadows emerged from the river of blood, some supporting the enormous shrine, others seizing the monsters in the corridor.
The ghosts and monsters touched by the blood and evil spirits all transformed into Zhou Fangdong's appearance, various ways of dying began to appear on their bodies, and they merged into the river of blood amidst maniacal laughter.
Zhou Fangdong seemed disturbed by the laughter, and frowned in displeasure. He raised his scarlet eyes, and at that moment, he noticed the presence of the evil god.
Although the evil god was also in the river of blood, it did not change; its body was simply petrified and unable to move.
Zhou Fangdong frowned even more: "Why aren't you smiling?"
He approached the evil god step by step. "I've heard people say that the more painful the situation, the more you should keep smiling. If you keep smiling, cheap man will naturally come... no, I mean, good luck will naturally come, right? Sorry, my original brain was torn to pieces, and my memory is a bit confused."
"In short, it's better to smile more than not to smile, at least it makes me happy."
"But you have so many faces, why don't you smile at any of them?"
"Isn't it painful enough?"
Sharp finger bones pierced through Zhou Fangdong's fingers, and without warning, he plunged his hand directly into the face of the evil god, tearing off its fragmented pieces bit by bit along the edges, like peeling off a sticker.
"Laugh! Why should I be the only one suffering in this endless hell?"
As the finger bones were torn apart, the faces of the evil god began to melt, eventually transforming into a black vortex.
The core power located at the deepest part of its spiritual projection was being stirred up. At the moment when the vortex reached a critical point, Zhou Fangdong suddenly pulled his hand back.
He pulled out a large, viscous, black substance, bubbling like swamp silt, as easily as if he were pulling out his own brain.
The vengeful spirit vanished in an instant, leaving only this clump of mud.
The thing throbbed violently in his palm like a heart, its surface bubbling with countless tiny faces screaming in pain, only to vanish in an instant like bursting bubbles.
This thing emitted a polluting aura powerful enough to distort space, carrying pure malice; an ordinary person would lose their mind at the mere sight of it. But in Zhou Fangdong's hands, it was like a piece of clay that could be kneaded and flattened at will.
The corridors on the upper floors were filled with collapsed cracks that connected to the void. When the evil god's spiritual projection could not break free from Zhou Fangdong's grasp, it summoned its true form's tentacles in a life-or-death situation.
Several enormous black tentacles tore through the nearest collapse crack to Zhou Fangdong, and those sharp-tipped tentacles, like the sharpest spears, pierced through his body at an extremely fast speed.
The scene that the evil god had envisioned—Zhou Fangdong being torn apart—did not happen.
The tentacles that pierced through Zhou Fangdong's body seemed to have sunk into a sticky swamp, and were instead tightly bound by Zhou Fangdong's broken body.
Zhou Fangdong suddenly laughed, his blood-stained lips slowly stretching upwards—the smile was pure, filled only with the desire to eat, like a long-starved gourmand discovering a table of free food.
His body melted like a wax figure, fixing the evil god's tentacles in place. Then, another Zhou Fangdong suddenly emerged from the river of blood and came to the other side of the rift.
...Every evil spirit in the Blood River seemed to be Zhou Fangdong, and every ghost seemed to be a part of his body, and could become his new body.
The evil god's physical tentacles are far more corrupting than its spiritual projection, constantly emitting a chaotic torrent of information that drives people to the brink of madness.
But Zhou Fangdong had long since lost all reason; all he cared about was food.
He reached out and, following the direction from which the tentacles extended, plunged directly into the collapsed crack, tearing at it forcefully, as if he were tearing apart a leg of lamb with solidified grease on its surface.
With a loud 'rip', a large chunk of dark matter, existing between reality and nothingness, constantly writhing and changing, was pulled out of the crack.
The evil god's spiritual projection, still tightly gripped by the melting wax figure's body, let out a piercing scream: "How is this possible? How could you touch my true form?!"
"Because when I'm feeling down, I really like to eat." Zhou Fangdong mumbled as he ate the evil god's true form, "Sigh, my head is empty, and my stomach is empty too..."
Because the human mouth couldn't hold it all, Zhou Fangdong tore open his cheeks and pulled open his temporal jawbone to make it easier to swallow. With his mouth, which was already split to the roots of his ears, he stuffed the dark substance from the evil god's body into his throat.
As Zhou Fangdong devoured the dark substance in his hand, a huge demon head emerged from the river of blood, devouring the sharp tentacles one by one, like slurping noodles.
The small projection of the evil god's spirit was still held in the waxen body's hand and was not eaten, because it was still needed to find the main body. Therefore, neither the giant evil spirit nor Zhou Fangdong touched it.
Zhou Fangdong continued to pull the evil god's true form out from the void gap.
He was like a hyena gnawing on corpses in a graveyard, frantically tearing at the festering wounds and devouring the cold, sticky flesh and blood.
During the process of being devoured, his body was constantly disintegrating, but soon another Zhou Fangdong would emerge from the river of blood and continue to eat his buffet.
During the meal, as Zhou Fangdong pulled out more and more of the evil god's true form from the gap, a huge chaotic phantom gradually appeared above the apartment, occupying the sky and almost turning the scarlet sky black.
The enormous phantom could be clearly seen struggling and twisting frantically, but it was still held firmly as if by superglue, and the black mist emanating from it was rapidly merging into the apartment below.
The dark matter that constitutes its origin is being swallowed, mouthful by mouthful, into that broken shell by that tiny madman.
The power of the evil god is waning, and its existence is becoming increasingly faint.
Finally, as Zhou Fangdong tore off another large chunk of writhing darkness and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it frantically, an unprecedented scream of terror echoed from the sky and the void above.
The evil god completely abandoned this world, even abandoning his spiritual projection, discarding half of his body, and fleeing into the depths of the void.
That enormous, decaying body, like a punctured ink balloon, instantly collapsed and disintegrated inward, turning into countless thin streams of black light that sped away from this terrifying world at top speed.
"You're running away already? Aren't you going to stay for a meal before you leave?" After failing to retrieve the main body, Zhou Fangdong casually stuffed the dim and lifeless projection of the evil god's spirit into his mouth as well.
During the meal, he seemed to notice something and looked up.
The irrational ghosts that had been awakened by the fighting were now huddled on the ceiling, trembling and trying to stay quiet and away from the river of blood on the ground.
"Why don't you run away? Do you look down on me?"
Zhou Fangdong waved his hand, and the Blood River was at his command, stirring up huge waves that swept most of the vengeful ghosts into it.
Upon seeing this, the other vengeful spirits scattered and fled as if they had just woken from a nightmare.
Seeing this scene, Zhou Fangdong seemed even angrier.
Why do you run away when you see me? Do you look down on me?
The river of blood surged rapidly, almost submerging the entire corridor.
The vengeful spirits swallowed by the blood river were like those forcibly plunged into concentrated sulfuric acid; their bodies were rapidly dissolving, and they struggled incessantly in the blood river, emitting sharp, miserable howls.
"Is it painful? Is it sad?... Does it hurt?"
Zhou Fangdong wiped his mouth, casually pulled over a fierce ghost, and sat down on it as a chair.
"Good boy, good boy..." He stroked its head as if holding onto the armrest of a chair.
He crossed his legs, looked at the hellish scene before him, and suddenly burst out laughing.
"Experience all the pain I have endured, and become one with me, so that you may know what endless hell is... Let us forever sink into this endless suffering together."
But as he was laughing, he suddenly started to break down again.
Zhou Fangdong stood up and continued to dissect his complete body, taking out the internal organs and brain of this new body.
This state makes him look like a mentally unstable madman.
"Where are you... I can't find you..."
"What's the point of all this? Has the world really gotten better? Is there any hope for this world? How much longer will it take to end this game?"
"Now you're not saying anything again, are you? You never say anything when I'm like this, not even a word of comfort... Of course, I'm not trying to find the system through this."
"We're partners, you know. We created this system together. I just want to take it out and reminisce a bit; I won't destroy it."
After saying this, Zhou Fangdong suddenly collapsed, floating on the river of blood like a corpse, letting out a weak sigh, "Alas... when will I finally find true liberation?"
He grabbed his own neck with both hands. "People can't even empathize with themselves. They're just pure idiots. Don't they even read the skill descriptions? With such a long spirit bar, they still dare to use [Half-Body Shrine]. I can't take it anymore."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Fangdong snapped his own neck.
At the same time, the incense sticks that were only half-burned suddenly broke off in front of the shrine, which was being held up by countless ghostly hands.
The shrine slowly disappeared, the river of blood disappeared, and the giant demon's head also disappeared.
The corpses with Zhou Fangdong's face that were left on the ground were teleported back to the basement.
At the same time, a brand new and complete Zhou Fangdong appeared where the shrine had disappeared.
Those empty eyes gradually regained their sparkle.
Meanwhile, the few remaining ghosts on the 15th floor who had narrowly escaped death stood there dumbfounded, not daring to move or escape, trembling all over, looking at Zhou Fangdong with fear on their faces.
The moment he regained consciousness, Zhou Fangdong swayed and nearly fell.
He felt like his head was going to explode.
It hurts so much.
If the first time using the shrine felt like being dazed and confused after drinking fake alcohol, the second time felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer over his head and slapped him with eighty dollars.
The pain was intense, from the skull to the inside of the head, as if something was piercing through his temples and churning inside his brain.
Zhou Fangdong endured his headache and glanced at the attribute panel.
The mental bar is full, but there is a debuff that causes mental impairment.
"Has the system evil god been dealt with?"
[Eaten]
[Erosion of authority progress 100%, Body repair progress 85%]
[Global defenses enhanced, Liwan Apartments' defenses enhanced, completely isolating the power of the evil god.]
[Received Ghost Coins...]
Using the shrine this time was much more painful than the first time. Zhou Fangdong didn't even want to look at the system pop-ups or the system rewards, and he didn't even notice the sudden regression in his body's repair progress.
He just clutched his head and said in a hoarse voice, "System, don't talk about anything else, and don't pop up any windows, I have a headache. Has the curse on the citizens disappeared? What about the ghost on the fifteenth floor?"
[It's gone, and it's all been eaten up.]
"Great, no waste, I support the Clean Plate Campaign."
Zhou Fangdong teleported directly back to his room, leaned back, and lay down on the bed.
"System, keep an eye on my mental points. When they're almost depleted, recharge them with Ghost Coins. I need to rest."
During the period of the dementia debuff, you absolutely cannot do anything, otherwise you will definitely regret it.
[Okay, host, thank you for your hard work.]
While Zhou Fangdong was resting with his eyes closed, a new line of text silently appeared on the system task panel.
[Detection indicates the evil god has finished devouring, a key ghost quest has been triggered, the pollution of the Evil Dog Village has been cleaned up, and main quest 7: Restoring the Underworld has been unlocked.]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com