Chapter 42: The Stubborn Stone (Part 2) Choice
"Your villagers already know of my existence."
"I told the villagers that if they could lead you to the mountain, I would let them go and give them enough land and food to survive."
"Guess what they answered? They didn't hesitate at all."
"You have protected the village for a hundred years, but they ruthlessly offered you as a sacrifice. How about it? Do you regret protecting them?"
The skeleton kept sneering in front of Shiji, as if this could vent his emotions and make Shiji experience the despair of being abandoned by everyone.
It expected Shiji to collapse in despair after learning the truth. However, no matter how vivid his performance was, Shiji, who was tied to the center of the formation, did not respond at all.
The feeling that every punch was hitting cotton made Hai Gu very dissatisfied. However, no matter how he threatened Shi Ji, Shi Ji always had an expression as if an adult was watching children fighting.
Skeleton: "Aren't you angry? Being betrayed by the one you were protecting?"
The skeleton's emotions were getting more and more volatile. He didn't understand why Shiji could still remain calm at this time. He stepped forward to threaten her several times, but Shiji just smiled and said nonchalantly:
"Little brother, I am not protecting the village to protect everyone. I have lived for so many years and I am no longer the little girl who wants to be loved by everyone."
"I don't need all of them to love me, because in my eyes, as long as there are still people in the village who respect and love me, I am willing to continue to protect the village for those people."
Skeleton: "Shiji, I think you don't know your position. You are my prisoner. I can turn you into ashes with just a wave of my hand."
"Then you should do it."
"What?"
Shiji: "Stop talking so much nonsense, why don't you just do something?"
"Don't treat everyone as fools. Your words may scare ordinary people, but you are the skeleton sealed by Emperor Xuanyuan, but you are not the evil demon that brought disaster to the world."
"The beasts of the past have long since died under the sword of Emperor Xuanyuan Huangdi. You are now nothing more than a soul born from those remaining bones. Your true body is still in that cave."
"You told me so much only because you were afraid. You were afraid that after the formation collapsed, this Stone Creek Mountain formed by the decomposition of the murderer's body would collapse in an instant."
"But if the formation is still in operation, you will be decomposed bit by bit into energy to nourish this forest because of the purification function of the formation."
"No matter which of these options you choose, you will die. You have no way out and no choice. That's why you come to me to cause trouble and to vent your dissatisfaction in this way."
Skeleton: "So what? At least I can take you and all the living beings on Stone Creek Mountain with me before I die."
"But you don't want to die so soon. You want me to torture me, but the main reason you do all this is that you don't want to die with everyone else so soon."
Skeleton: "So what? Anyway, you are in my hands now. I can..."
"But what if I say I have a way to keep you alive?"
"Nothing...wait...wait what did you just say?"
Shiji: "I said I have a way to keep you alive. How come we can have a good talk now?"
"Impossible. The formation on Shixi Mountain was formed by absorbing the power from the corpses of ferocious beasts. The entire Shixi Mountain is the formation itself. As long as it does not drain the power from the corpses of ferocious beasts, Shixi Mountain will not be able to exist independently from the formation. Unless..."
"Unless I give up Rocky Hills, right?"
Skeleton: "Impossible, don't try to fool me. The reason you can maintain your human form is because the villagers continuously provide you with incense representing the power of faith."
"If this Shixi Mountain is gone, the villagers who rely on Shixi Mountain to avoid disasters will leave immediately for survival. Without the support of the power of faith, you will quickly turn back into a spiritual stone without self-awareness."
The skeleton totally did not believe anything Shiji said. Why would becoming a god or an immortal become a meaningless joke in the eyes of all the monsters?
The power of faith is certainly a good thing that can help monsters grow rapidly, but the problem is that for monsters, once they choose to accept human faith, they can only rely on faith to survive.
By then, once they lose the support of the people before they become gods or immortals, they will gradually dissipate as the power of faith fades.
Skeleton didn't believe that Shiji would choose to sacrifice herself and all the villagers of Shixi Village to give him freedom. However...
"But what if I choose to transform myself into the new Stoney Mountain?"
Shiji: "After all, Shixi Mountain was created by absorbing the corpses of fierce beasts. This is what those fierce beasts deserve most."
"But you are different. Although you were born from the remains of a vicious beast, you have never really hurt anyone, so I am willing to give you a chance. However, you are the remains of a murderer after all, so I can't just let you go."
"I will suppress you in the mountains for a hundred years. If you can get rid of the evil spirit within this hundred years, I will set you free."
Shiji: "How about this? Think about it. Should you let go of your resentment and get rid of your evil spirit, or just wait for your soul to be torn apart because of the approaching end of time?"
Skeleton: "But why should I believe you?"
"Because you don't want to die."
Shiji: "I am the spirit stone left behind when Nuwa was refining the five-colored stones to mend the sky. My ability is to refine impurities, not to seal them."
"So if you can get rid of your evil spirit, my seal will no longer be able to suppress you."
Skeleton: "Then why don't you just use the current formation to purify me?"
"That's to save your life, of course."
After Shiji finished speaking, he suddenly left his body and broke free from the formation in the form of a soul. He knocked on the skeleton's head with a stone fan that he had taken out from somewhere and said:
"Although this Stone Creek Mountain is made of refined and purified power, it comes from a fierce beast after all. If it and your remains, which come from the same source, exist at the same time, God knows whether you will refine and absorb this Stone Creek Mountain again."
"I must ensure the safety of all the villagers in Stone Creek. If you want to live, you must obey me."
Shixi said that he activated the power of faith in his body.
In an instant, the entire Shixi Mountain was shaking in her mind as if mountains were moved and the sea was filled.
Drawing mountains with their body shapes is an innate ability for these stone monsters.
But this means they will blend into the land as a whole.
From then on, she no longer had an independent body and could no longer leave the mountain she had transformed into.
But she has no regrets. It was because she provided land for humans to live on that she was able to gain consciousness and have her own human form out of human gratitude.
This is the responsibility she should shoulder, and she will never give up the "family" who give her "life".
Even though the group of people who took her in have passed away one after another, she is still willing to protect their descendants because of the kindness the villagers showed her.
This is the best option.
Under the puzzled gaze of the skeleton, she began to devour the surrounding mud and rocks.
Stones, loess, mud and sand. Every time she ate a stone, her body would grow a little bigger.
Her body began to become bloated, and her once smooth and fair skin began to be covered with dust.
If she was a gem in the past, now she is the loess that can give birth to life.
This is the most basic way for stone monsters to practice. They can strengthen themselves by devouring sand and stones. But for a girl who loves beauty, she, who was born from spiritual stone, has very strict requirements on appearance.
This was also the fundamental reason why I chose to transform into a human form and cultivate immortality after awakening my self-consciousness.
They, the stone monsters, do not need to improve themselves by fighting and devouring other species like other wild beasts. Because in their monster life trajectory, as their own abilities continue to improve, they will turn into towering mountains one after another.
This is their advantage but also their helplessness. Water, soil, trees... The bigger they are, the more fertile the land on the mountain is. And the situation she is experiencing now is even more extreme.
In order to prevent the creatures on Shixi Mountain from being displaced, she could only absorb and merge with Shixi Mountain to become a brand new mountain in a short period of time. However, this kind of growth that was not achieved through natural cultivation would only force her soul to become an extremely ugly monster.
She also didn't like the appearance of being half-human and half-ghost after swallowing a lot of "foreign objects". But there was no other way. This was the only possibility for the creatures of Shixi Mountain to coexist with the remains.
At this time, the villagers at the foot of the mountain did not know what had happened. They only knew that they experienced a major earthquake that day that caused the mountains to move violently but did not affect them at all.
It was not until later when they realized that Shiji, who went up the mountain to investigate the situation, had never returned, that they realized another possibility of the so-called "natural disaster."
They found several villagers who had sent the letter back to the village at that time, but those villagers had already fallen into endless madness one after another due to the self-blame after knowing everything.
The villagers could only understand the various possibilities in fragments from the nonsense they kept muttering.
That was the most difficult moment in the villagers' lives. They certainly understood that in such a situation, two unarmed villagers could not fight against the remains who possessed demonic power.
But their conscience made them realize that they had betrayed the mountain god who had protected the village from evil spirits countless times.
The villagers knew that this was unjust, but thinking about their relatives in the village, they had no other choice.
After the earthquake, they went up the mountain under the leadership of those "crazy guys". However, no matter how they looked, the flawless female mountain goddess like white jade was no longer on Shixi Mountain.
Shiji doesn't want the villagers to see her current appearance, because in her mind, she has not only lost her beauty, which she is most proud of, but has also become the "monster" that she is most reluctant to face.
She didn't dare to go back to the village, for she was afraid that her current appearance would scare the children in the village. She chose to sleep forever in the mountains and forests. However, decades later, when she finally succeeded in transforming her skeleton, she woke up again after being called again and again.
Everything on Stoney Mountain was developing in a direction she had never imagined.
Not only did the villagers build a new temple at the water source of Shixi Mountain, but even now, decades later, there is an ugly fat doll placed next to the bed of every child in Shixi Village.
Travelers passing by were curious and wondered why the people in this village had such a unique aesthetic. However, whenever outsiders asked, they were greeted with puzzled looks from the children.
Little boy: "Is there something wrong with the eyes of these people?"
Little girl: "Exactly, what kind of aesthetics do they have? How could someone say that Shiji Niangniang is so beautiful and ugly!"
Little boy/girl: "Ugly people often do weird things!"
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