Divine & Bizarre: Increasing Points to Invincibility

"Qiulong Temple! Fan Wu!!" A voice filled with malice and hatred rose in the dimly lit underground chamber.

"Cough cough cough..."

The speaker suddenly coughed violently several times, coughing up a bit of blood that was somewhat different from that of a normal person.

If one didn't pay close attention, they might think the blood was black, because the color of the blood he coughed up was too dark.

And it was accompanied by a strange, fishy stench.

It made one feel extremely uncomfortable to smell it.

This was an old man with a very thin and emaciated body; there wasn't much white hair left on his head.

That face, like the bark of an old tree, was covered with sores.

Pus oozed out of the sores.

One could vaguely discern that each sore on his face was moving.

It was as if there were living creatures inside the sores.

"Damn it! I hold no grudge against Qiulong Temple; why does that junior from Qiulong County hinder my grand plans time and again?" The old man staggered to his feet, and as he moved, the sores on his skin quivered more intensely.

Even more pus flowed out.

His entire person emitted a foul stench, as though he had just been fished out of a cesspool.

Suddenly!

His weathered face twitched, and from a few of the sores on his face, fat white maggots squirmed out!

After the maggots emerged, they fell straight to the ground and splattered into blobs of worm paste.

But he didn't mind this at all.

As if he had long grown accustomed to it.

The old man moved his faltering steps, trembling as he walked to the side.

He took out a stick of strange incense and lightly twisted the tip between two fingers; the incense actually ignited!

But what rose from the incense wasn't smoke.

It was Yin Energy!!

The old man quickly brought his nose close and greedily inhaled the rich Yin Energy.

His pale, weak complexion gradually turned ruddy, and the trembling sores on his body gradually quieted down.

When the incense was half burned, it was as if he thought of something, and he snapped out of his greedy state.

The old man's face instantly became fearful, and he hurriedly held the half-burned incense between his hands.

Bending his knees and bowing to an idol on a table in the chamber as if he were a servile dog, he nodded his head at a high frequency.

One might wonder if he would throw out his back.

While worshiping like a madman, he chanted in a strange tone, both anxious and sincere, "O Great Revered One above, who saves from suffering and difficulty in heaven and earth..."

"Your disciple Xuan Shizi did not mean to lose the offering, nor did he intend not to bring the offering back, but encountered some unexpected difficulties along the way."

"I beseech the Great Revered One who saves from suffering and difficulty in heaven and earth to grant your disciple one more chance; I promise to retrieve the offering by that day."

"I promise... I promise... Please, Great Revered One, bear witness!"

"O great compassion and relief."

With that, Xuan Shizi respectfully inserted the incense in his hand into the incense burner and once again started worshiping the idol like a madman.

Muttering incessantly.

However.

The thing he worshiped as an idol would better be described as an extremely abstract statue.

Because it didn't look at all human, nor divine.

The statue wasn't very large, standing about three feet tall.

In terms of Great Zhou's measurements...

Three feet high was not even one meter.

The statue was dark bronze in color, and overall, it looked like clumps of bizarre meat tumors stacked on top of each other.

On those clumps of tumors... there was a head, and on the head, there was an extremely grotesque human face.

At the center of the statue's forehead was carved a swastika.

It even vaguely possessed a strange Buddhist quality.

Unfortunately, the base of the statue was a Yin Yang Bagua Plate, with its edge inscribed with tiny talisman scripts that, when translated, revealed a Daoist scripture.

It was indeed a monstrous patchwork creature!

At this moment, Xuan Shizi watched the stick of incense burn with intense anxiety.

Perhaps due to the overwhelming tension, his forehead was already drenched in layers of cold sweat.

Until the incense burned slowly to ashes.

Xuan Shizi immediately checked his own body and, finding no issues, felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

He heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"Thank you, The Great Revered One, for gracing your disciple with this opportunity! Thank you to the merciful Great Revered One above and below for saving the suffering! I will surely bring back the offering and take the head of that junior named Fan Wu!"

"I want to use that scoundrel's soul to refine into an offering! That man is a Taoist from the Qiulong Temple, and if his soul is refined... it will surely be worth ten!"

After arranging some items in the secret room, Xuan Shizi then pulled a lever inside the room.

The heavy stone door of the secret room opened, and a dimly lit staircase appeared before his eyes.

He walked up step by step.

Only when he caught the familiar scent of various rouge mixed together did Xuan Shizi finally relax completely.

Only then did he realize that his back was soaked with cold sweat.

"It's all Fan Wu's doing!" Xuan Shizi's eyes glinted with a touch of ferocity and gloom: "This man destroyed two of my ghosts and even the ghostly infant paper effigy that I had spent countless efforts to refine! He even took the offering that I was supposed to present to The Great Revered One to the county yamen!"

"It infuriates me!!!"

"This man must be punished!!!"

"Huff..."

"Huff..."

He took several deep breaths to control his emotions, his sparse eyebrows growing increasingly furrowed: "The two ghosts and a paper effigy have been destroyed by him, and it will take some time to cultivate a few new ghosts to replace them."

"Fortunately, in a place like Gou Lan, it's relatively easy to find suitable candidates to foster into fierce ghosts, as this place is a nexus of Yin Energy."

"In establishments like Gou Lan, every so often a woman with a profound grievance meets her end."

"It seems I need to scout for a few new ghosts..."

He muttered to himself as he walked out, but the further he went, the more he felt something was amiss.

Although the haunted events in the county yamen caused quite a stir in Qiulong County,

to some people,

what's a ghost compared to a beautiful woman?!

And to those in Gou Lan, what's a ghost compared to earning silver?

For various desires, a place like Gou Lan would never close.

Not even for a day.

But...

"It's too quiet!!"

Xuan Shizi suddenly realized that today, the Gou Lan of Qiulong County was unnaturally quiet.

Not hearing any noise from outside while he was in the secret room was normal, but now that he had come out, he still heard nothing.

This was abnormal!

Usually, even in the dead of night, Gou Lan would be filled with the sounds of coquettish women and the chirps and twitters of the nightingales.

Mixed in would be the loud nonsense of the drinkers and the lewd whispers of the rowdy crowd.

But now...

All of the above noises were non-existent!

The silence was terrifying!

Xuan Shizi immediately formed a hand seal and rapidly chanted under his breath: "Merciful Great Revered One above and below, reliever of suffering, your disciple hereby begs to borrow your supreme and boundless mana..."

However, before the spell was complete,

a voice entered Xuan Shizi's ears like a death knell.

"Found you."

...

...