Chapter 356 346: The Ten Thousand Spirits Celestial Pride List Stirred

As Song Ciwan continued to rip the Smoke Evil Spirit apart with her bare hands, she checked the new clusters of energy she had just received in her Heaven and Earth Scale.

[Fury of the Evil Spirit. The anger of a mountain-dwelling Flying Spirit Level wild god, one jin and one tael. Can be traded.]

[Fury of the Evil Spirit. The resentment of a mountain-dwelling Flying Spirit Level wild god, two jin and one tael. Can be traded.]

[Fury of the Evil Spirit. The pain of a mountain-dwelling Flying Spirit Level wild god, two jin and three taels. Can be traded.]

[Fury of the Evil Spirit. The regret of a mountain-dwelling Flying Spirit Level wild god, two jin and five taels. Can be traded.]

[Fury of the Evil Spirit. The fury of a mountain-dwelling Flying Spirit Level wild god, two jin and seven taels. Can be traded.]

...

Cluster after cluster of energy poured into the Heaven and Earth Scale like a flood breaking through a dam.

The Heaven and Earth Scale remained as still as a mountain, simply accepting this torrent of a harvest.

But Song Ciwan's gaze fixed on a key detail in the Heaven and Earth Scale's description. 'Flying Spirit Level wild god?'

'So, this Evil Spirit really is a Mountain God!'

Only, this Mountain God was a "false Mountain God"—an Evil God, a wild god. It wasn't one of the Great Zhou's True Gods!

Song Ciwan knew very little about the system of Divine Spirits and couldn't tell what kind of Level "Flying Spirit Level" was, or what cultivation realm it corresponded to. 'Could it be Divinity Transformation?'

Although it looked as if Song Ciwan was effortlessly tearing the Smoke Evil Spirit apart, with each rip clean and precise, only she knew how much power she was truly exerting to do so.

This thing was truly bizarre and unpredictable, making it extremely difficult to handle.

In Song Ciwan's opinion, this Flying Spirit Level Evil Spirit was even harder to deal with than a Small City Level Deceitful Realm.

The most difficult part wasn't even its raw power—though, of course, the Evil Spirit's strength was considerable, there was no denying that.

The truly terrifying thing about this Evil Spirit was its ability to create Illusion Realms—layer after layer of them, terrifying Illusion Realms that blurred the line between fantasy and reality, trapping you in an endless shuttle through a world of phantoms!

WHOOSH—

With one final tear from Song Ciwan, the Smoke Evil Spirit completely dissipated into nothingness in her hands.

All that remained was the faint, lingering echo of a mournful sigh, drifting through the rippling, wave-like mountain scenery.

Song Ciwan's vision cleared. She felt as if she had torn through layer after layer of a hazy veil, and with the veil ripped away, the world finally returned to her, sharp and clear.

When she looked again, the scenery before her had changed.

The Mountain God Temple was still the same Mountain God Temple, but it hadn't collapsed, nor had it been reduced to rubble by Song Ciwan's lightning.

Song Ciwan had already withdrawn her Thunder Skill. The stars hung low in the sky. Before the Mountain God Temple, the grass and trees were tinged with frost, the vegetation lush. Not a single trace of the previous lightning strikes remained!

So, while Song Ciwan had thought she'd arrived at the Mountain God Temple—and indeed, she had—the temple she had been at was not *this* Mountain God Temple.

From the moment she saw Guo Laojiang and the others in the temple, she had already fallen into an Illusion Realm.

What did the destruction of the Mountain God Temple in the Illusion Realm have to do with the one in reality?

Thus, the real Mountain God Temple remained perfectly intact.

Except... Peering through the open temple doors, Song Ciwan saw what looked like a thin crack that had appeared on the brow of the Mountain God Statue inside.

At first glance, the crack looked as if the Mountain God had grown a new eye, or perhaps as if it were weeping.

A faint, indescribable sorrow lingered in the air.

It was worth noting that in the real Mountain God Temple, there were no "people" like Guo Laojiang and the others.

Song Ciwan performed the Great Derivation Birth Skill, pinching her fingers together to perform a divination.

In her Sea of Consciousness, her Heart Demon Seed pulsed, and the god within her opened its eyes. At last, through the dense fog of mystery, she glimpsed the stunning truth!

It turned out Guo Laojiang and his companions had died long ago.

They had all perished a long, long time ago.

From the very beginning, from the moment Song Ciwan and Tushan Keji ascended Celestial Dragon Mountain at night and saw Guo Laojiang's group from afar, they had already been trapped in an Illusion Realm.

The so-called "caravan ascending the mountain" that they saw back then was, in fact, nothing more than an illusory reenactment, not a real event.

Guo Laojiang and his companions had once ascended Celestial Dragon Mountain at night, only to die due to the Evil Spirit's manipulations and their own foolish desires.

It was a truly miserable and agonizing way to die.

As a result, Guo Laojiang and the others were filled with a Resentment that could not be dispelled. Under the Evil Spirit's control, this Resentment formed a strange force field.

And so, night after night, they reenacted the events on Celestial Dragon Mountain, perhaps hoping that if the past was replayed enough times, one day they might achieve a different outcome.

But alas, they never did.

Every single time, the entire group died. Not one was spared.

Entangled by Resentment, Guo Laojiang and the others were no longer Human—they weren't even aberrations. They had become condensations of Resentment within the Evil Spirit's Illusion Realm, helping the tyrant oppress his victims, serving as a tiger's accomplice!

Because they weren't even aberrations and lacked complete consciousness from their former lives, no matter how much their emotions fluctuated in the Illusion Realm, Song Ciwan's Heaven and Earth Scale could not collect their energy.

In the entire Illusion Realm, only the Evil Spirit was a true living being.

Even though it was a creature of death—the antithesis of life—as long as it possessed a complete consciousness, Song Ciwan could collect its "Fury of the Evil Spirit."

As Song Ciwan pinched her fingers and calculated, she came to understand the entire sequence of events, and couldn't help but sigh softly to herself.

The Big White Goose beside Song Ciwan cocked its head, honking "GAK GAK" repeatedly. It seemed completely unable to comprehend how a Mountain God Temple that had been destroyed could suddenly become whole again—

The Big White Goose was clearly oblivious to the difference between illusion and reality.

"GAK GAK GAK!"

"HONK HONK HONK!"

"SKRAWNK SKRAWNK SKRAWNK!"

The Big White Goose flapped its wings and cried out with excitement and curiosity!

It paced around Song Ciwan as it cried, as if trying to express its irrepressible emotions.

Song Ciwan hadn't been able to collect the emotional energy of Guo Laojiang and the other non-humans, but now she was receiving a whole heap of "demon hearts" from the Big White Goose.

[Demon Heart. The surprise, excitement, and bewilderment of a Pseudo-Spirit Communication Stage Goose Demon, one jin and six taels. Can be traded.]

[Demon Heart. The thrill, excitement, and joy of a Pseudo-Spirit Communication Stage Goose Demon, one jin and nine taels. Can be traded.]

[Demon Heart...]

...

Song Ciwan had no idea how the Big White Goose could feel thrilled and excited one moment and then joyful the next, but seeing its mood stabilize after a bout of honking, she felt joyful too.

She picked up the Big White Goose again and said, "Big White, there are still so many strange things in this world that I have never experienced and can hardly imagine. We've just gone through another one. Don't you think it's rather interesting?"

The Big White Goose: "HONK HONK HONK!"

Cradling the goose, Song Ciwan didn't linger in front of the Mountain God Temple.

She could sense that a certain wondrous spirituality within the Mountain God Temple seemed to have dissipated.

Although the temple still looked intact, it was now nothing more than an empty shell.

So, Song Ciwan carried the goose and continued onward. She crossed the summit of Celestial Dragon Mountain, her steps seeming slow but covering ground quickly as she began her descent.

She continued speaking to the Big White Goose, "Big White, the human heart is treacherous. Everyone knows this, but when you truly face it, how many people can see through its deceit? People can't even grasp their own hearts, let alone the hearts of others."

The Big White Goose: "SKRAWNK SKRAWNK SKRAWNK!"

...

The woman and the goose vanished into the night.

Far away in Shangjing, the capital of the Central State, the towering Ten Thousand Spirits Celestial Pride List suddenly stirred. At that moment, a new line of text scrolled into view.