Chapter 114: Sacrificial Artifact

Chapter 114: Chapter 114: Sacrificial Artifact

THUD!

As Fang Can stomped on his head, the man was hit with the smell of damp earth.

The hard ground was indented by his even harder skull, and his entire head sank into the dirt.

’This is too much! Utterly humiliating!’

The man struggled desperately to push himself up, but the foot on his head felt like a celestial pillar, impossible to resist.

"Hm? Still struggling."

A surprised voice came from above him, then continued, "If that’s the case, strip him first. Then break his arms and legs and hang him up."

The next moment, he felt himself being lifted by the surrounding believers. A series of sharp cracks echoed as his four limbs were precisely twisted and broken, sending waves of excruciating pain through him.

When he could see again, he had been stripped naked and was hanging from a flagpole like a *teru teru bōzu*, dangling crookedly in midair.

Fang Can turned his head to look at the first guy who had jumped out.

He saw that after taking a punch to the face, the guy’s features had completely caved in, with brain matter leaking from his ears, yet he was somehow still alive.

"Whoa, should I say that the vitality of a Martial Artist is truly tenacious? He’s not even dead after all that."

A smile played on Fang Can’s lips as he watched the challengers get stripped naked and humiliatingly hung from the flagpoles one by one. The Evil Qi he had just been exuding completely dissipated.

He walked over to where Wan Chenyu’s broadsaber had been left and gripped the hilt with his right hand.

With a slight pull, he yanked the entire broadsaber from the ground. It felt like eighty or a hundred pounds at most, nothing like the immense weight Fang Can had faced earlier.

The heavy broadsaber was over four feet long. On the blade’s surface, a lifelike golden dragon coiled and twisted. Its head was raised high, its eyes blazed like torches, and it seemed to harbor a hidden fury and majesty.

The hilt appeared to be made of high-quality ebony, inlaid with rings of gold thread. Its texture was hard yet smooth.

It felt solid yet comfortable in his grip. Golden silk threads were wrapped around the hilt, echoing the dragon pattern on the blade. The pommel was carved in the shape of a dragon’s tail.

Looking at this broadsaber forged from some unknown black metal, Fang Can recalled the power it had displayed when Wan Chenyu used it. He unconsciously tightened his grip on the hilt.

The next moment, he felt his right arm sink.

In an instant, the broadsaber’s weight increased by at least tenfold.

At the same time, starting from the gold threads on the hilt, the golden dragon on the blade seemed to come alive. A golden light bloomed and spread across the entire edge.

"This is..."

Fang Can grew pensive. He began to gradually apply more force with the arm holding the hilt.

He soon discovered that as he increased the strength of his grip, both the broadsaber’s weight and the temperature of its blade increased continuously.

Under the added weight, Fang Can’s legs began to sink slowly into the ground.

Finally, when Fang Can gripped the hilt with all his strength, the broadsaber in his hand weighed nearly fifty tons, as if his entire body’s power was being pressed down upon it.

Feeling the scorching wind on his face, he noticed the gazes of the surrounding Martial Artists were all fixed on him.

"Not bad." Fang Can gripped the broadsaber with satisfaction and looked over at Li Xiangyang.

"Hey, what is this thing? It seems pretty special."

In response to Fang Can’s question, Li Xiangyang—who was still stripped naked and hanging—remained silent, clearly unwilling to answer.

"Tell me, and I’ll let you down early. Otherwise, you can just keep hanging there," Fang Can threatened, confident that the other man would talk.

’This guy’s attitude wasn’t bad before. It’s fine to give him slightly better treatment now that he’s a captive.’

After this offer, Li Xiangyang finally spoke. "It’s a Sacrificial Artifact, forged by a Heaven-Ascending Road Martial Artist who condensed their own heritage into it."

"A Sacrificial Artifact?" Fang Can lowered his head to gaze at the broadsaber.

"After every Martial Artist steps onto the Heaven-Ascending Road, they can create a corresponding heritage according to their will, based on the amount of their Heart-Light."

Li Xiangyang continued, "Most Martial Artists choose to imbue themselves with their Heart-Light to gain extraordinary abilities. However, a small number choose to channel their Heart-Light into an external object, granting special powers to a weapon."

"We call all such weapons Sacrificial Artifacts."

"Brother Wan... Wan Chenyu’s broadsaber is a Sacrificial Artifact forged by his uncle. After his uncle died in an accident, the blade was passed down to him by the clan."

"Because his uncle was a Second Turn expert, this Dragon Pattern Black Gold Saber has two condensed heritages: one is ’Sky-Press,’ and the other is ’Scarlet Flame.’ They can increase the saber’s weight and temperature."

Since he often associated with Wan Chenyu, he knew all about this Sacrificial Artifact. Wan Chenyu showed it off every day like a fisherman bragging about his catch, to the point that Li Xiangyang’s ears were calloused from hearing about it.

That’s why he understood everything about it, including the heritages, and was now spilling all the details.

"But... aren’t you from Jiejian Mountain? How could you not even know about Sacrificial Artifacts?" Li Xiangyang asked instinctively.

"What about Jiejian Mountain? Do I have to know about them?" Fang Can retorted instinctively.

"You guys are the experts when it comes to Sacrificial Artifacts. Every Disciple leaves their own Sacrificial Artifact within the sect’s gates after they pass away."

"Everyone knows that you can’t count the number of Sacrificial Artifacts in Jiejian Mountain on two hands. The Sword Tomb on the back mountain has at least several dozen Sacrificial Artifacts stuck in the ground, and there are countless pseudo-Sacrificial Artifacts," Li Xiangyang said as if it were common knowledge.

Fang Can: "Huh? Is that so?"

Li Xiangyang: "What else?"

At this point, Li Xiangyang stared at Fang Can with suspicion. ’As a Disciple of Jiejian Mountain, how could he not even know about Sacrificial Artifacts?’

They had been suspicious from the start. Why would Jiejian Mountain, a sect of women, choose to back Fang Can? Something was fishy.

Seemingly sensing his suspicion, Fang Can instinctively rolled his eyes. "If you reached the Profound Gate Ninth Layer in such a short time, you wouldn’t know anything either."

As soon as he said this, Li Xiangyang’s suspicion vanished. The Celestial Secret Tower wouldn’t lie, which meant this freak really had reached this stage of cultivation in just two months.

The thought made his teeth ache with jealousy.

Comparisons are odious. He, the second young master of the Li family, was considered a genius—one in a hundred thousand, at least—yet he couldn’t even withstand a single one of this guy’s moves.

Right now, he was still stripped naked and tied to a pole. Seeing his chance, he pleaded, "Hey, just let me down first, alright? Wan Chenyu’s procession will be here soon, and I can’t afford this humiliation."

"Procession?" Fang Can waved his hand lightly, signaling his followers to untie Li Xiangyang, while his gaze shifted to the distance.

A few miles away, a massive procession of at least several thousand people was heading in their direction.

Amidst the clouds of dust kicked up by the procession, the high-pitched wail of a suona could be faintly heard.

’Interesting. Did he bring his own funeral band in advance?’ Fang Can couldn’t help but chuckle.

His original plan to return to his palanquin was scrapped. With a light leap, he sat sideways on top of it, gazing at the approaching procession in the distance.

After cleaning up, Ye Yonglie and the others also noticed the approaching group. Once they guessed what it meant, they all adopted the expressions of people eager to watch a good show.

At that moment, Wan Chenyu, still on the flagpole, slowly regained consciousness. He felt an excruciating pain in his face, and his vision was completely dark.

But his sensitive ears had already picked up the sound of a suona in the distance. It was the sound of his own procession.

The next moment, a sense of absolute terror welled up from the depths of his heart!