Chapter 54: Followers of the Undying King – 4

Yang Zicang scanned his surroundings, seeing everyone’s faces fill with envy. It seemed the fruit wine in his hand, rich in aroma, was something they had never even had a chance to drink.
“Ha! Fine, very fine—interesting.”
Yang Zicang tilted his head back and took a hearty swig.
Gulp, gulp, gulp!
After downing more than half a jar, he let out a deep breath, set it down heavily with a thud, and continued eating and chatting nonchalantly.
The party lingered all the way until midnight, while the two men in the room grew increasingly anxious.
They could hardly suppress their expressions any longer.
After several rounds of wine, Yang Zicang cast a glance at these men, picked up the wine jar, walked up to one of them, and said flatly:
“Do you want a taste of this wine?”
“Ah! Minister… Minister Sir.”
The man was so startled that goosebumps rose all over his skin.
Next to him, another man turned his head away while trembling slightly.
Yang Zicang fixed his gaze on the Savage’s own son and said tonelessly: “So it was them, right?”
“No! It wasn’t me—NO—!”
Both tried unsuccessfully to stand up and bolt.
Witnessing this, Ashizaguda realized he had failed. Truly, the Steward knew everything.
His wavering gaze shifted from panic to resignation as he nodded.
“Yes, it was done by the Divine Messengers themselves. I never expected the Steward to recognize it so quickly.”
Divine Messengers?
Not only Yangzicang but everyone present looked at the two men with curiosity, pondering the meaning of that term.
The two men were drenched in sweat.
Suddenly, one of them gritted his teeth and sprang up, stretching his arm quickly toward the red-glowing beast tooth necklace on Yangzicang’s chest.
Boom!
A flying black shadow knocked over the bonfire. The man crashed against the wall like a ragdoll, blood splattering everywhere as he slid slowly down.
The other man froze in terror.
“No, don’t, please don’t kill me!” he said in a panic-stricken voice.
Thud. Ashizaguda’s clay bowl slipped from his hand. The sturdy bowl rolled twice on the uneven ground but miraculously did not break.
“Attack the Steward?”
“They dared to rob the Steward’s sacred artifact!”
The braves around them finally snapped out of it, hastily standing up to surround the man Yangzicang had sent flying.
The braves were filled with dread. Cursed beast, how dare they!
“Bah!”
The Chief flipped over the table, dragged his son closer, and kicked him in the leg, forcing him to kneel.
“Speak. What did you do.”
The chieftain, in a furious rage, violently grabbed his own son’s hair and shouted angrily, “What do you think you’re doing!”
“I, I…”
Ashizguda was stunned senseless, knowing nothing, and merely looked at the divine envoy of the Great Light for help.
“Great Light Envoy, you, you say something quickly!”
He was supposed to be the Great Light Envoy now, but he was nothing more than a miserable wretch who could only open his mouth without uttering a single word.
Yang Zicang understood what the other man wanted.
With a silent sigh, he glanced at the half-empty jar of wine still on the table, picked it up again before the man’s very eyes.
“No!”
The man nearly reached out to snatch it away but was abruptly slapped in the face and had his shoulders pressed down firmly.
After taking two hearty gulps, Yang Zicang let the wine jar down heavily on the table.
“As for the taste of the wine itself, it’s not bad,” he said, scanning the crowd around him. “But do not, under any circumstances, taste it. In the future, all of you should drink in moderation and not lose yourselves.”
After these inexplicable words, Yang Zicang walked out, for there was a child waiting for him outside the city.
When Yang Zicang had gone a distance away, the now-wary chieftain dared to pick up the wine jar and sniff it. He furrowed his brow and pondered for a moment, then suddenly his expression changed drastically.
“Ah!!”
He lifted his foot and slammed it against the chin of the kneeling young man, raining down relentless punches.
“You beast!!!”
After a thorough beating, Zagu Da glowered with the fury of a dragon towards the man sitting behind the table.
He reached out with an iron-clamp-like hand and forcefully seized the other’s chin, while raising the wine jug with the other hand. Amid the victim’s terrified and futile struggles, he poured all the remaining liquor down the man’s throat.
“Ugh, no… gulp… please…”
“Cough, ugh…”
In just a few minutes, the man convulsed all over, collapsed spitting blood onto the ground, struggled with a contorted face, and died in agony.
Only then did Ashizakuda, with his shattered chin, realize what he had served to the attendants. He collapsed limp to his knees, looking around helplessly at the hall warriors who seemed eager to devour him alive.
It’s over, all over…
……
In the night, a child sat quietly on the ground, gazing at the stars and the moon.
“Have you had dinner?”
Footsteps sounded. The child turned his head to see who it was, then quickly turned around and prostrated himself.
“From now on, no need to perform such formalities with me.”
“Then I…”
“What’s your name?”
“I…” the child hesitated, “I forgot.”
“Forgot?”
“Before, Mother just called me Son, and Sister called me Little Brother. I remember I had a name, but I forgot it.”
Yang Zicang didn’t ask where his mother and sister had gone. He handed him a small portion of food.
“From now on, your name will be Wu Zheng.”
“Wu Zheng… Wu?” The child looked at him hesitantly.
“How long do you want to live?”
“I, I don’t know. I want to find Mom and Sister.”
“That’s fine.”
Yang Zicang took out a small orb and crushed it. From within the orb, like a model springing to life, a flickering triangular faint light landed on the child, and the previously non-existent ring on his chest appeared.
A sudden telepathic voice intrusively appeared in his mind, startling the child.
[Are you willing to sign a “Practice Contract” with me? From the date of signing until the agreed-upon skills are mastered, or upon death, the contract is naturally fulfilled. Upon the contract’s dissolution, all experience gained from the practiced skills shall no longer be retained.]
More detailed information naturally emerged in his heart, allowing him to clearly understand the meaning of this contract.
Likewise, a portion of this light also entered and was stored within Yang Zicang’s ring.
“Sir, do you mean I…”
“This time, I want everything from your life’s journey.”
Ding, a coin cast from gold shimmered and fell into the child’s hands.
[You have received 50N.]
“Can you learn all eight of such divine arts in your lifetime?”
Yang Zicang swung his arm, striking out a phantom fist.
Whooompf!
A sudden gale swept across the ground, snapping grass blades and breaking stems, scattering them chaotically.
The child, having never seen such a display, stared in awe at Yang Zicang. Only then did he realize this man wanted him to learn martial arts comparable to this, and eight different styles at that!
[For each one you learn, I will give you a coin of this amount of gold.]
The child was stunned, and then tears welled up in his eyes.
Longevity mattered not; it had been so long since he had received such care.
Over the past few millennia, Yang Zicang had seen countless individuals with powerful physiques, and with just a single glance, he could tell what heights they might reach after training.
This accuracy rate had already reached about seventy to eighty percent, all derived from his own conclusions without any guidance from others.
Yet, some talents are simply invisible to the naked eye.
For certain anomalously gifted individuals, Heaven often conceals their talent until the moment they reveal it.
Take the one before him, for example.
He had resolved to take on his first disciple, to inherit his Explosive Wind Fist technique, and to learn all the martial arts that Mori had brought into this place.
“Follow me,” Yang Zicang said, extending his hand.
In his hand, there were only seven books, but the contract-related Ability Spheres numbered sixty-eight.
Although a single book could be studied by several people simultaneously, it was unrealistic to acquire over sixty contract books within a span of just a few decades.
In particular, two of them concerned the training of spiritual power and psychic strength, demands that were somewhat stringent for these beings hovering between primitive humans and Homo sapiens.
……
A few years later, in a small tribe.
A young man knelt in pain inside his own dwelling, his skin cracking all over, scorched like earth sundered by a raging fire.
“O great… Undying King…”
He placed both hands on the ground, and inside his heart it was as if a flame had erupted, instinctively causing him to jerk unconsciously—then a refreshing coolness rose from the centre of the flame, swiftly spreading to every part of his body.
……
More than a decade later, in a village on the other side of the continent being plundered, a fair-faced woman carrying a silver longsword walked in from the village entrance.
“What crime have they committed?”
On the village path, villagers beaten and tied up lay huddled together, weeping. Their houses were being destroyed and set on fire.
“These people failed to deliver grain to the Undying King.”
A man armed with a blade, guarding these captives, looked over foolishly. This woman was as beautiful as moonlight, and without thinking, he answered her question.
“Ah, a beautiful hairless woman. Tie her up quickly and offer her to the King’s followers.”
A group clad in animal skins surged forward.
The woman drew the sword from behind her back; it rapidly iced over.
Thump, thump, thump!
In a single exchange, all of them collapsed with groans.
The one who had given the order, his face twisted in terror, tried to control his hands and feet but failed—the sword had severed their tendons.
Seeing the longsword hovering over his throat, the leader of these fallen men burst into sobs, pleading desperately for mercy.
“These accusations, I have never heard the King or His Grace the Servant speak of.”
“Surely you wouldn’t hear it—only the followers…”
The woman sheathed her sword and turned to leave.
“Release them. If I return here next time and find this village gone, all of you—and your so-called follower—will die.”
Their faint voices drifted like wind and snow through the thickening fog of the village.
……
Yang Zicang arrived at the depths of the trench.
His skin was distorted and pulled apart by the pressure of the seawater, but his body was fortunately not crushed, still retaining a human form. As his cultivation progressed, he had grown strong enough to withstand the water pressure at depths of hundreds of meters.
However, this was only due to the effect of this psychic body. He still remembered that the first time he descended into the sea, he had only dived a little over a hundred meters before his body began to severely deform.
Ahead was a red glow—the constantly seeping magma. Within it lay a single special stone, emitting a faint light.
Inside the stone was the slowly rotating image of a fire centipede. For decades, this stone had been absorbing the intangible energy rising from the magma.
Yang Zicang infused several Evil Nightmare Corpse Fragments that had been turned into spirit artifact weapons with the temporal sequence and cast them over.
Although the fire centipede had long since died, the Evil Nightmare Quintessence contained within this stone would still instinctively devour these items, just as they would devour living creatures to replenish energy—only the process was much slower.
Yang Zicang could sense that, as the temporal sequence was continuously devoured by it, he was occasionally able to perceive the existence of this item, although this perception was extremely faint.