Chapter 156: The Legendary Place (Part Two)

The destination was located in a remote mountainous region. Just two days after the vehicles entered the mountains, they could go no further, forcing everyone to pick up their luggage and proceed on foot.

There were forty people in our group, including six women. Despite their delicate appearance on the surface, these women possessed powerful supernatural abilities.

After a period of precise observation and judgment by both myself and Bak, we discovered that this seemingly ordinary exploration team not only consisted of humans, but also included practitioners from the Demon Realm—beings I had only ever heard of in legends.

The Demon Realm was once a glorious and vast plane. However, since the great war between the Gods and the Demons, the various realms shattered and merged on their own. All living beings of the seven realms were integrated into the Mortal Realm, and the lords of each realm signed various non-aggression pacts, embarking on a new way of life together.

The journey was rugged and full of hardships. The mountain trails were choked with overgrown bushes taller than a person, alongside broken mountains and crumbling cliffs. Wielding machetes, the group forged ahead with great difficulty, finally arriving at the small mountain village three days later.

The village was not very large, consisting of about several hundred households. It was situated on a flat terrace halfway up a mountain, with a rushing stream flowing beneath it. Looking down at the landscape below the entire mountain village, the view was absolutely magnificent!

Because the mountainous area was extremely remote, the people living there were still trapped in a feudal era. Later, we heard them say that they still did not know the outside world had changed hands through several different regimes.

The villagers were very warm and hospitable. They all wore feudal-era clothing, and even the young girls were dressed in coarse hemp garments.

With primitive farming and self-sufficiency, it was an immense struggle for a village of several hundred households to survive in such a place.

However, what sustained their lives was not the terraced fields they relied on for survival, but the four-season produce of the mountain forests; a greater portion of their food actually came from nature.

The village chief was extremely hospitable. First, he warmly treated the party to a meal, then gave up several rooms in his own house for some of the members, and finally distributed the rest of the team to stay in other villagers' homes.

When we stated our purpose to the village chief, his expression visibly changed. Meanwhile, the pampered young master accompanying us kept his face tightly wrapped and wore a duck-billed cap, making it impossible for anyone to discern his true appearance.

"Sigh~ You have no idea. Many people entered that cave before you, but none of them ever came out alive. No one has been there for years, and I advise you all not to go!"

The village chief's words were filled with terror. It seemed he genuinely harbored some inexplicable dread toward that cave, which made me certain that this old village chief had most likely been inside it himself.

"Village chief, we must go. It is precisely because there are so many unsolved mysteries there that we must investigate and find out the truth!"

The young master's voice was muffled and somewhat hoarse. If he were truly as young as he appeared, he shouldn't have such a voice. That meant there must be a secret hidden beneath his veil!

***

They had talked for so long while Bak and I listened from the side. In the end, with nothing resolved, everyone went back to their respective quarters to sleep.

Since everyone was setting off tomorrow, Bak and I returned to our lodging, but I tossed and turned and simply couldn't fall asleep. Therefore, I decided to go up to the wooden attic of our host's house to get some fresh air.

"Whoosh—"

The night scenery in the mountains was truly beautiful, and the air was exceptionally crisp. A bright moon hung in the sky, casting a curved, silver lunar arc across the entire valley.

Right at that moment, I suddenly caught sight of a dark figure flashing rapidly past my eyes on a distant rooftop!

Good grief, this fellow was truly stealthy. Was this some kind of feudal-era criminal modus operandi straight out of a television drama? Dressed entirely in black night-travel garments and holding a curved blade as he leaped across rooftops.

However, judging by the direction he was heading, it seemed to be toward the outer periphery of the mountain village. I couldn't fathom why anyone would head out into the wilderness in the middle of the night. Weren't they afraid of being ambushed collectively by a roaming pack of mountain wolves?

Even if he possessed countless skills, there was no way he could overpower a pack of wolves using human-wave tactics.

I quietly followed him. Of course, I flew. As the first-generation demon corpse king, I might as well make use of the two large wings on my back.

Although I was capable of scaling walls and vaulting over roofs, it wasn't as effortless as this, and tracking the man in black this way ensured he wouldn't slip out of my sight.

Who on earth could be so bored? He wasn't a grand bandit after the villagers' money, nor was he a flower-picking thief, nor was he targeting the village's pretty, wild maidens. Then what on earth was his purpose?

I had been following him for half an hour, and the fellow was still moving continuously. His movement speed was completely on par with my flight speed; it seemed this guy was far from simple.

Finally, the man in black slowed his pace significantly, showing signs of gradually coming to a halt. Right in front of the man in black, a huge, pitch-black deep pit abruptly appeared.

"Primal race within the pit, I hope you will not make things difficult for those people tomorrow. If you spare them, I am willing to sacrifice eighty percent of the village's cattle and sheep to you!"

The voice of the man in black sounded very familiar—it seemed to belong to the village chief. But I couldn't understand why he was praying for us.

Earlier in the day, I had carefully inspected the cattle and sheep in their village; those were the treasures they depended on for survival!

If eighty percent of them were handed over to the cave, the probability of this village surviving in this valley would plummet to the absolute lowest point.

***

There was no response from the cave, but the more silent it was, the more wrong I felt, because it seemed as though the air around me had been suddenly and completely vacuumed out!

My body was actually unable to maintain stability in the air, and I felt the ominous sensation of plummeting downward.

This force was damn too bizarre! I hadn't sensed its presence at all before it reached me and yanked me straight down from dozens of meters in the air!

"Boom!"

"Ouch, that nearly killed me!"

I struggled to crawl out of the human-shaped crater on the ground, patted my intensely aching backside, and then cast my gaze toward the man in black, who was staring at me in shock.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss!"

How awkward. Amidst our mutual gaze, I saw two green lights shoot from the eyes of the man in black, while his mouth emitted a sound akin to a snake flicking its tongue.

Holy crap, this man in black was actually a snake demon! Yet his other identity was the village chief.

Thinking about it carefully, it wasn't all that strange. For a village to survive in such a impoverished place, it was bound to have some deities or spirits protecting it.

Otherwise, relying solely on those mortals, it would have been utterly impossible for them to survive and propagate in this place.

Now that our identities were mutually exposed, I could only offer an awkward smile to the glaring snake demon and say, "Hehe, what a coincidence, Village Chief. Still awake so late? I didn't fly steadily just now and fell down. My butt hurts quite a bit!"