Chapter 290: Chapter 10: Divine Soul Descends, Battle of the Dreamland
A Heart Demon!
After the previous gathering of the Zhou Tian Boundary Officers, Zhou Heng had sought information from the inner circle of the Five Emperors to avoid being at a loss when encountering Demon Entities.
A Heart Demon was one of them.
This type of Demon Entity was intangible and formless, wandering the spiritual world, excelling at constructing various illusions, targeting the weaknesses of the human heart, and then devouring the Divine Souls of those who were beguiled by the illusions.
Zhou Heng had attempted to use his Divine Sense to investigate Yuxiang Town, and immediately alerted the Heart Demon “Huomang” lurking there, which entangled a thread of his Divine Soul and dragged him into an illusion.
However, because Zhou Heng knew from the start that it was an attack from a Heart Demon and had learned some of its mind-bewildering techniques, he wasn’t truly fooled.
Still, pretending to be fooled and then attacking when it was off guard was undoubtedly an excellent response.
At that moment, with the Immortal Seal Technique and the Sky-Earth Striking Method both activated, Zhou Heng’s spirit smashed down on the Heart Demon like a mighty hammer.
Facing this sudden attack, the Heart Demon, which had taken on the appearance of Yan Shouyi, had no time to react and its head instantly burst open as if struck by a heavy hammer.
Immediately after, its entire “body” twisted into a wisp of dark smoke and vanished without a trace.
The Heart Demon fled.
The scene before Zhou Heng’s eyes also crumbled inch by inch, whether it was the towering Taihua Mount that reached for the heavens, the incredibly terrifying Demon Entity, or the body of Cheng Jianjian lying not far away, all rapidly disintegrated.
In the blink of an eye, the scenery before Zhou Heng returned to normal. He was still seated on his jujube-red horse, still stationed just outside Yuxiang Town, and in reality hadn’t moved an inch.
Everything he had “seen” just now was a psychic illusion created by the Heart Demon “Huomang.”
That illusion was extremely powerful and could even interfere with normal cognitive functions. If it were an ordinary martial artist at the peak of the Seventh Rank, there was a very high possibility that their Divine Soul would be directly devoured by this Heart Demon.
“I didn’t expect there to be a Heart Demon here,” Zhou Heng frowned slightly. He dismounted from his horse and snapped his fingers to send the jujube-red horse into his Cave Sky, “And from the feedback of the Sky-Earth Striking Method just now, this Heart Demon is nearly at the Secret Six Rank. This Yuxiang Town…”
After a brief contemplation, he decided to head toward the town.
Previously, when Zhou Heng used his Divine Sense to scan the internals of Yuxiang Town, although he quickly encountered the Heart Demon “Huomang,” he still perceived some situations in that short period.
The streets of the entire Yuxiang Town were devoid of people; almost everyone was lying in bed at home, in deep sleep. Many of them were furrowing their brows, their expressions pained, unconsciously gripping their chest.
They were having nightmares.
Zhou Heng already knew where the Heart Demon had come from—it most likely emerged from the nightmares of the populace of Yuxiang Town—since the nightmares of any living being could potentially spawn Demon Entities.
Now, over ten thousand residents of Yuxiang Town were caught in nightmares, and there was also the previously encountered Heart Demon’s influence. If this wasn’t addressed, it was likely that many more Demon Entities would soon be spawned.
“Either wake these people of Yuxiang Town or find that Heart Demon,” Zhou Heng thought of two solutions as he quickly stepped into Yuxiang Town.
However, the moment he entered the town, he felt a surge of black Demonic Qi behind him that sealed his retreat, preventing him from returning to the entrance of Yuxiang Town.
“Humans, do you wish to save the people here?” The voice of the Heart Demon sounded out of nowhere, as if omnipresent, pervading every corner of Yuxiang Town, “I advise you not to seek your own death.”
“You actually didn’t flee?” Zhou Heng chuckled and said, “That’s convenient. I was planning to hunt you down, and now that you’re right here, I might as well just finish you off.”
“Hahahaha!” The Heart Demon laughed, its voice echoing endlessly through the void, “Human, for every bit of injury you inflict on me, one person here will die. Do you want to try?”
“Moreover, with your current level of cultivation, you probably can’t even find me, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you can awaken these humans from their dreams. The moment they wake up is the moment they die!”
“Are you trying to provoke me?” Zhou Heng’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he thought to himself, “Heart Demons excel at exploiting the flaws in people’s hearts, somewhat similar to ghosts. One must be cautious to avoid falling for their tricks.”
“However, this Heart Demon has no form or substance, and its existence is not physically seen as it roams within the spiritual world. Right now, it is most likely within the dreams of the people of Yuxiang Town. How should I search for it?”
“The best method, of course, is to delve into the dreams of the people of Yuxiang Town, find the existence of this Heart Demon, kill it, and then awaken the people here.”
But dreams have always been Zhou Heng’s weak point.
Compared with more straightforward spiritual attack techniques like the Undying Seal Method and the Sky-Earth Striking Method, the art of dreams is more delicate, more mysterious, and harder to predict and comprehend.
Apart from having used the True Dream Cultivation Card, he had almost no in-depth understanding of dreams.
For the moment, Zhou Heng really couldn’t find a place to start.
In truth, for him, leaving this place wasn’t difficult; he could easily break through the demonic qi that blocked his path.
But he did not want to let the Heart Demon “Huang Mang” off so easily, nor did he want to ignore the lives and deaths of tens of thousands of people, and certainly not allow more demon entities to breed here.
This was the duty of a member of the Zhou Tian Boundary Officers, but also stemmed from his own human nature.
“Human, are you contemplating how to deal with me?” Huang Mang noticed the change in Zhou Heng’s emotions and sneered, “Give up. With your insignificant cultivation, your spirit, which is not yet detached from the flesh, simply cannot find me.”
“You can only watch helplessly as my companions emerge one by one from these humans’ dreams, finally surrounding and devouring them completely.”
“Hmph!” Zhou Heng snorted coldly, remaining silent.
However, he was also sensing his surroundings, probing the breath of the townspeople of Yuxiang Town.
He could feel that although the townspeople still had a glimmer of spiritual light, the vitality of their bodies had declined to an extremely low level, almost akin to that of the dead.
According to Zhou Heng’s estimate, if they couldn’t be awakened within three days and given enough influence, these tens of thousands of people might never wake up again.
Heart Demon “Huang Mang” would surely lead many demon entities out of the dreams before then, otherwise once all the people here died, the dreams would naturally collapse.
“If I’m not mistaken, the dreams of the townspeople of Yuxiang Town are now probably gathered with a good number of demon entities,” Zhou Heng thought to himself. “Just need the right opportunity, and Huang Mang could lead who knows how many demon entities to surge out.”
That would be a tremendous disaster.
The spiritual pollution inherent to demon entities is much stronger than that of ghosts or evil creatures of the same level.
Not to mention ordinary Martial Artists, even those at the Peak of the Seventh Rank or even the Secret Six Rank, would have to keep their distance when facing the spiritual pollution of a large number of demon entities simultaneously.
In reality, given Zhou Heng’s cultivation realm, just seeing the Heart Demon, which was very close to the Secret Six Rank, could normally have caused him excruciating headaches, making it difficult to stand.
But he was unharmed thanks to the protection of his Cave Sky world, which embodied the Way of the Sun.
Others might not be so lucky.
Moreover, demon entities are extremely difficult to kill; like ghosts and evil creatures, normal methods of the Martial Path simply cannot destroy them.
If indeed a large number of demon entities were to emerge, it could be a disaster with heavy casualties for Longzhou, which is not very prosperous to begin with.
“So, feeling helpless?” Huang Mang’s voice suddenly rang out from behind Zhou Heng, laughing unscrupulously, “Why don’t you join us? I can elevate you to a demon.”
“Rather than remaining human, powerless to do anything but watch as my own kind turn into corpses, why not leave my original tribe and become a higher race?”
This Heart Demon was actually tempting Zhou Heng and claimed it could turn humans into Demon Entities.
“Hmph!”
Zhou Heng remained unmoved and responded with his actions.
Without looking back, with a flick of his fingers, bursts of golden light erupted, followed by sword Qi sweeping out in all directions.
Innate Formless Sword Finger!
This sword Qi, imbued with the intense power of Pure Yang, roared and struck the entrance of Yuxiang Town, instantly dispersing the Demonic Qi that had sealed it.
Immediately after, Zhou Heng’s figure flashed toward the entrance and exit, directly leaving Yuxiang Town. He summoned his red date horse, transformed it into a blaze of firelight, and galloped away.
“Has this human really fled? Could it be he’s gone to find a helper capable of entering dreams?” Huo Mang wondered, thinking to himself, “It seems I need to hasten my pace.
“Hmph, if it weren’t for that detestable woman constantly causing trouble in the dreamscape and attacking my kin, I would have succeeded in opening the gateway and led all demons to descend!”
…
After leaving Yuxiang Town, Zhou Heng made straight for the nearest entrance to Purple Tenuity Palace, using the White Crane Feathers to ascend into the sky.
He was not running away.
Instead, the situation of the people of Yuxiang Town and the words of Huo Mang had given him an idea.
If the condition of the people of Yuxiang Town was already close to that of corpses, could it mean that he could make use of the newly granted access of Purple Tenuity Palace to descend in spirit into the bodies of the people of Yuxiang Town?
Purple Tenuity Palace was inherently superior to the myriad worlds under heaven, and in theory, should also be above this world—the Starlight Pathways were in fact empirical proof, akin to a star gate without crossing realms.
Therefore, the permission he had previously acquired that allowed his Divine Soul to descend into other worlds was most likely applicable to this world as well.
Could it be possible to use this method of soul descent to achieve a spiritual level of “infiltration,” thereby achieving an effect similar to entering a dream?
Zhou Heng felt that regardless of the success, this method was worth a try.
Upon reaching Purple Tenuity Palace at the fastest speed, and after seeing The Supreme and Heavenly Law, Zhou Heng once again opened the gateway of Divine Soul descent on the Cloud Terrace Square in front of the Purple Tenuity Palace.
Then, he stepped right in.
He became the first user of this Divine Soul star gate.
Once inside, Zhou Heng felt his Divine Soul instantly leave his body, his physical form wrapped in a cocoon of starlight, while his soul sensed a world of bizarre and dazzling light.
What presented itself to Zhou Heng’s soul were hundreds and thousands of orbs shining with stellar brilliance, densely packed in the void, each giving off a different sensation.
Some orbs were dark and obscure, difficult to perceive what was inside; some gave a warm and sunny feeling, while others were filled with the atmosphere of destruction and slaughter…all varied and distinct.
Zhou Heng could sense that these orbs were actually different worlds, and by touching them, he could descend into them in the form of soul possession.
But at the same time, he also realized that he could actually touch very few orbs—a small portion of the whole—and he was not able to fully comprehend the situations of these worlds.
“This must be because I haven’t had time to synchronize with the information from the Zhou Tian Star Chart, so I can’t get specific world information,” Zhou Heng pondered and figured out the reason.
——Whether it be the ordinary star gate or this Divine Soul star gate, the worlds they connect to are all through the records of the Zhou Tian Star Chart, and naturally, synchronization of information is needed.
However, for Zhou Heng at present, the most important thing was to deal with the situation in Yuxiang Town. Fortunately, as he had anticipated, this Divine Soul star gate also could indeed connect to this world of his own.
The mechanism was somewhat similar to that of the Starlight Bridge; he could only use the existing channels of Purple Tenuity Palace as a basis for diffusion and exploration.
If the range was too large, or the distance too far, descent would not be possible.
This made Zhou Heng worry whether the distance to Yuxiang Town was too far from the channel of Purple Tenuity Palace, which might lead to a failed descent.
Luckily, Yuxiang Town was at the edge of the limit of exploration.
Descent was possible.
Thus, Zhou Heng chose one of the weakest people in Yuxiang Town.
Divine Soul possession descent!
…
In the dreamscape of the real Yuxiang Town people, there was a town identical to the outside world.
Only, it was enveloped in dark fog, with no one able to leave the town, nor could anyone disperse the fog.
Unlike the desolate Yuxiang Town in reality.
The town in the dreamscape was still bustling. The townspeople walked on the streets, talking and laughing with each other as usual, as if living in reality.
But on closer inspection, it was evident that each of these people had stiff expressions and lifeless eyes, like puppets on strings being manipulated.
Furthermore, every action they took, every word they spoke, their complexion would turn paler, as if it were a tremendous drain on them.
Boom!
At that moment, a loud noise suddenly came from a house by the street, the building collapsed, and the walls crumbled.
Then, a scroll sparkling with silver radiance and depicting all forms of life burst out from the ruins, unrolling and blanketing over a dozen people on the street.
At the same time, bizarre and twisted Demon Entities appeared above the heads of these dozen people. The moment they touched the scroll, their bodies emitted black smoke and let out wails of abject misery.
Turns out, these Demon Entities were perched on the heads of Yuxiang Town’s townspeople, controlling their actions in the dream while continuing to consume their divine spirits and essence.
“Demons, meet your demise!”
A fierce shout rang out, exploding on the street and startling more than a dozen demons, large and small.
Immediately afterward, a figure rushed out following the scroll, a woman.
She was exquisite and slender, emitting an aura of holiness all over.
It was Yun Xiu.
“Human! You are seeking your own death!” Huo Mang returned and was immediately furious.