Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1016 The Great Era
Before he even reached his doorstep, he heard the terrified bellows of cattle and sheep on the street. Then, a flock of chickens and ducks flapped their wings and flew out from inside the courtyard wall—this was impossible! How could domestic chickens and ducks fly so high?
And what exactly happened in the yard?!

Taking a deep breath, Old Man Yang pushed open the courtyard gate.

The courtyard was eerily quiet; there were no cries of alarm from family members, no wary glances from neighbors. This deathly silence was more terrifying than any loud noise.

Then they heard crunching sounds.

Sometime later, the black pigs that should have been in the pigpen broke through the fence. At this moment, one of them was lowering its head and greedily tearing at the carcass of a chicken. With a flick of its huge head, it easily bit off the chicken's head and sucked the blood from its cavity with relish.

It seemed to sense its master's return, slowly raising its head. Its eyes, which should have been docile, were now a deep crimson. It let out a muffled, threatening groan and reluctantly moved its plump body away.

And so, Old Man Yang and Yang Dashan saw it.

I saw the mangled corpse lying in a pool of blood.

She is his wife.

The entire head was gone, the chest cavity had been completely devoured, and the white vertebrae were mixed with viscous blood, scattering in all directions to form a pool of blood that kept expanding.

Several goats, their bodies noticeably swollen, were licking the blood from the ground. They also raised their heads, their equally scarlet, emotionless eyes fixed on the two trembling, pale-faced men who looked as if they were about to vomit.

"Mother!" Yang Dashan uttered a sharp voice that sounded almost unlike his own.

Attracted by the sound, several more giant beasts slowly emerged from inside the house, their mouths filled with scarlet blood, still chewing on something.

It was flesh and blood from pigs and sheep, a section of a young woman's arm... an even smaller section of a teenage girl's arm... and another section... an infant's arm that was not yet fully formed...

The giant beast with scarlet eyes, which should have been the pigs and sheep they kept and slaughtered, has now transformed into a cannibalistic animal, slowly approaching them.

"You beasts! I'll kill you all! I'll kill you all!"

Yang Dashan completely lost his mind. He roared, wielding his hoe, and charged forward like a madman.

"Dashan! Don't go!"

Old Man Yang tried to stop him, but he was too late.

The result was obvious. The mutated black boar, as the leader, simply lowered its head and then swung it around, its iron-hard head easily sending Yang Dashan flying.

He spat out a mouthful of blood, slammed heavily against the courtyard wall, then slowly slid down, collapsing to the ground, and fell silent.

"Son!!!"

Old Man Yang let out a piercing wail. He felt nauseous; despair, sorrow, hatred, fear… countless emotions exploded within him. He wanted to cry, wanted to run away, but he knew clearly that escape was pointless, because when everything he possessed vanished in that instant…

He just wanted to die.

But at that moment, in the deathly silence, he vaguely heard a suppressed sob, almost inaudible amidst the blood rain.

—That's my grandson's voice!

The sound was coming from the direction of the cellar inside the house! The grandson is still alive!

In an instant, the thought of dying was replaced by the desire to live. No, what he wanted to do was not to fight these beasts, but to fight for his grandson!
Old Man Yang suddenly straightened his back and shouted the loudest he had ever heard: "Come on! You bunch of beasts!"

The moment all the blood beasts' attention was drawn to him, he suddenly turned around and ran wildly toward the end of the village, which was opposite to his own home!

He led the howling blood beasts, running over the neighbor's courtyard wall, over the stone mill at the village entrance, over the corpses of his fellow villagers, and over the wails and roars from other people's courtyards.

At the edge of the village, he finally collapsed from exhaustion and was pounced on by a mutated goat, which bit his neck.

In the agonizing pain of being torn apart, in his final moments, he did not look back at the ferocious blood beasts, but instead used his last ounce of strength to gaze in the direction of his home in the distance.

Tiger...my dear grandson...will he survive? He didn't know.

The blood beast, having drunk its fill of blood, opened its mouth and devoured his head.

At that very moment, a dazzling silver arc of light suddenly shone like a shooting star above the endless blood-red sky, tearing through the entire heavens.

Inside the old house, in the incredibly cramped cellar.

Tiger covered his mouth tightly, desperately trying to hold back his tears.

He knew that his grandmother, mother, and aunt had put him in the cellar so that he could survive.

He couldn't cry, or the monsters outside would find him. He tried his best to suppress it, but he still cried.

I'm so useless... I'm going to waste the chance at life that all my loved ones fought for me...

Just as he was sinking into deep despair and self-blame, the wooden door to the cellar was opened from the outside.

Crimson light and a thick, pungent smell of blood poured down through the open door.

Tiger closed his eyes in despair.

He should have died, leaving behind a despairing legacy.

But then, a cold voice, filled with suppressed anger, rang out.

"Come out, all the blood beasts outside are dead."

"Stop crying, don't waste their sacrifice."

The child was stunned.

He obediently, even numbly, followed the voice and climbed out of the cellar.

At this moment, the silvery sword light, like a crescent moon, silently swept across every corner of the village.

With a soft thud, the heads of the mutated pigs and sheep, driven mad by the blood rain and greedily devouring the villagers' corpses, rolled to the ground. Their crimson eyes instantly dimmed, and their massive bodies crashed to the ground, lifeless.

Bai Qinghan stood with his sword sheathed, his plain white clothes already stained with blood and rain, specks of dark red like plum blossoms in the dead of winter.

Her icy gaze swept over the village, now a living hell, looking at the mutilated corpses, the old people and children lying in pools of blood, and the only survivor, a boy who had crawled out of the cellar and was now huddled in a corner, sobbing uncontrollably from extreme fear.

She closed her eyes, trying her best to calm those chilling gazes.

The cult's strongholds in the mountains are fine... but these mortals, when the demonic calamity strikes them, die like withered grass.

They clearly escaped a calamity, didn't they? This group was among the most fortunate during the Frost Calamity; they survived the frost, the beasts, the bandits, nature... They struggled to reach this desolate land and built their own home...

But why is there another calamity after the first... why can't I survive?!

"Damn it... son of a bitch..."

With her teeth clenched, Bai Qinghan uttered vulgar words that were completely different from her cold and aloof demeanor. She was almost gritting her teeth as she said, "It's always been like this, always like this... I was originally thinking of temporarily forgetting about you all, building a place first, and letting a group of people survive... I was even planning to wait!"

She gripped her sword tightly, glaring almost menacingly at the capital: "But you sons of bitches, Da Chen, the Vast Ocean Demon Calamity, the Bitter Frost Calamity, you were all asleep! Now, with the Blood Sea Calamity upon us, are you still doing nothing?!"

At the same time, on the other side of the world, in the Northern Xuan Sacrifice Continent, north of the Northern Frontier, in the Dust and Desolation Wilderness.

"Damn it, Da Chen, what are you good for?!"

(End of this chapter)