Witch Wind

Chapter 368 What is the Request (Part 1)
It was as messy as it appeared to the outside world.

But once you actually step into the Black Abyss Market, you'll find that it's even more chaotic than it appears to the outside world.

From the outside, the market appears to be just a haphazard mix of dozens of streets, with some messy shacks piled up haphazardly on both sides of the road.

But once inside, I discovered that there were thousands of streets here, haphazardly arranged like a spider web.

What's troubling is that these streets aren't on a single plane; some streets, some blocks, float directly in the air, weaving together into a tangled, three-dimensional structure.

Above me, all around me, were messy buildings.

Moreover, many buildings were restless, floating around everywhere; the larger ones floated higher, and the smaller ones floated lower. Just as Xing Tianli and his group stepped into the market, a fist-sized, sharp-topped, round-bottomed stone slowly floated past them.

This lump of stone is entirely emerald green, crystal clear, and resembles a top-quality jade.

Inside, there are 108 holes, from which wisps of purple energy drift out. The purple energy rises and condenses into a half-foot-wide purple canopy above the stone.

A pine tree, as thick as a matchstick, was crookedly stuck on the top of a rocky mound. Under the pine tree were two tiny figures, one with a snake's head and a human body, and the other with a human head and a snake's body. They sat cross-legged around a small stone table, laughing and urging each other to drink.

What they were drinking from was a golden-feathered eagle, three to five times their size, imprisoned beside them, constantly crying out and struggling, yet unable to move.

Two strange little figures cut a gash in the eagle's neck, from which purplish-red blood gushed out. They then used jade cups to collect the blood from the eagle's neck and drank it with great relish.

Small pebbles flew slowly past them, and the eagle cried out even more mournfully.

Xing Tianli and the others remained motionless, and even the talkative Black Lie did not react at all.

A shadow fell over them as a strangely shaped wooden building, five stories high and completely invisible from the outside, slowly passed overhead. The building was pitch black, adorned with countless red lanterns, and surrounded by long, dark corridors. Several pale figures could be vaguely seen, huddled silently in the shadows of the corridors, their fierce gazes fixed on Xing Tianli and his group.

The crowd remained silent, watching the towering building slowly glide overhead.

The rock suddenly flew back towards the group.

The snake-headed, human-bodied creature actually stood up and angrily smashed the jade cup in its hand at Liu Jing... Liu Jing shuddered and subconsciously pointed a finger, shattering the tiny jade cup into pieces with a 'clang'.

The creatures with snake heads and human bodies, and human heads and snake bodies, all laughed.

The man who threw the jade cup laughed wickedly, "Human hearts have grown cold, and the world has collapsed. You young upstarts, you clearly saw this hairy beast crying and begging for help here, yet you didn't have a shred of compassion. What is the value of your lives, you heartless creatures...?"

Before Xing Tianli and the others could reply, he continued, "It's one thing to stand by and watch someone die, but you know, we brothers are highly skilled and powerful. You can't afford to offend us, so it's only natural that you deliberately turn a blind eye."

"But how dare you break our brothers' ancestral treasure! Your crime is heinous! You deserve to die!"

A faint light flashed from the small pebble, and two creatures sprang out from inside.

The snake-headed, human-bodied creature was three zhang tall, while the human-headed, snake-bodied creature was ten zhang long. With a single sweep of their bodies, they completely blocked the narrow street. The snake-headed, human-bodied creature grabbed at Xing Tianli and laughed, "Kid, let's make a deal."

With a 'crack', the man's hand shattered.

Xing Tianli wasn't going to tolerate these two. The newly forged Tongtian Seal transformed into a gust of wind and rushed out, delivering a powerful blow to the guy's claw.

Flesh and bone shattered, blood splattered everywhere. The man cried out in pain, staggering back a few steps. He stared at Xing Tianli in horror and said in a deep voice, "I was trying to be kind... and you, you actually repay kindness with enmity!"

As his flesh writhed, the man's hand rapidly healed. He let out a long howl, opened his mouth wide, and with a 'whoosh,' his forked tongue transformed into two flying swords, one red and one green, which pierced towards Xing Tianli with lightning speed.

Xing Tianli was amused. Playing with his sword in front of him?

With a flick of its wrist, the Tongtian Miaozhu unleashed a chilling sword light, and suddenly, an ancient divine mountain, entirely formed from the gleaming sword light, appeared before the fellow. A powerful sword intent pressed down, instantly shattering the two flying swords formed from snake forked tongues. The Xingtian Carp sword light pierced the man's mouth, gently twisting and pulverizing his snake forked tongues.

"Bastard, bastard!" The snake-headed, human-bodied man staggered back, clutching his bleeding mouth, while the human-headed, snake-bodied man beside him charged forward, cursing angrily. His massive body coiled up, a gust of black wind rose from the spot, and countless black scales on his body suddenly stood up. This guy was like a thick, sharp blade, viciously slashing down.

Xingtian Li smiled.

This guy isn't someone who can injure people purely with his physical strength.

The snake's body was covered with scales that stood up like countless tiny blades, incredibly sharp and chilling. Beneath each scale, there was a tiny venom sac with extremely fine channels running through it.

As this creature spun wildly and charged towards Xing Tianli, its venom sac contracted, and venom sprayed out through extremely fine channels. A deep, eerie blue light clung to the edges of its scales, a terrifying glint of poison.

"Come!" Xing Tianli shouted, and the Tongtian Seal brought up a gust of wind, hitting the guy's vital spot with a 'bang'.

With a bloodcurdling scream, the human-headed, snake-bodied creature was struck until its entire body tensed, its head desperately stretching towards the sky, its long tail pounding wildly against the ground. However, the Heaven-Reaching Seal weighed fifty thousand yao (a unit of weight), and Xing Tianli, wielding this powerful weapon, plummeted straight down. In that instant, Xing Tianli deftly flicked its finger, subtly altering the gravity within a hundred-zhang radius, increasing it ten thousandfold!
This creature with a human head and a snake's body is a Great Luo Realm cultivator.

With his own weight, a mere ten thousand times the force of gravity could not harm him in the slightest.

However, when this 10,000 times the gravity is combined with the Tongtian Seal, which weighs 50,000 yao, it becomes Xing Tianli's most terrifying attack method.

A cultivator at the pinnacle of the Great Luo realm, under the natural influence of the Great Dao, can achieve a physical strength of one hundred million luminaries!

These two guys are not at the peak of the Great Luo realm.

They are not proper physical cultivators; their physical strength is comparable to that of ordinary magic cultivators.

With a single strike, the man's bones, flesh, tendons, and internal organs were all smashed to pieces by the Heavenly Seal, leaving only a white snakeskin that was quite tough and remained completely unharmed under the heavy blow of the Heavenly Seal.

Xing Tianli walked up to this fellow with a smile, and with a spin of the Tongtian Miaozhu, it transformed into the Qingping Sword.

A clear, agile, and unrestrained supreme sword intent surged forth, and Xing Tianli cleaved off the creature's head with a single sword strike. The snake's body trembled and thrashed wildly. After a full cup of tea's time, Xing Tianli grew impatient and simply swung the Tongtian Seal, smashing the creature from head to tail.

It smashed until flesh and blood flew everywhere, leaving only this extremely clean and flawless white snakeskin lying neatly on the ground.

Xing Tianli picked up the snakeskin, stroked it carefully, and examined its material. After pondering for a while, he used his 'Merge Creation' divine power to imprint the essence of its material before throwing the snakeskin to the Tower of Creation.

This guy's cultivation is so-so, and his internal organs are barely tempered. But his natural snake skin has terrifying defensive power. Its material is so strong that it can almost break through the limit of the Great Luo Peak and reach the Quasi-Saint level!

The structure of this snakeskin is quite unique, and the elements and materials that make up its interior are extremely rare. In particular, the natural patterns inside form a mysterious and natural defensive array.

This material can be used on the skin of the combat puppets in the Tower of Creation, greatly enhancing their defense and allowing them to perform better on the battlefield.

Xing Tianli finished cleaning up the creature with a human head and a snake's body. He looked at the snake with a human body, whose forked tongue had been destroyed and was spitting blood continuously... He had already run more than a hundred feet away, but he hesitated and lingered, not taking advantage of Xing Tianli cleaning up the snake skin to slip away.

Xing Tianli chuckled.

He pointed to the small, vibrant green stone floating in front of him and said in a deep voice, "People die for wealth, birds die for food... You want this?"

The snake-headed, human-bodied fellow said in a deep voice, "Since you were able to enter the Black Abyss Market, you should know the rules here... Cough, my brother was killed by you. Even if we did offend you in some way, my brother is dead, shouldn't this be the end of it?"

“That cave contains all the wealth my brother and I have painstakingly accumulated in our lives. Our fate and future depend on it… Senior, please have mercy? This is the foundation for my livelihood for the rest of my life.”

From among the floating, drifting, and swirling buildings all around, faint gazes were cast in. These gazes, some fiery, some frenzied, some indifferent, some cruel, but all filled with boundless greed, circled Xing Tianli and the snake-headed human-bodied creature before finally settling on the small rock.

Xing Tianli picked up the lump of stone.

The snake-headed, human-bodied creature hissed, "Do you want to fight me to the death?" Xing Tianli weighed the lump of stone in his hand, released his immortal soul power, and quickly and thoroughly examined it inside and out—his heart couldn't help but pound; it was clearly a spiritual material with innate jade attributes.

It is cool, tranquil, and intimidating to the mind. Inside, there is a cave with a radius of 100,000 li, filled with all sorts of things: various spiritual herbs, spiritual materials, weapons and magical treasures of varying grades, strange creations of alien civilizations, and even a lot of messy corpses.

The huge cave was almost completely filled.

Xing Tianli shook his head, thinking that such a fine innate spiritual object had been treated as a junkyard. This little stone, in the hands of cultivators in the Nine Provinces, would be enough to become a treasured artifact of a major sect.

Find a blessed and secluded place, place this rock in the center of a dragon's lair on the ground, and nurture it with the boundless spiritual energy of the earth's veins.

Within this inner cave, one can cultivate in seclusion, where even ghosts and gods cannot know and heavenly demons cannot approach. It is the supreme cave for the most advanced seclusion and breakthrough!

These two guys are actually using this treasure as their personal junkyard.

Look at all the junk they've collected!
Xing Tianli pulled out a strange weapon that was neither gold nor jade, made of a rather unusual material, and shaped like a combination of a short sword and a Wu hook, with a distinctly exotic feel.

This thing looks quite sharp, and the material is very special and high-end.

As for the crafting technique, bah! In any major sect of cultivators in the Nine Provinces, which cultivator would use such high-grade and special materials to craft a weapon suitable for a low-level cultivator at the Qi Refining stage? The elders of that sect would kick him so hard his backside would be bruised and battered.

"That's it? Come on, tell me, what are the rules of the Black Abyss!"

As Xing Tianli traveled along, he felt that the Black Abyss was strange and peculiar, filled with an unorthodox atmosphere.

You say he's unruly, but he seems very mysterious and unpredictable.

You say he has rules, but it seems like everything is a mess.

A beam of five-colored divine light shot out from behind his head. Xing Tianli used the Innate Five Elements Great Capture Divine Power, taking advantage of the snake-headed, human-bodied fellow's inattention, and grabbed him. With a wave of his sleeve, a purple aura spread, and Xing Tianli, along with all the heads, leaped onto the small rock. In an instant, the group turned into tiny specks of dust and sat atop the rock.

From everyone's perspective at this moment, it was a verdant and ethereal mountain, with spiritual caves and apertures everywhere on its body. Wisps of purple energy rose up, and smelling it made one feel cool all over and as if floating on air.

A crooked ancient pine tree stands overhead, bearing a resemblance to the welcoming pine.

Beneath the ancient pine, a small stone table was quite elegant, with several dishes of melons and fruits on it... However, near the stone table, the golden-haired eagle was bleeding profusely, groaning weakly, adding a slaughterhouse atmosphere to this sacred mountain.

Xing Tianli looked at the giant eagle with the cultivation level of Taiyi Realm.

After a moment of contemplation, he took a drop of his life essence blood from the eagle and threw it into the Tower of Creation. Then, with a wave of his hand, a ray of spiritual light released the restriction on the eagle. Strands of acquired Yi wood energy surged, and Xing Tian Li helped the eagle heal the wound on its neck.

Panting, the eagle slowly stood up. He glanced at Xing Tianli, his eyes darting around, then suddenly his golden eyes lit up. He pointed sharply behind Xing Tianli: "Benefactor, look, behind you!"

Xing Tianli was slightly taken aback, then turned around and looked over.

With a long cry, the eagle suddenly raised a golden spear, which, with a sharp golden light, stabbed fiercely into Xing Tianli's chest.

Xing Tianli turned around and stared expressionlessly at the giant eagle—had this guy been bled so much that his brains had leaked out? How could he, how dare he, attack Xing Tianli, who had clearly captured this snake-headed human-bodied creature?
The spear struck Xing Tianli.

A muffled thud was heard, followed by a burst of golden light.

The eagle used all its strength, and the spear was fast and fierce, but its strength was not even enough to reach the power of a single celestial being. The purple sash on Xing Tianli's body did not move at all. The eagle groaned, and the spear with the broken tip flew out of its hand. Its arms trembled, and its wrists were shattered by the force of the recoil.

“Senior…Senior!” The eagle suddenly woke up and knelt on the ground with a thud.

Xing Tianli waved his hand expressionlessly, and with a 'bang,' the giant eagle was instantly reduced to ashes. A wisp of its immortal soul screamed as it was dragged into the Tongtian Yuling Banner and thrown directly into the refining array filled with rising Yin energy and swirling ghost fire.

Soon, the eagle's origins, including the fact that when it was young, it pushed its featherless brothers and sisters out of the nest and caused them to fall to their deaths, were all thoroughly searched out by a few extremely bored ghost lords.

Xing Tianli shook his head slightly. "An ungrateful bastard, a muddle-headed idiot. He was a bad kid all along."

He sat down at the stone table, cast a spell, and the bloodstains nearby disappeared completely.

He looked at the snake-headed, human-bodied figure kneeling on the ground and said in a deep voice, "Speak, what exactly are the rules of this Black Abyss?"

The snake-headed, human-bodied creature shivered. He opened his mouth, and the flesh inside writhed, slowly growing a new snake tongue. He licked his lips and whispered, "I thought you knew the rules of Black Abyss Market, since you were able to enter here... Heh, heh heh."

With a flick of his hand, Xing Tianli sent the Tongtian Seal soaring into the air and hovering high above the man's head.

The man shuddered violently, no longer daring to feign mystery, and hurriedly began to speak.

Black Abyss Market, according to legend, can fulfill all your ideals, dreams, and ambitions... As long as you can offer enough bargaining chips, there is nothing Black Abyss cannot do.

Some people demanded revenge.

Some people prayed for the restoration of their kingdom.

Some people cry out for the resurrection of a relative or lover.

Some people harbor deep resentment and want to take revenge on someone, reclaim their family's legacy, or even restore a mother world that has been completely destroyed to its original state.

Some people have slightly simpler requests: they've been stuck at a certain bottleneck for too many years, and they hope to break through their current level, attain the Great Luo realm, the Quasi-Saint realm, the Half-Saint realm, or even break through to the Saint realm...

There is nothing that the Black Abyss cannot do.

Of course, the more difficult the task, the higher the stakes in the transaction.

The Abyss has a peculiar rule: if you possess a sufficient number of tokens recognized by the Abyss, you can easily enter the Abyss Market.

Those unlucky souls who climbed to the top of the ginkgo leaves, saw the Black Abyss Market, but couldn't take a single step inside, simply didn't have enough chips.

So they ambushed and robbed people outside the Black Abyss Market, hoping that one day they could gather enough chips.

"You've come in, you've already gathered your chips, why do you still want to provoke me?" Xing Tianli looked at this snake-headed, human-bodied fool with great confusion.

The two brothers had clearly already gotten in, which meant that as long as they found the right channel, their wishes could be fulfilled... But they insisted on finding excuses to cause trouble for Xing Tianli, and ended up getting their own brother caught up in the mess!
The snake-headed, human-bodied creature glared at Xing Tianli with displeasure.

"Who told you to look so easy to bully?"

Xing Tianli remained silent.

He subconsciously glanced at the three women, Liu Jing, who were tender, youthful, beautiful, and cute, but whose appearances lacked any sense of intimidation.

Then he looked at Black Mane, whose body was shiny and smooth, and who looked at least a hundred years old.

And then there was the simple-minded woman, who concealed all her aura, not letting out a single trace of her curse power.

As for Xing Tianli himself, well, he also concealed all his magical power fluctuations, and his essence and blood aura did not leak out at all. At first glance, he looked like an ordinary mortal—this pair of brothers were really unlucky.

(End of this chapter)