Witch Wind

Chapter 370 Forced Purchase and Sale (Part 1)

This coffin.

It's ridiculously big.

Strange spatial fluctuations emanated from the coffin, stretching the nearby street, which was originally only a little over two zhang wide, to a width of hundreds of li before it could barely contain the coffin.

This coffin is really rotten.

It was probably a wooden coffin, riddled with holes and cracks, covered in a thick layer of green mold that could be pulled into strands. Near some of the broken pieces, clusters of brightly colored poisonous mushrooms were thriving; a gentle breeze could even be seen causing their highly toxic spores to drift slowly down.

'Bang'.

One end of the coffin's board collapsed, releasing a rich floral fragrance and auspicious seven-colored light. Inside the coffin, a vast space unfolded, filled with green hills and clear waters, and blooming flowers. Standing gracefully among the flowers was a woman dressed in a light purple long dress embroidered with a hundred flowers in an extremely ornate style, her beauty as delicate as a chrysanthemum.

She was described as a woman because at first glance she looked fourteen or fifteen years old, but upon closer inspection she appeared to be in her early twenties, yet she possessed the unique charm of a mature woman… Her appearance wasn’t stunningly beautiful, but she was incredibly gentle and elegant, making her very pleasant to look at.

Looking at her face, you can really trust her.

Very safe.

It seems that she is just like her mother.

On the nine Heavenly Cauldrons, wisps of sword light suddenly rose, holy light surged, and Xing Tianli's immortal soul shivered. He suddenly roused his spirit and softly shouted a Demon-Breaking Spell. A thunderous roar exploded from the ground, and Liu Jing and the others, who had also been almost assimilated by this woman's terrifying 'gentle power', were also suddenly awakened.

"Hey!" Liu Luan was furious. She pulled out a heavy black jade stick, pointed it at the woman, and wanted to say something.

However, Liuluan was the eldest of the three women, and the most mature and sensible.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Such a terrifying entity almost manipulated everyone's minds without them even realizing it—those few, with their low cultivation levels, were left unscathed, but even Xing Tianli, a Great Luo Realm cultivator, almost fell victim to it.

It's best to avoid provoking people like that!
The tassels and scepters are very good at distinguishing between what is important and what is not.

If the other party were just a minor celestial being, she would have grabbed a stick and taught them a lesson. But the other party was such an unpredictable being that she couldn't afford to act childishly and cause trouble for her companions—she was definitely not a 'useless teammate'.

Inside the coffin, a soft, sweet voice let out a soft "hmm".

The auspicious light dissipated, the flowers withered, and the woman in the purple dress slowly dispersed, leaving behind a swaying shadow that was impossible to describe in terms of its form. He quietly took a few steps back and chuckled softly: "Interesting. No wonder she's from the same clan as that group that's been causing such a commotion around here lately."

"Alas, I merely extracted a sliver of information from your people and conjured up the image of motherhood that you find most acceptable and appealing... It seems you don't like my way of welcoming guests."

Xing Tianli raised an eyebrow.

There's a lot hidden in what this guy said.

He said in a deep voice, "You know us?"

He chuckled, "I know, but not much. But there's some interesting news... A few mayflies, leading a swarm of large ants, broke out of a small, nearly dried-up pond. Wow, they have great potential."

After a moment of contemplation, Xing Tianli saw large chunks of star rock rapidly melt away inside the Tongtian Cauldron, transforming into surging primordial energy.

With his 'Manipulating Creation' divine power fully activated, pieces of gold and silver jewels, ancient and millennia-old spiritual herbs, various pure spiritual materials and metals, and all sorts of strange acquired materials gushed forth like a flowing river. He took out a sample of each of these items and threw them into the now pitch-black coffin, devoid of any light.

"This is a sample. I'd like to know more about them. Give me a quote!"

An invisible force surged around Him, and the samples that Xing Tianli had thrown in disappeared without a trace... He shuddered inexplicably, took a deep breath, and groaned with extreme ecstasy, as if Xing Tianli's samples had given him immense benefits and indescribable enjoyment.

After humming a few times, He murmured, "Anything is fine, all of these things are fine. You gather... um, a million tons? I'll give you some of the information I know about them, okay? This price isn't expensive, is it? Just some information."

'One million tons'—this is a strange law of this space, which transformed the quantifier in His words into a quantifier that Xing Tianli could understand.

One million tons?
Not much.

However, Xing Tianli still wanted to test the waters. With a wave of his sleeve, a torrent of silver ingots, silver coins, and silver pellets, mixed with a very small amount of gold ingots, gold coins, gold dust, as well as some stones, mud, and even some worthless scraps, such as ordinary handmade cloth shoes, socks, and bibs, surged out in a mighty torrent.

Total weight: one million tons.

Xing Tianli was controlled extremely well, consuming not an ounce less or more.

However, they were all mundane things, without a trace of spiritual energy mixed in... But He was very happy, absorbing all these mundane things into Him, and He smiled with satisfaction: "Very good, very good, ah, extremely good. So, where shall we begin?"

He began to ramble on and on.

He is a local resident of the Black Abyss, and he runs a business that "relieves people's troubles and erases karma." He is quite well-known among his peers in the Black Abyss, and he and his associates occupy a large share in this ancient trade.

Black Abyss is often frequented by various "down-and-outs" who end up here for all sorts of reasons.

Over the past 1.2 million years, gradually, impoverished individuals have come to the Black Abyss, desperately raising money and pleading with Him or His companions to avenge them or to reclaim their mother world or their home planet.

Their targets of revenge were mostly cultivators from the Nine Provinces.

In the past 1.2 million years... this time is so long for Xing Tianli that he cannot even imagine it now, but for Him, it is only a 'recent short while'.

The differences in life forms are too great, and the differences in their understanding of time are also enormous.

In short, that's how it is.

"So, you helped them kill my people?" Xing Tianli's tone was indifferent, without showing much emotional fluctuation—after all, they were living a good life when cultivators from the Nine Provinces went to their home, slaughtered most of their family, seized their mother planet and mother world, and then lived a carefree life in their old home...

It's perfectly natural for someone else's survivors to run away and seek revenge.

He laughed: "Fair trade, no cheating the young or old. However, not many were killed."

He sighed: "I've never encountered anyone as cunning as your people. If something goes wrong, they run away as fast as ghosts. In the past few weeks, I don't know how many of our colleagues we've actually killed, but just from my side and my men, there are only 137 people in total."

Only 137 people?

Just as Xing Tianli was about to speak, He released a faint wisp of memory. Xing Tianli flicked his hand, shattering the wisp of memory with a flick of his finger, and immediately vivid images appeared.

Well, those 137 people who were killed certainly had their reasons for dying, and their deaths were not unjust.

Xing Tianli shook his head.

They are all heretics and evil spirits, not a single proper immortal cultivator... What have they done after they seized someone else's mother planet and mother world?

For example, there was a cultivator who practiced the Blood Path Demon Art, who actually transformed a small world spanning a billion miles into a breeding farm. In just three thousand years, the indigenous people of that small world had rapidly regressed to a primitive tribal state, but the demon cultivator provided them with a continuous supply of food grown using magic.

This resulted in the indigenous tribe multiplying to more than 'Wan Jing' in three thousand years. Ninety-nine percent of the tribe members were subjected to the demonic cultivation practice of 'harvesting' and 'bleeding', and their skin, flesh, and internal organs were all refined into various bloody and ferocious demonic treasures.

The scene of this demonic cultivator being killed was quite astonishing.

In the void, a colossal warship, stretching ten million miles from end to end and resembling a barracuda, was entirely black and silent, gliding silently over this small world like a ghost.

As the warship passed through this small world, its main gun suddenly went out of control. A temporary bug in the operating system caused the warship to fire a single shot at a certain spot in the small world.

One shot blasted the demonic cultivator to smithereens. Another shot blasted the small world to smithereens.

Xing Tianli remained silent. This warship was merely passing by from a very distant place and had no interest in the small world below. To the civilization to which this warship belonged, a small world with a territory of only a billion miles was too insignificant and barren, and had no value in exploring or occupying it.

As a result, the small world was completely annihilated after the first shot.

"They begged you to help them get revenge," Xing Tianli murmured.

"Didn't I do it? Although I didn't do it myself, that cultivator who invaded their mother world vanished into thin air, didn't he? Look, how clean and beautifully I did my job." He smiled brightly.

“But, their mother world is also…” Xing Tianli had some reservations about this.

"But he only paid for revenge, not for helping him reclaim his mother world... So, I only care about revenge and don't care what happens to his mother world. Anyway, I fulfilled my promise, I took his payment, and I feel at peace with myself, don't I?"

Xing Tianli remained silent, staring at the unbelievable images on the screen, and sighed heavily: "So, where is the person you made the deal with?"

He remained silent.

After a long silence, Xing Tianli finally detected a hint of 'embarrassment' in his words: "This kid is ungrateful and has no sense of gratitude at all... I heard that he has been raising funds outside the Black Abyss Market for the past few years, trying to find someone to kill me."

"Sigh, he has absolutely no gratitude. I fulfilled his request, avenged him, and killed the guy who slaughtered his entire clan... and all I did was casually destroy his mother world, right?"

"However, these are all minor matters. Actually, it's his fault. He didn't prepare enough bargaining chips and made demands without thinking. It's all his fault." He chuckled dryly and smiled at Xing Tianli, "Alright, that's all the information about your clansmen. If you want to find them, well, they're everywhere around here anyway."

With a flick of his finger, another wisp of faint memory aura was released.

Xing Tianli collected this wisp of memory—well, all sorts of information about the large and small forces established by billions of cultivators in the Nine Provinces—and he received it.

Xing Tianli was horrified.

How much trouble can these cultivators from the Nine Provinces cause?
Within the cosmos radiating the influence of the Black Abyss, they established billions of forces of varying sizes.

He felt a chill run down his spine—how did this old man in the Black Abyss obtain this information? Just like when he helped someone take revenge, why did that warship suddenly lose control of its main gun and fire a shot at that small world?
Inexplicable.

It's really baffling.

Xing Tianli let out a breath and cupped his hands in thanks to Him: "Thank you, our deal is complete."

The old coffin's swaying form suddenly froze, its sweet, gentle voice abruptly turning stiff and cold: "What? What? I've painstakingly explained so much to you, wasted nine minutes and twenty-four seconds of my time with you, and you actually say the transaction is complete? A mere one million tons of goods, and you've completed the transaction?"

"This is not good, this is very bad. You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

The old coffin's tone turned fierce and twisted: "Little guy, the threshold for the entrusted transaction that I personally handled was ten trillion tons... That small deal just now doesn't count, it doesn't even count as a bonus... Ten trillion tons transaction, hurry up, don't waste time."

Xing Tianli narrowed his eyes slightly and said in a deep voice, "Senior, it was not this humble Daoist who came to us of his own accord."

The old coffin shook violently, and a terrifying, suffocating wave swept in all directions. Xing Tianli groaned, feeling his whole body stiffen, unable to mobilize a trace of magic power or essence. His body was slightly impacted by the wave, almost exploding into countless particles. His immortal soul was even more like a field mouse being targeted by a golden eagle, unable to move an inch except for constant wailing.

terrible.

Absolutely terrifying.

This guy, a quasi-saint?
Or perhaps, a demigod?
No, to be able to utter the word 'mayfly,' this guy must have already reached a level beyond that of a sage?

This, this, this...

Cold sweat streamed down Xing Tianli's forehead, yet he was utterly unable to escape the current situation. He gritted his teeth and said, "But, this humble Taoist has no..."

"No, now that I have appeared, you must designate an enemy to be killed." The old coffin slowly moved forward three feet, the massive coffin scraping against the ground, making a dull, muffled scraping sound.

With a creaking sound, a slightly foul-smelling, chilling fumes spewed out from the coffin, hitting Xing Tianli's face. Xing Tianli felt a sharp pain on his face—even with his Great Luo body imbued with the bloodline of Pangu, his face shattered into countless ice shards upon the slightest touch of this chilling fumes…

Tiny ice crystals shimmered with a faint black light as they fell to the ground with a 'crackling' sound.

Xing Tianli's face was peeled off, revealing clearly defined muscles, blood vessels, and tendons underneath. They were so clearly visible that they could serve as a standard human model in a biology textbook, making it extremely terrifying and ferocious.

"A deal involving ten trillion tons, or you're just playing with me."

"Those who mock my old coffin will eventually be thrown into it, to accompany me for eternity," the old coffin roared in a low voice. "Then, all the chips you bring will be mine, mine, mine..."

Inside the old coffin, a faint, indescribable mist swirled. From within that mist, two hazy, dreamlike hands slowly emerged, reaching out to grasp at Xing Tianli.

A hand reached for his heart, trying to steal his bloodline.

A hand reached for his brow—this old coffin instinctively sensed that there was something good in Xing Tianli's spiritual platform, something that even an old ghost like him, who had seen many rare treasures of the universe, found tempting.

Xingtian Carp struggled desperately.

However, they were completely unable to move.

The difference in strength was too great; in front of this old coffin, he was weak and insignificant, like an ant.

Just as those strange hands were about to grab him, a thought flashed through Xing Tianli's mind. He growled in a low voice, "I'm here to see the Heavenly Calculator... cough..."

Both hands suddenly froze.

The mist gradually contracted, and the two hands slowly slipped back into it. The old coffin's faint, emotionless voice slowly resonated: "The fortune teller...you're looking for him...why is everyone coming to him?"

"This is not good, this is very bad. Cough, actually, why are you looking for him? Why are you looking for me, or my partner, or my colleagues, or so many old friends in Black Abyss Market... Why do you all want to go to him?"

Xing Tianli gritted his teeth and remained silent.

In the air, a thin ray of black light silently descended, landing straight between Xing Tianli and the old coffin.

With a loud 'bang,' the old coffin bounced backward for dozens of miles.

The enormous coffin suddenly leaped up so high and bounced so far that a large amount of green mold powder 'rustled' off the coffin. When it landed on the ground, it turned into twisted, strange, venomous insect-like runes that crawled wildly in all directions.

The sight made Xing Tianli feel a tightness in his chest, and he almost vomited.

That wisp of black light stood silently in front of Xing Tianli. The strange runes crawling on the ground carefully avoided this wisp of black light, unable to get close to Xing Tianli and the others.

Silence, a deathly silence.

After a long while, the old coffin chuckled dryly. Large patches of green mold rolled on the surface of the coffin, transforming into a giant hand that rushed into the dilapidated doorway by the roadside and slapped the eerie life form soaking in the fragrant soup hard across the face.

With a loud bang, the creature was sent flying into the air, its body exploding.

The large cauldron was overturned, and the fragrant soup sprayed all over the ground. The scalding soup turned into a pot of thick, foul-smelling liquid as it hit the ground. The red and white flower petals also turned into countless severed limbs and fragments, which were sprayed all over the ground...

The scene was like hell, too terrible to look at.

"Come." The black light trembled slightly, took off, and flew straight into the depths of the market.

(End of this chapter)