What inner demons or not—just some street performer who's picked up a few cultivation buzzwords and thinks he can bluff a real practitioner like me.
Fang Han sneered inwardly, yet he casually kept chatting with the old man, all the while keeping a sharp eye on the sky. A vast, powerful divine sense still blanketed the area. Long Daoren and Mu Daoren clearly had no intention of leaving; they continued searching this region again and again.
Obviously, Fang Han's Reincarnation Concealment Art had worked, masking his aura completely. Otherwise, the moment he paused here, those two ancient giants would already have locked onto him.
"Well, young man?" the fortune-telling old man said, seeing Fang Han fall silent, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. "Was I right? You've just survived one tribulation—and now another one is already upon you."
"And how would I survive this new tribulation?" Fang Han asked casually. He was merely killing time, waiting for Long Daoren and Mu Daoren to sweep past before slipping away.
"Difficult. Difficult. Difficult."
The old man waved his hand. Seeing Fang Han apparently take the bait, a faint smile crept onto his face, as though a fish had finally bitten. He repeated the word difficult three times, then fell silent.
Fang Han sneered inwardly again but put on a frightened expression. "I really have been plagued by misfortune lately. Your words hit the mark, sir. Please help me calculate how I might avert disaster."
As he spoke, he pulled a large silver ingot from his sleeve and placed it on the table.
"Mmm. Not bad."
The old man weighed the silver in his hand—heavy, very heavy. Satisfied, he nodded. "Since that's the case, I'll make an exception and perform a ritual to dispel your immediate calamity. I'll write a talisman first, then burn it. Once it's burned, your present danger will be gone. As for the future… your troubles will be many. If you seek me again, this amount of silver won't be enough."
Trying to squeeze more money out of me? Fang Han thought. If I were really just a mortal scholar, maybe. But this is just amusement.
Aloud, he said, "Fine. As long as you can remove my calamity, I'll reward you generously in the future. But if you can't, I'll have you hauled off as a fraud and handed to the authorities. A few rounds of the paddle—and with your body, you'd be lucky to survive."
"Hahaha! Young man, I won't deceive you."
He grabbed brush, ink, inkstone, and paper, spreading out a sheet of yellow mounting paper. Then he began to draw twisted, serpentine talisman symbols—crooked, obscure things Fang Han had never seen before.
"Fang Han," Yan remarked, "why are you playing along with this old con artist? You just handed over a whole ingot of silver. He must think you're a fool. Even 'wandering the mortal world' isn't supposed to look like this. When the Great Emperor of the Yellow Springs played among mortals, he left everyone else spinning in circles."
"He's deceiving me, and I'm deceiving him," Fang Han replied with a silent laugh. "Everyone deceives everyone. Coming down to the mortal world is about savoring the atmosphere. Once this little farce is over, we part ways."
While the fortune-teller continued scribbling his strange talisman, Fang Han focused on the divine senses overhead.
High above, within the Ninth Heaven's gale layer—
Long Daoren and Mu Daoren stood suspended in the void, not activating any spells, only spreading their overwhelming divine senses downward, blanketing city after city.
"Still haven't found him?" Long Daoren asked.
"No," Mu Daoren shook his head. "Fang Han must have used some secret art to conceal himself. But I'm certain he hasn't gone far. He's within a thousand-li radius—or hiding among the mortal crowds."
"Could he have fled underground?" Long Daoren mused. "The Five Emperor Great Demonic Arts include the Earth Sovereign Path—turning earth into qi. Maybe he tunneled away?"
"No." Mu Daoren replied decisively. "I'd actually prefer that. Traveling underground consumes ten times more energy than flying through the air. And with my innate wood body, my roots extend through the soil—I can sense everything beneath the ground. Someone as clever as Fang Han wouldn't do that. There's a seventy percent chance he's hiding in the cities below, among mortals."
"Why waste time searching one by one?" Long Daoren said coldly. "Let's seal off this entire thousand-li region and refine it. Fang Han is good at hiding—who knows how long it would take otherwise? Refine everything. Whoever survives will be him."
"That requires caution," Mu Daoren said. "This is the Great Han Dynasty. Thirty thousand li away lies the territory of the One-Origin Sect—they recruit disciples here regularly. This dynasty has tens of millions of people, and below us is its capital, Han King City. If we refine it all, the One-Origin Sect might intervene. And we are not demonic cultivators. Mass slaughter and soul refinement—if word spreads, our reputation will suffer."
"Reputation?" Long Daoren sneered. "We are ancient giants who dominate entire regions. Would the One-Origin Sect really oppose us over a few mortals? Destroying a nation, killing millions—what does that matter if we can capture Fang Han? The bounty from Taiyi Sect—who doesn't want it? They might even help us kill him."
Mu Daoren fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. For cultivators at our level, refining a nation is hardly a major issue. Different realms mean different rules. One stick of incense—if I still haven't found Fang Han by then, we refine this thousand-li area, dozens of cities included. Let's see if he dares not reveal himself."
"Haha! That's how it should be done!"
Long Daoren laughed and flung out a dark, cloud-like canopy.
The canopy instantly dissolved into boundless black clouds, like ink poured into water, spreading everywhere. In moments, the sky was covered. Violent winds rose, plunging heaven and earth into darkness.
From afar, hundreds and thousands of li of land—over a dozen cities—seemed swallowed by shadow.
"It's going to rain! Hurry home and bring the laundry in!"
"The weather changed so fast!"
"Just a moment ago it was sunny—now it's pitch black and the wind's picking up!"
Woooo—woooo—
At the fortune-telling stall by the street, Fang Han watched the black clouds churn like dragons in the sky, the gale slicing through the streets, dust flying as pedestrians fled for shelter.
"Not good!"
Fang Han leapt to his feet. He felt an unprecedented surge of magical power overhead. Even the earth beneath his feet was hardening.
Turning earth to steel—condensing earth-qi until soil became harder than iron—was a common technique of earth-element arts. Back on Panlong Star, Hua Tiandu had used it to stop Fang Han from burrowing underground.
But Hua Tiandu was nothing compared to Long Daoren and Mu Daoren. One-on-one he might struggle, but together they could reduce him to dust in an instant. And Mu Daoren was a colossal tree demon—wood rooted in earth, wood overcoming soil. His command of earth-element powers surpassed both Fang Han and Hua Tiandu.
Fang Han felt the earth-qi deep underground growing dense, compact, impossibly solid. Burrowing now would consume an unimaginable amount of power.
"What's the rush?" the old fortune-teller said calmly when he saw Fang Han stand up. "It's just wind and rain. I haven't finished your talisman yet."
"Keep it for yourself," Fang Han replied, tossing him another heavy ingot of silver. "My disasters are mine to resolve. Meeting is fate—stop fortune-telling and find something else to do. Fate changes constantly. Even immortals can't calculate it clearly."
"Hahaha! Young man, let me dispel this calamity first," the old man laughed.
He struck a fire flint and burned the talisman he'd just completed.
As soon as it burned—whoosh!—a fierce gust scattered the ashes into the sky. Fang Han shook his head.
"Long Daoren, what's that?" Mu Daoren suddenly exclaimed.
Just as he was about to activate his powers and refine the entire region, a talisman rose from the roiling clouds below—twisted like coiling dragons and serpents, inscribed with characters no one recognized.
Long Daoren snorted, sweeping his hand. Condensed astral qi formed a massive hand that reached to crush it.
The instant the hand touched the talisman—
Boom!
It exploded, transforming into a shower of radiant petals. Crystalline, glass-like rainbow lights filled the void, and arcs of rainbow bridged every direction.
In a daze, Long Daoren and Mu Daoren felt as if they'd fallen into a dreamlike world.
"Not good—my inner demons!"
Mu Daoren reacted first. His heart pounded violently, as if about to burst. He felt himself sinking into a false realm, unable to escape, spiraling into endless nightmares. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't wake up.
This was the hallmark of inner demons run rampant—complete loss of control.