### Chapter 173: The Terrifying Nature of the Evil God
Bai Yu, skillfully controlling the body of the Dragon Lady, strolled leisurely up to the village entrance, standing beneath a mud structure resembling an archway. Stepping into the Eternal Life Village felt entirely different from her approach—every breath was as if the air itself was giving her the stink eye.
Her body felt increasingly frigid, a heart-pounding sensation creeping in. It was the sensation of being surrounded by countless curses—call it dramatic, but the curse energy and malevolence had seeped into every nook and cranny of this village.
The pervasive malice gave her the sensation of being constantly watched by a hundred pairs of eyes just waiting for the moment to strike.
This unsettling mix of anxiety and heart palpitations made her involuntarily tense up, goosebumps rising all over. This was a negative emotion rollercoaster. The more you fretted about how terrifying and dangerous the place might be, the worse it got.
Malice and curses thrived on these negative emotions, slowly seeping in until they breached her psychological defenses.
To put it bluntly, while these anxious feelings could harden her mental defenses, they also stripped away her basic resilience—like a kn*fe that lost all its flexibility, shattering easily upon hitting something just a tad harder than itself.
With claws covered in black dragon scales clenched into fists, Bai Yu gazed up at the words “Good God” inscribed on the arch.
Bam!
She let out a punch that slammed into the archway, striding forward as if nothing had happened.
As she stepped into the village, cracks began to appear on the archway behind her, spreading rapidly until the entire mud pillar was riddled with them. First, a few tiny bits of earth fell, immediately followed by a thunderous crash. In an eruption of dust and smoke, the archway, which had stood witness to countless deaths over untold years, came crashing down.
The monumental noise shattered the tranquility of Eternal Life Village, but Bai Yu didn’t even bother to glance back as she stood before a tightly shut door of a house.
She raised the Dragon Lady’s tiny fists once more, casting a sideways glance at her seemingly delicate yet effortlessly strong fists that had just smashed down a three or four-meter structure. How time flies!
The Dragon Lady had always represented absolute power, and that hadn’t changed at all with her new identity.
She found herself puzzled—how was this new identity capable of unleashing such terrifying strength?
In the Dragon Lady’s words, she had a bit of privilege as a “Third.” This privilege allowed her to randomly pull something from her past life. Lucky her, she got the bloodline of a colossal dragon. If things progressed to that point, she might even relive her past “glorious” days.
Her gaze returned to the weathered wooden double doors, which seemed to carry quite a bit of history.
In the prior village, there had merely been a talisman the size of two fingers stuck on the door, but here, the talismans were engraved directly into the doors.
Without the Dragon Lady’s body, approaching the doors as a ghost would be disastrous—she’d either be flung back unceremoniously or end up with a few broken bones.
If Zhao Mingyue had been with her, she likely wouldn’t dare to go through the front door; those wooden doors were heavy, and Zhao Mingyue’s body wouldn’t have been able to smash through. Trying to forcefully break through might just end up with a broken hand.
But now…
Bang!
The heavy wooden doors, inscribed with runes, flew off their hinges, colliding with a large red coffin in the yard. The wax corpse inside was launched out, rolling around on the ground three or four times before finally coming to rest.
The yard was quite old, with stones laid out instead of concrete, and a withered old tree barely hung on in one corner. The doors swung wide open, revealing a dismal inner space filled with dilapidated furniture covered in cobwebs, along with dusty porcelain bowls on the table.
Beside the wooden table, Bai Yu spotted several figures known as the “Eternal Life People.”
Standing in the courtyard, Bai Yu didn’t pull out her long kn*fe but instead gathered the bl**d thread around the Dragon Lady’s hands to form armor.
She was ready to experience the brutal beauty of the Dragon Lady.
This wasn’t about trying out the Dragon Lady’s body; this was about using the Dragon Lady’s body to pound on others.
A wax corpse lying on the ground blinked oddly and rose up, its hollow black eyes snapping open.
Unlike in the prior village, these corpses in the back village were not as waxen—they appeared more like frosted corpses with merely a thin layer of wax on the surface.
Their skin had no hint of color, a ghastly pale intertwined with grey, dressed in heavy black funeral garments.
The wax corpse looked to be around forty, with its mouth entirely sealed with wax; if you didn’t look closely, you might think it was born without a mouth.
Just then, a few “people” emerged from within the house—two kids about ten, a woman in her forties, and two elderly men with graying hair.
They were either missing an ear or had their mouths sealed shut, all clad in identical tattered black garments, moving in a bizarre manner.
Standing in front of the towering doors and the toppled coffin, they said nothing, not even changing their expressions. Oddly, Bai Yu noticed them whispering to one another, as if they were indignantly discussing something, but there were no sounds—she felt like they were alive…
Their expressions and eyes showed nothing, but their subtle movements gave them away—a contrast to the lifeless puppets from the front village.
This realization made her understand what the Dragon Lady meant by “they are trapped in the same day.”
Suddenly, a chilling thought crossed her mind.
What if these believers didn’t even realize they were, in fact, “dead”?
Their memories stuck perpetually on the day they died, repeating the same day over and over. Only at the time of worship did they have any variation in their routine.
Trapping believers at the pinnacle of their faith meant she could reap a family that would never d*e, never need to eat or wear anything, would never get sick, and could never betray her.
This family was like bugs controlled by a parasite, their lives dictated by the curse energy—a parasitic force.
Bai Yu didn’t believe these wax corpses would exist forever; surely there’d be a day when their souls would completely dissipate.
Their current “eternal” state wasn’t without its loopholes.
The curse energy fed off their souls. Once those souls were exhausted, the energy would tide back into its master, boosting its strength further.
The concept of faith had been wrung from their very souls—these believers were genuinely drained dry of every last drop.
In fact, these believers weren’t even as fortunate as the wandering lost souls outside, who were free to drift about aimlessly after d*ath without pain.
“The Evil God…”
She tilted her head, observing the courtyard and discovered that it wasn’t just one coffin—there were more in the kitchen and inside the house. The one outside was likely placed there due to lack of space.
She refused to believe these coffins were conjured out of thin air by the Evil God.
It was simply that believers prepared these for themselves before their demise, which conveniently explained the dusty utensils on the table and the tattered black garments they wore.
It was clear they prepared everything beforehand to be used after d*ath.
The first house alone revealed to Bai Yu a scene entirely different from the front village—a jarring contrast.
It wouldn’t be right to say it was love at first sight; she truly sensed the stark differences.
The front village was a cage to prevent the Evil God from escaping, while the back village was the Evil God’s very lair.
Compared to the back village, the wax corpses in the front village were much better off. They lacked awareness—perhaps their souls got trapped in their own bodies, but at least they weren’t tortured, treated as mere tools to squeeze out their faith, ultimately suffering the demise of their last shred of soul.
If they were indeed stuck in the same day, that wasn’t so bad—this bunch prepared for a luxurious feast, reliving this “happy” day in perpetual rotation. Every day was a fresh start; it wasn’t entirely terrible.
But, clearly, it wasn’t like that at all.
Her very presence had disrupted their status quo.
The people inside were gathered around the table, staring at the empty bowls, rendered motionless.
Bai Yu pondered—if these people were unaware of their deaths, could they still feel anything else?
Would their empty bowls cause them to suffer the torment of hunger?
Eating every day, yet finding an unquenchable hunger growing within them?
Sleeping daily, yet still feeling an overbearing drowsiness?
Without injuries or illnesses, why the excruciating pain gnawing at their bones?
Unable to speak or hear. The home was cold with no warmth, unable to venture outside, and everything beyond the yard was just a shroud of fog.
This was all speculation, but Bai Yu felt she was spot on.
Nothing unexpected here—if the Evil God weren’t evil, what on earth would be the point? Anyone who considered their believers as even slightly human would hardly be worthy of the title “Evil God.”
In comparison, she was far more curious about the deeper secrets of this village.
Where did the Evil God come from?
Who summoned it?
What happened afterward?
Who killed Burning Heart, and what was this so-called First Generation Goddess?
In her fleeting thoughts, the family of believers abruptly shifted—they stopped whispering and charged at her like starved zombies ready to throw themselves upon her.
Bai Yu dispatched each wax corpse with a punch, hardly breaking a sweat. She could tell these wax corpses were much tougher than those in the front village.
After dispatching the wax corpses, Bai Yu stepped outside, determined to first scout out any important and unique locations to get a sense of the overall situation here.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but while smashing these wax corpses, she couldn’t shake the feeling that these wax figures were filled with a sense of release.
Her earlier conjecture had been correct; the wax corpses rampaged because the curse energy suppressed all the feelings bottled up inside them for so long.
Hunger, pain, cold, fury—so many emotions.
The wax corpses themselves weren’t strong, but those negative emotions maximized their potential strength.
Time was necessary to deal with any intruders.
These types of wax corpses were the lowest class of entities, and they also happened to be the most numerous.
—
I’ll set up a little bounty to motivate myself.
(I’ve decided on a small bounty—after accumulating enough, I’ll be more driven!)
A small bounty
I calculated, and I should have cleared the chapters I owe. Although I update three times a day, they are technically combining chapters (with each chapter now being four thousand words instead of two thousand). If I don’t count this little chat, then I still have some debts to repay, boohoo.
I’ve really been lazy lately, spending my spare time playing games (facepalms).
With no pressure of unpaid chapters, I’ve become a bit complacent.
So, I plan to set up a small bounty to give myself some motivation.
Here’s the deal: When I started, I set a goal of 50 monthly tickets for an extra chapter.
Now, let’s cut that down a little—20 monthly tickets for an extra chapter (2000 words)! (I don’t think 20 monthly tickets is too many; compared to that, just one ticket each from 20 people gives me one extra chapter.)
As for rewards, let’s set it at 1500 fire coupons per chapter.
There’s no upper limit on extras. They will count as valid within 72 hours.
When I first set my chapters, it was two updates of four thousand words each per day, and I continued that way. During that time, I was adding extra chapters based on updates and rewards.
This time, I’ll treat three chapters as the base, adding extras based on that.
I might combine chapters for bigger updates, but striving for 5000 or 6000 words each!
I’ll aim to keep updates at around 14,000 words per day, equivalent to seven chapters.
Additionally, if I can manage, I’ll burst out even more chapters.
(Also, I promise to maintain quality amidst the extra releases.)
Lastly, I’m immensely thankful for everyone’s support.
I’m now upside down and doing the splits, boohoo.
