Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 589: The Hunger from Red Moon Authority

Despite the parrot’s inner anguish, he didn’t dare to continue with any more cursing. In a weeping voice, he continued, “Sect Uncle, I really can’t handle this. I can’t do any more. Please, let me off the hook....”

Xu Qing looked at the parrot.

“Sect Uncle,” the parrot wept, “I-I-I... I can only teleport by using feathers. Look at how young I am! I haven’t even gotten married yet! See, I hardly have any feathers left. If other birds see me they’ll laugh to death!”

The parrot wasn’t lying. His teleportation powers did rely on his feathers, and he had long been very proud of his multicolored look. In fact, whenever he had run into other birds, he had always sneered derisively at their drab coats. As far as he was concerned, he was the most beautiful bird in heaven and earth. One of a kind! But now... he looked naked and bald, which filled his heart with sorrow and indignation.

Xu Qing, meanwhile, was paying attention to the distant fluctuations. Then he checked to see how many feathers the parrot still had left.

“You have a few more, don’t you?” he said, squeezing the parrot.

“Drop dead!” the parrot screamed as he initiated another teleportation. Xu Qing and the parrot vanished, leaving behind a single feather crumbling to ash in the wind.

A moment later, they materialized a few hundred kilometers away. Before the parrot could say anything, Xu Qing squeezed him hard.

Another scream echoed out across the lands....

A dozen or so teleportations later, the parrot only had a single feather left. At long last, Xu Qing had, with the help of the parrot, shaken the pursuit of the white-robed cultivators. The edge of the desert was only about fifteen kilometers away. The white wind here was very weak, and hardly any dandelions could be seen.

Xu Qing breathed a sigh of relief.

The parrot sagged weakly in Xu Qing’s hand. He looked like a slab of meat, his expression despairing, his face ashen, and his skin red, swollen, and covered with dots. Each of those dots was a spot where a feather had once grown. But now... the parrot only had a single feather left on one of his wings. He looked blankly at that feather. A few months ago when he started out on his journey, he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams that something like this would happen.

“Thank you,” Xu Qing said softly. It probably would have been better if he didn’t say thank you. The moment he did, the parrot started crying again.

“My feathers.... How will I ever get married now? All other birds will despise me....”

Xu Qing was thinking that this parrot was actually very useful, and he was contemplating having a chat with Wu Jianwu later, to ask if he could borrow the parrot for a few decades. He wasn’t sure how long the feathers would take to grow out again, but regardless, he decided he ought to comfort the parrot a bit.

“It’s fine. They’ll grow back.”

“Sure,” the parrot wailed, “but it’ll take a really, really long time...”

As Xu Qing pondered the situation, the parrot’s single feather rustled back and forth a bit.

Meanwhile, Ling’er actually felt bad. “Poor little parrot. Big Bro Xu Qing, look, he only has one feather left! We really didn’t take his feelings into consideration.”

When the parrot heard that, his heart swelled with gratitude, and he was about to say something.

But then, Ling’er continued, “I think the lone feather actually looks pretty bad. Big Bro Xu Qing, why not teleport us one more time?”

The parrot’s eyes went wide and it instantly lapsed into a fit of rage.

“If I had a face like yours, I'd sue my parents! Calling you an idiot would be an insult to all the stupid people! The last time I saw something like you, I flushed it!”

The parrot had already lost its mind a bit, so Ling’er’s expression of compassion pushed it over the edge into madness.

Ling’er slid back into Xu Qing’s sleeve. Sounding hurt, she said, “Big Bro Xu Qing, this thing is vicious. But you can’t blame the little parrot. He’s just a kid. I probably misspoke....”

When the shadow heard that, it spread out and hovered menacingly over the parrot. Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior also flew out and locked onto the parrot.

The parrot shivered, all while feeling even more enraged. At the moment, all he wanted to do was get back to his dad. He missed his dad.

Stroking Ling’er, Xu Qing ignored the parrot and turned to look off into the distance, and his eyes glittered. He sensed familiar fluctuations in that direction.

“Little Shadow,” Xu Qing said calmly.

The shadow shivered. After sensing what was happening, it twisted to form the shape of an old man being chased by two moons.

“Li Youfei?” Xu Qing murmured. He had left a shadow eye on the old man, which was how he could identify him.

A few moments passed, then Xu Qing started moving in the direction of the fluctuations.

Instead of killing Li Youfei, he’d put a shadow eye on him so the shadow could help determine if the old man was telling the truth. As it turned out, he was more heroic than villainous, and had not revealed Xu Qing’s presence to anyone. After that, Xu Qing’s killing intent toward him had died down, and he’d had the shadow keep tabs on him while Xu Qing did his curse research.

It looked like cultivators from the Red Moon Cathedral were chasing him right now, and Xu Qing planned to go see exactly what was happening. It wasn’t very often he got a chance to deal with a couple of godslaves. He had done a lot of curse research on animals, but was also interested in doing research on cultivators from the Red Moon Cathedral.

Based on all my work from the better part of the last year, my guess is that the Red Moon Cathedral cultivators don’t have the curse in them. Either that, or the curse isn’t as strong. But the question is whether or not I can absorb it....

Licking his lips, he put on the concealment of invisibility and began the hunt.

***

A few dozen kilometers away at the edge of the Greenhair Badlands, a freakish being was speeding along. The thing was about fifteen meters tall, and looked like a mountain of flesh. It had over a dozen arms growing out all over it, as well as seven or eight tumor-like heads. Shockingly, one of the growths that hung down over its chest had an almost unrecognizable face on it.

If you looked closely, you would probably recognize Li Youfei. However, he was as ashen as death, and his aura was very weak. He was suffering from some serious mutations, and also had some very wicked wounds. It seemed that every rotation of his cultivation base caused his internal organs to hurt, and caused him to cough up blood uncontrollably. Most notable, there was a huge wound on his chest, within which was visible shattered bone.

Most astonishing of all was that there were a host of dandelions all over him, madly absorbing his life force. All the while, flesh grew out from him all over, spreading out constantly. Anyone who looked at him would find him exceedingly gruish. This was what happened when one went out into the white wind.

He was being chased through the hazy whiteness by two figures in red. They seemed to be slowly catching up to him. They had Nascent Soul fluctuations, and were surrounded by a red mist. The power of Crimson Mother protected them, allowing these two godslaves to move around freely in the white wind.

It was obvious that they could catch up to him if they wanted. But they seemed very relaxed, as if they were just out taking a dog for a walk.

“Run, Li Youfei! The edge of the desert is just ahead!”

“Once you reach the border, you won’t be tormented by the wind of the White Mother. Just a few more kilometers now. Hurry!”

“Then again, even if you escape, our Lady’s curse is about to explode out of control in you. Don’t forget to tell us which hurts worse, the curse, or the White Mother’s wind.”

“Or you could beg for your life. Maybe we’ll suddenly feel merciful and end things for you right away.”

Brutal gleams could be seen in the godslaves’ eyes. They were lucky to have run into Li Youfei out in the white wind. He was well-known in the Red Moon Cathedral, having killed many rogue cultivators who wanted to work for the cathedral. Although he hadn’t caused a huge amount of trouble, he was still annoying to them.

However, when fishing for a small fish, the fisherman won’t do much until the bait is bit. And Li Youfei was good at staying out of sight.

That said, Li Youfei could still be of value to the two godslaves. If they could keep him alive but torment him to the point of causing the curse to erupt, then they could take his remains back to the cathedral, they could exchange it for rewards. That was what had led to the current situation.

Li Youfei currently felt wrapped up in despair.

He knew that there was no way for him to escape. The white wind had allowed him to escape the Bitter Life Mountains and the person he had offended there. However, he ended up badly hurt in the process. That injury just kept weakening him. And then he ran into the godslaves from the Red Moon Cathedral, which removed just about any hope he had of surviving.

I’m not going to make it out of this....

All he could do was laugh bitterly in his heart. There had been a lot of twists and turns in the Bitter Life Mountains over the past few years. All he had wanted to do was join the Moonrebel Congregation. But godslaves weren’t easy to kill, and they rarely went out alone.

That was why he had never been able to meet that specific qualification to join the Moonrebel Congregation. But recently, he had learned that one of the most powerful rogue cultivators in the Bitter Life Mountains had an apprentice that had secretly become a godslave. So he had taken a risk and set up an ambush.

The ambush actually succeeded. But before he could collect the body, the Master’s divine sense arrived and destroyed his traction avatar. Then it started chasing after his true form. If it weren’t for the white wind covering some of his tracks, he would have definitely died. He was left with no choice but to flee into the wind. Right now, the despair in his heart caused his eyes to glimmer with ferocity and determination.

“If I’m going to die, I’ll take you fools with me!”

Killing intent surged in his heart, and he was about to lure the godslaves close to him when, all of a sudden, he heard a bloodcurdling scream from behind him. Not even the wind could drown out the terror in that cry.

Stunned, Li Youfei turned. What he saw caused his pupils to constrict!

A massive hand had appeared in the white wind. It was violet, and around the size of an average person. It had grabbed one of the godslaves, and then yanked them back into the wind. It happened so quickly that the godslave couldn’t even struggle or fight back. As the miserable shriek rang out, the godslave’s body rapidly withered, as if his life force were being sucked out of him. The other godslave was visibly shocked, and was so taken aback he started trembling.

Li Youfei struggled to control his breathing. He had no idea what exactly was happening, but he did know that the death of even just one godslave meant he now had a chance to survive. Therefore, without the slightest hesitation, he ignored his severe injuries and unleashed everything his cultivation base was capable of to speed away in the opposite direction.

The other godslave was not inclined to go chasing after Li Youfei. Right now, he was dealing with massive waves of shock as he realized he had just sensed the aura and fluctuations of Crimson Mother. And they surpassed anything that he had ever sensed from any godservants or even godheralds.

A god!

The godslave’s heart was already pounding. His energy, blood, and cultivation base vibrated, and based on the blessing inside of him, he knew that his senses couldn’t be deceiving him. The hand that had just killed his companion was definitely emanating the High God aura of his lady and mistress. As he trembled, a seemingly empty voice drifted through the wind.

“Come to me, my servant. Over here... come....”

Li Youfei was too far away to hear that voice. But the godslave heard it clearly, and it made him tremble even harder. That voice contained the aura of Crimson Mother, and it made him lose any ability to fight back against it. Shaking, he instinctively walked forward, disappearing into the white wind.

Sometime later, a person emerged. Violet light glittered in his eyes, and violet moon fluctuations rolled out in all directions from him. Within the white wind, that violet color made it seem like a god had arrived. After walking about thirty meters out from the wind, the violet light in Xu Qing’s eyes faded, and he burped.

It’s just as I expected. In the bodies of the cultivators from the Red Moon Cathedral, the curse is turned into a blessing. It’s the source of their faith. The more faith they show in Crimson Mother of the red moon, the stronger the blessing gets, allowing them to summon corresponding power from the red moon. And just now... I devoured their faith power, thus augmenting my violet moon godly authority. It wasn’t much... but it was delicious.

He licked his lips. Devouring two Nascent Soul godslaves hadn’t been very complicated. Because of the faith in them, all he had to do was emit the godly authority of the violet moon, and they became like walking food that came right to him.

However, if it was a Spirit Trove godservant, it wouldn’t have been as easy. Thinking back to the red-garbed woman he’d encountered at the bottom of the Heavenfire Sea, he sighed. I can actually do the same thing with any living being in the Moonrite Region, because all of them have the curse. The difference is just that it hasn’t been turned into faith in Crimson Mother.

As he continued, gurgling sounds drifted out from within him, along with a sense of hunger. Apparently, eating that red moon faith left him with the desire for more. Stopping in place, he took a moment to sense himself, then frowned.

Why does eating their faith make me hungry...?

At least the hunger wasn’t very intense, and with a bit of effort, he suppressed it. Then he sped up and vanished into the wind. Half a day later, Xu Qing used the shadow eye to track down a certain mountain of flesh.

It was none other than Li Youfei.