You Smell So Good

Lin Mo landed on the edge of the altar, half of which had collapsed, and looked down at the monster amid the shattered bones.

One side of the creature’s teeth had been crushed, its jaw hanging crooked as a low growl rumbled from its throat.

Black aura roiled over its flesh. The only feature that could be seen clearly was the enormous eyeball occupying half its face.

There was no animal instinct in that eye.

Only hunger.

A very direct hunger.

Lin Mo stared at it for two seconds, then sneered.

“Interesting.”

Ning Qingcheng stood below with an arrow already nocked.

“Can you handle it?”

Lin Mo looked at the talisman locks behind the monster’s neck, then at its head.

Suddenly, he smiled.

“I can.”

Everyone had only just let out half a breath of relief when Lin Mo added, “But the people from the Nine Chrysanthemum Sect are even more vicious than I thought.”

The instant he finished speaking, all the talisman locks behind the monster’s neck snapped taut.

The broken-toothed monster arched backward as if an invisible hand had seized it by the throat.

Its growl changed pitch. It no longer sounded threatening, but more like a plea for help.

A second roar came from the depths of the altar.

Then a third.

A fourth.

A fifth.

One roar pressed over the next, bursting up from beneath the earth and ricocheting off the cavern walls until loose stones rolled down.

Wang Xincheng’s face went pale.

“Mr. Lin... there isn’t just one.”

No one answered.

They had all heard it.

From underground came the cries of even more monsters in response.

The voices merged together, making it impossible to tell how many there were. But they made one thing perfectly clear.

This place wasn’t keeping a single monster imprisoned.

It was raising an entire nest.

Metal snapped inside the altar. Then streams of black aura poured through the cracks.

Wrapped in the blackness, monsters crawled out along the ground. Some had unnaturally long limbs. Some had necks so short they were little more than stumps. On others, scraps of talisman paper still clung to half their bodies.

At a rough count, there were more than a dozen.

Every one of them bared razor-sharp teeth, while their faces held nothing but a single palm-sized eye.

At the sight of this, Liu Zheng raised his weapon and gripped one of the electromagnetic grenades he carried.

Xie Yuling held a Five-Thunder Talisman between her fingers and glanced sideways at Jiang Yunlu.

Jiang Yunlu’s back prickled with dread. She raised her hand, then lowered it again.

Her true qi seemed to be almost useless here.

“If we really have to run later, carry me with you.”

Jiang Yunlu froze.

Xie Yuling added, “I’ll be in charge of throwing the thunder talismans. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to carry me and run. I’m not very fast.”

It was, in its own way, an attempt to comfort Jiang Yunlu, whose abilities were useless here.

Even so, no one retreated.

Because Lin Mo was standing upside down on the cavern ceiling.

Looking down at the monsters crawling out of the altar, he reached out and grabbed something. The Human Sovereign Banner appeared in his palm.

Lin Mo raised his hand and gave it a wave.

“Come on, everyone! Step right up! First come, first served!”

Ning Qingcheng: “...”

Xie Yuling: “...”

The electromagnetic grenade nearly slipped from Liu Zheng’s hand.

The next second, dozens of ferocious spirits surged out of the Human Sovereign Banner.

Every one of them was a ruthless beast Lin Mo had cultivated through recent gu battles.

Not a single one that had survived the process was harmless.

If they had been rated by the Superpowered Youth League, any one of them could have claimed an S-rank position.

Once released from the banner, the ferocious spirits did not charge blindly. They formed groups of two or three, each choosing its own target.

The moment a monster lunged forward, three ferocious spirits had already swarmed it.

One tore at its talisman locks.

One pinned down its head.

The last was even more methodical. It circled behind the monster and bit down on its cervical vertebrae with such practiced ease that one might have suspected it had worked in a slaughterhouse when it was alive.

The monster howled. Black aura churned around it. Its teeth sank into the body of a ferocious spirit, only to bite empty air.

The monsters were semi-corporeal, while the ferocious spirits were beings of yin.

The difference was that the monsters were vicious creatures forcibly assembled through corruption, driven by the talisman locks on their bodies and by hunger.

The creatures in Lin Mo’s banner, meanwhile, had been forged through real, bloody slaughter.

After all, Lin Mo had spent this entire period fighting gu battles.

Who was wilder and who was better at devouring things—the battlefield soon gave its answer.

From the cavern ceiling, Lin Mo watched with satisfaction.

“Very professional. Not bad.”

With the pressure outside the altar taken care of by the ferocious spirits, Lin Mo stopped watching.

He dropped from the ceiling and walked toward the fractured interior of the altar.

“Zhafu, come here!”

Before entering the altar, Lin Mo called out.

Hearing the order, Zhafu immediately stepped forward.

“You all stay here and wait for me.”

Lin Mo waved a hand. Then he took Zhafu and descended into the altar’s interior.

Inside, it was just as pitch-black. Not a trace of light penetrated from above.

This was where the corruption lay.

Lin Mo opened his hand, and a strand of peculiar light appeared in his palm.

It illuminated the altar’s interior, revealing its structure. But this place did not resemble an altar.

It looked more like a prison.

Rows of alloy bars were embedded in the stone walls, covered with yellow and black talismans. Some of the inscriptions came from Huaxia, while others had been invented by the people of the island nation.

The two systems had been forcibly fused together. The result was crude, but effective.

Lin Mo swept his gaze over the talismans. He couldn’t understand them, but none of them were anything good.

The Nine Chrysanthemum Sect had built this place to corrupt the dragon vein, so they naturally needed to feed the corruption.

And what better source of corruption than the bones scattered across the ground outside?

Since ancient times, Yangcheng had been a massive port city.

A city like that was bound to have a large population.

The atrocities committed by the island nation’s army when it occupied this place were too numerous to record. Massacring civilians in pits was naturally among them.

The Nine Chrysanthemum Sect had used the lives of those civilians to feed the corruption.

The method wasn’t sophisticated.

But it was filthy.

Lin Mo walked a few steps farther. The darkness around him grew thicker, and the baleful aura that had previously been drawn away had all gathered here.

Zhafu stopped behind him without making the slightest sound.

Someone sat in a corner.

“Who... are you?”

The person was thin and gaunt, dressed in rags. His face bore no injuries and was unnaturally clean.

Lin Mo swept him with his divine sense.

Empty.

To his divine sense, there was no person before him. No soul. No physical body. Not even a trace of lingering aura.

And yet, his eyes could see him.

The man sat in the corner, face raised. His eyes moved, and his throat continued to swallow.

It was a projection.

But it was a projection Lin Mo had seen before.

“Do you still remember who you are?”

The man shook his head.

“I don’t remember.”

He used the wall to pull himself upright, his movements stiff.

The man stared at Lin Mo, his nostrils twitching.

“You smell so good.”

He took one step forward.

“I’m hungry.”

Another step.

“I want to eat you.”

His eyes held nothing but Lin Mo.

Lin Mo shook his head. At last, he had confirmed what the source of the corruption was.

The Nine Chrysanthemum Sect had sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, gathered all their remnant souls together, tortured and slaughtered them, and fused their resentment and flesh into a single mass.

They had locked it beneath the altar, allowing the altar to condense the baleful earth energy and yin energy.

And in the end, they had created the greatest source of corruption of all.

As for the dozen or so monsters outside, they were nothing more than creatures akin to guardian beasts in a tomb.

Naturally, when necessary, they could also serve as food for the corruption before him.

The projection tilted its head. Its mouth split open, revealing a row of fine, densely packed teeth.

“If I eat you, will I remember?”

Lin Mo looked at him, his voice gentle.

“Wrong.”

“You aren’t him. That’s why you’ll never remember.”