"Senior, where do you think that evil dragon will go after slaughtering the villagers of Fulong Town?"
Xu Xiaoqing walked to Ye Ling's side, looking at the damaged seal ahead, her eyes filled with worry.
Fulong Town had been massacred, and their sins had vanished, but that evil dragon had been sealed for over two thousand years, constantly absorbing human resentment in recent years. It had likely become a bloodthirsty fiend.
Allowing such a great demon to roam the world was undoubtedly a grave disaster.
"It's still in Kunlun Mountain. It will return to Fulong Town sooner or later."
Ye Ling glanced at the broken seal and said calmly before turning to leave. "Let's go. There's no more information here."
Xu Xiaoqing quickly followed Ye Ling's footsteps and asked, "Senior, why are you so sure that evil dragon will return to Fulong Town?"
Ye Ling replied, "It imprisoned the villagers of Fulong Town within the town but did not torment their souls. Instead, it allowed them to live in peace, which does not align with its desire for revenge."
"It must have its own purpose for doing all this, perhaps to plunge those villagers into eternal suffering, or to reclaim everything it has lost..."
"But whatever its purpose, as long as these villagers remain, it will not leave."
On the murals of the Fulong clan, there was a crucial detail.
In the near modern period, the evil dragon's offspring broke through the seal but was eventually killed by the combined efforts of the villagers of Fulong Town.
Interpreting solely from the murals, it would naturally be seen as the Fulong clan working together to eliminate the demonic threat by killing the dragon's offspring.
However, from the perspective of the great demon, it might have been pregnant before being sealed.
And during the two thousand years of its sealing, it painstakingly hatched its offspring and managed to send it out of the seal.
But before the offspring could escape, it was killed by the Fulong clan.
The flesh and blood nurtured for over two thousand years, killed in an instant, such extreme pain would be enough to generate endless hatred in the great demon.
Ye Ling would not be surprised by anything that great demon might do in such a situation.
Furthermore, the murals also depicted a mysterious swordsman from the East exchanging an ancient scripture for the divine stone of the Queen Mother of the West.
It could be said that the mysterious swordsman was the mastermind behind this series of tragedies, and perhaps the current situation was entirely orchestrated by that swordsman.
The swordsman took the Queen Mother of the West's divine stone and annihilated Fulong Town. Two of the three main characters in this story were connected to him, making it unlikely that he would simply let the evil dragon go.
Perhaps everything the evil dragon was doing in Fulong Town now was being manipulated by that swordsman.
Following Ye Ling out of the cave, Xu Xiaoqing asked again, "Senior, where are we going now?"
Ye Ling looked towards the mountaintop and chuckled, "Isn't it the Hot Spring Festival today? Let's go see the hot springs."
...
At the summit of Fulong Mountain, the Mountain Snow Hot Spring.
Near the Mountain Snow Hot Spring, the weather was freezing, with vast expanses of snow. However, the Mountain Snow Hot Spring maintained a temperature above 37 degrees Celsius year-round, shrouded in mist, resembling a fairyland, a unique spectacle of Kunlun.
Unfortunately, Fulong Town had not publicized it, so not many people knew about the Mountain Snow Hot Spring, and it had not become a tourist attraction.
Today, dense death qi gathered above the Mountain Snow Hot Spring. Many deceased villagers of Fulong Town were soaking in the hot springs at the summit, holding a sacrificial ceremony.
"They don't seem to realize they are spirits." Xu Xiaoqing's eyes flashed with surprise as she saw the villagers on the mountaintop, exclaiming in a low voice.
After entering the hot springs, the villagers' bodies became semi-transparent, but they were all laughing and chatting, seemingly without any doubt about their state.
Beside the hot spring, villagers had also built an altar with snow, enshrining a statue carved from ice.
However, judging by the statue, they were not worshipping the Queen Mother of the West, but rather a demon.
Xu Xiaoqing stared intently at the statue, then remembered something and quickly asked Ye Ling, "Senior... do you think the statue they are worshipping resembles the evil dragon from the murals, transformed into human form?"
"They are not worshipping the great demon, but its child."
Ye Ling glanced at the people on the mountaintop and said calmly, "It is now confirmed. The great demon massacred Fulong Town and trapped the villagers' souls within the town. Its purpose was to use these villagers' souls to resurrect its child."
"Resurrect the evil dragon's offspring?"
Upon hearing Ye Ling's words, Xu Xiaoqing was shocked and looked at Ye Ling with disbelief. "How can there be a method of bringing the dead back to life in this world?"
Ye Ling replied, "Bringing the dead back to life is not difficult. What is difficult is escaping heavenly retribution after resurrection."
"In other words, the difficulty of resurrection lies in... deceiving heaven."
Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the natural order and laws of heaven.
Bringing the dead back to life is to reverse nature and break the rules of heaven. Both the caster and the resurrected will be punished by heaven.
A slight misstep could lead to utter annihilation.
Of course, if the caster's strength was sufficient to withstand heavenly tribulations, then resurrection would be no different from ordinary sorcery.
The evil dragon wanted to resurrect its child but lacked the strength to evade heavenly punishment. Therefore, what it needed to do was to deceive heaven.
Using the entire population of Fulong Town as sacrifices, transforming this place into a land of great malevolence, and then hiding the soul of the dragon's offspring that had not yet entered the cycle of reincarnation. They would then forge a false soul for the dragon's offspring using the villagers' souls, allowing the villagers to enter reincarnation in place of the offspring.
The true soul of the dragon's offspring, hidden away, would then be reborn as a malevolent spirit born from the land of great malevolence, continuing to exist as a fierce creature.
In this way, from heaven's perspective, the young dragon was dead, the villagers had vanished, and a fierce creature was born from the land of great malevolence. Everything complied with the rules.
Heaven has no sense of good or evil. As long as it complies with the rules, everything has a reason to exist.
Whether it be a sage or a fierce creature, as long as it is reasonable, it can continue to exist.
And for the great demon to resurrect its child using such an ingenious and cruel method, it would require an evil formation to fuse all the villagers' souls into a new monster.
A formation that can deceive heaven must be a top-tier formation!
Ye Ling did not believe that a demon sealed for over two thousand years could master such a precise and complex sacrificial formation.
"That evil dragon wants to revive its offspring..."
Xu Xiaoqing murmured, a hint of pity flashing in her eyes.
Although reason told her that such a fierce creature should not exist in this world, and that the evil dragon had already committed heinous crimes, and was now escalating its actions by deceiving heaven.
Once this matter succeeded, it and its offspring would surely grow into scourges upon the world and must be eliminated!
But everything the evil dragon was doing was merely to revive its innocent child, which had been killed by the villagers of Fulong Town... Moreover, the villagers of Fulong Town were inherently wicked people, and their deaths were not regrettable.
The evil dragon's devotion to its child as a mother also made Xu Xiaoqing feel a sense of pity for it.
For a moment, she didn't know what to do.