The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 437 Seeing An Rong Again
Wu Chang looked at the shattered jade pendant in his hand, and the scene before his eyes flashed back, reminding him of the final part of the "Peace and Safety Every Year" dungeon.

At the time, Chi Yuan was seriously injured and on the verge of death. He combined the two halves of the Demon Mask into one, condensing it into a B-grade, upgradable item called the Shadow Mask. He used the Shadow Mask to exchange for a favor from Wu Chang.

What Chi Yuan gave him was not just a B-grade upgradeable item, but also a great opportunity.

Recalling that day, what Akagami said echoed in his mind.

Chi Yuan claimed that he lacked natural talent and had a weak body and blood energy. He had also fallen into evil ways and damaged his Dao heart. He believed that he was destined to be unable to achieve the Great Dao through conventional cultivation in this life.

So he devised a plan: to use the art of demon transformation to plunder the common people, recreate a perfect true self, and use that true self to achieve the Great Dao.

That true self is the one that Wu Chang frequently uses now.

The true self is not only an extremely powerful clone, but also carries the possibility of achieving the Great Dao. Among the many items Wu Chang has ever possessed, if he were to choose the most precious item, he would definitely choose the Reflecting Face.

Even the Omniscient Crystal, which is suspected to be the key to the fourth level, and the mortal poison that can extract the power of gods, are not as important as the Shadow Man facing him.

The weight of his true self alone is so great, not to mention that without the most basic reflection of his human face, he would not have been able to completely save Eileen, nor would he have the saintly face he has today.

Chi Yuan gave him a favor in exchange for a mirror image, but he only asked for one thing: to help Chi Yuan take care of An Rong, the only orphan in Huai Gu Village, who was being treated like a fool by the bandits who occupied Huai Gu Village.

As a player of the Abyss game, Wu Chang was unable to take An Rong away, so Chi Yuan made a compromise and gave the jade pendant to Wu Chang, saying that if the jade pendant broke, it would mean that An Rong was in danger, and that Wu Chang should save An Rong at least once.

Wu Chang always distinguishes between gratitude and resentment and dislikes being indebted to anyone.

He owed Chi Yuan the favor of receiving the Reflection Face, a debt he was so indebted to that he couldn't repay even by using the World Dungeon as a bargaining chip.

If the jade pendant had shattered before he entered the world instance, that would have been fine, but now that he's in the world instance, An Rong is definitely under his protection, and Ye Ge can't touch it either, he said!

Wu Chang gripped the jade pendant tightly, sensing the aura within it.

Since Chi Yuan could use the jade pendant as a warning, there must be some kind of connection between it and An Rong. Relying on his powerful intuition, he indeed followed the jade pendant and sensed a faint connection.

The aura indicated by the jade pendant was nearby, rapidly moving towards the depths of Baili Huai Mountain. He unfolded his spatial domain, the edge of which perfectly enveloped the aura.

With the blessing in effect, he didn't need to worry about any danger. He reached out and took Eileen's hand, and in a flash, he teleported to the location of the aura.

As soon as he and Eileen landed, they saw a cultivator dressed in a gray-blue outfit, wearing a bamboo hat, with a penetrating wound in his abdomen, leaning against a large tree.

The cultivator's aura was unstable, and he had suffered considerable injuries, but the physical injuries were minor. The real danger lay in the fact that his entire body was enveloped in a ball of transparent flame.

The flames contained spiritual energy, scorching the cultivator's body while also burning his spirit and will. The cultivator was trembling all over, clearly on the verge of losing his mind.

Just as Wu Changgang was about to approach the cultivator in the bamboo hat, he suddenly felt a surge of energy underground and immediately stopped.

The ground in front of the cultivator in the bamboo hat suddenly split open, and a ferocious beast, five meters long, with a tiger's head and a leopard's body, covered in bronze-like scales, stood in front of the cultivator and roared at Wu Chang.

It seemed to be warning him that if he took another step forward, it would pounce on him.

Although the giant beast in front of him was quite different from what he remembered, he still recognized it as the guardian beast that was used during the New Year's Festival in the "Peaceful Years" instance.

The mountain-guarding beast, which was panting heavily in front of the cultivator in the bamboo hat, had scales on its body that resembled dragon scales, and its limbs had also transformed into dragon claws. The dragon bloodline within its body had already awakened, and its aura was extremely powerful. Just based on its formidable physique alone, players ranked below 300 would find it difficult to defeat it.

Wu Chang remembered that An Rong's talent was beast taming. When he left Huaigu Village, An Rong took all the captured mountain-guarding beasts with him. The appearance of the mountain-guarding beasts in front of him further proved the identity of the cultivator in the bamboo hat.

He took a half step back, indicating to the mountain-guarding beast that he meant no harm, and then he gave Eileen a look.

Eileen noticed Wu Chang's thoughts and pointed her index finger at An Rong from afar. A beam of holy light descended from the sky, temporarily suppressing the transparent flames surrounding An Rong's body.

A look of surprise appeared in Eileen's eyes. The level of light magic she used was very high, which, when converted into a skill, was close to level A.

Even with her near-middle-level god-level strength, her A-rank skill failed to dispel the transparent flames in one fell swoop; the transparent flames were more troublesome than she had imagined.

The flames were relentlessly burning An Rong's spirit and soul. To ensure his safety, a more powerful skill, such as the Undying Sacred Flame, had to be used.

But doing so would likely invite an attack from the Mountain-Suppressing Beast. Wu Chang wasn't afraid of how ferocious the Mountain-Suppressing Beast was, but rather that he might not control his strength and cause it some harm.

Just as he was thinking about how to communicate with the mountain-suppressing beast and ask it to let them get closer to An Rong for further treatment, he saw a dazzling rainbow emanating from An Rong's body, which directly extinguished the transparent flames.

A colorful cloud surrounded An Rong for ten meters, interspersed with twinkling lights, like a nebula encircling him.

These colorful clouds are not the light of any skill, but the pure light of destiny.

Even Olivia, the chosen one of the planes, cannot compare to An Rong in terms of aura of fortune.

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow, his face full of surprise. Back in Huaigu Village, he thought that An Rong was destined for greatness, but he never expected that An Rong would go so far as to become the Chosen One.

As the transparent flame died down, An Rong began to cough violently. Amidst a series of retching sounds as if he were about to vomit his internal organs, he vomited a pool of soft, red and white rotten matter onto the ground.

Upon closer inspection, the red and white substance turned out to be a white worm about the size of a fist. The worm had light red markings on its body, and as it moved, the markings changed, making it look like a pained human face.

Paji.

An Rong crushed the red and white worms with one foot and said in a weak voice:
"Little Huang, come back. He's not an enemy."

Upon hearing An Rong's call, the hostility in the mountain-suppressing beast lessened, its body shrunk to two meters in length, and it retreated behind An Rong.

An Rong removed his bamboo hat, revealing a handsome young face. He bowed slightly to Wu Chang and said:
"Sect Leader Tang, it was indeed you who appeared in Wuchang in Huaigu Village back then. I was saved by you back then, and I never expected to meet you again fifteen years later, only to be saved by you again. I am truly ashamed."

Wu Chang returned the greeting and said, "Brother An, please don't mind. I owe Daoist Chiyuan a favor and promised to take good care of you. I've been traveling around all these years and haven't even met you once. I should be the one who feels ashamed."

When I saw An Rong again, he was completely different from the one I knew in Huaigu Village.

Judging from An Rong's appearance, he was probably around twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. He was no longer the skinny, crazy village guard Wild Grass. Now, his frame had grown up, and although he wasn't exactly burly, he was strong, well-proportioned, and had a dignified air.

His former madness had vanished. Even though he had just experienced life and death, his eyes remained calm and gentle, making him difficult to understand.

An Rong smiled and said, "Sect Leader Tang, you flatter me. You and the Tang Clan have been fighting on the front line of exorcising demons all these years. Without you, the demon calamity would be at least several times more ferocious than it is now. Looking across the Great Xuan, there is no one you should feel ashamed of."

An Rong abruptly changed the subject, his voice urgent: "Sect Leader Tang, this is not the place to talk. Let's go back to the Human Alliance first, and then catch up slowly."

Wu Chang said, "No rush, Brother An, tell me first who hurt you, and what was that thing you just spat out?"

“Let’s leave here first, or we’ll be late…” An Rong’s voice trailed off.

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow, sensing something was nearby, but he pretended not to notice and said:

"What if it's too late?"

"If it's getting late, why don't you stay?" A voice suddenly appeared not far away.

In an instant, the clear sky darkened. Blocked by tall trees, the already insufficient light in the forest became as dark as night.

Wu Chang turned his head in the direction of the sound and saw a ball of transparent flame rise out of thin air.

First there was one cluster, then two clusters, then three clusters...

A moment later, nine transparent flames formed a circle and slowly rotated in the air.

The flames burned ever brighter, their light illuminating nine enormous candles below, each as thick as two people could encircle, their surfaces covered with a dense array of twisted limbs and tormented faces.

Nine candles, seemingly formed from countless humans squeezed together, emitted the wails of souls as they burned. At the bottom of each candle was a giant hand, and they worked together to slowly approach Wu Chang and An Rong.

The nine candlelights merged together, coalescing into a giant flame at the center, beneath which a grotesque tumor, shaped like an apple, was revealed.

There was a mouth-like fissure on the tumor, and the sound just now came from it.

Wu had seen many monsters, but few were as disgusting as the one before him. He frowned and asked An Rong:

"What is this?"

An Rong, as if facing a formidable enemy, cautiously guarded against the tumor, and said:
"Zhu Yin Hai, the Fire Demon King of the Demon Realm."

Wu Chang: "Hmm?"

An Rong's words touched on his blind spot. Even he, the Tang Clan leader, was not clear about the situation inside the Demon Realm. How could An Rong act so familiar with it?

Knowing that Wu Chang was unaware of the Demon Realm, An Rong condensed his voice into a thread and began to explain to Wu Chang.

The fleshy monster in front of them was called Zhuyin Hai, a monster that appeared in the early stages of the spiritual energy revival, even earlier than the evil spirits of Huaigu Village.

The Candle Shadow Skeleton first appeared in Chu Yang Province, when the Great Xuan was in a turbulent period, with natural disasters and man-made calamities constantly occurring around it.

Chuyang Province is suffering from a drought. Under the scorching sun, crops wither, rivers dry up, and more than half of the province's population is suffering from hunger and thirst.

Left with no other choice, the people had to invite a Taoist priest to perform a ritual, but little did they know that the priest was being targeted by Zhu Yinhai.

At that time, spiritual energy had just recovered, and even a cultivator like Chi Yuan could only use a minor thunder technique like Summoning a Thousand Thunders, let alone the art of summoning wind and rain. The magician who took over was just a charlatan.

He failed to pray for rain, but then he discovered the fruit tree that Zhu Yinhai had disguised as. He told the villagers that this fruit tree was the one he had obtained by asking a celestial being using his magic.

So people flocked to the trees to pick the fruit, which was inexhaustible, making people regard it as a gift from the gods.

But what they didn't expect was that the fruit they swallowed was actually a candle worm split off from the Candle Shadow Skeleton.

The candle worm uses people's fear of hunger and thirst, and the pain brought by high temperatures and heat, as fuel to transform into a transparent heart flame, which ignites all those who consume it, melting them into candles and merging them into itself.

This cycle repeats itself, constantly luring people affected by drought to come here, providing them with nourishment for its growth.

It wasn't until a year later, when the spiritual energy revival entered its explosive phase, that the reclusive sects that had disappeared reopened their gates. Cultivators needed a stable place to cultivate, so they stepped in to help the Great Xuan stabilize the world. When the situation stabilized in Chu Yang Province, people discovered the Candle Yin Skeleton.

By the time they discovered it, it was too late. The Candle Shadow Skeleton had absorbed hundreds of thousands of corpses, far beyond what human cultivators at the time could handle. Even when the Great Xuan mobilized its army, it was unable to kill it and escaped.

After that, it continued to wreak havoc in various provinces of Da Xuan until the Demon Realm appeared. After entering the Demon Realm, it was named the Fire Demon King, and its strength made a further leap.

An Rong said, "The heart fire controlled by Zhu Yin Hai can even melt the soul of a cultivator. It is the second most troublesome of the four demon kings. Many experts have died at its hands when exploring the demon realm."

"The injury I just sustained was due to its trickery; it parasitized me with candle worms. I fled all the way here, but it still caught up with me."

An Rong's words contained a lot of information, including many secrets that he was unaware of.

Especially regarding the description of the Demon Realm, according to An Rong, the Heavenly Dao Alliance had already organized an exploration of the Demon Realm, but the situation was not ideal. Just the Zhuyin Skeleton alone caused the Heavenly Dao Alliance's exploration cultivators to suffer heavy losses.

Furthermore, there are three other monsters as strong as Zhuyin Hai, one of which is even stronger than it.

Wu Chang examined the Zhuyin Corpse. This fleshy monster did indeed possess some strength. The candle flames on its body, capable of melting souls, emitted a faint divine aura, clearly indicating that it had reached the level of a native god in the desolate realm.

Judging from Wu Chang's inherited memories, ordinary cultivators indeed could not defeat it.

However, none of that matters. He had just said that An Rong was under his protection, and Zhu Yinhai's attack on An Rong was a slap in his face, a death sentence indeed.

He said to An Rong, "You rest here for a while, I'll try to see if its heart flame can really melt the soul."

An Rong's eyes flashed with panic. He grabbed Wu Chang's arm and quickly tried to stop him:
"Sect Leader Tang, you must not act rashly. It possesses the power of a demon king, and ordinary cultivators have no power to resist it. Back when we were exploring the demon realm, it took seven grandmasters working together to barely hold it back."

"If I were in my prime, I could put up a fight with it, but now, all I can do is run away."

Wu Chang glanced at An Rong in surprise. In the world instance plane, Grandmasters are not worthless. Usually, only the leaders and elders of reclusive sects can reach this level.

On the surface, his and Eileen's strength was only that of Grandmasters.

It took seven Grandmasters to hold off Zhu Yinhai. If An Rong were in his prime, he could fight Zhu Yinhai to a standstill by himself. He truly deserves to be called the Chosen One.

With such strength, it's impossible for him to remain unknown in the Great Xuan. Unfortunately, the background information that the True Walker filled in for him shows that the Tang Clan are all fanatical demon hunters who don't pay attention to the Human Alliance, and there is no information about An Rong in his memory.

He easily pried An Rong's hand off his and said with a smile:

"Within the entire Great Xuan Realm, no one knows how to fight demons better than our Tang Clan. Brother An, don't be afraid, I, Tang, know what I'm doing."

An Rong stared blankly at his hands. When Wu Chang pried his hands open, he had no chance to struggle at all. Even with the Mountain-Suppressing Beast, he had never felt such overwhelming power.

Taking advantage of An Rong's momentary daze, Wu Chang approached Zhu Yinhai and spoke in a consultative tone:

"Let's make a deal. You tell me about the Demon Realm, and I'll give you a quick death. How about it?"

call!
Since its birth, Zhu Yinhai has never lost to a human cultivator. After becoming the Fire Demon King, it can turn human cultivators into candle flames with just a thought.

As the Fire Demon King, its temper was naturally like a raging fire, and it could not tolerate Wu Chang's provocation.

"You deserve to die!"

It immediately split off two hands carrying huge candles and attacked Wu Chang from both sides. The two hands did not strike Wu Chang directly, but instead pressed down on the ground on both sides of Wu Chang.

The candle flames at the ends of the palms formed a line, together with two thick candles, creating what appeared to be a strange fire gate.

Seeing Huo Men Anrong, he snapped out of his daze and shouted, "Oh no!"

This move is called the Gate of Hell, a skill commonly used by Zhu Yinhai, which specializes in attacking the souls of cultivators.

During the exploration of the demon realm, two grandmasters were struck by this move and perished on the spot.

Unfortunately, by the time An Rong realized what was happening, the Gate of Hell had already taken shape. The candlelight burned fiercely, and the transparent flames solidified into a pale white, turning the Gate of Hell into a gate of fire. Wu Chang was instantly engulfed by the fire gate.

Amidst the flames, mournful howls echoed continuously; the mere sound was enough to drive those with weak wills mad.

An Rong panicked. The two Grandmasters who were burned at the Gates of Hell that day had screamed in the same way before they died.

He waved to summon the mountain-guarding beast and was about to rush through the door to rescue people. Just as he was about to act, a precious sword blocked his way. The one who stopped him was Madam Tang.

Eileen said to An Rong, "Don't worry, he's fine."

Eileen's voice had a reassuring magic. An Rong overcame his fear of Zhu Yinhai and carefully listened, only to find that the screams did not sound like Wu Chang, but rather like Zhu Yinhai.

The next moment, Wu Chang walked out of the gates of hell with ease, without even getting his clothes dirty.

What a joke! He's already defeated Hela, the goddess of death. The underworld will be his territory in the future. What is there to fear about the gates of hell?

The Heart Flame of Zhu Yin Hai primarily attacks the will. Wu Chang's willpower was at a high level of 283 at this moment. The Heart Flame of Zhu Yin Hai was like throwing an egg against a rock. Not only could it not break through his willpower barrier, but it also caused the wronged souls in the Heart Flame to dissipate on their own.

Having escaped death, Wu Chang picked up two pebbles from the ground and launched them at the two candle arms like marbles.

The next moment, two thick bolts of lightning struck down, turning the two candle-shaped arms into charred remains.

call.

Wu Chang stepped forward and blew on the candle, creating a gust of wind that caused the two candle arms to scatter.

The severed-armed Zhuyin screamed in agony, while Wu Chang turned to An Rong and, in the tone of a master instructor, began to teach him:
"You see, this is the importance of practical experience in exorcising demons."

(End of this chapter)