Lin Feng saw the boy standing on the yellow sand. Lin Feng asked him quickly, "Where is the Ancient Demon?"
The boy pointed to a sandpile and said, "Right there. He kind of collapsed, but we didn't do anything to him…"
Lin Feng walked to the sandpile and punched it twice. A ten-meter-deep hole appeared. The Ancient Demon wasn't there.
As Lin Feng wanted to attack again, he heard Ancestor Sand's voice, "Stop. Don't break my soul organ… Don't break it…"
Ancestor Sand walked over to the hole. He pushed something in the sand and something came out of the hole: a child's body. It was broken to pieces though.
The baby's body was purple and dry. If it didn't have a human shape, Lin Feng would have thought it was a withered branch.
Ancestor Sand looked at that dry body and burst into tears, "My soul organ! You destroyed my soul organ! I'll never be able to become a human… My soul organ is broken…"
Lin Feng remembered something he had seen in the past… Wasn't that body a Shi Gui?
Indeed! That thing was the same as back when he had fought against the elder of the Feng Clan.
Ancestor Sand sniffled and turned around. He looked at Lin Feng with his bloodshot eyes, "Why did you destroy my soul organ? I can't become a human anymore. I'm going to kill you!"
But when he charged, he bounced off the wall of Lin Feng's isolated world. He charged and bounced off a dozen times. Ancestor Sand looked miserable. He was semitransparent now.
"Ancestor Sand, stop being so obstinate. I didn't destroy your soul organ! The Ancient Demon did!" Lin Feng said thoughtfully.
"Impossible! He helped me refine this soul organ! Why would he destroy my soul organ? Woo, woo…" Ancestor Sand still didn't believe Lin Feng.
Lin Feng tried to sound kinder and gentler, "Ancestor Sand, you are too naive. It wasn't a soul organ. He wanted to use you as a Shi Gui! You're lucky that thing didn't finish forming! Otherwise, you would have become a Shi Gui, a puppet with a sealed soul!"
"What is that supposed to mean? What does it mean to have a sealed soul?" asked Ancestor Sand angrily.
"If you had turned into a Shi Gui, you would have lost your freedom. You have become a walking-corpse and you would have been the Ancient Demon's slave forever. Is that the life you wanted as a human?" Lin Feng said.
Ancestor Sand looked dumbstruck, he couldn't believe it. The snake witch came to Ancestor Sand, "Ancestor Sand, since our soul organs have been destroyed, we should die together. We may finally be able to rest in peace."
After that, Mamma Snake started telling the sad story of her life. She was an ordinary young woman at the beginning and a man had put her in a snake body. She had become a slave, but the word "slave" didn't suffice to explain how horrible her life had been.
Lin Feng felt sorry for her. He hastily said, "Don't worry. Ancestor Sand said that Pangu's Compass can help souls condense, right? Can you not use it for the time being? Then you could wait while I look for suitable bodies for your soul organs. That way, you will be humans, right?"
When Lin Feng said that, Ancestor Sand sighed and asked sadly, "Really?"
"Of course I am. If I didn't want to help you, I wouldn't have saved you. I would destroy your soul organ right now!" Lin Feng asked.
Lin Feng glanced around and realized that Pangu's Compass had disappeared. There was nothing around them anymore, not even Lin Feng's Sky Destroying Imprint. Lin Feng wanted to call it, but he saw something rise in the distance. It wasn't too far and flew towards him.
Lin Feng grabbed it. He was astonished. It was the Compass! It was as small as the palm of a hand! But where was his Sky Destroying Imprint? Lin Feng turned the Compass around and saw his Sky Destroying Imprint! It was stuck to the back of the Compass!
Lin Feng didn't know what was going on. The two children walked towards him. The boy said, "Father, it seems like those two items were initially stuck together like the Yin and the Yang."
Lin Feng didn't understand and asked, "Does it mean that I have no Sky Destroying Imprint anymore?"
"Nah. They fused together, so now you can use either of them as you wish," explained the girl. Then she said, "If you don't believe me, you can always try."
Lin Feng took the compass and shouted, "Sky Destroying Imprint!"
The compass and the Sky Destroying Imprint flew away. Lin Feng had it grow to a thousand meters high. He was relieved when it worked.
Lin Feng raised his head. He couldn't help but feel astonished. The oasis had dried up in half a day… Everything was dry. No more water. No more grass. Nothing. Everything was dry.
"Father, the oasis disappeared because of the Yin and Yang of the compass. Since you have that celestial treasure, Feng Shui principles don't apply here anymore."
Wang Yuan checked the corpses of the men with the iron masks. He tried to remove an iron mask from one's head and was astonished. Their faces and their masks were stuck together! When he removed the mask, there was no skin on their faces. It made everybody's hair bristle.
"Ancestor Sand, Mamma Snake, could it be that the Witches' Sect only had those few members?" Lin Feng asked. He didn't understand.
Mamma Snake shook her head, "No. Initially, there were many, many people. But since the Ancient Demon came back, many people became his appetizers. Those who practiced cultivation a little escaped and didn't dare come back. Those who stayed turned into sand demons. Soulless, their existence is miserable and sad."
Ancestor Sand lowered his head and said, "I… I ate a few… The Ancient Demon forced me to."
Everybody checked the area for dozens of li. They didn't find anything strange, so they decided to leave.
Lin Feng and Wang Yuan counted the number of people. A hundred people had come, thirty were dead, their bodies were scattered across the sand of the desert. Lin Feng couldn't abandon their bodies there, so he took them onto the compass and flew away from the desert.
——
Signals came back on their phones, and Wang Yuan's rang. It was Leader Wang. He asked worriedly, "Wang Yuan, how's it going?"
"We destroyed the witches' nest. But… But a lot of people died," Wang Yuan replied softly.
Leader Wang remained silent for a few seconds and said, "Hurry up and get back to Linhai and Jiang Nan. The situation has sunk into chaos there. A bunch of cultivators have caused chaos in the two cities."
"What about the dead? Can't we bury them?" Wang Yuan asked.
"Assign that task to someone else. Your task is to go to Jiang Nan and Linhai. It is an EMERGENCY! If it continues like that, both cities will turn into hell!" Leader Wang warned them urgently.
—–
After hanging up, Wang Yuan asked four people to go and bury the corpses. The others followed Lin Feng and Wang Yuan to Linhai and Jiang Nan.
Lin Feng was extremely worried again. Nian Ling Jiao had gone back to Linhai, and he hadn't seen her for a long time. Linhai had changed. Lin Feng hoped Nian Ling Jiao and her mother were fine.
—–
As Lin Feng and the others arrived, people were running around desperately. They looked like ants running around.
The sky above Linhai was red.
The group sped up. When they arrived in Linhai, they were dumbstruck. There were people with iron masks everywhere, at least ten thousand of them. When Lin Feng and the others appeared, they attracted the masked men's attention.
"Who are you? How dare you spy on our ritual for our Goddess!" those people shouted furiously.
They didn't wait for Lin Feng to finish, and were already charging. They surrounded Lin Feng and the others, pointing at Lin Feng and the others with the tips of their swords.
Lin Feng released his isolated world, and those people were pushed away by the walls of isolated world. A dozen fireballs came from the ground and dashed to the skies, but they fell back down when they collided with Lin Feng's isolated world.
The fireballs were sizable, and when they fell on the ground, they destroyed parts of the streets, the roads, and sidewalks. A stinky black Qi arose after the explosions. Lin Feng was disgusted; it was the smell of burning bodies…
When the crowd saw the fireballs and smelled the burning bodies, they realized the situation was serious. Bodies were piling up.
There were many faces in the fires. Lin Feng stepped closer, and the fire turned into a gigantic ghost face, baring fangs to eat him.
Even though it couldn't harm people because it was intangible, it still terrified the crowd.
There was a corpse stage, and people with iron masks were on their knees all around. They were surrounded by fireballs.
Lin Feng looked at the corpse platform more closely. There was a person tied up at the top.
Lin Feng focused. He couldn't help but be astonished. "Lin Zu!"
Lin Zu was staring blankly. He looked absent-minded, gone. Lin Feng couldn't stand seeing that, and flew straight towards Lin Zu.
At the same time, some men with iron masks raised their swords and attacked. Lin Feng pushed them away and landed in front of Lin Zu. He reached out for the ropes that tied up Lin Zu, but as soon as he touched them, Lin Zu suddenly burst into laughter. "Hahahahahahahaha! Lin Feng, you're finally here!"