"What inner demon or no inner demon. A street performer overheard a phrase or two about cultivation from somewhere, and wants to trick me, an expert in cultivation?" Fang Han sneered secretly in his heart, yet he casually kept up the nonsense conversation with this old man, only paying attention to the envelopment of the powerful divine sense in the sky. Daoist Dragon and Daoist Wood actually persistently refused to leave, constantly searching around this area.
Evidently, Fang Han's Reincarnation Incantation had taken effect, concealing his aura. Otherwise, with this momentary pause, he would have immediately been caught up to by the two Giants of Ages.
"Young man, how about it? I hit the mark, didn't I? You just passed a tribulation, and a new tribulation has arrived?" The fortune-telling old man, seeing Fang Han remain silent, continued to tap his finger on the tabletop.
"Then how does one overcome the new tribulation?" Fang Han asked casually. Anyway, he was just chatting with this old head. Waiting for Daoist Dragon and Daoist Wood to sweep past, he would immediately run away.
"Difficult, difficult, difficult." The old man waved his hand. Seeing that Fang Han seemed to believe him, a trace of a smile appeared on his face, as if a fish had taken the bait. Saying the word difficult three times in a row, he then stopped talking.
Seeing this, Fang Han sneered again in his heart, pretending to look terrified, "I indeed do have some disasters recently. The master's words hit the mark. I hope the master will help me calculate, how can I resolve the peril?" Saying this, he once again pulled out a large silver ingot from his sleeve.
"Mhm. This is not bad." The old man took the silver, weighed it in his hand, finding it extremely heavy. He smiled with satisfaction, "Since that is the case, I will make an exception and cast a spell once to resolve the current peril for you. I will first write out a spirit talisman, and then burn it using paper, and your current peril will be resolved. However, in the future, your perils remain many. If you want me to avert disasters again, this amount of silver will not be enough."
"Want to extort more money from me? If I were truly a scholar in the mortal world, then so be it. But this is just for amusement anyway." Fang Han immediately said: "Of course, as long as you can avert disasters for me. I will not be short of money for you in the future. If you cannot avert the disaster, I will treat you as a fraud and send you to the government office. After a round of wooden boards, this body of yours will probably give up the ghost."
"Haha, young man, I will not deceive you."
He grabbed the brush, ink, and the scholar's four jewels on the table. Spreading out a piece of yellow talisman paper, he started drawing twisted talismans, squiggly and turning, nobody knew what it was. At any rate, Fang Han had never seen such a talisman before.
"Fang Han, what are you playing with this old fraud for? Handing out a large silver ingot, he's taking you for a fool. Toying with the mortal world isn't done like this either. Back when Huangquan Emperor toyed with the mortal world, he made others spin around in dizzying circles."
Yan could also tell that this fortune-telling old head was just a fraud.
"He's deceiving me, and I'm actually deceiving him too. Everyone is deceiving each other. Coming to the mortal world, we're just here for a bit of fun, to feel the atmosphere, that's all." Fang Han laughed aloud in his heart, "After the deceiving is over, a chance meeting like patches of duckweed, I will leave."
The fortune-telling old man put on a show of drawing bizarre talismans on the paper, while Fang Han paid attention to the divine sense in the sky.
In the Nine Heavens Heavenly Wind Layer.
Daoist Dragon and Daoist Wood, two Giants of Ages stood, without urging any magic power. Instead, they projected their mighty divine senses out from the sky, shrouding the various cities below.
"Daoist Wood, haven't you found him yet?"
"This Fang Han, seems to have suddenly cast some secret technique and hidden." Daoist Wood shook his head: "But I can be certain, Fang Han hasn't run far. He is right within this thousand miles radius, or hiding among the crowds."
"Could he have run through the ground? It is rumored that the Five Emperors Great Demon Divine Ability possesses a branch called Yellow Emperor Earth Sovereign Dao, which can turn earth into qi. Could he drill away from the ground?" Daoist Dragon asked.
"That won't happen. I actually wish he would drill away from the ground. Traveling through the subterranean depths consumes ten times more origin energy than flying through the sky. Moreover, with my innate wood body, my roots pierce into the soil, completely able to sense his movements. Being as shrewd a person as he is, he certainly wouldn't do so. Right now, there's a seventy percent chance he's just hiding in the city below, among the mortal crowds." Daoist Wood saw it very accurately: "I am merely using divine sense right now to seek him out."
"Why such trouble? We should just directly use great magic power to seal the cities within this thousand-mile radius and refine them outright. Fang Han is hiding within, and is so adept at hiding, searching one by one like this, when will we ever find him?" While Daoist Dragon spoke, he exerted his magic power, striking out sequence after sequence of hand seals that enveloped the area spanning a thousand miles. Faintly and indistinctly, talismans in the sky could be seen forming into an invisible eggshell-shaped celestial canopy, shrouding downwards. At the same time, he proposed a vicious suggestion. "Refine every place within a thousand miles, the one who doesn't die will definitely be Fang Han."
"We must be cautious about this. I've taken a look here, it's called the Han Dynasty. Three hundred thousand miles away are the people from the One Element Sect, who also frequently come here to recruit disciples. This dynasty has tens of millions in population. Below is its capital, Hanwangcheng. If we refine it, people from the One Element Sect might come out to interfere. Besides, we are not people of the demonic path. If the act of slaughtering people and refining souls is done and spreads out, our reputation will be bad."
"What is there to fear! We are also Giants of Ages roaming unopposed in our respective regions. Even if the One Element Sect finds out, would they really go against us for the sake of some mortals in the secular world?" Daoist Dragon said viciously: "Furthermore, if we could trap Fang Han, even if the people from the One Element Sect came, what does destroying a country and killing a million, or tens of millions of people matter? Who knows, they might even help us kill Fang Han together. One must know, who wouldn't want the bounty offered by the Taiyi Sect?"
"Alright. Refining a country is risking universal condemnation for people in the Divine Ability Secret Realm, but for us Giants of Ages, people of the Longevity Secret Realm, it isn't considered any big deal. Different realms dictate different ways of acting. Give it the time of an incense stick burning; if I still cannot seek out Fang Han, we'll set up a grand array and refine these dozens of cities within this thousand-mile radius. Let's see if Fang Han still won't come out!"
Daoist Wood agreed with Daoist Dragon's viewpoint.
Giants of Ages in the Longevity Secret Realm fully transcended the mortal world, unbounded by normal rules. If it were Fang Han, he absolutely wouldn't have such immense guts to dare refine a thousand miles of land, dozens of cities, and tens of millions of people.
"Haha, it should have been like this long ago, Heaven-Swallowing Dark Cloud Tent!" Seeing that Daoist Wood also agreed with his view, he laughed aloud, raising his hand and a dark cloud-like tent flew out directly.
Immediately, this dark cloud-like tent thoroughly transformed into sky-filling dark clouds, like ink poured into a pond, instantly spreading out. In a short moment, the sky was filled with dark clouds, strong winds kicked up, and heaven and earth grew pitch-black.
Looking from afar, this area spanning several hundred to a thousand miles, with more than ten cities, seemed entirely swallowed by darkness.
"It's going to rain! Hurry home and collect the clothes."
"The weather sure changes fast."
"Yeah, the bright sun was just shining resplendently, how did it suddenly turn completely black in just a little while, and a strong gale is blowing over…"
Woo woo woo, woo woo woo.
Fang Han, sitting at this fortune-telling stall by the street, saw the dark clouds in the sky surging madly. It looked as if streaks of black dragons were stirring the clouds and brewing rain. The strong gale was like arrows, blowing up dust across the main street, while pedestrians on the road ran madly toward their homes.
"Not good!" Fang Han stood up fiercely. He felt that the magic power surging in the sky was unprecedentedly massive. Furthermore, the soil deep within the ground had also hardened.
Turning earth into steel, condensing the earth origin energy of the ground to make the dirt harder than steel—this was a method possessed by many earth attribute spells.
On that day at the Coiling Dragon Planet, Hua Tiandu used this method to prevent him from drilling into the ground. However, Hua Tiandu's strength could not be compared to Daoist Dragon and Daoist Wood. Perhaps one-on-one he could fight a bit, but facing the combined attack of these two, he would be instantly killed and reduced to fine powder.
Moreover, Daoist Wood was a Sal Tree Demon. Wood inherently rooted itself in the earth, and wood countered earth. His application of earth attribute divine abilities was far much stronger than Fang Han's, and also much more formidable than Hua Tiandu's.
Fang Han felt that the earth origin energy deep underground was unprecedentedly abundant, condensed, and tightly compacted. If he wanted to drill down, who knows how much magic power it would consume.
"Isn't it just the wind and rain arriving? Young man, what are you in such a hurry for? My talisman isn't finished drawing yet. You can leave after I avert the disaster for you." The fortune-telling old man suddenly said, seeing that Fang Han was about to leave.
"You'd better keep it for yourself. I don't need you to eliminate my disaster. I can eliminate the tribulations and disasters myself." Fang Han casually threw another large silver ingot to this old head, "Meeting is destiny. Don't tell fortunes anymore, go do something else instead. Destiny varies constantly, even immortals cannot calculate it clearly."
"Haha, young man, wait until I eliminate this tribulation for you first to speak." The fortune-telling old head laughed aloud. The talisman drawn in his hands was also finished. He lit a fire stalk and burned this piece of talisman paper.
Right after it burned, with a whoosh, a gust of strong wind blew all the paper ash of the talisman into the sky, making Fang Han shake his head continuously as he watched.
"Daoist Dragon, what is that!"
Daoist Wood was in the middle of searching, but still hadn't discovered Fang Han's trace. With a hardening of his mind, he was also preparing to command his magical artifact and magic power ahead to refine all the land within this thousand-mile radius entirely.
However, just as he was preparing to refine, suddenly, from the dark clouds and wind below, a piece of talisman paper flew up. This talisman was twisted like dragons and snakes, written upon it with formidable characters no one recognized.
No one had ever seen these characters.
Daoist Dragon flipped his gaze, waving his hand, and astral qi flew out, condensing into a giant hand that was about to crush this piece of talisman paper. However, just upon coming into contact with this piece of talisman paper, suddenly, this piece of talisman exploded outright. It turned into a sky full of scattering flower petals, as streaks of glazed, colorful light materialized within the void, followed by rainbows spanning east, west, south, and north.
In a trance, Daoist Wood and Daoist Dragon seemed to have been placed into a hallucinatory dream world.
"Not good, my inner demon!"
Daoist Wood was the first to become alert. His heart pulsed continuously, as if it was about to burst apart. He felt that he had sunk into a virtual world, unable to extricate himself. He plummeted into an endless stream of nightmares. Wanting to wake up but completely unable to wake up.
This was Qi deviation, a condition that occurred when one's inner demon could no longer be completely suppressed.