Qin Jie moved forward little by little, using the houses for cover. Fortunately, the villagers' sight and hearing were quite poor, so he wasn't discovered for a while.
Shuisheng Village was filled with damaged Buddha statues and monks hanged from trees. This village exhibited extreme xenophobia in its religion; the villagers here only fanatically worshipped Source Water.
Qin Jie bypassed piles of tombstones, which seemed to be part of the live sacrifices, commemorating those who had been offered as tribute.
However, even with the never-ending sacrifices, the Source Waterworshipped by Shuisheng Village gradually dwindled. This seemed to be due to some diversion upstream, causing the Source Water to flow to another place called Bodhisattva Valley.
These villagers, naturally unaware of what was happening, only continued to sacrifice. The less Source Water there was, the more intense the sacrifices became, and the more people were offered as live sacrifices.
The distant sacrificial songs and dances had faded, and Qin Jie was gradually moving away from the worshipping villagers, but he still dared not relax, continuing to advance without pause.
In this oppressive and dark environment, an ethereal whisper suddenly appeared in Qin Jie's ear.
"What a beautiful sound of prayer, my dear, do you hear it?"
The tense Qin Jie was startled upon hearing this. He looked around, on guard, but strangely, he didn't see anyone.
Wait, prayer?
As if realizing something, Qin Jie quickly took out the wishing statuefrom his storage space. A faint glow appeared on the wishing statue, and the next moment, the Paradise's prompt sounded.
You are being watched by the Maiden of Prayer.
Crack.
Before Qin Jie could even react to what it meant, he suddenly felt that the ground beneath his feet seemed off.
He looked down and saw that he had stepped on a rotten human head. A corpse-person was buried in the ground beneath his feet, and its teeth had been broken by his step. It looked like it was about to shriek.
Qin Jie's first reaction was to stomp on the rotten human head beneath his foot, and he did. The head was crushed into a pulp before it could make any sound.
But the next moment, the soil beneath Qin Jie's feet began to churn, and a terrible thought appeared in his mind.
This thing under my feet isn't parasitized too, is it?
The surrounding ground suddenly bulged, and a dark Magikarp Derivatives burst out of the soil, lunging directly at Qin Jie. Even though Qin Jie activated his shield and dodged to the side immediately, he was still grazed, and his shield value dropped sharply in an instant.
Not only that, but shouts from villagers suddenly came from afar. A group of shadowy figures, their heads bobbing, surged towards Qin Jie, clearly indicating that his presence had been discovered.
These Magikarp Derivatives seemed to have some form of communication. Unlike the Shuisheng Village villagers, if one Magikarp Derivatives was triggered, all surrounding Magikarp Derivatives would also detect Qin Jie's presence. Furthermore, some Magikarp Derivativesparasitic in the villagers would also control their hosts to surge towards Qin Jie.
Almost without hesitation, Qin Jie immediately activated Shadow of Concealment, preparing to run for his life.
With the movement speed bonus from Shadow of Concealment, he would quickly reach the Bridge Cave. Even if he was surrounded, with the concealment effect, he should be very difficult to detect.
Under the influence of the Maiden of Prayer, you are subjected to a True Sight effect, which will forcibly break your invisibility.
Qin Jie's expression changed, and his previously ethereal body instantly became visible. The surrounding Shuisheng Village villagers and Magikarp Derivatives immediately cast dangerous gazes at him.
Sure enough, those 3 points of luck attribute weren't so easy to obtain.
Qin Jie's mouth twitched.
Currently, there was one very bad piece of news and one good piece of news.
The bad news was that Qin Jie was currently in the center of Shuisheng Village, and he was surrounded.
The good news was that the moon was beautiful tonight.
The next moment, it was unclear who howled first, but several black Magikarp Derivatives were directly thrown at Qin Jie by these villagers. Subsequently, a large number of villagers, armed with pitchforks and cleavers, surged towards Qin Jie.
Almost without hesitation, Qin Jie activated his shield and immediately broke through in the direction with fewer people. Risking the consumption of most of his shield value, Qin Jie eventually managed to tear open a gap and rushed out.
The villagers behind him, like zombies, followed him like shadows. These villagers' movement speed was not inherently fast, but precisely because of their large numbers, they activated their passive skill, all entering a berserk state. Not only that, but the Magikarp Derivativeswith legs also followed Qin Jie closely.
I need to find a way.
The villagers' howls faded into the distance, and Qin Jie eventually escaped their pursuit, arriving in a forest outside the village.
This forest was once called the Forest of Mist, because a Fountainhead Palace Noble, to prevent anyone from entering Shuisheng Village, summoned mist and phantoms to block all who tried to enter Shuisheng Village.
However, the Fountainhead Palace Noble's main body was quite weak; he had little combat power up close.
At this time, the mist in the forest had dispersed. It seemed that the noble who summoned the mist must have already died.
After shaking off his pursuers, a dilapidated temple appeared in the distance. Qin Jie walked in and found the temple covered in dust, with a skeleton wearing prayer beads inside, apparently a monk from this temple.
Based on the arrangement of the furniture, it seemed no one had lived in this dilapidated temple for a while, so Qin Jie decided to rest there for a moment.
Qin Jie was currently in desperate need of crowd control abilities. Previously, when fighting those vengeful spirits, he could counter them with the tengu mask, but the creatures in Shuisheng Village were not vengeful spirits, so there was no such counter-relationship. Moreover, with the Magikarp Derivatives possessing strong shield-breaking abilities, Qin Jie's tactic of trading damage was somewhat ineffective at this moment.
The difficulty of shaking off these things behind him was not very high; Qin Jie would not be dragged to death. However, how he would infiltrate again afterward was a problem, as he couldn't guarantee that the wishing statue wouldn't expose his whereabouts again.
This wishing statue on him was truly a pain in the ass. The previous lack of activity had made Qin Jie somewhat let down his guard, never expecting this thing to give Qin Jie such a big surprise at this moment. If his shield hadn't been thick enough, Qin Jie would have probably been surrounded and killed just now.
But now Qin Jie's shield was somewhat insufficient; his current shield was only about 40% remaining. If he encountered Magikarp Derivatives, it would probably be instantly melted.
Currently, he could stack a shield worth 28% of his maximum health per hour. Helplessly, Qin Jie spent three hours to stack his shield again, and then prepared to attempt infiltrating Shuisheng Village once more.
But as he expected, the wishing statue started acting up again. Qin Jiewas once again forced to reveal his true form. Fortunately, the True Sight effect did not disable the movement speed enhancement of Shadow of Concealment, so Qin Jie still managed to escape from Shuisheng Village.