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"My lord, there has been an incident at the Azure Dragon Gate!"

It was Shen Qi who came to deliver the news. Chen Qing had been sitting in the guest seat at the Vermilion Bird Gate, seemingly uninterested in the Azure Dragon Gate.

Shen Qi was quite curious because he really didn’t understand how a little fellow without a trace of spiritual power could defend the Azure Dragon Gate?

The Old Celestial Master had assigned him a position among the Four Holy Guard.

Should he fail to protect the candidate’s qualifications, wouldn’t the Heavenly Master’s Mansion lose face?

Let’s not talk about losing face for now; the Mansion’s very promises could be in jeopardy.

Like with the White Tiger and Black Tortoise Gates, where top descendants of the Heavenly Master’s Mansion were guarding, only a few could pass.

But with so many applicants at the Azure Dragon Gate, if everyone were to succeed, Shen Qi was curious whether the Heavenly Master would be willing to honor such a promise.

There must be a plan, so he was very curious about what the Mansion’s plan was.

And then....

"What could possibly make Seventh Master Shen so flustered?" Chen Qing asked languidly.

"The contestants at the Azure Dragon Gate...." Shen Qi recalled what he had just seen. Despite having been through quite a few storms himself, he was somewhat emotionally agitated at the moment.

"All dead!"

"Oh?" Chen Qing nodded. "Did Zhang Xiaoyun kill them?"

"Did you know about this beforehand, my lord?" Shen Qi was startled.

He remembered that he had not left any Thousand Eyes Technique here...

"I guessed as much," Chen Qing said with a smile. "Even without thinking hard, you would know that the Heavenly Master’s Mansion wouldn’t send out so many of the Four Holy Guard.

If they dared let Zhang Xiaoyun guard the gate, there must be a plan in place, and no plan is more stable than Zhang Xiaoyun being strong enough by himself. "

"But there is not a trace of fluctuation on Zhang Xiaoyun. What do you think he relies on to hide his strength?" Shen Qi looked at Chen Qing curiously.

The scene he had just witnessed was clear, and to describe it as too ghastly to bear would be an understatement. It was a crushing massacre. Based on Zhang Xiaoyun’s performance today, in Shen Qi’s view, it was almost at Ao Zhen’s level.

But Ao Zhen was a figure just below Dragon King level!

"Maybe... he wasn’t hiding at all," Chen Qing said solemnly. "Haven’t your Sorcerer Families heard of a Technique called Witchery?"

"Witchery?" Shen Qi frowned upon hearing this. "Are those Shamans who play with the Divine Descent Technique?"

He was certainly familiar with it, having seen it more than a few times.

It was nothing more than some pathetic fools worshiping inexplicable evil gods, trading their bodies for power, mostly because they lacked the talent of a Magician.

Seduced by something, they lost who knows how much, only to gain a pitiful amount of power in return.

In his view, such practices couldn’t even be considered heretical paths; they were things that only fools would touch.

The power obtained by Shaman’s Divine Descent Technique was temporary.

The body was loaned to unknown evil gods, and they had to pray again for power the next time.

The power wasn’t truly theirs, yet the price they paid, even in battle, was borne by themselves.

In his opinion, there was nothing more foolish than that in the world.

"Pretty much..." Chen Qing said with a smile. "Only, it is more authentic than those things recorded by your families."

"There’s such a thing as an authentic version?" Shen Qi laughed.

"Of course, there is..." Chen Qing continued smiling. "Those demons or cunning spirits pretending to be wild gods are naturally heretical. But what if they were real gods?"

"Similar to those conferred by you, my lord?"

"That’s different..." Chen Qing shook his head. "Many of the powers of you Magicians are formed by the forces of powerful demon resentment, which aren’t too different from Witchery techniques. It’s just that you use the power of those demon resentful spirits, while they directly use the demons themselves. "

"This..." Shen Qi was thoroughly unsettled now and frowned, "How is that possible? A Resentful Spirit itself? What kind of immense power would that be? Coming upon a mortal, could that person possibly endure it?"

They, the Magicians, utilized the power of demons and Resentful Spirits.

The world didn’t know how many magicians practiced the same technique, each merely borrowing a fragment of that power.

Even so, some sufficiently potent techniques created a burden that could affect the bodies of powerful magicians.

Directly letting a Resentful Spirit possess someone?

How could that be?

To him, those so-called ancients were nothing compared to these technique-driven Resentful Spirits, as the ancient texts had clearly recorded.

The Resentful Spirits that could manifest techniques between heaven and earth were all terrifying existences that could destroy heavens and earth, entities that even the Path of Yin and Yang couldn’t strip away.

Their spiritual bodies were too powerful, resulting in a world that, even after millions of years, couldn’t strip them of their existence.

Such beings, descending upon a human? It was like all the water in the four seas concentrating on a single ant, completely impossible.

"As long as the body is suitable... it actually is possible," Chen Qing sighed and spoke indifferently.

This thing... should never have existed!

Until yesterday, Chen Qing had never considered Zhang Xiaoyun to be a Witchery, for this profession was supposed to have been deleted by him during the public beta!

It was a special profession created by the company to attract big spenders to spend money, which could only be unlocked after spending a significant amount.

Unlike Magicians who had to accumulate Spiritual Power slowly, if one found an appropriate shikigami, they could instantaneously possess extremely powerful strength.

This became quite exaggerated during the second version, the era of Spiritual Energy revival, where individual power inflation was disproportionate.

During that era, Witchery were able to find many Resentful Spirit consciousnesses that were on the verge of disappearance but had become active again due to the revival of Spiritual Energy, thus making contracts and becoming hosts, with their strength jumping several tiers at once.

Chen Qing had opposed this character multiple times at large conferences, and under his insistent demand, along with numerous objections from players, the company ultimately scrapped this role. Which meant, after the public beta, there were no legitimate Witchery as a profession.

Chen Qing realized this point this morning when he saw that chubby kid come over to greet him.

When Zhang Xiaoyun came over, although there was still no fluctuation of a spiritual body on him, Chen Qing sensed a very obvious disturbance in the surrounding magnetic field.

This kind of situation only happened when a powerful spiritual body was nearby; back then, he had a suspicion.

Now, seeing Shen Qi come to report the complete annihilation of the Azure Dragon Gate, his suspicions were further confirmed.

"A suitable body?" Shen Qi frowned, "But I’ve never heard of such a thing. Could it be something that only exists after the revival of the Earth Spirit?"

It wouldn’t exist even after the revival of the Earth Spirit.

Chen Qing shook his head; actually, such a thing existed even before the revival of the Earth Spirit, but the entities that could undergo Divine Descent were rare, mostly being heterodox evil spirits.

However, because of the special constitution of Witchery, evil spirits could exert their greatest strength without the host enduring such heavy repercussions, and their powers would be relatively stronger as well.

But no one had ever heard of such a thing before.

Zi Yue would refresh instantly after dying, and also forget the memory of her death.

Zhang Xiaoyun possessed a version-based profession that shouldn’t exist, and it was clear that Zhang Xiaoyun recognized Zi Yue.

The ancient art of refining Flying Stiffs at the Azure Dragon Gate was the same, forcibly binding spiritual bodies within corpse bodies, creating nearly immortal monsters—another piece of content that was originally deleted.

The Heavenly Master Mansion is getting more and more interesting.

Chen Qing didn’t think these things were originally part of this world because if they were, secret techniques like soul-sealing Flying Stiffs would have been utilized long ago by the major families.

Those old creatures would rather become such monsters in the Dragon Palace, enduring millions of years of cold and solitude.

If the art of Flying Stiffs existed, they would have used it on themselves early on.

Things that shouldn’t exist in this world are appearing one after another...

So... The Heavenly Master Mansion... No... What exactly were those people from the Sorcerer Dynasty back then?