Otherworldly Affairs Office-Chapter 711 Casual Chat (Seeking Subscription)

"Yeah, what does it matter?" Facing Pei Yan's question, Li Songtao raised his head and looked at the pitch-black ceiling of the cellar, his expression desolate. After a long time, he looked at Pei Yan with a slight smirk of self-mockery at the corners of his mouth and said, "There are some things we can't choose. Is your life completely controlled by you, Pei Yan?"

Hearing this, Pei Yan lowered his head and fell silent as well. His life? His life had been controlled by others from the very beginning. If he hadn't gone to that abandoned steel plant to play that day, if Lin Junzhao hadn't chosen him and his sister, today he would probably be like an ordinary peer, going to college and never encountering this bizarre world. Perhaps, as Lin Junzhao had said, he had the potential to awaken as a supernatural being, but there was a good chance he would never have the opportunity to awaken, living a life like a regular person. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Actually, that wouldn't have been so bad.

Seeing Pei Yan deep in thought, Li Songtao fiddled with the shackles in his hand and continued, "The Devouring Demon you saw that day is just the lowest grade alchemical product, a test subject for such sorceries within the organization. But its effect is obvious; you saw it too. In combat situations, it effectively suppresses lower-level cultivators below the Reincarnation Realm. Later, with further research, the organization was no longer satisfied with its effectiveness restricted to lower-level cultivators of the Daoist Plane and aimed to enhance its combat abilities."

At this point, Li Songtao let out a cynical laugh and said helplessly, "But wanting to transform someone without any cultivation foundation into someone with the strength to fight Reincarnation Realm cultivators, it's not that easy. After several failures, these stubborn madmen shifted their target to enhancing the combat capabilities of other cultivators, starting with low-level cultivators from the Three Corpses Realm to the Little Reincarnation Realm, and finally to us."

"Are you saying you were forced?" Pei Yan asked in confusion.

"Forced?" Li Songtao raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Not quite. Cultivators at my level always have some autonomy. Although there's pressure from above, if I wanted to refuse, it wouldn't be impossible. Alas, in the end, I couldn't resist the allure of becoming stronger, unwilling to be surpassed by the idiots I despised daily with such means, I chose to accept to become stronger."

"But I didn't find you much stronger. Your eerie space movement technique certainly amazed me, but that's all." Pei Yan voiced his internal doubt.

"Humph, you are indeed not afraid to boast. But yes, as the victor, you have that capital." Li Songtao said, straightening his back while rubbing his waist sore from the shackles, and marveled, "In the major planes, how many can be like you? It's my own fault for underestimating you, thinking that even if you were the Child of Origin, it'd be just a few short years before you grew and hence wanted to nip you in the bud. Unexpectedly, I stumbled at your hand and suffered a huge loss! If it were anyone else, they'd have been defeated by me long ago."

"Is there some special ability in that state of yours?" Pei Yan pondered for a moment upon hearing this, then suddenly looked up and said, "That last surge of resentment you unleashed?"

"That's right!" Li Songtao nodded in response: "That aura formed by human resentment and Spiritual Qi is my greatest trump card after transformation. It temporarily turns my body zombie-like, losing external pain and becoming immensely powerful. And any cultivator afflicted by that resentment, merely inhaling a little, can lead to terrifying hallucinations in the mentally weak, causing mental breakdown. Once inhaling a lot more, it suppresses their inner essential energy, making their power drop by seventy percent. Listen carefully to what I'm saying. It doesn't just suppress Spiritual Qi of the Daoist Realm but can suppress the essential energy across four planes. Who then can compete with me?"

At this point, he sighed again, looking at Pei Yan with resentment and helplessness, "Yet I happened to encounter you. Your inner power is already fused with the force of the Six Paths Plane forming a cyclic system. My resentment can only exert a limited influence on your consciousness, without affecting your essential energy. As for the so-called immense strength, humph! Before someone who can suppress Suhabaru, what does that count for? Both my trump cards were countered by you. How could I not lose?"

"Stop wallowing in self-pity; wasn't it your arrogance and carelessness? I didn't actively seek you out. Then tell me how those madmen turned you into this? Why do you say we can't achieve it?" Pei Yan grew more interested as he listened and simply got off his chair, sat cross-legged in front of Li Songtao, and asked face-to-face.

"A Devouring Demon requires secret techniques to torture and ravage a mortal to an extreme, only then can it be refined! For a single Devouring Demon to achieve this, do you think to satisfy the resentment accumulated by a cultivator of my realm, how many mortal lives would be necessary?"

Looking at Li Songtao's face that seemed to smile yet was not, Pei Yan's originally smiling face instantly darkened, recalling the surge of resentment blasted toward the sky by Li Songtao yesterday after being interrupted which revealed the despair, unwillingness, anger, pain all intertwined together, if it weren't suppressed by the Immortal Palace people, the entire Yonghe Square residents would not die but live in madness for the rest of their lives. And connecting his current words, one can fathom how many innocent souls unjustly dead were contained in that resentment.

"Now you know why you can't achieve it. Of course, it's not absolute. The so-called reputable orthodox sect like the Immortal Palace secretly engages in more dirty deeds. If they harden their hearts, you can do it too! As for the specific method of operation, sorry but I can't tell you. Even if I wanted to, I can't, these secret techniques are in the hands of those mad alchemists across several major planes, and I'm just one of their more successful creations." Li Songtao spoke in a tone that sounded like mockery and yet self-mockery, there was resentment and helplessness in his voice.

"Ultimately, what are you guys after?" Pei Yan raised his head, his gaze piercing, and asked word by word.

"Didn't I say! I can't tell you that. If you insist on knowing, you can continue to torture me, maybe just before my head explodes, I can reveal a few words to you?"

Listening to Li Songtao's mockery, Pei Yan smiled lightly, then gently curved his finger, and immediately the agony once again surged through Li Songtao's entire body. The unbearable pain made his eyes bloodshot, veins bulging, losing his sanity due to the torment. In his anger, he lunged forward with his body, wanting to encircle Pei Yan with the shackles in his hand. Though unable to perish together, if he could hurt him even a little, it would ease his hatred. Yet as soon as he got halfway up, more intense pain came causing his legs to give way, staggering and crawling before Pei Yan, his body curled like a shrimp, rolling back and forth on the ground, wailing incessantly.

Meanwhile, Pei Yan, who controlled it all, asked him no questions, simply sat there extending and flexing his fingers, controlling the intensity of Li Songtao's agony back and forth, silently watching everything happening before him with unvoiced delight.