Chapter 205 Carrion Men

The Carrion Men were a group of cultivators that lived near the Sea of Death. 

It was said that long ago, the body of God-Imperium came near them and one of them in their dying hunger, ate it.

No one should have been able to digest it or much less feed off of it. But this body had been so thoroughly destroyed that even lesser beings could harm it. 

And this they became known as the Dead and Dying. 

“What are the Carrion Men?” Wang Hou asked. 

He was back from gossiping around and came over here to talk once more, and apparently he found our conversation to be amusing. 

The Rabbit lady looked at him. 

“Senior, this Wang Hou apologizes for his senseless intrusion. This Wang Hou will leave now.”

“I am not bothered, stay and ask fellow Daoist. I am Lao Thoul, of the Primordial Cult.”

Ah, so I finally knew her name. 

“It is a pleasure to meet you Daoist Thoul,” Wang Hou bowed. 

Lao Thoul, as the stronger cultivators just nodded. 

“The Carrion Folk,” I explained. “Are death cultivators. They cultivate the dao of death, or more importantly, the dao of rebirth. Every rank they grow, they die and a new person is born within them to take that rank.”

“Truly?” Wang Hou asked. 

“Yes,” Lao Thoul replied. “True death even, their mind, body and soul are destroyed and remade. In that their essence stays but they are truly dead. They come from the coasts of Avalon and the Sea of Death.”

“How horrifying!” Wang Hou explained. 

He’d been saying that a lot lately and I was starting to think this guy just didn’t travel too much. That or he had some…

“Oh,” I whispered. 

“What?” Fatty Wang asked me.

“Wang Hou, how has your luck been in all your years?”

“Senior brother, why do you ask me such a thing?” Wang Hou asked.

“I am curious.”

“Well,” Wang Hou said, patting his stomach. “For a while, it was awful. I almost died of a horrid illness as a child, one that not even my parents could diagnose. I had gone blind, deaf, and unable to sense touch itself. But I miraculously recovered and for that, I consider my luck greater ever since.”

I nodded.

“How fortunate. Truly fate does smile down upon you.”

“Senior is truly kind for his words!” Wang Hou smiled. “Fate smiles down upon all of us.”

“No,” I replied. “Fate berates me.”

Wang Hou went silent and Lao Thoul just studied me. 

I figured Wang Hou was influenced by the Fisherman somehow, and I was right.

I was about to make a smart ass remark, when suddenly, a fifteenth rank being appeared. A man stood in messy black robes. He was messy, greasy even. 

His skin was a horrid color, not rotting, but discerningly unhealthy. The whites of his eyes were grey and a sense of distortion came from him. 

The most noticeable thing, of course, was his bulging tongue, coming out at us like a snake. His throat bulked open as if he was choking. His mouth was open all the way to the base of his jaw and a pink grey bit of flesh peaked out at us. 

The rest of his body was also bloated, and ever growing. His torso took a distinct triangular form and his stomach seemed to grow as well. 

For a second, I relished in how I saw him. This wasn't an appearance he held, but the one he conceived in my mind. Every bit of his corruption, every ounce of his failure, it all shined through his qi and quality. 

The ship blocked his power and the nine fifteenth ranks all moved, if a bit slowly. The people around me started to hurt and choke and scream. Wang Hou, Lao Thoul, everyone except me. 

My mind raced. 

I had seen God-Imperiums. I had seen the Gate of Imperium. Of course I was harder to corrupt. 

But I wasn’t immune. The noise still broke me down, it still hurts me, but I wasn't paralyzed like everyone else. 

Everyone Else. 

The realization hit me like a gut punch. 

They were going to die. The World-Kings would fight, and most likely they would win, but the small people fighting beneath them were going to die. 

They chose this. They chose this death, this risk, but I knew that they wouldn't come back from this. 

The reincarnation had to have some kind of system. The souls of the dead were probably collected by the ship. It was a process and yet, the corrupted World-King was targeting the other fifteenth ranks. 

That process was bound to be interrupted. 

And these people would be walking into absolute death. 

I knew the fifteenth ranks would kill the corrupted World-King. That was almost certain. 

This wasn’t the first time this type of thing happened. The World-King had lost itself to its cultivation. The man was barely a man and his technique was taking over him, turning him into a bomb of insanity. 

And the small people would pay for it. 

I moved, stupidly and without thought. 

My dao broke through with the action. Tenth, eleventh, twelveth, thirteenth.

And words left my lips with such force and will that they threatened me in their spoken form. 

“Let there be peace!” 

I couldn’t fight the influence of a World-King. But I didn’t need to, the people being attacked at this moment were not fighting the World-King, they were just dealing with the aftershocks of his attacks. 

I was fighting the small corrupted bastards that followed the corrupted World-King. 

I jumped off the ship and attacked. My dao pressed down on the enemy and many of them died. 

A few managed to come for me and I struck back, a bit of me, a bit of peace moved into them and they broke down like wet paper. 

Most of them were weaker than me by a large margin. And they were no problem. I stuck, fist after fist, strike after strike. 

I cast arrays of fire and death but here in the Entropic Path, order based attacks like that broke down far too soon to be of any effect. 

Still, I fought. 

I wasn’t a hero or a warrior. I was a distraction. The World-Kings fought faster and stronger than I ever could but still, they needed time to deal with the corrupter World-King. 

I was just dealing with this small army until they were finished with him. 

I would flee if I saw even the smallest sign of fourteenth ranks, but they were dealing with fourteenth ranks in the air. 

The chaotic qi came at me, trying to change me. Their language spoke of power and loss. They spoke in noises that made horrible sense. They screamed in tones of insanity and they glowed in hatred for reason and order. 

A lot of people died, far more than I’d like to imagine but just as quickly as the fight had started, it ended. 

All the corrupted fell with their World-King. 

I came back onto the ship, panting and tired. 

I looked in the distance and saw a dissected bit of tongue, separated into many pieces being sealed by the World-Kings. 

Wang Hou was puking and Lao Thoul was nowhere to be found. 

The fight had been quick if not easy and just like I had guessed, the World-Kings has finished off the corrupted king before I could sustain too much damage. 

Still, people died. 

I looked down at the numerous lost disciples. Their souls were surely broken now, beyond repair. If the process for collecting them had been broken, which I assumed it had, then these people had died thinking they would live again. 

What a horrible end.