After that, these Anxi veterans watched the Tang Dynasty completely lose its territory and disappeared into the desert with nostalgia for their homeland.
Because they are Hexi elites and elite soldiers, their obsession with protecting their homeland is deeply rooted in their hearts. Even if they die, their souls still maintain this obsession. As a result, they are trapped in the desert and cannot dissipate. Cannot be reincarnated.
As mentioned earlier, there are devils who were sealed in the desert. The souls of these people wandered in the desert and were captured by the devil. The devil saw that they were still protecting their country after death and could not be reincarnated. He felt that they were very loyal to their motherland and wanted them to give up their persistence. Thinking about reincarnation.
These people died too tragically, and they could not be reincarnated if they persisted in their obsession. Therefore, the Demon King gave these people two choices, or they could exist in this world as the Demon King's dark soldiers, and then follow the Demon King and become his bodyguards. Soldiers no longer need to be reincarnated.
Or, wandering in the desert as undead, they belong to neither the living nor the dead, a state between life and death.
In this case, they do not belong to the earth or the underworld, and of course they are exempted from the lawsuit of reincarnation. Although their souls are immortal, they still cannot escape the laws of the mortal body and will gradually decay within a few years. , until the rotting bones can no longer support their souls, and they will look for new corpses again.
That is to say, the soul can exist forever, and the body must be constantly replaced to maintain their actions.
Because of this special reason, demon hunters cannot eat, drink, breathe, or need to rest. They can survive as long as they have consciousness.
In any case, this state is too terrifying. The corpses often rot and give off a smell. They can only live forever outside the settlements, far away from the cities, towns, villages and tribes where the living people live. Whenever someone finds them, they can only Hiding.
During thousands of years of displacement, in order to survive, they could only keep looking for new corpses. Without being able to kill people, the corpses they could find were really limited. As long as the flesh rotted, they could no longer move. They can only be trapped in place until a dead person appears next to them and allows them to inject their souls into the dead person again, so that they can restart their activities.
In order to achieve this goal, most undead people will become monster hunters. The duty of the monster hunter is to go to various places in the desert to hunt those monsters and spirits that hurt people. These desert monsters often hurt people to death, and they can In the process of hunting monsters, new corpses are constantly found to sustain their operations.
From this point of view, the undead become monster hunters not because they have justice in their hearts and want to do justice, but just to survive for themselves to exist forever. It can be said that as long as there are places where monsters hurt people, There are demon hunters in all of them.
It is precisely because of this that they are very mysterious and their whereabouts are never discovered. However, when there is real danger, they will appear near the town to help the people deal with the harmful spirits.
Nearly two thousand years have passed like this, and the reputation of monster hunters has been known by most people, and they have accepted their mysterious identity.
After listening to Gu Hengxi's words, Yue Guanchao asked again: "I remember Taoist Wang also said that ghost monks once appeared in Hexi. Are they similar to the demon hunters you understand? Or maybe they are the same kind of people, but they are just Different identities.”
As early as when Keli and Wang Yuanlu mentioned the story of the ghost monk, Yue Guanchao was already curious about the identity and origin of the ghost monk. Now that he heard the legend of the demon hunter, he felt that the two were somewhat similar, and there seemed to be some faint connection between them. connect.
Gu Hengxi said: "The ghost monks you are talking about are actually demon hunters. Didn't I tell you just now? Demon hunters are all undead, but not all undead are demon hunters. They are willing to become hunters." Because this is the only identity of the demon master, they can get close to villages and towns to deal with those corpses.
It is still possible for other undead people to adopt new identities, such as monks, merchants, Taoists, or illusionists like us. No matter what their identity is, they have only one purpose for thousands of years, and that is Find a physical container for your soul to survive forever.
Yue Guanchao narrowed his eyes: "If according to you, they don't need to eat, breathe, or feel pain, then wouldn't that be equivalent to a walking zombie? What if they survive? They can only be like parasites What is it that is hiding in the body of a corpse and surviving for two thousand years? If it is because of obsession, do they still want to take the opportunity to take back the Western Region and return it to the Tang Dynasty?"
Gu Hengxi didn't seem to understand this very well. He shook his head and sighed: "The way demon hunters live is like this. I don't know what their purpose is? Maybe it's just for an obsession, to survive forever. Maybe it's because They are still greedy for everything in the underworld and refuse to be reincarnated. In short, they have been wandering in the desert for nearly two thousand years, and they don’t know how long they will continue to exist.”
Song Siyuan thought carefully about Gu Hengxi's words: "If these undead people are real, it means that they may have lived for thousands of years. What I am curious about is, is there really a devil in the devil's desert? Have you ever seen it? Demon hunter?"
Seeing her mention this, Gu Hengxi nodded meaningfully to everyone and lowered his voice and said: "Of course, when we walk in southern and northern Xinjiang, we are bound to encounter three religions and nine schools. We have seen all kinds of people and all kinds of amazing monsters. I’ve met quite a few..."
At that time, they were still very young, about fifteen or sixteen years old, and they were performing magic tricks in Kucha City at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, which was close to the Devil's Desert. When they were traveling at night, they were attacked by sand wolves.
These sand wolves can escape into the desert, ambush and bite people. As soon as pedestrians leave the city and enter the desert, they will pounce on and bite the living people.
At that time, they were in a hurry and could only rush to the next town at night. It was also at this time that a whimpering sound suddenly sounded behind them. When they looked back, they saw a sand wolf with angry eyes staring at them with green eyes. , Gu Baiyue's hand was bitten by a sand wolf. If the demon hunter hadn't rushed to the place at that time, they would have been buried in the wolf's belly.
Afterwards, the demon hunter led them all the way to the next city. It wasn't until they saw the lights at the top of the city that he gradually stopped and walked against their direction into the desert.
Mentioning this point, Gu Baiyue interjected: "These demon hunters are all wearing heavy armor and hats. Under the black veil, their faces cannot be seen at all, but I can be sure of one thing."
These people were not breathing. In the silent desert, the rhythm of their breathing could not be heard at all. They also smelled of rotting corpses covered in spices.
…
