Chapter 40: The Dried Corpse’s Dilemma

Things shouldn’t be this simple. The dried corpse didn’t believe it could get rid of the young girl that easily.

“How long has it been? Are cultivators these days this pathetic?” the dried corpse began to mock.

It looked up at the thickening dark clouds above, but inside it was not as flippant as it appeared.

The dried corpse felt the young girl was brewing something big. Until it knew her trump card, it couldn’t make up its mind.

Was it better to attack aggressively or stall for time?

A choice between two, very difficult to decide.

In the span of a breath, the dried corpse made its choice and decided on a swift attack.

A ring of air burst from the dried corpse’s body, instantly accelerating to an extremely fast speed. In about half a breath, it closed in on the young girl again.

Another ordinary kick, the same move as before.

But the young girl reacted, moving the copper axe’s handle down a bit and using it as a shield, standing it upright by her side.

The dried corpse couldn’t adjust its angle in time. The kick hit the axe handle, shattering the lower half of it. The remaining force struck the young girl’s waist, sweeping her nearly two zhang away again.

At that moment, the dried corpse felt something was off. The shattered pieces of the axe handle were too strange.

In its long-ago battles with cultivators, it had encountered melee combat. Such a blow would at most bend a cultivator’s weapon, but it had never seen a weapon shatter into tiny fragments. How strange. What material was this?

This magical artifact was very wrong. After the handle shattered into pieces, it leaked spiritual power, very pure. The power was both gentle and violent, two opposite properties mixed together, truly rare.

The dried corpse accidentally touched that spiritual power and absorbed a little. Its own internal power became slightly more violent, clashing with the foreign power, causing pain in its body.

Were artifact refiners this powerful now?

The dried corpse’s mind was sharp. It had thought all that in half a breath after shattering the handle.

It wanted to close in again to finish the young girl, but this time she saw through the charge. She swung the axe in an arc in front of her.

Due to her injuries, the young girl swung the axe slowly, easy to dodge.

But the dried corpse was terrified. It swerved away, not daring to approach.

It wasn’t afraid of the young girl, who couldn’t even dodge ordinary attacks. It was afraid of the artifact in her hand, likely forged by a master refiner.

Just destroying a corner of the artifact caused pain from the leaking spiritual power. If it were struck directly by the artifact, what then?

The dried corpse put some distance between them, watching the young girl slowly get up. It didn’t want to give her a chance to catch her breath, but it dared not engage in close combat.

It looked up and saw the dark clouds thickening, threatening thunder.

Clearly, some large spell was in preparation, about to take shape.

The dried corpse raised its hand toward the watching villagers above and crooked a finger. A villager rose into the air, grabbed by an invisible technique.

The villager struggled wildly but couldn’t break free.

The villager opened his mouth in pain, and something translucent was being sucked out of his body into the dried corpse.

The dried corpse’s skin was recovering, becoming slightly fuller. It still looked like a dried corpse, but if it absorbed a hundred more lives, it might regain a human appearance.

The young girl stood up again. Hearing the villagers shouting above, she also looked up.

The dark clouds above grew denser, concentrated right over this area.

Another villager was taken, snatched directly from the village atop the tomb to the dried corpse’s side within the tomb.

The young girl coughed blood as she charged, actively trying to close in on the dried corpse.

Her running speed was only that of an ordinary person. The dried corpse, flying with a person while devouring their three souls and seven spirits, could still match her speed.

The young girl wasn’t stupid. She took a straight shortcut, and just as she was about to intercept the dried corpse, it flew into the air, out of her reach.

So it had just been toying with her.

Just then, the most unbelievable scene occurred.

The villagers watching from the top of the cavern began throwing their weapons, aiming at the airborne dried corpse.

The dried corpse dropped the second drained human and failed to dodge in time. It was hit by a hoe or something, but it didn’t hurt, no threat.

Before it could rejoice, a burly villager leaped down, trying to grab the dried corpse in midair. The dried corpse dodged, and the burly villager fell into the tomb, breaking his leg but surviving.

Then the second villager, the third villager, all jumped down.

The second villager caught the dried corpse in the air, and the third villager grabbed the second’s clothes.

The dried corpse couldn’t hold up. The weight of two people made it slowly descend. Just as it was about to touch the ground, it suddenly exerted force and slowly floated up again.

A fourth villager came, leaping down from above, accurately smashing into the dried corpse’s head, finally knocking it to the ground. The corpse and three people all fell.

Of course, the dried corpse was unharmed, but the three were injured to varying degrees.

The dried corpse tried to take off again, but several villagers grabbed its feet, preventing it from flying.

The young girl naturally wouldn’t miss this rare opportunity. She ran three steps, jumped, and swung the copper axe in a beautiful arc.

A blow that should have landed for sure. But the young girl noticed something else flying toward her from the corner of her eye. She forced the axe’s trajectory to change, deliberately missing.

The axe didn’t hit anything. It avoided the dried corpse and also avoided the filth that had deliberately come to take the blow for it.

To forcibly change the axe’s path, she sprained her wrist.

She steadied herself and glared at the thing that had just flown out. It looked familiar. It was a wounded filth creature.

It was the same filth the young girl had failed to kill earlier, the one that had killed the middle-aged man.

That thing knew better than anyone how terrifying the young girl’s axe was. After all, it was the only one to have survived a hit, the only remaining victim.

As for that blood-red phantom? That was the youth’s business, not the young girl’s.

After landing, the young girl launched another attack. She was now certain of one thing.

If that filth had self-awareness and was willing to risk death to take an axe blow for the dried corpse, it meant that killing the dried corpse would lead to its own death.

It also meant the filth and the dried corpse were bound in life.

The filth believed it could survive an axe blow, but thought the dried corpse would die if struck?

That was probably the logic.

The young girl coughed again, her mouth full of blood.

She ran closer again. The filth approached to block her again, but this time she didn’t stop. She used her left hand to block the filth, allowing it to bite her hand.

The villagers were about to lose control of the dried corpse.

The dried corpse was spinning, throwing off one villager.

More filth creatures came, trying to block the young girl. No matter how they slammed and bit, she didn’t move, aiming at the dried corpse.

But this axe still couldn’t be swung.

The dried corpse let out another ear-piercing roar, along with a shockingly powerful blast of air, blowing away all the villagers, including the young girl who was about to get close, and all the filth creatures, sending everything within three zhang flying.

This move definitely couldn’t be used frequently, or it wouldn’t have waited until the critical moment when the young girl was about to take its life.

This was very likely its last large-scale group attack.

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