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Join the ServerLeaning against a cold, broken wall, Su Qinghan watched the unconscious Lu Hongzhuang inside the hall, her heart utterly unmoved.
A genius demon slayer?
Was this all she amounted to?
She’d been taken down far too quickly.
‘Little Qinghan, stop watching the show!’ Jiu Li’s voice echoed anxiously in her sea of consciousness.
‘That madman is about to unleash his ultimate attack!’
‘Quick! Your spiritual energy! I’ll help you purify it faster!’
A warm current surged from her dantian, coursing through her body.
Su Qinghan could feel the power sealed within her stir, its bonds loosening ever so slightly.
Just then, a harsh cackle echoed from within the hall.
Liu Chengfeng’s twisted face snapped toward Su Qinghan’s hiding place.
“You’ve been watching long enough.”
“It’s time to send you on your way!”
He had barely finished speaking when he slashed his right hand through the air.
Whoosh!
A blast of black, solidified energy, wrapped in the ghastly wails of spirits, shot like a cannonball toward the broken wall.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, the wall exploded in a shower of rubble and dust, collapsing in an instant.
A cruel smile touched Liu Chengfeng’s lips; surely the rat hiding in the shadows had been pulverized.
Yet, a graceful silhouette drifted from the settling dust like a phantom.
Bracing her arms against the crumbling wall, Su Qinghan launched herself into the air.
With an impossible twist, she arced through the sky, her fingertips grazing a withered branch nearby.
That single touch was all it took.
She descended like a weightless leaf, landing silently in the center of the great hall, right beside Lu Hongzhuang.
She stooped to pick up the bloodstained longsword from the ground, then reversed her grip and used it as a cane to support her powerless legs.
Beneath the cold moonlight, her robes and long hair drifted on the wind.
Her face was as pale as snow, yet she stood ramrod straight.
The smile on Liu Chengfeng’s face froze.
He narrowed his eyes, taking a second look at the woman who had materialized before him.
A sickly weakling?
A cripple, no less?
“Heh.”
He scoffed, a sound filled with disdain.
“I thought some great master was hiding in the shadows, but it’s just a useless cripple who can barely stand.”
“So be it.”
“Since you’ve come out to offer your life, I shall oblige you!”
“Consider it an honor to become a sacrifice for my ascension to supremacy!”
The black miasma around him flared, and he became a blur, his fingers crooked into a claw as he lunged for the crown of Su Qinghan’s head.
Su Qinghan, however, did not flinch.
With her left hand, she unhurriedly drew a stack of yellow talismans from her robes.
In her right, she held the sword, its tip aimed directly at Liu Chengfeng.
Her bearing was that of a grandmaster.
Then…
Her knees buckled.
Thud!
She fell straight backward, landing flat on her back with her limbs splayed.
Liu Chengfeng: “…”
His attack, which he was certain would land, struck nothing but air.
He froze, utterly baffled.
What was this?
Some kind of trick?
“Ha, haha, hahahaha!”
After a brief moment of shock, Liu Chengfeng burst into deafening, maniacal laughter.
“So she’s just a fool! A posturing fool!”
“And to think I actually took her seriously for a moment! What a waste of my time!”
He roared with laughter, his eyes filled with scorn and derision as he completely dropped his guard.
Just then, Su Qinghan, still on the floor, rolled onto her side.
She struck a languid pose, as if she were merely resting on her own couch.
She propped her head on one hand, while with the other she slid the talismans across the edge of the sword planted in the floor beside her.
Her cool voice rang out clearly amidst the demonic wails filling the hall.
“Heaven and Earth be as they are, let all foulness scatter.”
“Mighty spirits of all directions, restore the natural order through me.”
“By the Numinous Treasure’s decree, I proclaim to the Nine Heavens!”
“Let evil vanish and the Dao’s essence prevail!”
As the last word fell.
“—Decree!”
Hum!
The stack of talismans in her hand burst into flame.
Golden flames flared, transforming into intricate runes that instantly filled the entire hall.
The specters Liu Chengfeng had drawn to this place—those lurking on the rafters and in the corners, cackling ominously—recoiled the instant they touched the golden runes, as if they had met their ultimate nemesis.
“Screee—!”
With piercing shrieks, they erupted in black smoke and scrambled to escape the hall, fearing utter annihilation with every passing second.
The hall, once as frigid as an ice cellar, instantly grew warmer.
Liu Chengfeng’s maniacal laughter came to an abrupt halt.
His expression shifted from mockery to shock, and finally to utter disbelief.
“You!”
He stared down at Su Qinghan, his eyes blazing with astonishing killing intent.
“You dare ruin my grand design! Die!”
Holding nothing back, he condensed all his ghostly energy into his palm and struck.
A massive black handprint materialized, blotting out the sky as it descended to crush her.
Su Qinghan raised her sword to block.
Bang!
With a resounding crash, the immense force sent her flying, sword still in hand.
Yet even in mid-air, she twisted her body to disperse the impact, then pushed off a pillar with one hand.
She soared upward, landing as silently as a cat upon the hall’s damaged eaves.
Under the moonlight, the faint image of a pair of pale blue fox ears flickered above her head and then vanished.
“Hm?” Liu Chengfeng’s attack having missed, he looked up.
Instead of anger, delight spread across his face.
“So, you walk the same path! I can sense a faint demonic aura about you!”
He burst out laughing.
“My friend! With you and I united, what grand ambition is beyond our reach? The world will be ours!”
Su Qinghan spat a bloody mouthful over the edge of the eaves.
“Pah!”
“I am a true practitioner of the Mystic Arts!”
“And you think your heretical path, which has left you neither human nor ghost, is worthy of comparison to me?”
Leaning on her sword, she slowly straightened.
Unbeknownst to him, the ashes from the burned talismans had settled on the floor below, forming the outline of a profound arcane array.
Her preparations were complete.
Su Qinghan leaned against a pillar, one hand on her sword, the other forming a sword seal aimed at Liu Chengfeng below.
“By the Three Powers reversed, Yin and Yang are refined!”
“I call upon the Supreme True Sword to annihilate all evil, that body and soul may perish!”
Her voice was quiet, yet it boomed like thunder from the highest heavens, shaking the very world.
“—Heed my command with haste! Decree!”
Boom!
The array on the floor, drawn in talisman ash, flared to life!
An invisible blade of energy erupted from the array’s center.
Silent and impossibly fast, it sliced through Liu Chengfeng’s body in an instant.
“Arghhhh—!”
Liu Chengfeng let out an inhuman shriek of agony.
He looked down to find his body unharmed, but the ghostly energy within him had erupted like a lit powder keg, running completely rampant.
Black energy spewed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, yet an invisible force trapped it all within his body, offering no escape.
“My ghostly energy! My power!”
He screamed in terror, his face a mask of confusion and madness.
“No! Impossible! How can a power that harms specters exist in this world!”
“The martial path is useless against them! I should be invincible! I am meant to be the strongest under heaven!”
Despair drove him completely mad.
He spread his arms and roared at the sky.
“Evil spirits from all corners of the world, enter my body!”
The specters, recently driven off by the Cleansing Incantation, were now drawn back by the scent of blood and resentment once the talismans had burned to ash.
At Liu Chengfeng’s summons, they instantly found a vessel for their rage.
Wooo—!
Hundreds, thousands of phantoms swarmed from all directions, converging like a black tornado and pouring into Liu Chengfeng’s body.
“Power! Hahahaha! I can feel it! Endless power!”
Liu Chengfeng cackled, but his body began to swell and tear apart before their very eyes.
Ghastly white arms and venomous faces burst forth from his flesh.
He was being devoured from the inside out.
Without a second glance, Su Qinghan leaped down from the eaves and landed beside Lu Hongzhuang.
She produced a fragrant pill and placed it in the other woman’s mouth.
“Ngh…”
Lu Hongzhuang groaned, slowly coming to.
The moment she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a hellish sight that left her utterly stunned.
“Wh-what’s happening?”
“He’s lost his mind,” Su Qinghan stated succinctly.
“We should go.”
“What about… the villagers?” Lu Hongzhuang struggled to stand, the movement pulling at her wounds and making her grimace in pain.
Su Qinghan fell silent.
She glanced at the unconscious villagers, then finally shook her head.
“We can’t save them.”
‘I’m at the end of my rope,’ she thought.
‘It’ll be a miracle if I can save even one of us.’
“Ahhh—!”
With one final, piercing scream, Liu Chengfeng fell silent.
The writhing mass of flesh and black miasma finally stilled.
A gust of wind blew past, and the flesh dissipated, leaving only a skeleton, picked clean.
With a clatter, it collapsed into a pile of bones on the floor.
But it wasn’t over.
The spectral conglomerate, now without a host, that massive black shadow, slowly turned toward the only two living souls left in the hall.
Venom, greed, hunger—a torrent of negative emotions coalesced into a palpable killing intent that washed over them.
“Be careful!”
Lu Hongzhuang forced herself to her feet, holding her saber protectively in front of Su Qinghan, ready to fight to the death.
Su Qinghan, however, simply leaned weakly against her and patted her shoulder.
From her sleeve, she produced a single, solitary yellow talisman.
She faced the monstrous shadow that blotted out the sky.
And flicked it.
“Decree.”
In that instant, a brilliant golden light erupted.
The legion of a hundred ghosts, a foe that would drive an Astral Condensation Realm master to despair, was annihilated in the golden light without so much as a scream.
The world fell silent.
Lu Hongzhuang froze on the spot, her saber still in hand, completely petrified.
Su Qinghan sighed.
“You know, that gave me a scare. I thought I was in for a real fight, but he just ended up as a joke. Getting devoured by his own backlash… Ghosts are so much easier to deal with than people.”
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