The bronze bell on the sacrificial altar sounded like the horn of battle, its chiming vibrations nearly piercing through their eardrums.
The ghosts that continually harassed the crowd around them shrieked and scattered into nothingness under Fang Chang’s glowing Buddha light. Though these things were annoying, they weren’t particularly formidable; the trickiest threat by far was the Ghost King.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yun Mu caught sight of dozens of withered figures floating within the ghost fog around the sacrificial altar. They appeared to be the missing cultivators, currently twisting at bizarre angles with hollow eye sockets staring straight at the battlefield like puppets drained of their final shred of vitality.
“Patriarch Song, watch out!” Yun Mu’s startled shout blended with the fishy stench of the ghost fog and crashed into his ears.
Song Ke’s dark iron sword had just barely managed to parry the ghost claw cleaved down by the Ghost King, only for the cyan-gray nails to suddenly seep out corrosive black slime. With a sizzling sound, it corroded a thumb-wide notch into the blade.
He groaned and stumbled back several steps, the jade token at his waist fracturing with spiderweb cracks. That was a master-protecting magic artifact refined by Song Ke using his natal essence blood, and at that moment it was radiating a dim red light, clearly at the end of its rope.
“Cough”
Lu Zhihui’s Chixia Sword shattered a cluster of entangled ghosts, but he was staggered by the backlash of the incoming baleful Qi, spilling black blood from the corner of his mouth. Those scattered ghosts shrieked as they separated and re-aggregated, lunging toward him once more.
His younger sister, Lu Zhixue, gritted her teeth and brandished the Gilded Blazing Sun Sword, channeling fierce spells toward the pile of ghosts: “Brother, hold on!”
As a semi-divine artifact, the Multi-Mechanism Umbrella should logically have been sufficient to deal with a Ghost King of mid-Nascent Soul strength. Unfortunately, the wielder lacked sufficient power and couldn’t even unleash thirty or forty percent of its might, leaving it usable only for defense.
Three of the umbrella ribs snapped with a clang, the umbrella surface was charred black, and this semi-divine artifact had completely lost its luster.
The frost from Shen Bingzhang’s Cold River Snow grew progressively weaker. Veins bulged at his temples; frost sorcery inherently strained the mind, and right now the resentment within the ghost fog was burrowing along the blade into his body. Fang Chang’s prayer beads had two pearls shattered by the baleful Qi, and the golden light grew so dim it seemed about to extinguish. The speed at which he formed hand seals slowed by half a beat, and a ghost claw brushed past his neck, tearing a bloody gash in his monk robes.
Shi Menglan and Liu Su protected Ling Guang, taking turns holding their ground. Their robes were torn in multiple places and stained with blood.
In the corner, Shen Xingshuang was applying hemostatic powder to Jiang Yuandao’s wounds.
The ghost claw had gouged five bone-deep bloody trails across his chest, and froth mixed with blood streamed down the corner of his mouth: “Junior Sister Shen… don’t, don’t worry about me anymore… hurry up and hide properly…”
Gu Renran stood trembling before the two of them clutching a disciple’s sword, his back scorched with several holes by the ghost Qi. Mingled with his own medicinal scent, it made the nasal passages sting achingly.
What worried Yun Mu the most was Sui Yu.
The youth was already low in cultivation, and earlier he had stubbornly stepped up to block a wave of ghost fog impact for him. At that moment, he was kneeling on the ground leaning against a stone pillar of the sacrificial altar, his pale face nearly transparent.
The wound on his abdomen was being eroded by the ghost Qi, taking on a bluish-black hue. Crimson-gold beads of blood mixed with slime trickled down, yet he lacked even the strength to raise a hand to press against it, only locking onto Yun Mu with reddened corners of his eyes.
“If this keeps up…” Yun Mu felt a bitter taste rise in his throat.
He counted, and among everyone present not a single person was uninjured. Even the hardiest Ling Guang had his arm grazed by the ghost Qi, while Shi Menglan’s hair hairpin had snapped beneath a ghost claw, her disheveled strands of hair plastered to her face alongside droplets of blood.
The Ghost King’s laughter grew increasingly clear, and the corpses of the cultivators whose vital essence had been sucked dry suddenly opened their eyes, deep green ghost fires churning within their hollow eye sockets as they actually began drifting toward the group.
Could it really be that we’re going to wipe out here? The information at Qiandai Platform must have been wrong just how on earth did Ping’an Town breed a ghostly entity of this caliber! No, no, I’ve got to think of another way. I can’t just sit here and wait to die.
“We can’t all perish here.” Yun Mu bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. As the fishy sweetness spread, the incantation formulas for the Nine-Star Body-Refining Art suddenly exploded in his mind.
He had practiced this technique for a month or so, currently remaining at the stage of tempering the surface strength of his physical flesh. Although he sometimes utilized this technique in combat, at best it only served as a medium to neutralize a portion of external attacks using his own body.
He hadn’t officially entered the first phase of the Nine-Star Body-Refining Art—the stage of utilizing external forces to temper meridians and strengthen flesh and blood.
Yet weren’t the Ghost King’s oppressive might and ghost Qi impacts right now the absolute best ‘external forces’? Why couldn’t they be used for body-refining?
“Sink or swim! I’ll just give it a try. At worst we’ll all wipe out together anyway, it’s not like I’ve never died before.”
Yun Mu bit through the tip of his tongue, the bloody taste stimulating his mind to absolute clarity. He closed his eyes and circulated the body-refining technique, and the originally chaotic and sluggish spiritual power began to flow slowly along his extraordinary meridians.
He took a deep breath, gathering his spiritual power into a vortex at his Dantian.
When the massive ghost claw lunged forward once more wrapped in a fishy gust of wind, Yun Mu didn’t dodge. With a gaze as resolute as someone taking an oath, he met that sharp claw tip and took merely half a step back.
The incoming attack landed solidly on Yun Mu, and the putrid slime splashed onto his arm, instantly scorching a string of blisters. The meridians within his body shattered inch by inch. Gritting his teeth, he continued circulating the technique, and the pain drilled along his meridians toward all four limbs and hundreds of bones.
Gradually, a strange warmth rose from his Dantian, roaming along the meridians torn apart by the ghost Qi.
Yun Mu couldn’t help feeling a surge of pleasant surprise; those wounds that ought to have caused him agonizing pain were actually healing at a speed visible to the naked eye right at that moment!
The blisters shriveled, the charred skin peeled away, fresh flesh rolled outward from within, and even the chipped notch on the previously corroded Siyu Sword began to glow with a faint cyan light.
“This… this miraculous?” He subconsciously looked down at his palms.
Amidst his daze, the Ghost King’s second strike followed closely after. This time Yun Mu didn’t retreat, actively rising to meet the challenge, and the black ghost claw carrying a cold glint instantly pierced through his left shoulder.
He could distinctly feel his meridians expanding at an extremely sluggish pace through the repeated cycles of shattering and reconstruction. The circulation speed of his spiritual power was nearly thirty percent faster than usual, and the sluggish sensation wasn’t nearly as pronounced either.
Those baleful Qi no longer functioned as poison attempting to devour his flesh and blood; instead, they felt like gentle spring water, seeping into his skin, muscles, and meridians.
“Master!” Seeing Yun Mu get injured, Sui Yu felt his eyes split with fury, his cry carrying a cracking pitch.
The youth leaned against the stone pillar attempting to stand, but collapsed heavily back down. Blood from his wound splashed onto the bluestone slabs, blooming into shocking, eye-catching flowers.
He watched as Yun Mu was impaled by the ghost claw, his Adam’s apple bobbing as though wanting to say something, only to be drowned out by the Ghost King’s roar.
Yun Mu heard none of it, as if entering a marvelous state where he made zero defenses and instead grew braver with every setback.
By the third strike, he could even see the barbs on the ghost claw; by the fourth strike, his sword began to slice open the ghost fog; by the fifth strike, the cyan light of the Siyu Sword was already capable of leaving white marks on the Ghost King—
A sword speed he had never once attained ever since falling from the Nascent Soul stage.
“So that’s how it is!” Yun Mu’s gaze was brilliantly bright.
So this was the true meaning of the Nine-Star Body-Refining Art—not passive endurance, but actively ‘consuming’ all damage, seeking life from the jaws of death.
He darted between the ghost claws like a swimming fish. Every seemingly perilous movement actually precisely caused the ghost Qi to bypass his fatal vitals, achieving the effect of tempering his meridians.
Song Ke stood frozen in place, watching Yun Mu who had been in imminent peril just moments prior actually grow more spirited the more he fought beneath the Ghost King’s claws. Lu Zhixue’s Multi-Mechanism Umbrella suddenly felt somewhat lighter because most of the ghost fog had been diverted away by Yun Mu. Fang Chang’s prayer beads once again radiated a faint golden light, and those disciples corroded by the ghost Qi actually managed to find openings following Yun Mu’s rhythm.