Sui Yu watched every frown Yun Mu made whenever he was hit, every newly added wound covering up an old one, and that expression which ought to have been heart-wrenching now replaced by an excitement bordering on madness.
Strange, he could actually see extra emotional expressions on Yun Mu’s poker face.
The youth’s fingernails dug deeply into his palms, an indescribable impatience and unease shrouding his heart. Yun Mu couldn’t die yet at least not now, nor could he die at the hands of such a filthy ghostly entity.
In his past life, just because he arrived a step too late, it had resulted in so many regrets.
This time, no matter who it was, no one would even think of snatching Master’s life from his hands!
His resolve made, Sui Yu closed his eyes and slowly detached his powerful divine soul, accumulated across two lifetimes, from his physical body.
The excruciating pain of his divine soul being stripped away was like ten thousand ants devouring his heart, his consciousness feeling as though it were being torn into fragments before re-condensing into a translucent humanoid shape in mid-air.
The power of the divine soul accumulated across two lifetimes surged through the void. Although restricted by the limits of his physical body’s strength, only able to unleash two or three percent of his peak condition, it was still enough to scorch charred cracks across the Ghost King’s soul body.
Sui Yu’s divine soul projection spoke, his voice carrying an ethereal quality that did not belong to the mortal realm: “A mayfly cannot shake a tree, but a single spark can start a prairie fire! To injure him are you even worthy?”
The Ghost King’s shrieking abruptly changed pitch.
Its originally solid soul body was continuously torn with cracks by the power of the divine soul. Those attached vengeful spirits scattered like snow splashed with boiling oil, sizzling as they dissipated. Under this continuous assault, the Ghost King’s soul body grew translucent, vaguely giving off a feeling of being unable to maintain its humanoid form.
“Patriarch Song!” Seeing this situation, Yun Mu couldn’t help feeling a surge of joy. Disregarding the blood still hanging at the corner of his mouth, he shouted, “Everyone, channel all the Ghost King’s attacks toward me! I have a way to deal with it!”
Song Ke froze for a split second, then burst out laughing: “Good!”
His dark iron iron sword suddenly erupted with blinding cyan light, taking a ghost claw strike from the Ghost King head-on. The moment the cyan light blazed brilliantly, his entire body was blasted backward, and his trajectory was headed straight toward Yun Mu.
“Little Sister! Take a Spirit Replenishing Pill and reactivate the Multi-Mechanism Umbrella!” Lu Zhihui’s Chixia Sword burned blazing red as he roared, “Shen Bingzhang, use the momentum of the frost sword to guide the ghost claws toward Elder Yun’s side!”
Hearing this, Lu Zhixue dodged an attack, tilted her head back, and swallowed an entire bottle of Spirit Replenishing Pills. Her Dantian, which had previously been a shallow puddle, quickly filled up into a lake. With a resolute gaze and biting her lip, she rotated the Multi-Mechanism Umbrella once more, its surface glowing with vermilion brilliance again.
Shen Bingzhang wiped the blood from his face, frost flowers from his Cold River Snow sword dancing and scattering in all directions; Fang Chang flicked his prayer beads, his Buddhist dharma chanting boundless and vast, the golden radiance around him pouring down like a waterfall to sweep away all darkness.
Shi Menglan brought Ling Guang over to Jiang Yuandao’s side. She and Liu Su laboriously guarded the few who couldn’t fight, retreating to the rear for defense.
All attacks precisely converged around Yun Mu. They were locking the Ghost King’s attention onto that blood-stained figure who grew more spirited the more he fought.
“Good!” Yun Mu gave a low shout, spinning the Siyu Sword in a flourish.
He used no spiritual power for this strike, relying purely on the physical strength gained after body-refining, actually cleaving a visible crack right into the Ghost King’s soul body.
Ghost Qi resembling black blood gushed out from the crack. Seizing the opportunity, he lunged forward, the tip of his sword hooked onto the edge of the crack and tore it even wider, like ripping apart fabric.
Yun Mu continued weaving through the Ghost King’s frantic onslaught, every sword stroke carrying the force tempered by the Body-Refining Art, tearing the Ghost King’s soul body apart inch by inch.
Lu Zhihui’s Chixia Sword seized the opportunity to pierce the center of the giant stone monument. Flames spread along the cracks, burning away the flickering runes upon it and completely cutting off the refining array from supplying energy to the Fiend Soul Banner.
Song Ke’s dark iron sword pierced through its left shoulder, the cyan radiance shredding the final wisps of ghost Qi; Shen Bingzhang’s frost sword once more froze the Fiend Soul Banner, turning even the surrounding ghost fog into ice crystals.
“It worked!” Lu Zhixue said in pleasant surprise.
The Multi-Mechanism Umbrella bloomed with boundless rays of light, golden inscriptions wrapping into a huge protective shield that sheltered everyone in the center. “Take advantage of now to execute it completely!”
Fang Chang bit the tip of his tongue, spraying fresh blood mixed with Buddhist chants onto the prayer beads. The golden radiance that restrained ghostly entities transformed into a giant sword, piercing straight through the Ghost King’s glabella.
That mass of gathered resentment finally failed to hold out, beginning to violently disintegrate. The blood-colored runes on the Fiend Soul Banner flickered frantically, as if making a final struggle.
However, the twist happened in a split second.
A silvery-white ray of light cleaved down from the horizon. It was as gentle as moonlight, yet carried a bone-chilling intent of slaughter.
Everyone felt a tightness in their chests before being swept flying, losing consciousness on the spot.
The Siyu Sword in Yun Mu’s hand dropped to the ground with a clatter. He watched as that beam of light enveloped the severely injured Ghost King and the giant Fiend Soul Banner, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.
With blood foaming at his throat, Yun Mu didn’t even have the strength to raise a hand at that moment.
Just as the white light descended, the divine soul that Sui Yu had detached was struck back into his physical body by an irresistible force, instantly knocking him out cold.
Song Ke slammed heavily into the sacrificial altar’s stone pillar, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth as the dark iron sword in his hand broke into three pieces.
Wiping the blood from his face, amidst his fading consciousness, he stared at the white light gradually dissolving in the air and murmured with a trembling voice, “What was that? Why did I feel such terror?”
For a time, the Ping’an Town bell tower altar fell into absolute silence.
I don’t know how much time passed before the pitch-black night sky was torn open by a streak of cyan light, and a cyan wooden cloud-boat arrived from the horizon.
Accompanied by the piercing roar of the cloud-boat cutting through the air, Jiang Xiaohua crushed his final communication jade talisman, yet he still hadn’t managed to contact Yun Mu.
He had received Jiang Yuandao’s message at Luoxuan Sect stating, “Ping’an Town has suddenly manifested an array refining the Fiend Soul Banner, Ghost King has appeared, please request reinforcements from the sect immediately,” which had scared him nearly out of his wits and led him to immediately lead several elders above the Nascent Soul stage to rush over hastily.
Every single second along the way had felt like sitting on pins and needles, silently praying to himself that everything would still be in time.
“Master!” The first to spot Jiang Xiaohua was Liu Su.
The chief senior disciple leaned against a broken wall, his left arm simply bandaged with a torn sleeve.
Jiang Xiaohua’s pupils sharply contracted as he saw disciples covered in injuries lying sprawling around the altar, blood stains pooling into dark red streams across the bluestone slabs.
He stumbled down from his Yuling Sword, rushing to check on Yun Mu first, kneeling down to carefully support him: “Junior Brother Yun?”
Yun Mu’s eyelashes trembled as he barely managed to open his eyes: “E-Eldest Brother…”
“Don’t speak yet, Senior Brother will take you to get healed.” Jiang Xiaohua pressed his fingertips against Yun Mu’s wrist, sensing that faint, precarious pulse, his eye rims instantly turning red.
He turned his head to roar at the disciples behind him: “Quickly, help all the wounded onto the cloud-boat and head to Qiandai Platform! I’ve already sent word to the Alliance Leader; physicians and alchemists from Qiandai Platform will be able to arrive within half an hour!”
As the flying spirit boat broke through the air, a few strands of gloomy fog suddenly swept across the sky of Ping’an Town.
Yun Mu leaned against the soft cushion, watching the rapidly receding scenery outside the window while his injuries slowly healed under the effect of the Body-Refining Art.
Good grief, right at the very end, it could still pull off this kind of plot twist. Ah, life!
The system’s voice actually carried a trace of lingering fear: Mumu, situations like this might not be rare in the future. After all, the original work was always written from the perspective of the villain protagonist Sui Yu. This incident in Ping’an Town wasn’t even participated in by him in the original book; it was practically glossed over in a single stroke. Who would have thought it would be this perilous!
You said it! I damn well prepared myself for certain death! Luckily I obtained that copy of the Nine-Star Body-Refining Art in the Liyang Mountain secret realm last time, otherwise it really would have been hard to say this time.