“This road is truly hard to walk, and conveniently there is no one to talk to at this moment, sigh.” Lingyun complained with her mouth, but her speed underfoot was not slow in the slightest, freezing any little ghosts who dared to block the way into ice sculptures directly with a shake of her bell, wasting no time on them at all.
Jin You headed toward the east, while Ying Chuang transformed into wolf form and climbed up a tree in two or three moves, wanting to look from above to see if there were any new discoveries. Lingyun did not shirk either, turning around and walking toward the west side of Mount Lanfen to see if there were any new discoveries.
It was just that along this way no abnormalities were discovered, and the ghosts blocking the way were not particularly formidable roles either, which was somewhat incorrect. Lingyun knew the power of the Soul-Locking Spirit-Snatching Array, where weaker ghosts would be unable to bear it merely by standing in the array, so ghosts staying in the outer perimeter would naturally not be very formidable, but it would not reach the point of being weak like this either.
She had also caught sight of that official seal in that official-robed ghost’s hand just now, and that thing looked extremely wicked, so it was better to be careful.
Thinking so, Lingyun suddenly heard a scream, her heart tightening, as she immediately dashed toward the place where the sound came from. Her intuition told her that there might be a new discovery there.
Before Lingyun could even arrive at the place where the sound came from, a heavy smell of blood wafted to her nose first, like blood carrying hatred mixed inside a rotting corpse, making restlessness rise in one’s heart merely from smelling it. Lingyun dared not delay, casting a Divine Walking Spell, just in time to see a headless butcher before her eyes about to swing down a butcher knife, immediately casting a streak of cold ice to freeze his movements, saving the… human under the butcher knife?
There was actually a human here?
Lingyun’s cold ice merely froze the headless butcher for a moment, and was quickly shattered by the butcher again. Except that the butcher’s chopper shifted direction this time, slashing straight toward Lingyun, the vengeful evil aura on the blade being hardly inferior compared to Yan Baichuan!
“Find a safe place to hide, do not make a sound!” While parrying, Lingyun tossed a bottle of elixir pills to that young man, shouting, “Eat it, it can temporarily ward off the intrusion of ghost aura!” Otherwise, with this mortal body, he would turn into a living corpse in no time.
The headless butcher knew not how many humans and ghosts he had slaughtered, so even without eyes, he could clearly distinguish the position where Lingyun was located, every slash falling precisely beside Lingyun, forcing Lingyun to dodge repeatedly.
Lingyun condensed several ice pricks in front and behind to stab into the ghost butcher’s body, but looking from the ghost butcher’s reaction, it seemed to have little effect. The ghost butcher’s blade edge slashing toward Lingyun was still precise, which was likely inseparable from the official seal on the back of the butcher’s head again, truly being troublesome.
While her frame dodged, thoughts whirled in Lingyun’s mind. Logically speaking, if a person’s corpse and head were separated at the time of death, when transforming into a ghost, one could make oneself return to a complete appearance. But if one lost eyes and ears after becoming a ghost, it was utterly impossible to hear sounds and see objects, yet the ghost butcher before her eyes could flexibly capture every single action of Lingyun’s.
Lingyun diverted a strand of mind to pay attention to the surroundings, and suddenly discovered that tree branches not far away seemed to be deliberately concealing something, while the saved young man on the side was also silently reminding her of something with lip movements. Lingyun narrowed her eyes to distinguish carefully, only then vaguely discerning those few words: Blood Altar!
Lingyun immediately transformed an ice sword to resist the ghost butcher’s big blade, enduring the metallic sweetness surging up in her mouth at the moment the ice sword shattered, attacking directly toward the Blood Altar concealed behind the tree branches, where a human head was surprisingly placed on top, blood still gushing steadily from the neck fracture, the flowing blood all gathering into the Blood Altar, while the corpse was casually thrown to the side.
The human head had both eyes wide open, placed right at the center position of the Blood Altar. Lingyun acted decisively to kick the human head away with a foot, freezing the Blood Altar solid directly, then pressed her palm into a fist to crush it with force.
At the instant the Blood Altar was crushed, the headless butcher held the empty position above his neck in pain, his body turning blindly and continuously amid the forest like a hunter who had lost his target. Lingyun guessed correctly, as the ghost butcher relied on the human head on this Blood Altar just now to share vision and hearing, which was why his moves were so precise, fierce, and ruthless when fighting Lingyun.
Having lost vision and hearing at this moment, the ghost butcher clearly could no longer capture Lingyun’s position, yet his ferocious nature grew even stronger, his actions chopping at the surroundings becoming increasingly ruthless.
Lingyun took a glance at her half-lock of hair that had been shaved off, letting out a heavy pant as she injected spiritual energy into Ice Heart, heading toward the ghost butcher, “Falling Ice Blades!”
Following the fall of Lingyun’s voice, countess sharp pricks condensed from cold ice appeared out of thin air in the sky, all sharp points facing the ghost butcher before her, ten thousand arrows shooting together in an instant, submerging straight into the ghost butcher’s body, so fast that before the ghost butcher’s chopper could even fall, he was held and crushed by Lingyun raising her hand again, dying completely this time.
Hiding behind a tree, the young man ran out excitedly to thank Lingyun upon seeing the ghost butcher dead, only to see Lingyun’s frame swaying, leaning against a tree listlessly while digging out a bottle of elixir pills to pour into her mouth, “If you want to thank me then forget it, if you are afraid then stay here, let me rest for a while.”
Hearing this, the young man scratched his head, swallowing back his words of gratitude, sitting quietly in a squat beside a tree not far from Lingyun, stealing a few glances at Lingyun’s situation from time to time.
Lingyun sat leaning against the tree for a while, waiting for the elixir pills to take effect, gradually recovering some spiritual energy, the dryness in her meridians also getting eased slightly.
Lingyun walked to the place where the headless butcher vanished, looking down at the chopper left on the ground, the silvery white blade edge stained with black and red bloodstains, old blood and fresh blood almost covering the entire blade edge of the big blade, so that the original color could only be faintly seen near the back of the blade.
Lingyun took a glance at the corpse around the Blood Altar, coldness coloring her eyes, as she threw two talismans onto the chopper, watching the chopper hum on the ground for a while before gradually stopping its vibration, as if also losing its spiritual nature.
Looking at the strange scene before his eyes, the surviving young man had never expected to see pain and struggle from a blade, instantly forgetting his fear and surrounding Lingyun to ask about this and that, only to be forced back by Lingyun’s gaze, having no choice but to walk away sheepishly.
Lingyun had known Yan Baichuan in the past, so she naturally knew his universally known title of “Ghost King” and that blade named Dichen. Even during the time when Yan Baichuan was shouted at and chased after to be killed most intensely, Lingyun’s attitude toward it was merely scoffing.
Both are killing ghosts, so how come killing more than you makes it wrong?
Yan Baichuan was not a person who killed indiscriminately, which was also why Lingyun agreed to retrieve Dichen together with him.
Lingyun kicked aside the chopper on the ground that had already turned into scrap iron, continuing to scout toward the west. Sometimes even if holding the same ferocious blade, the essence was vastly different after all.
Ying Chuang darted along the tree trunk to climb up, yet unexpectedly discovered that the actual height of this tree was not quite right, seeming a segment taller than looking up from the ground. Ying Chuang did not think much, swishing twice to climb toward higher ground, when two black shadows suddenly flashed before his eyes, charging at a flying speed toward the tree branch hooked by Ying Chuang’s front paws.
Ying Chuang loosened his front paws, his hind paws stomping fiercely against the tree trunk, turning back to climb up another tree, giving two swipes toward the black shadows with his sharp front paws, as the black shadows vanished like smoke and scattered in an instant.
Only now did Ying Chuang see the true face of the ghost shadows clearly, which were ghost crows roaming and scouting near the treetop, their empty eye sockets seeming a few degrees deeper than their soul bodies.
Except there seemed to be more than one of these ghost crows, as after Ying Chuang killed two, even more ghost crows surrounded him instead. But these ghost crows seemed somewhat different from other ghosts controlled by the official-robed ghost, seeming to possess some basic sanity. After several attempts by Ying Chuang, killing over a dozen more ghost crows, the remaining ghost crows seemed somewhat fearful, merely surrounding right in front of Ying Chuang, trying every trick to attempt to obstruct him.
The ghost crows seemed somewhat fearful of Ying Chuang’s wolf claws, so when he wanted to move upward, the ghost crows did not dare to attack Ying Chuang directly, going instead to peck at the tree branch climbed by Ying Chuang, forcing Ying Chuang to let go and tangle with the ghost crows.
However, the ghost crows were numerous in quantity, so even if Ying Chuang only focused on killing the ghost crows, he might not necessarily finish killing them. The ghost crow flock wanted to prevent Ying Chuang from going to higher ground, so Ying Chuang insisted on going to see what on earth was up there.
Ying Chuang let go of the branches and leaves above, his entire wolf body standing vertically on the tree trunk, his hind paws gathering power, as sporadic snowflakes seemed to fall around. Unable to gauge Ying Chuang’s intention, the ghost crows seemed to pull in their crow feathers as well, so that for a time even the sound of flapping wings was nearly absent.
Suddenly Ying Chuang moved, the silver-white wolf form like glaring lightning in the dark night, this lightning also accompanied by an icy frost aura, so while the ghost crows were dazed for a moment, Ying Chuang had already broken through the encirclement of the crow flock, the silver lightning breaking through layers upon layers of tree leaves to charge straight for the treetop, leaving all the ghost crows behind.
Reacting to it, the ghost crows let out a cry toward the sky and charged up collectively, as they could not let Ying Chuang discover the secret at the treetop!
Arriving at the treetop, Ying Chuang finally saw the familiar azure sky, as well as a huge bird nest built on top.
That was a three-headed crow, each crow growing a huge red eye only at the center of its forehead, which stared dead at him as soon as Ying Chuang came up, flapping its wings to let out a sharp cry to summon its crow flock.
Those black crows lacked eyes, could it be that they all grew on this single one?
Ying Chuang had no time to think carefully, as he had to resolve this three-headed crow before the crow flock arrived. Ying Chuang darted to dodge the fierce wind fanned up by the three-headed crow’s wings, traveling through the treetop under the cover of tree leaves, clawing through the right crow’s eye swiftly, precisely, and ruthlessly, rancid yellow water mixing with blood flowing down, but fortunately the medicine given by Lingyun was still effective.
The three-headed crow let out a low roar of pain and anger, and two more whirlwinds scraped fiercely toward Ying Chuang, flexibly dodged by Ying Chuang.
Ying Chuang’s ears could already faintly hear the whistling sound of the crow flock, his movements turning even more agile. Suddenly Ying Chuang discovered that this three-headed crow refused to leave the nest beneath its feet even when injured, so he simply pretended to be hit by a whirlwind, feigning falling off the treetop, while actually flipping over to right beneath the crow nest, gathering spiritual power on his claws to strike upward, flipping the crow nest over, as a bird egg also fell down from the nest at the sound, shattering into pieces.
Taking advantage of the three-headed crow losing focus, Ying Chuang clawed toward the three-headed crow’s neck with decisive action, and at the instant the three-headed crow lost its breath, the crow flock also turned bewildered along with it, hurriedly scattering away in all directions, while simultaneously Ying Chuang’s long-held feeling of being snooped on vanished as well, which was likely related to this three-headed crow.
Ying Chuang looked down at the shattered eggshell and the egg liquid on the ground, unable to help shaking his head slightly. Before he broke this egg, this was already a dead egg, so even spending all one’s mind was in vain.
There was nothing else here, so Ying Chuang tilted his head, remembering Lingyun’s entrustment, climbing to the highest point in two or three moves, and letting out a long howl toward the sky.
At the same time, the official-robed ghost suddenly covered his right eye in pain, black bloodstains flowing out from between his finger slits, his tone uncontrollably somber and cold, “What manner of petty rogue dares to ruin my good matter, this official shall definitely kill them!”