Fox Spirit

The southern edge of Jinling Prefecture.

Li Family Village.

Located on the border between the Great Li and Qiluo kingdoms, the village was frequently visited by merchants from both nations, trading goods.

One day, farmer Li Daqiang, tired from a long day's labor and hungry, hurried home down the mountain with a load of firewood on his back.

Halfway up the mountain, Li Daqiang suddenly heard intermittent sounds of a woman crying.

"Could it be some daughter who got lost?" Li Daqiang wondered.

He followed the sound and soon saw a woman, completely wrapped in old clothes, crying under a tree.

The woman wept miserably, evoking pity.

Li Daqiang, a strong man in his thirties, was usually quite brave and warm-hearted.

He walked up and asked, "Whose daughter are you? Are you lost?"

However, the woman seemed not to hear him, continuing to cry.

Li Daqiang called out a few more times, but the woman still didn't answer.

Li Daqiang frowned and stepped closer. To his surprise, the woman suddenly looked up.

Beneath the old clothes was a strange fox face covered in fur.

A pair of emerald green eyes stared directly at Li Daqiang.

Startled, Li Daqiang realized he had encountered a monster.

He immediately drew the woodcutter's axe from his waist and swung it at the fox-faced woman.

The fox-faced woman opened her mouth and spat out a mist as red as human blood.

This blood mist was vibrantly colored, with a fragrant aroma, like a beguiling aura.

Upon smelling it, Li Daqiang immediately felt dizzy, hallucinated, and dropped his axe.

Looking again at the woman under the tree, there was no fox-faced monster; she was clearly a peerlessly beautiful young maiden.

Seeing the beautiful girl acting flirtatiously towards him, Li Daqiang's heart ignited with desire. He felt an unbearable heat and a physical reaction.

The maiden then moved closer, drawing out the vital essence from Li Daqiang's body.

Li Daqiang let out a long sigh, feeling as if he had ascended to immortality.

In the following days, Li Daqiang became addicted to this feeling.

He came here every day to meet the maiden, willingly becoming a slave to the fox spirit.

One day, Li Daqiang, unable to resist, brought the beautiful maiden home.

Li Daqiang's wife was horrified to see him bring home a fox-faced woman with messy hair all over her face, as if she had seen a ghost.

Li Daqiang's wife absolutely refused to let the fox-faced woman enter the house.

Thus, Li Daqiang and his wife began to argue.

In a fit of rage, Li Daqiang used his woodcutter's axe to kill his wife.

He dug out her flesh and heart, presenting them to the fox spirit.

Xia Qi'an led Bata to the vicinity of Li Family Village.

From a distance, the village appeared neglected, with fields overgrown with weeds like tangled hemp, empty animal pens, and dilapidated houses, resembling a ghost town.

The situation in the village was indeed as the Snake Guards had reported: only some young men remained.

However, these men were listless, physically weak, and lacked strength in their limbs, yet they still appeared energetic and flushed with vitality.

Xia Qi'an activated his Crimson Pupils and observed from afar, realizing they had been bewitched by spirits.

Therefore, he did not rashly enter the village but chose to sneak in from the back mountain.

Upon entering the forest in the back mountain, the scene that unfolded before Xia Qi'an's eyes greatly shocked him.

The forest was filled with densely hanging corpses. These were the elderly villagers, like strings of dried jerky.

They had all been dismembered and hung on trees to dry, serving as food for the spirits.

Xia Qi'an's fury erupted: "This spirit is too damn audacious."

He then carefully led Bata into the village stealthily.

"Thump..."

"Thump..."

"Thump..."

As the two passed by a villager's house, the sound of a cleaver chopping on a cutting board could be heard intermittently from within.

Curious, Xia Qi'an pushed open a gap in the window with his finger and peered inside.

His scalp tingled. He saw a man in his forties chopping off his eleven or twelve-year-old daughter's hands and feet, mincing them into small pieces and arranging them on a plate.

The young girl died with her eyes wide open, staring, as if they would spew blood.

Her eyes were fixed in the direction Xia Qi'an was looking, clearly having been dead for a long time.

The man, however, seemed oblivious, his face flushed with excitement as he sliced the meat, eager to present it to the spirit.

Although Xia Qi'an was furious, the girl was already dead. Killing the villager now would be pointless.

He suppressed his anger and quickened his pace towards the area with the strongest demonic energy in the village.

Xia Qi'an chose to infiltrate because all the men in the village had been bewitched by the spirit.

If he had stormed in, he would have been swarmed by the villagers.

Then he wouldn't know whether to kill them or not.

Therefore, Xia Qi'an decided to bypass the villagers and head straight for the spirit.

The place the spirit occupied was originally the home of the village landlord.

It covered over ten mu and was two stories high.

He approached the large house.

Xia Qi'an heard a commotion from inside. Listening closely, he could hear the heavy panting of over a dozen men, one after another.

There was also the soft moans of a woman among them.

From the sounds, Xia Qi'an could already imagine the debauched scene inside: over a dozen men and one woman.

Xia Qi'an immediately kicked open the door and leaped inside.

Inside, incense smoke swirled, and jade objects, fruits, dead meat, jade cotton, and silk were strewn about carelessly.

A pool had also been dug inside, filled with fine wine and spring water. It was a scene unlike any in the human world.

Over a dozen young, strong men, seeing Xia Qi'an and Bata barge in, seemed unfazed. They were still in a daze, pawing at the snow-white woman beneath them.

As for those who couldn't get a spot, they could only watch enviously from the side.

Seeing Xia Qi'an and the other enter, the woman looked up with her pair of emerald green eyes, which suddenly blazed with light: "Such potent Blood Essence! It's rare to encounter two martial artists in a place like this!"

However, in Xia Qi'an's eyes, this was no heavenly beauty.

It was clearly a fox spirit that had possessed the body of a dead woman, with fox fur and a fox face.

The fox spirit ordered the men around: "Go and capture them for me!"

Hearing this, over a dozen virile men climbed out of the beds.

All of them were naked, swinging their limp appendages, a strange smile on their faces, their expressions vacant.

They lunged at Xia Qi'an and Bata.

Seeing this, Xia Qi'an felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively took half a step back.

Bata, like a high wall, stood in front of Xia Qi'an.

The dozen men pounced on Bata like hungry tigers.

"Abba..." Bata roared.

Like a descending war god, he flung all of them away.

Then, with the Great Strength Vajra Fist, he struck like a cannonball, one punch after another, blowing up the heads of six men in the blink of an eye.

Seeing how powerful Bata was, the fox spirit opened its mouth and spat out a cloud of blood mist.

Bata waved his hand in disgust, and the blood mist dispersed like a puff of smoke, as if it were utterly insignificant.

Then, Bata, as if nothing had happened, continued to slaughter the bewitched slaves in the room.

The fox spirit's face turned extremely grim.

This charm-inducing energy was its greatest reliance. No one had been able to resist it since it descended the mountain.

However, it didn't know that Bata had a simple mind and didn't have many distracting thoughts.

"?" Hmph... How could Bata's mind have such things...?"

Xia Qi'an sneered.

He knew that this fox spirit was just a minor demon that had recently descended the mountain and hadn't seen much of the world, which was why it dared to be so arrogant.

Little did it know that in the human world, there were plenty of people who could deal with it.

Generally speaking, martial artists at the Spirit Condensation realm, after condensing their Martial Dao Primordial Spirit, could resist the supernatural abilities of spirits.

But Xia Qi'an had the protection of a mysterious dark blue crystal, so he naturally wasn't afraid of the fox spirit's energy.

He immediately used a Dragon Claw Hand, reaching directly for the fox spirit.

He grabbed the woman's neck and dragged her off the bed.

"You like eating people, don't you? Let's see if I don't skin you alive today!" Xia Qi'an said fiercely.

To encounter two martial artists who were not afraid of his divine abilities today, the fox spirit sensed danger.

It immediately abandoned the woman's body, transformed into a mass of red mist, and rushed out the window.

"Bata, chase!"

Xia Qi'an hadn't expected the fox spirit to be so decisive. He immediately called out to Bata and, using Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, transformed into a shadowy figure to pursue it.

Xia Qi'an had been momentarily careless, allowing the fox spirit to escape outside.

Now, under the fox spirit's control, the villagers from the manor had all rushed out, surrounding Xia Qi'an and Bata.

Under the fox spirit's bewitchment, these villagers had all offered their wives and daughters to the fox spirit for consumption. Their hands were stained with blood, and they were no longer innocent.

Having witnessed the previous bloody scene of a daughter being killed, Xia Qi'an would not show any mercy to these people. He roared at Bata, "Kill them all..."

When Xia Qi'an gave an order, Bata never hesitated. It would only follow instructions meticulously.

Like a charging bull, it immediately faced hundreds of villagers armed with pitchforks and hoes, showing no fear as it plunged into the crowd.