Boom!!!!
The crescent-shaped shockwave twisted the air ahead into layers of ripples as it slammed straight into the monster's body!!
Part of the monster's body seemed to have been torn apart by an invisible force, and its pouncing momentum abruptly came to a halt.
A massive hole had actually been blasted through its center!
The hole took up a full third of its body!!
Every blood-red pupil across the monster's body trembled violently, as though enduring some inhuman agony.
A massive amount of baleful energy poured out of its body.
A thin layer of frost coated the ground.
"Eeeeeaahhhhhh!!!!" Layer upon layer of screams rang out like a hundred evil ghosts howling in unison. Just hearing those bizarrely shrill cries was enough to scare the wits out of a timid person!
The deafening wails seemed to whip up a ring of sound waves, sending the dust on the ground flying in a circle.
The group of escorts not far away immediately showed signs of pain. Their eardrums felt as though they were being pricked by needles.
One escort even let out a scream.
Two streams of blood slowly trickled from his ears!
"Cover your ears! Don't be afraid! The more frightened you are inside, the greater the pain you'll suffer! Steady your minds! Steady your minds!" Experienced Xie Jiuyi shouted a warning at once.
But his voice could not possibly overpower the monster's wails, leaving him completely helpless.
His voice had always been only that loud. It wasn't as if he could find a giant megaphone to shout through, right?
Xie Jiuyi himself silently recited a scripture from the Hundred Killings Divine Path Technique, a required cultivation method of the Imperial Astronomy Bureau, using it to offset the negative effects brought by the monster's shrill screams.
At the same time, he had seen perfectly clearly what had just happened when Fan Wu swung his sword and slashed the ghost from afar!
That was precisely why an expression of utter horror appeared on Xie Jiuyi's face!
He had not sensed the slightest fluctuation of magical power from that sword strike of Fan Wu's.
All he had seen was the inhuman, colossal strength contained within it!!
It was a vast force capable of splitting steles and shattering rocks, like a dragon or an elephant!!
Moreover, Xie Jiuyi could also tell that Fan Wu had not delivered that strike through brute force alone.
He could see that Fan Wu had employed an extremely ingenious method of exerting force through swordsmanship to produce the slash.
It was the pinnacle combination of strength and technique!
It was enough to shake the soul!!!
Perhaps being struck by the Demon-Slaying Sword really did hurt terribly.
Fan Wu suddenly realized that not a single one of the fiends struck by the Demon-Slaying Sword had managed not to scream.
Looking at the monster trembling violently from head to toe, Fan Wu could already tell that it was "critically wounded."
[Special fiend formed from the resentment of the dead at a mass graveyard—Life: 247—Strength: 6.5—Techniques: Control of a Hundred Ghosts, Illusion Array Barrier, Soul Devouring, Object Attachment...]
Its [Life] attribute had plummeted directly from 788 points to 247!
Its [Strength] attribute had dropped even more sharply, from 13.5 to 6.5!
This showed that the monster had fallen into an extremely negative state.
This negative condition had caused both of its attributes to plummet!
It was also the moment when it was at its weakest!
If given enough time, it might be able to recover, but with Fan Wu's murderous intent practically solidified into reality, how could he possibly make such a brain-dead mistake?
Fan Wu wielded the Star Constellation Sword Art with consummate ease. Holding the sword in both hands, he slashed five times from various tricky angles in the blink of an eye, directly chopping the monster into chunks of black curtain!
The bizarre eyes across the monster's body seemed unable to bear such pain.
One after another, they actually burst open in unison.
A massive amount of baleful energy gushed out!
Among the chunks of the shattered monster, several were already completely unable to move.
But one of the chunks still seemed capable of moving.
And apparently unwilling to accept its fate, it tried to secretly inch toward Fan Wu.
But Fan Wu stomped it onto the ground.
It could not move at all!
The not-so-solid ground was even pressed into a shallow crater by that stomp!
It was astonishing!
27—this was the monster's [Life] attribute as seen in Fan Wu's eyes.
It had to be said that the Golden Finger's function of displaying attribute information was quite useful.
Fan Wu could clearly tell whether a fiend was truly weak or merely pretending to be weak.
He could also tell whether a fiend was truly dead or merely pretending to be dead.
It was incredibly convenient!
Fan Wu reversed his grip on the Demon-Slaying Sword. Its razor-sharp tip hovered less than an inch from one of the monster's enormous eyeballs beneath his foot.
Fan Wu could not see the slightest trace of fear in its eyes.
All he could tell was that it was suffering.
Suffering agony like being torn apart.
It seemed that this damned thing... really was somewhat different from ordinary evil ghosts.
It could not truly be considered a ghost. It was a creation formed from countless resentments gathered together.
It was an extraordinarily special fiend.
As for why this kind of fiend had become connected with the "Great Venerable"...
Fan Wu did not know.
Nor did he want to know.
He stabbed down with his sword!
Its health bar emptied!
The monster turned to ash in the blink of an eye, unable to let out another scream.
[You successfully killed "the special fiend formed from the resentment of the dead at a mass graveyard." Congratulations, you have obtained 8.2 Free Attribute Points!] [Name: Fan Wu] [Life: 89＋] [Strength: 20＋] [Techniques: Star Constellation Sword Art lv1 (0/10)] [Free Attribute Points: 8.2]
Fan Wu casually glanced at his personal attributes. The 8.2 Free Attribute Points dropped by killing the monster had already appeared on the panel.
This time, although he had been dragged into the mess by the people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau, it had not been without gains. At least he had not lost everything.
If he had been dragged into it and still gained no attribute points, then he really would have been an exploited workhorse from beginning to end!
Fortunately, there were plenty of ghosts and monsters in the inn.
Besides, this monster counted as a boss and could provide Fan Wu with quite a few attribute points.
That balanced things out considerably in his heart.
At this moment, as the fiendish monster was stabbed into ashes by Fan Wu's sword, the surrounding scenery also began to change dramatically.
The pervasive, chilling baleful energy gradually dissipated into the world, and the surroundings were no longer gloomy and sinister.
The inn's ruins were covered in broken stones and weeds, as though no one had passed through there for several hundred years.
The night wind that occasionally blew past was finally no longer as bitingly cold as before.
This put the escorts somewhat at ease.
"...It should be over, right?" Lin, the escort chief, had watched Fan Wu's shocking performance from beginning to end, and he was so stunned that his scalp prickled.
Even his voice trembled slightly as he spoke. "Th-that Daoist Priest should have killed the fiend, right?!"
"He did kill it..." Beside Lin, the escort chief, stood Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant Xie Jiuyi.
His tone was exceedingly complicated as he murmured, "That was a fiend bearing Incense-Fire Power..."
Xie Jiuyi understood far better than Lin and the others just how terrifying the monstrous fiend that had displayed such might really was.
That was precisely why...
Watching Fan Wu kill the fiend with his own eyes had shocked him far more than it had Lin and the others!
"Fellow Daoist Fan looks so young. Just what kind of profoundly cultivated reclusive old Daoist could have taught a disciple like him?"
Xie Jiuyi even felt that, had he chosen not to intervene in the inn earlier, Fellow Daoist Fan could still have easily resolved all the trouble by himself.
Good heavens...
That was even more terrifying!!
P.S. I'm adding another chapter today! Since I'm asking for support, I definitely need to show some sincerity. This chapter is that sincerity! (The author got up at five-something in the morning to write this, sob.) There'll be more updates at noon and tonight!
Please vote with your recommendation tickets! Please vote with your monthly tickets! Please follow the updates! Although I don't really want to ask for tips, if it's just a tiny one-yuan tip, I'd still like to ask for that too. (The number of tippers is very important for making the new-book rankings.)
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