The side of my face that had been kicked was swollen high, and my mind was still muddled.
I smacked my head hard a few times and immediately felt much clearer.
When I looked at him again, I looked from his thigh all the way down to his calf.
Four shocking claw marks smoked white. He propped himself up with one hand on his sword, his whole body trembling.
The leg I had clawed was slightly off the ground, and his face was deathly pale. In truth, all of this had happened in the blink of an eye.
He glared at me furiously, his eyes as if he wanted to devour me whole.
I laughed, loudly.
Then I said to him, "Weren't you fast? Weren't you good at running?
Why aren't you running now? Keep hopping around like a monkey."
He glared at me viciously without saying a word, so I continued.
"To be honest, you're just a little faster. If we went fist against fist, flesh against flesh, I could take on two of you.
Don't look unconvinced. You stabbed me with a sword.
And even under those circumstances, I still injured you this badly. Now it seems you're nothing special."
He suddenly let out an "Ahhh!" and charged at me, but his speed was countless times slower than before.
I smiled and lightly spoke four words: "You're dead for sure."
As soon as I said that, a talisman appeared in my hand. I threw it at him, and with a "buzz," the cry of a sword rang out. It was a Sword Talisman.
With a "whoosh," a sword formed from Spiritual Energy passed straight through his body.
His body immediately froze in place, and the hand raising his sword stopped in midair.
He slowly lowered his head and saw a bloody hole in his chest.
Then his hand loosened, the sword fell to the ground, and he looked at me in disbelief.
Because from the start, I had known that he was too fast. If I used talismans directly, there was basically no chance of hitting him. It would only waste them for nothing.
That was why I had been racking my brains to slow him down, though I still hadn't figured out how.
Then he had kicked me directly, delivering his leg right to me. Wasn't that handing me an opportunity?
Looking at him now, his legs could no longer support him. With a "thud," he dropped to his knees. It looked like he could no longer move.
I covered the wound in my abdomen where the sword had stabbed me and slowly walked over.
The moment I moved earlier, the Blood Stopping Talisman had fallen to the ground, so I stuck another one on.
But it only stopped the bleeding, not the pain. The pain made my whole body tremble.
When I reached him, I picked up the sword from the ground and said with a smile,
"Sorry, but it looks like you're the one who's going to die."
Only then did panic appear in his eyes. He said to me,
"Don't... don't kill me. You can have whatever you want.
Don't... don't kill me. Take that corpse, take all of them.
I'm True Man Taiyin's disciple, his Final Disciple. If you kill me, he won't let you off.
Let me go now, and we'll write off all debts. I won't come looking for trouble with you."
I found that rather interesting, and this guy seemed to know something, so I asked,
"Who is this True Man Taiyin you mentioned? And what exactly did you do on the back mountain of Lin'an Village?"
"As long as you tell me everything honestly, I can spare your life."
He nodded frantically and said, "True Man Taiyin is my master. You've seen him before.
He's the old Taoist priest who went to your house that day. We're all from Longhu Mountain."
"What exactly happened on the back mountain of Lin'an Village?"
He paused before answering, "A Corpse King is sealed beneath the back mountain.
My master wanted to release it, then refine it into a controllable Corpse Puppet for his own use.
That day, when we went to your house and saw that your father was home, my master told your father that he was going to reinforce the seal.
Your father agreed. While my master was reinforcing the seal,
he took advantage of your father's inattention and destroyed part of the materials we had brought.
Then he lied to your father, saying there were not enough materials to reinforce the seal and asked your father to go to Longhu Mountain that night to fetch more.
My master held the seal in place with his cultivation, and after your father left, we planned to open the seal and go inside to retrieve the corpses.
But Xie Yun said there was a very formidable old man not far from the village.
He was your grandfather's junior brother. If he discovered us, things would be difficult.
Master had Xie Yun lure that old man away, and we waited for news from Xie Yun."
Hearing this, I lost control. My eyes reddened as I shouted fiercely, "What happened after that? What happened after that?"
His body shuddered. From the loss of blood, his face grew even paler as he continued,
"More than an hour later, Xie Yun called and said he had already lured the old man away and told us to make our move.
Then we opened the seal and went inside, but there were many corpses within.
We fought those corpses, but there were simply too many of them.
And we didn't know when your father would return, so there wasn't enough time. We retreated.
Then Master planned to wait until the Corpse King came out, trap it with our own array, and then make our move.
But before we had even finished setting up the array, your father returned.
Then he discovered traces that the array had been opened, and he began fighting my master.
My master told me to leave first, so I left. I don't know what happened afterward."
I asked him whether they had come to the back mountain before and tampered with the seal. He said yes.
Thinking it over, everything made sense. Nangong Yiyi had said that the seal had suddenly loosened for a time.
They had probably been the ones behind it. Then they used that as a pretext to find my father.
They said they wanted to help reinforce the seal, then claimed there were no materials and sent my father to Longhu Mountain, while also luring my martial uncle away.
I asked him whether, when they went down there, they had encountered a very powerful female ghost.
He said no. I held the sword to his neck and asked, "Really not?"
Water suddenly flowed from the crotch of his pants where he was kneeling.
I looked at him with contempt and said, "What a coward. Where did that arrogant swagger from earlier go?"
His eyes filled with terror as he said, "Really, we didn't. We opened the Eight Trigrams Array and only went down a little.
We didn't reach the very bottom before countless corpses rushed at us.
There were simply too many of them, and there wasn't enough time, so we retreated."
I asked where his master and my father had gone afterward. He said he didn't know.
His master still had not returned, and he could not be contacted.
I asked whether he was the one who had harmed those students. He said yes.
I asked how he had done it and why.
He kept his mouth shut. I raised my sword and stabbed it into his other leg. A pig-slaughtering scream immediately burst from his mouth.
Perhaps unable to endure the pain any longer, he said, "If I tell you, will you spare my life?"
I nodded at him without the slightest hesitation.
"How can I trust you?"
I said coldly, "You have no choice, because your life is in my hands."
He hesitated for a while before saying,
"When they weren't paying attention, I put drugs in their water.
Then I sealed that girl's soul. Later, I never expected her to mutate and break free.
I went to the well to check, and her corpse had not rotted. I found it strange.
So I fished the corpse out and discovered that she had a Pure Yin Body."
I asked him about the girls inside the jars. Why had he tortured them?
He said it was to collect resentment.
After hearing his words, I remained silent for a long time...
Before you continue