There was also the Green Bamboo Sword Sect, whose swordsmanship was peerless and which had slain countless demons, earning a boundless good reputation that resounded throughout the Yunzhou Twelve Prefectures.
Blood Lotus Cult
Paper Folding Sect
Bright Moon Manor
"What's the story with this Blood Lotus Cult and Paper Folding Sect?" Su Ye asked deeply.
"The Blood Lotus Cult is a rising power that has emerged over the past few decades. They appeared far too short a time ago, and for the specifics, this subordinate does not know."
Tang Heihu wore a reminiscent look on his face, and continued, "Judging from their style of operations, nine times out of ten, they must be a demonic cult."
"As for the Paper Folding Sect, they have many strongholds throughout Yunzhou, folding paper to control souls, and who knows how many ordinary people they've harmed. It's said they've long been in collusion with the Corpse Demon Cult."
Su Ye chimed in, "How much do you know about their collusion with the Corpse Demon Cult?"
"I've heard that the Paper Folding Sect folds paper to control souls, while the Corpse Demon Cult collects corpses. These two usually cooperate to make use of living people to the absolute fullest."
From Tang Heihu's mouth, Su Ye gradually figured out quite a few martial arts factions within Yunzhou, put away the three-thousand-tael silver note he had received as tribute, and stood up to walk out of the Black Tiger Gang.
"My lord, walk slowly, come often in the future."
In the inn's guest suite, Su Ye opened the system panel, his gaze landing directly on the technique column: Fierce Sun Art, Yellow Grade Low Rank.
This technique could only be cultivated up to the third layer of the Meridian Mirror, yet the requirements were not low; only at Body Tempering Perfection did one have the qualification to practice its entry level, and Yellow Grade techniques corresponding to the Meridian Mirror all had this restriction.
Without hesitation, his mind stirred as he slowly poured the remaining 583 points of assistance into the Fierce Sun Art.
Consume 80 assistance points, Fierce Sun Art Entry.
After a brief moment, an abnormality appeared in his body. A warm current invisibly rose in his dantian, flowing through his meridians to course through his entire body, and he only felt a wave of numbness wash over him from head to toe.
Consume 100 assistance points, Fierce Sun Art Minor Accomplishment.
Consume 120 assistance points.
Consuming a total of 450 assistance points, Fierce Sun Art Perfection.
[Note: Realms are judged solely by the host's highest martial art.]
He immediately felt his body's meridians swell and bulge, his dantian having long since grown as full and smooth as jade at some unknown point as if it could rise no higher. Su Ye knew this was the bottleneck between the Meridian Opening Early Stage and the breakthrough to the Middle Stage.
Normally, even if one grasped subsequent techniques in their hands, breaking through shackles remained fraught with difficulty. For ordinary martial artists, wasting away an entire lifetime at this realm was also common.
He tried driving the true qi within his body, and an instant later, a golden gas shield appeared upon the surface of his skin, then drove the true qi to burst forth several meters away from his body. It lasted for only a few breaths before slowly dissolving into the air.
I suppose only by breaking through to the Aperture Opening Realm can one project true qi externally.
He casually spent another 60 assistance points to max out the newly acquired Demon Subduing Fist and Sky Rending Leg.
As for the Meteor Hammer, he did not plan to waste his assistance points on such martial skills. Both fist and leg techniques were already cultivated, and in terms of weapons he had saber techniques, which were enough to handle all kinds of situations.
Before long, Big Black flapped its wings and flew in through the window outside, inviting credit as it said, "Boss, I found them."
Su Ye withdrew his focus: "No time to lose, let's set out now."
With that, he snatched up the Ghost Head Saber, flipped himself out through the wooden window, and vanished into the night sky after just a few movements.
Late autumn, the ground was strewn with withered yellow leaves, and the distant mountain forests rolled away in profound silence, making a crunching sound beneath his feet.
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Big Black circled the night sky, then swooped down to land on a withered tree ahead.
"Boss, something's wrong."
"What is it?" Su Ye replied with a slight frown of his brow.
Big Black used its wings to make a hush gesture, then led Su Ye as they quietly crept toward the back of the mountain. The mountain path was rugged and jagged with strange rocks, and the ground beneath their feet was exceptionally steep.
Not long after moving forward, the view suddenly opened up. At the shaded backside of the mountain peak, five figures draped in black hoods appeared, and a hoarse voice rang out.
"How are things prepared? How many ironclad corpses have you refined recently?"
Su Ye hid in the dark and noticed that the person who spoke was located right in the middle of the five, with a lean and emaciated figure whose facial features could not be seen. A short, low figure standing on his left chimed in, "Steward Liang, the materials shipped into the mountains these past few days are far too few."
"Adding the one hundred and fifty from the mountains previously, we've only barely managed to scrape together five hundred in total. Even with four of us, it's hard for a clever housewife to cook a meal without rice, and we've only managed to churn out ten ironclad corpses."
"Ten? There's still half a month until the handover day. If you cannot fulfill the full quota of one hundred, you know the consequences."
The emaciated man in the black robe revealed a scarlet gaze, swept it across the few people on either side, and spoke again: "I will not let the materials be delayed for you, they will be sent over in these next two days."
By this point, Su Ye already had a fair assessment in his heart. The materials these people spoke of were presumably the people who had gone missing in the county town over the past few days. Previously, listening to what Tang Heihu had said, it was at most a hundred people.
This extra quantity could only have been plundered from various villages and towns. Could the yamen's various abnormal reactions be because of the ironclad corpses this bunch spoke of?
He saw the black-robed man known as Steward Liang suddenly roar out loudly, his gaze locking onto the direction where Su Ye was hiding, and abruptly, blinding golden radiance lit up the night sky.
It was precisely Su Ye, who had been hiding in the dark, making his move. He had not felt any pressure whatsoever from the few people before him.
He had already calculated this attack well beforehand, and his target was the person who posed the greatest threat to him, aside from Steward Liang.
The Ghost Head Saber blazed with golden light under the augmentation of true qi, and the true qi cultivated by the Fierce Sun Art was tyrannical and scorching.
Su Ye's entire body clung to the golden radiance. Under the joint force of his powerful physical constitution and true qi, he caused the Flowing Dragon Steps to erupt with a speed fifty percent faster than before.
In the flash of a flint, he had already arrived before the black-robed person closest to him.
The golden saber glare spat out several feet and slashed horizontally. Catching sight of this, several figures flusteredly raised the weapons in their hands to block, and the sound of metal snapping immediately rang out.
The golden light effortlessly chopped the steel claws on the right-hand figure's hands straight in two, and then, with its momentum unchecked, swept across the figure's waist and abdomen.
In an instant, two halves of a body tumbled to the ground, dark brown liquid mixed with pitch-black internal organs spilling out.
The stench of blood rushed straight to his face, involuntarily making Su Ye recall that wolf demon he had slain when he had first transmigrated over.
The black-robed figure lay flat on his back, revealing a pale complexion. Black blood vessels faintly surfaced upon the skin, his mouth was rotten, and his teeth had long since mutated into a sharp state.
Yet he saw that the black-robed figure, left with only the upper half of his body on the ground, was completely unaffected. His withered, claw-like hands scraped the ground as he swiftly lunged toward Su Ye.
Without time for detailed thought, Su Ye swept his Ghost Head Saber horizontally once more, his right foot violently stomping down on the pale human face on the ground. The Ghost Head Saber forced back the remaining four figures, striking a defensive posture.
Slain [Meridian Opening Early Stage · Corpse Demon], obtained 64 assistance points.
Steward Liang's pale face appeared even more terrifying under the moonlight. Amidst the clashing of his sharp teeth, he asked, "Who are you, and why do you appear here?"
"You lot are people of the Demon Cult, truly as the rumors say: neither human nor ghost." Su Ye's voice was ice-cold.
Steward Liang said with a solemn expression, "To think you actually know the details of our background. Tonight, I'm afraid we can't let you leave alive."
"Take this person down quickly, don't let any word leak out."
"Kill!"
Knowing that the things before him possessed extremely strong vitality, Su Ye simply turned his Ghost Head Saber sideways, changing the slash into a strike. His gaze swept toward the eager Big Black, signaling that it didn't need to attack and could just watch from the sidelines.
In an instant, his firepower was fully unleashed. Golden radiance illuminated a radius of several dozen meters all around his body, and his form boomed and thundered like a furnace.
In a flash, the surroundings shook violently. The ground beneath his feet sank several inches from being unable to bear Su Ye's immense strength, and the ghost head in his hand smashed down fiercely like an oversized giant hammer.
At this moment, heaven and earth seemed as though they had completely frozen, and the expressions of the four black-robed figures turned extremely ugly.
"The mark is thorny, defend together!"
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