Outside the Broken Temple.
"Crack... crunch..."
A burst of chewing suddenly came from deep within the fog, stark and grating in the night.
The Imperial Guards inside the temple began to tremble violently, their hands gripping their sabers as their breathing grew quick and ragged.
"Thud! Thud!"
Several dark shapes burst through the fog and slammed heavily onto the dusty floor in the middle of the temple hall.
They were corpses. They were the Imperial Guards who had rushed out to scout just moments ago, but now their faces were unrecognizable.
Their armor was intact, but their flesh looked as though something had drained away its essence, leaving it shriveled against their bones. Their eye sockets were sunken, and their bodies were twisted in death.
"Ah—!"
A young Imperial Guard, whose nerves had already been stretched to the breaking point, finally snapped. His long saber clattered to the ground as he clutched his head, huddling and shivering in the corner.
"It's... the Hundred Ghosts Banner..."
A voice, weak to the point of breaking, spoke up.
Ye Muqing leaned against the offering table, her face as pale as paper, blood still drying at the corner of her mouth.
She forced herself to stay upright and explained rapidly:
"These are low-level Yin Souls refined by Evil Cultivators. They have no physical bodies, but they love to devour the essence and vital energy of the living. Ordinary blades can't hurt them at all. Only... only a martial artist's blood and qi, yang and forceful to the utmost, can offer even the slightest resistance."
As soon as she finished speaking, the surviving Imperial Guards and servants in the temple instinctively focused their eyes on Chen Ping.
Among them, only this newly crowned Tanhua of the Imperial Military Examination was a martial arts expert with exceptionally vigorous blood and qi.
Chen Ping stood by the window, his expression dark.
He said nothing, only silently tightening his grip on the Steel Saber.
He had only wanted to use this escort mission to get close to the powerful in the Capital City and learn the path to immortal cultivation. He hadn't expected to run into such a deadly Evil Spirit just after leaving the beginner's village.
"Whoosh—"
A gust of sinister wind suddenly swept past, and the already dilapidated window lattice of the Broken Temple burst apart.
Several gray-white ghostly figures let out shrill wails and rushed into the temple like hungry wolves pouncing on prey, heading straight for Chen Ping, whose living aura was the strongest.
The frigid air rushed over him, plunging Chen Ping into an icy cellar. Even the flow of his blood slowed.
"Looking for death!"
A fierce glint flashed in Chen Ping's eyes. Instead of retreating, he stepped forward.
The Longevity of Pine and Crane surged through his body, and a scalding current instantly coursed through his limbs and bones.
He ran the index finger of his left hand along the blade, slicing it open. Bright red Essence Blood immediately smeared across the edge.
"Kill!"
With a thunderous shout, Chen Ping infused the Steel Saber in his hand with searing blood and qi, sweeping it through the air in a dark-red arc.
"Chii—!"
The ghost at the very front was struck by the blade's arc and let out a scream like snow splashed with boiling oil. Its once-solid gray, misty body instantly dissolved, fading into the air as a wisp of green smoke.
It worked!
Chen Ping's heart settled. A martial artist's blood and qi really were the bane of these Yin Souls.
But before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, a shrill, owl-like laugh suddenly rang out from the fog outside the temple.
"Heh heh heh... Mere mundane martial arts, and you dare act so ferocious in my presence? You're nothing but an ant with slightly more vigorous blood and qi!"
As the voice, dripping with contempt and greed, rang out, the fog churned violently. Three Evil Ghosts emerged, more solid than before, their grotesque features faintly visible.
They didn't charge blindly. Instead, they spread out in a triangular formation, working in perfect concert as they surrounded Chen Ping.
This Evil Cultivator even knew how to coordinate a battle formation!
Chen Ping's heart sank. The three Evil Ghosts were extremely fast, their claws stirring up gusts of foul wind.
"Clang! Clang!"
Chen Ping swung his saber to block. Its blade collided with their claws, ringing like metal striking metal.
The tremendous force of the impact left his hand numb, and worse, every time he made contact, a sinister chill invaded his body along the blade.
"Hiss—"
Unable to dodge in time, Chen Ping's left arm was raked hard by a ghostly claw.
The Longevity of Pine and Crane protected him, so his skin didn't split. But the chill burrowed into his marrow like a parasite clinging to bone. Half his left arm instantly went numb, and his movements faltered.
Despair spread through the temple. Even Ye Muqing's eyes dimmed. Were mortal martial artists truly no more than mayflies trying to shake a tree when facing cultivators?
Yet Chen Ping, trapped in the encirclement, remained terrifyingly calm.
As he dodged and maneuvered, he didn't devote all his attention to the Evil Ghosts before him. He was listening, watching, sensing.
The Longevity of Pine and Crane had given him senses far beyond those of an ordinary person. He shut out the ghostly wails around him and pushed his hearing to its limit, piercing through the layers of fog.
The wind, the rain, the ghosts' shrieks...
And... a faint but unmistakable sound of breathing!
On the surface, Chen Ping kept his gaze fixed on the Evil Ghosts in front of him. But his peripheral vision had long since locked onto the Withered Locust Tree thirty paces beyond the temple.
Behind the tree, a subtle fluctuation of Spiritual Power rose and fell in time with the three Evil Ghosts' attacks.
To capture the bandits, capture their leader first!
Chen Ping knew that if he kept fighting inside the temple, his blood and qi would eventually be exhausted. Then he'd be meat on the chopping board.
His only chance to survive was to fight his way out and kill the Evil Cultivator playing tricks outside!
In the space of a thought, Chen Ping's steps suddenly grew unsteady.
He pretended to be exhausted. After blocking a claw strike, he staggered and stumbled several steps backward, his back crashing heavily into the offering table with a dull thud.
His chest heaved violently as he gulped for air. The arm gripping his saber trembled, and his face was filled with fear and despair.
He brought his "acting" to perfection.
But beneath his sleeves, unseen by anyone, his muscles were taut as a spring compressed to its limit. Every inch of sinew and bone was gathering strength, waiting for the instant it could explode.
"Heh heh heh, out of strength already? Mortals are mortals, after all."
The Evil Cultivator's laughter outside grew more smug and brazen.
Seeing Chen Ping at the end of his rope, the Evil Cultivator lurking in the shadows finally let down his guard.
To a cultivator, a mortal martial artist's Essence Blood was a potent tonic, and it tasted best when sucked fresh.
The fog slowly parted, and a hunched figure emerged from behind the tree.
It was an old Daoist in a ragged robe, as thin as a skeleton, his face covered in corpse spots. In his hand he held a small black banner, and his murky eyes gleamed with greedy green light as he walked toward the Broken Temple.
Now!
The instant the old Daoist crossed the temple threshold, his mind at its most relaxed, Chen Ping—who had been "exhausted" and slumped over—suddenly blazed with a fearsome light in his eyes.
"Die!"
His shout cracked like thunder.
Chen Ping didn't swing at the Evil Ghost before him. He twisted at the waist, the muscles in his arm bulging, and hurled the Steel Saber smeared with Essence Blood like a hidden weapon!
"Whoosh—"
The saber ripped through the air with a sharp shriek, becoming a streak of bloody lightning as it shot straight for the old Daoist's face.
At the same time, Chen Ping sprang up like a hunting leopard.
The Light Body Movement Technique had reached perfection!
He left a blur in the air, following close behind the hurled saber. Empty-handed, he charged out of the Broken Temple with the unyielding resolve to kill.
The old Daoist hadn't expected the "lamb waiting for slaughter" to still have such terrifying power for a counterattack. His pupils contracted.
But he was a cultivator, after all, and reacted with lightning speed.
The instant the saber was about to pierce his brow, an earthen-yellow shield of light suddenly flared around him.
"Clang!"
The saber slammed into the shield, sparks flying, then bounced away, powerless.
A protective talisman!
Chen Ping's killing strike had missed.
He was empty-handed, only three steps from the old Daoist's hideous face, while the earthen-yellow shield remained unbroken.
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