"Those are ghosts, spirits... Master..." Wu Anning said worriedly.
"It's alright. Whatever it is, if some people can deal with them, why can't we?" Lin Hui said calmly.
Wu Anning's expression calmed down slightly, but a trace of worry still lingered in her eyes.
"But..."
"Leave the Martial Artist; dismiss the rest," Lin Hui ordered.
Based on the conversation between the three people, tonight might be his first real opportunity to see the deeper aspects of this world.
To avoid harming innocent people, it would be best for all the martial arts practitioners to go home.
"Yes..." Wu Anning nodded and quickly withdrew to make the arrangements.
Soon, night fell.
The night watchman walked past the wall, banging his gong.
Lin Hui and Xie Tieniu stayed by his father's body, waiting for the night to unfold.
This was Lin Hui's first real encounter with a mysterious power other than that of the mutated beings.
At this very moment, less than a hundred meters outside the sword hall, in a simple, deserted courtyard.
Brother Hao, Zhu Xiang, and Dai Yunhua were already prepared.
Several police officers guarded the hospital entrance to prevent disturbances inside.
Zhu Xiang stood in front of a table covered with dark red silk cloth, holding a wooden sword, chanting incantations, and performing a set of sword techniques like a shaman.
This swordsmanship is weak and lacks speed and power, yet it gives people a strange sense of ritual.
As time passed, Zhu Xiang stopped what he was doing, took out some hair, nails and blood from Xie Tieniu's father from a small cloth bag, and mixed them into a small bowl of black mud on the table.
After stirring it thoroughly, he lit the black mud with a candle flame and watched it burn continuously, emitting black smoke.
Then, he took out a talisman with black background and white characters from his body and lit it with the fire.
"Attention! It's coming!"
He suddenly shouted.
Just then, the sound of the night watchman's gong rang out from outside; it was exactly midnight.
Brother Hao and Dai Yunhua quickly retreated to the wall, each holding a yellow talisman in their hand, nervously staring at the altar.
call...
A chilly breeze began to blow, causing the doors and windows of the dilapidated courtyard to rattle and creak as they opened and closed.
Leaves fell, branches swayed. The moonlight was slowly obscured by Black Cloud, and the light became very dim.
call.
The next instant, a gray-white shadow suddenly rushed into the courtyard from outside the door, heading straight for Zhu Xiang by the desk.
"Here they come!" Zhu Xiang, holding a wooden sword in one hand, grabbed a small bowl of black mud with the other and splashed it at the other person.
puff.
The black mud, wreathed in flames, struck the gray shadow, eliciting a piercing scream. At the same time, countless purple tentacles flashed past the gray shadow, as if the black mud had forcibly pulled it out of the network of purple tentacles.
"Now! Everyone, make your move!!" Zhu Xiang shouted.
Upon hearing this, Dai Yunhua and Brother Hao immediately threw the talismans in their hands at the gray shadow.
The next moment, the two talismans spontaneously combusted without fire and flew automatically onto the gray figure.
"Please summon the underworld general on duty!" Zhu Xiang shouted loudly.
Immediately afterwards, a blurry, purplish-black humanoid figure materialized in front of him.
The humanoid figure was clad in full black armor, wielding a long black halberd, and its eyes gleamed with a blinding red light.
Once he regained his footing, he lunged at the gray shadow.
One wielded a weapon with sweeping, powerful strokes, while the other pounced and bit like a wild beast. After several rounds of fierce fighting, the Underworld General cleaved the gray shadow in two with a single halberd strike, let out a cold snort, glanced back at Zhu Xiang, and then slowly dispersed.
"Fortunately, while the ghosts haven't disappeared yet, let's proceed according to plan!"
Zhu Xiang shouted loudly.
Immediately, Brother Hao understood and opened the courtyard gate, letting the ghost, which had been cut in two, escape.
Following the direction drawn by blood ties, the ghost charged straight towards the Pine Breeze Sword Hall without deviation.
The three followed closely behind.
But as soon as Zhu Xiang stepped outside, his expression suddenly changed drastically when he saw the scene outside.
"Oh no!! The zombies came along too!"
On the night street, a strange figure, its body dark red and resembling a skinned corpse, moved with incredible speed, rushing from afar towards the three people.
Because of their mispreparations, all the methods they had prepared were for dealing with ghosts and spirits; they never expected that the living corpses, which were supposed to appear the next day, would also appear.
The zombie immediately rammed into Zhu Xiang with a force far exceeding that of an ordinary person, sending him flying. Then, it slapped Dai Yunhua, who was rushing towards him, to the ground.
Finally, braving Brother Hao's constant gunfire, he got close and punched him in the head.
It was only because Brother Hao was so frightened that he stumbled backward and fell to the ground that he avoided being hit on the head. But he was also so frightened that he was covered in cold sweat and couldn't move for a moment.
Fortunately, the zombie wasn't targeting him. Seeing that he was no longer moving, it turned around and rushed towards the Pine Breeze Sword Hall.
"Stop him!" Zhu Xiang cried out in alarm upon seeing this.
At this moment, no one could stop the living corpse. They could only watch helplessly as it, like a cheetah, sped towards the gate of the sword hall in a bizarre posture.
Just then...
Boom!!
With a loud bang.
The gate to the sword-fighting hall was smashed open from the inside, and the debris scattered.
A burly figure roared and charged toward the undead.
BOOM!!!
The two collided with a loud crash, then were simultaneously thrown back by the immense force of the impact.
"It's Wu Anning!!"
Dai Yunhua immediately recognized the little girl who had left a deep impression on him.
Yes, compared to their ages, Wu Anning was indeed just a young girl.
But at this very moment, this little girl in their eyes roared and howled, gripping her sword with both hands, and fiercely pounced on the living corpse.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!
With three loud bangs, the zombie raised its hands to resist, but its legs were smashed deep into the mud and it couldn't get out for a while. Then, Wu Anning slashed it horizontally with his sword.
Swish!
The silver sword light reflected the moonlight even in the darkness, striking the undead's waist with a heavy blow.
puff.
The upper body of the living creature flew off, splitting into two halves, and it began frantically trying to crawl towards the other half.
Wu Anning then stepped forward and began hacking at his upper body.
She wielded the heavy sword, as thick as an adult's arm, like a hammer, each strike causing the ground to tremble slightly.
The three men and the young policeman guarding the gate were all terrified, standing there unsure how to react.
A few breaths later, Wu Anning stopped, looked at the living corpse that was now just a puddle of mud on the ground, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
"That scared me to death..."
Zhu Xiang looked at the twitching, lifeless flesh on the ground, his eyelids twitching a few times, unsure how to describe it.
Under normal circumstances, a zombie's strength is at least three times that of an ordinary person, yet Wu Anning actually rammed into it head-on, smashing it into a pulp. This demonstrates his sheer power...
Is this the source of the Pine Breeze Sword Hall's confidence?...
On the other two sides, Brother Hao was also parched. He got up from the ground, gripping his gun tightly, but still felt no sense of security.
"And then what? What should we do next?"
Suddenly he realized.
"By the way, what about the ghost!?"
Only then did everyone realize that the ghost, who had been severely injured, had already vanished without a trace.
*
*
*
It's located several kilometers away from the fencing hall.
In a gloomy bamboo forest.
The purple tentacles flashed through the air. The next moment, a white-haired, taciturn Daoist figure broke free from the purple net and landed gently.
The old Daoist priest's eyes gleamed red, and he reached out and gently grabbed.
Suddenly, two streaks of gray-white smoke shot from afar. The smoke shrank in his palm, merged, and condensed into a blurry human figure, which was the ghost that had just attacked Brother Hao and his two companions.
"Old Tian Long Tianlong, you have broken the rules of the Underworld. The Underworld Generals will not let you go. Why not come with me? The Heavenly Court is in chaos now, and the Underworld is fragmented. We can rule our own territory and live freely. Isn't that a hundred times better than you fleeing alone?"
In the distance of the bamboo forest, a lone black sedan chair floated in mid-air, without any porters, suspended in the darkness, with sounds emanating from inside.
"Many people break the rules, I'm not the only one," the old Daoist said in a broken, somewhat dry and hoarse voice.
"Naive. You are completely different from those ordinary mortals. The blood-letter ability you created can transform the Netherworld into your own body, rapidly strengthening your true self. This violates the cyclical rules of the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Man. Without protection, it won't be long before the higher powers send divine generals down to capture you," the person in the sedan chair sneered. "You are only at the level of a Human Immortal now. What makes you think you can contend with a divine general?"
"It's better than being used by you all," the old Tian Long said coldly.
"Ridiculous! We break the rules, and you are no different from us. What difference is there between us? Besides, this world is no longer what it was a thousand years ago; everything has changed. We are merely seeking self-preservation," the person in the sedan chair continued.
"No matter what, I, Tian Long, will never become a demon!" the old Tian Long said coldly.
"Stubborn to the end!" the person in the sedan chair said coldly. "Since that's the case, then you may fend for yourself."
The sedan chair quickly disappeared.
The old Daoist priest Tian Long was left looking down at the ghost in his hand.
"Oh no, it's been cracked again... Looks like I'll have to find a new location..."
He turned around, about to leave.
Suddenly, everything went blurry before my eyes.
A gray-white figure suddenly appeared silently more than ten meters away.
He was a burly man, over two meters tall, with long hair.
Under the moonlight, the man held a slender silver sword in his hand, his black hair flowing freely, the ends of which swayed slightly to the left in the wind.
Despite his imposing physique, at this moment, the man exuded a strange, refined beauty, like the serene glow of moonlight.
"I'm curious." The man looked up, revealing a pair of deep eyes that seemed to shimmer with countless silver stars.
"What are demons? What are the underworld and the heavenly court?"
"Who are you?" the old Tian Long asked in a hoarse voice.
"I don't like it when people don't answer my questions." The man picked up his sword, gave it a gentle shake, and a thin layer of wind spread out from the blade.
Tian Long remained silent, then opened his mouth.
puff.
The next instant, his tongue shot out like a bullet, leaving a thin, black line that shot straight to the man's brow.
But the next moment, the tongue stopped moving silently, and a sharp pain struck.
Before the old Tian Long could figure out what was happening, suddenly his vision blurred, and the sword-wielding man had vanished before his eyes.
The next second, it appeared beside him.
"When you're slow enough, even a sneak attack feels like a joke."
The man's voice came from beside his ear.
Sizzle sizzle sizzle!!
Suddenly, Tian Long's hands and legs burst open in a burst of dark red blood.
His eyes widened, trying to resist, but his limbs were too weak, and he could only watch helplessly as his body collapsed to the ground.
Just as he was about to fall to the ground, a large hand grabbed his white hair, lifted his body, and suddenly disappeared into the bamboo forest.