People's Hearts

Damn, that was brutal...

'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'

That was some serious mental pollution. After watching the authorities leave, Li Fan had thought it was all over. Who knew things would suddenly take another turn? And that fake mustache—either he'd hesitated and acted a beat too late, or he'd rushed into action without explaining a thing. In the blink of an eye, a pile of people were dead, their limbs scattered and their flesh flying. There was blood everywhere. It was just unbelievable...

But the worst part wasn't even that. Fourth Brother Fourth Young Master had really turned into a fiendish corpse. He'd torn into people, and with just a few punches and kicks, he'd smashed several experts into bloody pulp. The fake mustache hadn't just screwed over his own people—he'd gotten all the slow-witted bystanders around them killed, too.

They'd only come to rest and have a meal. The man had shouted and whipped everyone into a frenzy, and in their panic they'd drawn their weapons and surrounded the corpse. But the experts who'd charged in first were already dead. What good would it do to toss away their weapons and shout, "It's got nothing to do with us! We were just passing by!" now?

Fourth Young Master lurched forward, his head hanging crooked and one side of it caved in. He charged down the stairs and into the crowd, pounding people to pieces with his iron fists. In an instant, the inn had become a living hell. Red, white, and yellow bodily fluids sprayed everywhere. Screams, wails, and roars filled the air.

A cold sweat broke out across Li Fan's forehead. He hurriedly formed a sword seal with both hands, gathered Sword Qi in his palms, and held it ready to unleash. He raised his thumbs to sight the fiendish corpse, searching for an opening—but couldn't find one!

Those martial artists had already moved far beyond what ordinary people could do. They could jump two meters straight up, like rockets. That was Olympic-champion territory! When they dodged and struck, Li Fan could barely aim at them. And now that the corpse had transformed, its body was even more terrifyingly strong. It was a beast, overpowering even those martial arts experts as it darted through the crowd. It made sharp turns without slowing down, moved so fast its figure blurred, and ripped people apart and tore off their heads with every other blow. Blood and gore flew everywhere. The scene looked like a meat grinder had come to life and gone on a rampage. There was no other way to describe it than pure madness!

For some reason, though, after killing a dozen people in a flash, Fourth Young Master's fiendish corpse stopped. It scooped up chunks of flesh with both hands and stuffed them into its wounds, then hung them around its neck. It plucked off its crushed head, picked up Fifth Brother's head from the ground, and stuck it on. Then, from the wound that had been cleaved open earlier, black mist billowed out, and countless tentacle-like strips of flesh, threaded with blood vessels and nerves, sprouted from it. It was regenerating, stitching its wounds back together!

Damn, this fiendish corpse even knew how to heal itself and recover its health!

'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'

But now it had stopped. This was a good chance! Li Fan formed a sword sign and was about to strike, but the surviving merchants and martial artists were only ordinary people. They'd never seen anything so bizarre. After freezing for a moment, they came to their senses, nearly driven mad by the carnage before them. They scrambled to escape, blocking Li Fan's line of sight and nearly knocking him over!

Li Fan wasn't so ruthless that he'd casually unleash the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword and blast all these innocent bystanders and useless allies away. He had no choice but to dodge to the side and let them rush for the inn's entrance. Without them in the way, he could use his ultimate move to kill the monster. If even one of those unlucky people got out, that was one more saved.

But then the bald Ji Chang outside roared,

"Loose!"

A volley of crossbows snapped. More than ten people were immediately shot down, their despairing wails rising in a chorus.

The innkeeper, who was mixed in with the crowd, was red-faced with rage as he cursed, "You bastards! Isn't the government supposed to capture the fiendish corpse? It's not moving—come and arrest it! Why are you blocking the road?

Xu Baldy! How many meals have you and your men eaten on my tab? Have I ever failed to pay you your dues over the years? And now you're going to slaughter us all?"

"Well..." The bald Ji Chang seemed to hesitate, looking rather uncertain.

Just then, the eunuch's soft, feminine laughter rang out from outside. "I've been dispatched from the palace by imperial decree. We encountered a fiendish corpse on the road, which had slaughtered countless people. Fortunately, the Mountain Patrol Guards came to our aid and fought bravely, allowing us to rid the court of this great threat. Ji Chang, if this matter goes well, I'll recommend you for promotion to captain."

"Thank you for your recommendation, Eunuch!" The bald man made his choice at once. "Tang the Sixth! I'll look after your wife for you. Go in peace! Loose!"

Another volley of crossbow bolts rang out, clattering through the walls and doors and forcing everyone in the inn back.

The eunuch laughed again. "Don't be in such a hurry. We have to wait for it to eat a few more people and let the divine fiend fully mature. That way, our achievement in turning the tide will look all the more impressive. So please, everyone inside, sacrifice yourselves a little longer. Hahahahaha!"

The innkeeper crawled back from the entrance, clutching his head, and crouched beneath the counter beside Li Fan. They cursed in unison, "You dead eunuch! Could you be any more despicable?"

Then they heard the eunuch's laughter stop outside. "Set it on fire!"

Li Fan and the innkeeper: "..."

A moment later, flaming arrows flew in. The sparks crackled and danced, setting the Dragon Gate Inn ablaze!

"Corrupt officials who treat human lives like grass!" "Ah! I'll haunt you even after I'm dead!" "Help! Somebody help!"

Someone near the entrance was hit by an arrow and set on fire, screaming in agony. It was a living hell.

The entrance was blocked by crossbows and a pike formation, and now they'd even set the place on fire. The eunuch had clearly decided to finish the job: kill every innocent bystander caught up in this, then blame it all on that fiendish corpse.

Li Fan was so furious his nose nearly twisted. Great! He'd been worrying about every possible consequence, trying not to hurt innocents or take lives, and these soldiers were far more vicious than the fiendish corpse! Fine, then. He'd hold back no longer. First, he'd kill the eunuch!

"Come on! Who's afraid of whom? Qiankun Fly—" He rolled up his sleeves, preparing to blast a path to safety, but the innkeeper grabbed Li Fan by the wrist and dragged him in front of himself, heading toward the rapidly regenerating fiendish corpse!

"Holy crap! Innkeeper, what are you doing?" Li Fan was lifted by the wrist and collar. For a moment, he was completely dumbfounded.

"Don't blame me, kid! I don't want to die either! There's a secret escape tunnel beneath the stairs. If we're lucky, we'll all get out! If we're not, I'll have to trouble you to block a claw for me!" The innkeeper held Li Fan up as a human shield, cautiously circling the fiendish corpse and edging toward the other side of the stairs.

Damn... This guy! These people!

Li Fan was speechless. This whole mess could've been solved with one sweep of his sleeve, but it had somehow come to this! These people's will to survive was incredible—so strong that they'd do anything to stay alive!

Even with his usually easygoing temper, Li Fan was so furious he couldn't speak. But somehow, the anger in his heart cooled his forehead and brought him back to his senses.

He could unleash his Sword Qi and kill the innkeeper first, but there was no need. Killing him would only satisfy his anger, and if it alerted the fiendish corpse, things would get even more troublesome. The people outside weren't a major problem either; a couple of blasts from the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword could break through their formation. The only real threat here was the fiendish corpse that had once been Fourth Young Master.

If even one strike missed and alerted the corpse, it would start darting from side to side and weaving around. Li Fan would have almost no chance of hitting it. So the first strike was crucial. The first strike of the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword had to hit this foul creature, its hands drenched in blood! It had to inflict a lethal blow, at the very least!

So Li Fan fell silent. He even steadied his breathing, letting the innkeeper hold him up as a shield while they gradually approached the fiendish corpse standing in the middle of the room!

By now, the corpse had nearly finished piecing itself together with flesh wrapped in black mist. Fifth Brother's head was stuck on Fourth Young Master's severed neck. Its eyes rolled around and around as it made breathy, hollow sounds—"hee hee hee, ha ha ha, ah ah ah." The fragments of flesh and corpses around it seemed drawn by a magnet, gathering around it and forming a shell of muscle, fat, and bone.

"Huff... huff... huff..." The innkeeper panted right against Li Fan's neck, his hands clammy with cold sweat as he gripped Li Fan painfully hard. Faced with this inhuman sight, with a monster that could turn him into a bloodied lump in an instant, he was terrified to the point of paralysis. His steps seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and he could barely move. He inched around the fiendish corpse in an arc, stepping through pools of blood and scattered flesh.

Li Fan said nothing. He stared intently at the flesh-armored corpse and used his Divine Sense to scan it, searching for a weakness.

The innkeeper had said the fiendish corpse had skin like bronze and bones like iron, impervious to blades and spears. But it hadn't been that way from the start. At first, the two foreign bodyguards had dealt Fourth Young Master a directly fatal blow with a hammer and an axe. The axe had struck his chest, but the flesh, tainted by fiendish energy, had clamped around it and kept it from cleaving him in two. In fact, perhaps killing Fourth Young Master was what caused the fiendish energy inside him to erupt and made him lose control completely.

Now Li Fan could see the corpse's surface gradually being covered by the gathered flesh armor. The armor was tainted with black fiendish energy, and its strength was probably similar to that of lamellar armor—not something ordinary swords could pierce. More and more flesh continued to gather. Having absorbed the blood and essence of the living, the fiendish corpse was growing stronger by the moment. In a little while, it would probably become a proper Devil Form.

Of course, if he drew his Dragon-Slaying sword and swept it with Sword Light, he could probably reduce any sort of fiendish corpse to ashes. But using a weapon of that level against this kind of thing would be humiliating for Li Fan.

No matter. The situation was still manageable with the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword. After training in Source Marsh, he'd learned to wield the technique as easily as his own arm, striking wherever he pointed. The real question was where to aim.

At a glance, the weakest points in the fiendish energy seemed to be the head and spine that had been replaced after the corpse was broken, and the wound on its left side, torn open all the way to the chest. If he drove his Sword Qi into either of those weaknesses, it should strike deep and deal critical damage.

But on the other hand, if an attack aimed at those openings didn't work, the corpse could counterattack. On second thought, it might be safer to use sword techniques to sever its limbs first.

And if Li Fan remembered correctly, Fourth Young Master had initially managed to suppress his injuries and keep the fiendish energy from infecting him. He'd been wounded by something around the waist and abdomen. Could the core of the fiendish energy be there? Otherwise, why would the corpse protect its front torso with armor first instead of reinforcing its obviously injured head and neck?

As his thoughts raced, Li Fan spotted a whole host of openings he could target with his sword. But just as he focused on deciding which one to attack, the situation changed again!

"Fifth Brother! Is that you, Fifth Brother?" A heart-rending cry rang out as a blood-red figure suddenly leaped from beneath the stairs. It was Xuan Niang—she was still alive!

She'd been ambushed earlier and stabbed in both feet, yet she'd fought her way out of a close-quarters battle and survived. She'd taken several more cuts, tearing open most of one side of her clothes. Sword wounds were clear across her back, a dagger was still stuck in her thigh, and her lower abdomen had been cut open so she had to hold it shut with one hand. She was covered in blood, but the rest of her injuries were superficial and not life-threatening.

But when Xuan Niang saw the gruesome mess before her, the sight dealt a devastating blow to her mind. She couldn't hold herself up any longer. Her body tilted, and she braced herself on her sword and saber, then collapsed to her knees and wailed, "Ah! Fifth Brother, Fourth Young Master! You... Ah!"

The corpse turned Fifth Brother's head to look at her. For some reason, it didn't attack at once. Perhaps a trace of humanity remained in it.

But now it was facing the secret tunnel beneath the stairs. The innkeeper stopped in his tracks, unable to move forward or back, and glared at Xuan Niang, who had appeared at the worst possible moment. His teeth ground together with rage.

Xuan Niang looked just as despairing, as if she didn't want to live anymore. She collapsed on the ground and cried, "It's all my fault! It was all my fault! If I hadn't gone into the tomb without permission! If it hadn't been to save me! Fourth Young Master, Fifth Brother, sob..."

Perhaps the fiendish energy hadn't infected the corpse too deeply yet. It really did seem to retain a trace of humanity. It turned toward Xuan Niang as if it wanted to walk over to her, and the flesh armor stopped forming for a moment.

The opening!

Li Fan gathered his true qi, ready to strike!

Suddenly, a glint of gold flashed across the corner of his eye. He took a closer look and saw a golden saber! It flew past him and the innkeeper, then shot toward Xuan Niang's head!

With a clang, the corpse knocked the golden saber away with one hand. It turned its head and saw the innkeeper holding Li Fan up in front of himself like a bulletproof vest. He was staring at the flying saber with a bewildered expression.

"Huh? What?" The innkeeper froze, with no idea where the golden saber had come from.

"Raaah!" The fiendish corpse was already enraged! It charged straight at them at full speed!

Straight at them was perfect!

"Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword!!" Since someone was holding him up, Li Fan raised both hands and both feet and unleashed the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword Technique at four times the power! Since he couldn't decide which weakness to target, he'd hit them all!

With a deafening boom, Sword Qi burst from the Taiyin and Taiyang meridians in his hands and feet, like four turbochargers firing at full blast. The immense instant acceleration turned the innkeeper into a cushion. He was slammed into the wall with a thump, leaving an imprint in the plaster before his eyes rolled back and he blacked out.

The fierce gale surged forth, and the Black and White Double Dragons burst out in a single breath. Eight streams of Sword Qi opened their claws and fangs toward the fiendish corpse charging straight at them. It had nowhere to dodge!

Sword chimes rang through the wind, mingling with dragon roars and thunder. The fiendish corpse had no room left to maneuver or evade. All eight blades struck it head-on, severing five limbs in an instant. What remained of its body became a bloody ball, assailed by the dragons from every side. It spun several times in the gale, and the flesh armor that had just formed was torn to pieces. The Sword Qi battered the fiendish energy at its core until it dissipated. In an instant, the corpse was shredded into dust by the sword wind and vanished without a trace!

But even after tearing apart the fiendish corpse in front of him, the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword's power had barely been depleted. The rampaging sword gale condensed into something like a ball of hurricane-force wind and spun violently. In the blink of an eye, it formed a tornado that tore apart most of the inn's beams. It was about to go out of control and sweep across half the town!

Li Fan hurriedly jumped off the human cushion, raised both hands, and sent the full force of his Sword Qi blasting upward!

"Go! Fly!"

With a tremendous boom, the gale surged and tore the roof right off the Dragon Gate Inn!

The sword wind shot into the sky. Eight sword dragons rose into the clouds! Flesh and shattered wood drifted down in a wild rain, while the dark clouds covering half the sky were swept away all at once.

After making such a tremendous racket, a streak of silver light finally emerged from a wine jar and slipped back into Li Fan's sleeve.

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says: What's going on? What's going on here? Did you get drunk and go on a rampage?'

"Uh, it was my first time fighting someone, so I got a little nervous and didn't control it well. I put too much force into it and shot out too many swords... Cough! Forget that. Have you seen Kun?"

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says: Kun was caught in a brocade pouch by that girl wearing an invisibility talisman. She's crouching on your right.'

Hm—?

Though he couldn't see anything, Li Fan still raised an eyebrow, glared to his side, and held out his hand. "Give it back!"

Just as expected, before three breaths had passed, Huo Shan Mo Lian dispelled the talisman and lowered her veil. Grinning sheepishly, she stuck out her tongue and tried to look cute. She took a red brocade pouch embroidered with gold from her robes, shook it, and tipped out Kun, who had somehow eaten himself into a ball. It landed in Li Fan's hand.

"Little Daoist, don't be angry. I was only joking with you. You're so powerful—you must be a True Cultivator from Ink Bamboo Mountain, right?" Huo Shan Mo Lian suddenly dropped to her knees and banged her head against the ground three times. "This humble woman, Huo Hongmian, sincerely seeks the Dao. Please accept me as your disciple, Daoist!"

Yeah, right. I'm supposed to believe that?