On the altar's stone platform, countless purple-black tentacles began poking through the cracks in the Divine Child's surface, flailing wildly in the air.
The Soul-Stitching Crone lay limp beside the altar, her face ashen. Only despair remained in her eyes; she seemed not even to have the strength left to feel hatred.
Butcher and Wu Tong were also stunned by this sudden turn of events. They temporarily stopped fighting and retreated from each other, staring in horror at the ever-mutating lump of flesh.
At this suffocating moment.
BOOM!!
At the passage to the rear courtyard, the already dilapidated wooden door and part of the brick wall were blasted apart by a violent force!
Amid flying splinters and rubble, a blood-soaked figure charged in!
It was Yue Shan!
His uniform had been reduced to little more than strips of cloth, and his exposed skin was covered in wounds. The deepest one slashed diagonally from his left shoulder to his right abdomen, the flesh gaping open and the bone visible. He had clearly endured a brutally fierce battle.
Yet his back remained straight as a spear. He gripped a Goose-Quill Saber in one hand, its blade gleaming with a cold, eerie light and stained with a mixture of black and red filth.
Yue Shan's eyes were sharp as an eagle's. With a single glance around the room, he took in the entire situation.
Then his gaze locked onto the wildly writhing lump of flesh on the altar, and his brow furrowed.
"An unclean creation... must be put down!"
Without the slightest hesitation, he pushed off the ground. His figure flashed like lightning as he charged straight at the out-of-control Divine Child!
Crimson light blazed from the Goose-Quill Saber. Its edge ripped through the air with a piercing wail as it slashed toward the core of the lump of flesh!
The lump seemed to sense the powerful threat Yue Shan posed. Countless tentacles lashed toward him like living things, while a powerful mental shock, mingled with a torrent of frenzied thoughts, erupted.
"Break Evil! Suppress Souls!"
Yue Shan roared. His vital energy burst forth, forming a layer of searing armor around him.
The saber in his hand became a streak of crimson light. Wherever its blade flashed, the tough tentacles melted like snow.
The blade sank deep into the lump of flesh, triggering an even more violent spasm.
The battle between them instantly reached a fever pitch.
The saber whirled, crimson light sweeping in every direction. Its flashes came like a driving storm, clashing furiously with the tentacles as they continuously regenerated.
Waves of force churned through the air, shaking dust from the already ruined walls.
Yue Shan was fierce, his saber techniques sharp and domineering. But even out of control, the Divine Child's power far exceeded that of ordinary evil spirits. With Yue Shan already badly wounded, the fight became a stalemate.
Elsewhere, seeing Yue Shan pinned down by the Divine Child and the Soul-Stitching Crone already incapacitated, Butcher felt the urge to flee.
He knew the tide had turned against them tonight. If he stayed, death was the only thing waiting for him. His vicious gaze swept over the badly wounded Wu Tong, then flicked toward Yue Shan battling the monster.
He gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and turned to dash for the doorway leading from the main house to the courtyard!
"Trying to run?!" Wu Tong tried to stop him, but Butcher forced him back with a slash. The movement tugged at Wu Tong's wounds, and he spat out another mouthful of blood.
Butcher reached the doorway, kicked open the already crooked door, and stepped into the front courtyard.
The instant both his feet touched the ground.
Four beams of earthen-yellow light suddenly flared from the ground, one in each of the four directions!
The lights swiftly connected, forming a simple four-sided formation that trapped him at its center!
Earth energy rose within the formation, carrying a heavy, binding force. Butcher felt as though he had sunk into a mire; his movements instantly grew sluggish and sticky!
It was the Yin-Locking Stakes and simple trapping formation Zhao Tie had set up around the perimeter on Yue Shan's orders!
Though they were primarily meant to counter sinister entities' escape techniques, they were also highly effective at trapping the living—especially someone like Butcher Liu, whose vital energy was so abundant!
"Damn it! There's an ambush too!" Butcher roared in fury and swung his cleaver, trying to hack through the invisible restraints.
His strength was immense. With each swing of the cleaver, the earthen-yellow formation light wavered violently, as if it might tear apart at any moment.
But the formation drew upon the earth's energy, flowing without end. He couldn't break free right away.
Just as he struggled to break through the formation.
BANG!
A crisp gunshot rang out from somewhere in the darkness above and to the side!
The shooter was Zhou Ling, lying in ambush on a rooftop!
She had followed the plan and taken up a commanding position outside the dye works, where she had a clear view of the courtyard. She had been watching the situation inside through binoculars.
The bullet cut through the night with a faint whistle, shooting straight toward Butcher, whose defenses were wide open!
This wasn't an ordinary rifle bullet. It was a specially made armor-piercing, Evil-Breaking Bullet, designed to deal with difficult targets!
Its specially treated tip was sharper and harder, and it contained silver powder and red copper filings to pierce tough defenses and evil techniques alike!
Butcher sensed the deadly danger, but trapped inside the formation, his movements were restricted. He could only twist to the side as best he could and raise his cleaver in front of him.
Thud!
The bullet missed his heart, but bored deep into the spot below his right shoulder blade!
The muscles there were thick, but that wasn't where his defenses were strongest!
The specially made bullet tore easily through his tough skin and muscle, even shattering a small piece of bone!
More importantly, the Evil-Breaking power within the bullet clung to him like a maggot to bone, surging through the wound and violently clashing with the vital energy tempered by his evil techniques.
"AAAGH—!!" Butcher let out a howl of excruciating pain. His right arm immediately went limp, and his cleaver clattered to the ground.
The Evil-Breaking power rampaged through his body, bringing pain ten times worse than an ordinary gunshot wound and severely disrupting the flow of his vital energy.
Inside the house, Wu Tong heard the gunshot and scream. His spirits lifted; he knew Zhou Ling and Li Tie had made their move!
On the rooftop, Zhou Ling calmly cycled the bolt, chambered another round, and took aim again.
Terror seized Butcher. He knew that if he couldn't break free, the next shot might take his life!
He roared and, ignoring his wounded right arm and the Evil-Breaking power raging inside him, slammed his left hand against his own chest.
He spat out a mouthful of vital blood, which turned into a cloud of blood mist and mingled with the vital energy around him. His strength surged for a brief moment, and he forcibly sent the earthen-yellow formation light around him rocking violently, creating a momentary weakness!
Seizing that fleeting opportunity, he charged like a raging bull at the formation's weakest corner!
BOOM! The formation actually broke open under his desperate charge!
The instant he staggered through the gap in the formation.
BANG!
The second gunshot came right on cue!
This time, the bullet was aimed at his gleaming bald head!
At this distance, with Butcher wounded and slowed, there was almost no chance of Zhou Ling missing.
The bullet entered through the back of Butcher's skull, carrying shattered brain matter and a spray of black-red blood as it burst out through the center of his forehead!
His forward charge came to an abrupt halt. His massive body crumpled to the ground as if every bone had been pulled from it, kicking up a cloud of dust.
He twitched twice, then lay completely still.
His fierce, cruel eyes remained wide open, terror still lingering in them.
In a shadowed corner of the courtyard, Chen Mo watched Butcher's corpse hit the ground. He recalled the Weaponized Paper Puppet he had been about to send into action, then hurried inside.
The team leader and the others were fighting hard inside. If he kept loitering out here, he'd look like he had no sense at all.
Inside the main house, Yue Shan's battle with the Divine Child had also reached a critical moment.
After fighting for so long without gaining the upper hand, Yue Shan was beginning to run out of strength. A cold glint flashed in his eyes as he drove his saber deep into the lump of flesh, its crimson light blazing while he pinned its core in place.
Then he swiftly pulled a dark golden talisman from his robes with his left hand.
This wasn't an ordinary yellow talisman. It was a Sunfire Evil-Breaking Talisman issued by the senior leaders of the Anomaly Suppression Bureau, immensely powerful and difficult to make.
"The righteous energy of heaven and earth—let sunfire burn away evil! By my command!"
Yue Shan muttered the incantation and slapped the talisman onto the junction between the saber's hilt and blade.
BOOOOM—!!!
The talisman instantly transformed into a dazzling, scorching golden flame that surged along the blade and poured into the lump of flesh.
The talisman's pure yang power clashed violently with the sinister, chaotic force within the mass.
"ROOOAR—!!!"
The Divine Child unleashed its most anguished howl yet. Black-red slime and chunks of shattered tissue erupted as golden flames burned it from within!
The immense aura of sinister energy rapidly faded, like the ebbing tide...
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