Skinning

Liu Feng recognized the Crooked-Mouth Daoist at a glance. Wasn't he the man he had seen outside Near-Water Pavilion?

Thinking of the mural of organs that had been "stuck" to the wall that day, then seeing the Crooked-Mouth Daoist swallow the Evil Object's filthy blood, Liu Feng was almost certain that the martial artist had met his gruesome end at this man's hands.

"Junior Brother, you've seen him before?" Shen Yushu didn't dare approach rashly. This was the first time he had ever seen a living person shove an Evil Object into his mouth.

From a distance, the Crooked-Mouth Daoist finished eating one skin and dug a second out of the pit.

Liu Feng said in a low voice, "That day, Third Senior Brother and I went ahead to Near-Water Pavilion and happened to see him."

At the mention of Near-Water Pavilion, Shen Yushu needed no further explanation.

At that moment, in Niu Family Village, the villagers and the Evil Specters made from skinned bodies were all running amok.

Only one person had a clear goal: a White Sun Sect disciple who had been hiding in the village all along.

"Return to me." The man stopped thirty paces away and pointed at the talisman from afar, trying to reclaim the Human Skin Talisman stained with the Evil Object's filthy blood.

In response, the Crooked-Mouth Daoist also pointed from afar. He held the Human Skin Talisman in one hand and extended two fingers with the other.

The two Daoists pointed at each other.

The next moment, the Crooked-Mouth Daoist shoved the second talisman into his mouth and chewed. The White Sun Sect disciple clutched his chest and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"Whoosh, whoosh..."

Before he could scream twice, crimson flames burst from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. The flesh over his heart and his clothes were burned through together.

Ten paces away, Zhu Li swallowed hard and stared at the corpse.

Judging by the scorch marks, the fire had started in the heart, then raced up the throat and burst from the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

Liu Feng saw more than Zhu Li. He caught a wisp of Blood Flame shooting from the Crooked-Mouth Daoist's fingertips and sinking into the White Sun Sect Daoist's chest.

"One spark ignited another man's heart. His Daoist arts really are connected to the internal organs."

Able to refine Blood Flame and kill a White Sun Sect heretic with a single point of his finger, the Crooked-Mouth Daoist was at least in the Two-Forms Realm, Liu Feng guessed.

At that moment, neither Shen Yushu and Liu Feng nor Zhu Li disturbed the Daoist.

After eating the Human Skin Talisman, the Daoist paid no heed to the three senior and junior brothers, or to the madmen and Evil Specters in the village.

He had come only for the Evil Objects and had no interest in anyone else.

Morning light spilled over Niu Family Village. The Daoist's sleeves fluttered as he soon disappeared along the crisscrossing village lanes.

Shen Yushu turned his gaze away and said, "The two White Sun Sect disciples I marked are already on their way down the mountain. Let's go."

Liu Feng called over Zhu Li, who was still staring off into space, and hurried down the mountain with Shen Yushu.

Behind the three of them, three surviving bandits hurried after them, along with Medicine Slave Li Si.

On their way down, they encountered the five other surviving bandits. But before two of them could even approach, the Gu poison flared up and killed them.

They had to die because they had seen Liu Feng use Gu Fire on the mountainside earlier, so Liu Feng had silenced them.

Danhe Prefecture, outer city.

Compared to the inner city's residents, the outer city was mostly home to down-and-outs and refugees who had gathered there in search of a livelihood.

Abandoned houses and buildings that had mostly collapsed were everywhere.

Even so, many of the broken-down houses were occupied. After all, they still offered some shelter from the wind and rain.

In this part of the outer city stood an old district crowded with tiled-roof houses.

That evening, as dusk fell, some twenty figures scattered and threaded their way through the old district.

Every one of them had a deathly pale face and stiff features.

If anyone had pulled back their sleeves or collars for a closer look, they would have been shocked to find that the skin on their necks and elbows looked as though it had been put on like clothing, wrinkling in folds.

By nightfall, the figures that had scattered across the district returned to a deserted courtyard like birds flocking back to their nest.

"Great Elder, we've searched the eastern part of the outer city. There's no sign of that man."

"Master, we've searched the southern part of the outer city. We haven't found a trace of him." Two groups of disciples arrived in succession and knelt on one knee before the pair seated in the courtyard.

Beneath a thatched shed in the courtyard, two old men sat cross-legged in the shadows.

One had more than a hundred strips of skin cord tied around his wrists, each covered in talismanic markings. The other had a dozen or so copper balls hanging from him. Their surfaces bore not Daoist talismans but Buddhist sutra seals. No one knew what was sealed inside.

The first was the White Sun Sect's Great Elder; the second was its Sect Master.

"That man stole our sect's treasure. He's reached a crucial stage in his second Metamorphic Rebirth. We must not let him succeed. Keep searching."

"Understood."

As the two groups of disciples, more than ten in all, prepared to leave, shadows flickered outside the courtyard. Two more disciples slipped in one after the other.

"Master, there's trouble in the west. We were ambushed."

"There's a small local gang called the Tooth Gang. The whole gang has been brought under that man's control. The martial artists who ambushed us were Tooth Gang members."

The two disciples knelt on one knee, their expressions wild. They were wounded, clearly fresh from a fight with the martial artists.

The frustration and fury on their faces showed that they had suffered a heavy loss.

In a less populated place, they could have wielded their Daoist arts without restraint. But this was the outer city of the prefectural capital.

If they stirred up a commotion with Nether Fire or used talismans to summon a horde of Evil Corpses, the authorities would likely send troops to surround and kill them at once.

"Come with me. How dare a bunch of lowly martial artists court death?" The two old men rose together from the shadows.

A moment later, led by the Sect Master and the Great Elder, nearly twenty Daoists gathered in front of a dilapidated courtyard.

Before they had even approached, sounds of fighting and agonized screams were already coming from within.

With a crash, a White Sun Sect disciple flew out and slammed hard into the wall of the alley.

"Hack him to pieces!"

"Rural heretic, how dare you disturb our new gang leader!"

"Another bunch of spineless Daoists, and two old geezers besides!" Amid furious roars, more than thirty burly men charged out of the courtyard, wild as tigers.

They surged forward. Before the White Sun Sect disciple who had hit the wall could rise, more than ten steel blades hacked him into a bloody pulp.

The White Sun Sect members' faces darkened, their expressions so grim they seemed ready to drip water.

Their gazes fell upon the courtyard. Five dismembered bodies lay there—their fellow sect members.

With their Qi Refining cultivation and a whole arsenal of Daoist arts, how had they ever fallen so low as to be hacked apart by a bunch of brutes?

They looked again at the burly men closing in. Their eyes were bloodshot, and dozens of Gu insects clung to each of them.

A closer look at the bulging veins beneath their skin showed that Gu poison had driven their blood and qi into a surging frenzy, granting them a tremendous burst of strength.

"Truly, you have the gall of a rabid dog." The White Sun Sect Master knew exactly who these men meant by their new gang leader: that Gu Master.

"Stand aside. Watch as this old man skins these curs alive."

The Great Elder narrowed his old eyes. More than a hundred strips of skin cord slipped from his wrists all at once.

"Brothers, all together!"

Across from them, more than thirty burly men filled the alley, fearless of death.

Some leaped into the air, some kicked off the walls, and others bent low and charged forward.

Like hungry wolves, they raised their steel blades and hacked at the White Sun Sect's Great Elder.

But in the next instant, white light flashed before the eyes of all thirty-odd men, and they fell where they stood.

Then the faces of more than thirty bodies split open. The slits widened, and the skin peeled away on its own, leaving over thirty human skins scattered across the alley.