Flesh-Bone Green Robe Was Unaffected

In the hall, where a faint sandalwood fragrance drifted through the air, a bed had been brought in temporarily.

The sleeping girl on the bed was Elder Qi Rui's most beloved disciple, a genius demonic cultivator who had reached the Core Formation Realm at just nineteen.

Yet last night, this genius demonic cultivator had been ambushed and afflicted by some kind of curse-and-gu poison technique, nearly dying in her sleep.

Though Qi Rui had intervened in time and saved her beloved disciple, Qin Haie was still gravely injured.

Today, Qi Rui had invited three other elders of the Demon Refining Sect to gather here. The four of them intended to join forces and drive the evil spirit from their disciple.

Yet even working together, the four elders couldn't dispel the evil presence from Qin Haie.

—or rather, they couldn't find any trace of it on Qin Haie.

Ge Hongshan, one of the four, was a master of curse arts and talismanic arts.

He had studied curse arts and talismans for many years, and was familiar with all kinds of evil curses and gu techniques.

Such wicked arts relied on some cursed object as a medium to harm people.

If they found the source of that cursed medium and cleansed it, they could drive out the evil spirit.

However, after searching Qin Haie from head to toe, he found no trace of any cursed medium on her. There was no way to trace it back to its source.

It seemed that this female disciple, so beloved by Elder Qi Rui, hadn't been cursed at all.

But there was no way last night's events had been a lie. Clearly, the curse inflicted on Qin Haie this time was some kind of more secretive and powerful evil art.

So, after discussing it, they decided to let Qin Haie fall asleep and draw out the evil presence in her dream once more.

Then the four elders in the real world could join forces to trap the evil presence in Qin Haie's dream and kill it.

This was the simplest and safest method. The four elders of the Demon Refining Sect would join forces to kill the source of the evil, leaving it no chance to escape.

...In theory, that was how it should have gone.

But when the gravely wounded Qin Haie fell asleep on the bed they had brought in, the four elders keeping watch at its sides, standing in formation, were startled.

Though the formation had partially sealed off the room, not a trace of sinister energy drifted in, and there was no sign of an evil creature appearing. Yet the sleeping Qin Haie let out a shrill, terrified scream.

"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

Qin Haie thrashed her head from side to side on the bed, her face filled with terror.

She seemed to have seen something horrifying, yet she couldn't escape it.

Seeing her disciple react this way, Qi Rui's heart ached.

She immediately looked at Ge Hongshan and asked, "Elder Ge, should we act now?"

Ge Hongshan stood at the eastern side of the bed, his expression grim.

"It came as soon as she fell asleep... What a tenacious evil spirit!"

The creature had acted so quickly that he hadn't sensed a thing before it entered her dream.

That made no sense.

But under everyone's watchful gaze, Ge Hongshan remained calm. "Elder Qi, don't be alarmed. The four of us are here today. We'll make sure that evil spirit leaves with its tail between its legs!"

As a master of talismans and curse arts, Ge Hongshan naturally had confidence in himself.

There were countless curse arts in this world, but he had studied and understood nearly all of them.

Though the evil creature before them was somewhat unusual, he was confident he could deal with it.

"Elders, please light the Longevity Incense in your hands! Use the smoke to form a formation, lock down Qin Haie's dream, and keep that creature from escaping!"

At Ge Hongshan's words, the elders standing around the bed lit the Longevity Incense in their hands.

Billowing smoke rose through the hall, gradually filling the space.

From outside, the entire hall seemed to be shrouded in smoke.

The hazy mist gradually formed what looked like a huge cage.

In the middle of that cage, on the bed, the unconscious Qin Haie kept crying out, as if she were running for her life through a nightmare.

Above her body, the mist faintly outlined a figure running without pause.

It was Qin Haie.

The Qin Haie formed from the mist ran in terror, glancing back again and again as she fled.

Behind her, a strange shadow gradually took shape in the swirling mist.

Long, horrifying legs dangled and drifted through the air like the tentacles of a monster. It wore the colorful, vivid costume of a painted-face opera performer, its colors painted in a way that sent a chill through the heart.

The monster flickered in and out beside Qin Haie, now near, now far.

A strange hissing sound came from its mouth, making anyone who heard it feel their blood run cold.

The four elders present were all top demonic cultivators, long accustomed to demons and monsters. Yet when they heard that strange sound, they still felt their scalps tingle beyond their control.

It was as if some ancient fear buried in their blood had been awakened...

A flicker of surprise crossed Ge Hongshan's eyes.

"This evil creature..."

He didn't recognize it!

At that moment, Ge Hongshan suddenly had a bad feeling.

The smoke outlined the contents of Qin Haie's dream, revealing the evil creature's movements.

But no one present had ever seen anything like it. Even Ge Hongshan, a grandmaster of curse arts, found the creature unfamiliar.

"Everyone, focus! We'll lock down the dream at once and join forces to kill this creature!"

Sensing that something was wrong, Ge Hongshan didn't dare delay. He immediately called on the elders to act together.

Once they used the smoke from the Longevity Incense to kill the creature's projection, its true form would collapse as well.

This was the simplest, most direct way to drive out an evil spirit.

No matter how strange the creature was, could it really withstand a combined attack from four elders of the Demon Refining Sect?

At Ge Hongshan's words, all four elders channeled their power at once. The Longevity Incense gripped in their hands began to burn rapidly.

From the rapidly burning incense, wisps of dark red smoke rose.

The moment the red smoke appeared, it transformed in midair into a fine-meshed demonic net.

Then the four elders attacked together. The net, formed from their demonic power, dropped straight down, covering the strange shadow drifting through the smoke.

Once the demonic net caught the creature's projection, its true form would perish as well!

Ge Hongshan stared fixedly at the shadow flickering in and out of the smoke.

He watched with his own eyes as the red demonic net dropped from above and slammed down over the shadow.

But the next moment, something strange happened.

The net passed straight through the creature's projection without harming it at all.

Instead, within the smoke, the shadow easily caught up to the fleeing Qin Haie and tore a chunk of flesh from her shoulder.

"Aah! My arm! My arm!"

Qin Haie screamed in agony on the bed. As flesh was torn from her in the dream, blood sprayed from her shoulder in the real world too. A chunk of flesh was truly missing from her right shoulder.

At the sight of that horrifying, bloody scene—and the strange sight of the demonic net failing to catch the creature—Ge Hongshan's expression darkened. At last, he remembered what the evil creature was.

"This is an ancient evil fiend, long since extinct! The Flesh-Bone Spirit Puppet!"

"Our Longevity Incense can't lock it down because it isn't actually inside Qin Haie's dream."

"It's using some unknown, bizarre method to harm Qin Haie's soul from afar!"