Shedding Your Skin, Are You? You're Too Slow—Let Me Help You

Wang Lei crouched before the bronze stone doors, holding the stone tablet inscribed with Yin characters against the runes and comparing them one by one. Following the patterns, he slowly traced and deduced the distribution of the nine formation nodes.

Xu Jin stood to one side with his arms folded, standing guard. The astral energy around him condensed into a pale golden barrier, shielding Wang Lei from the cold Yin energy leaking through the cracks.

After a moment of silence, he proposed another solution. "Rather than slowly searching for the formation nodes, why not gather my sword aura at one point and blast the stone doors open?"

Without even raising his head, Wang Lei shook it. "No, no. This is a Han Dynasty Solar Flame Nine-Palace Formation. It's different from ordinary stone doors. Forcing it open will trigger backlash from the formation nodes and cause the Yin Baleful Qi inside the tomb to leak out on a massive scale. Then the water balefulness will spread along the river and bring disaster to the ferry crossing. The provincial authorities will hold both of us accountable."

As he spoke, he took out two warm, polished evil-warding jade talismans and a communication jade token from his robes, smacking them into his palm and giving them a shake. "I have the Qi-Discernment Technique. I can sense the positions of the formation nodes through the gaps in the runes, so I don't need to get too close. Just use your astral energy to block the leaking Yin Baleful Qi from the outside. It'll be perfectly safe."

Xu Jin weighed it for several seconds before finally nodding. "If you sense anything wrong, crush the jade token immediately. Better for the formation to remain unbroken than for you to force yourself through it."

Password locks in a supernatural world were such a pain. Enter the wrong password, and it even triggered a self-destruct program. Tsk.

Wang Lei answered, then slowly moved along the edge of the stone doors, occasionally leaving pale red marks at corresponding spots with the cinnabar brush in his fingers.

His eyes were half-closed as he activated the Qi-Discernment Technique to its fullest. The faint flows of energy beneath the runes appeared clearly in his perception, and the locations of the nine formation nodes emerged one after another.

With his perception extended, the rough outline of the burial chamber also came through. A stone platform stood in the center, with an enormous bronze coffin suspended above it. Yin energy had condensed to an almost tangible degree. Scattered bones lay all around, but there was no trace of living breath.

When he reached the lowest formation node, Wang Lei had Xu Jin inject a thread of astral energy. The instant it entered, the stone doors gave a muffled roar. The outer restriction loosened first, revealing a crack wide enough for half a person to pass through.

Bone-piercing cold Yin energy rushed straight at them, mixed with the stench of a thousand years of decay. Wang Lei shrank his neck. "Those ancient Han Dynasty cultivators were really wicked. They hid the formation nodes in such tricky places. A normal person might not find them all even after half a month."

Xu Jin pushed the astral-energy barrier forward, blocking the chill outside.

Once they had confirmed that all nine formation nodes were marked, Xu Jin stopped wasting time. A sweep of Molten-Gold Sword Aura slid through the crack, and the bronze hinges let out a piercing creak. The two heavy stone doors slowly slid apart, fully revealing the main burial chamber before them.

Nine stone pillars carved with pill cauldron patterns formed a circle. Above the central stone platform, the enormous bronze coffin hung suspended from three dark-iron chains. Several sets of craftsmen's dried bones lay scattered across the ground, while the faded murals on the walls still showed images of Han Dynasty pill-cauldron cultivation.

The cold Yin energy was even stronger than outside, yet there was no standing water. Clearly, the ancient cultivator had deliberately laid down a waterproof sealing layer.

Wang Lei peered inside, recalling some folk tales he had read in the archives, and casually said, "I once read in some miscellaneous records that old Daoists who walked the Yin path always liked to light a candle before a coffin to test the Yin energy. If the flame was unsteady, it meant something vicious was hiding in the coffin. How about we light a tinder stick and give it a try?"

"Folk remedies are useless." Xu Jin dismissed the idea outright. "Don't go near it yet. I'll cut the chains of the suspended coffin from afar and see what's inside first."

Yet he laughed inwardly. Light a candle and the ghost blows it out, huh? A classic part of every tomb-raiding novel worth savoring.

Still, opening a coffin right in its face was practically asking for death. Who knew whether there were corpse toxins or flying needles inside?

Xu Jin condensed a strand of Molten-Gold Sword Aura, its golden light locking precisely onto the three dark-iron chains.

Three crisp clangs rang out in rapid succession, and the chains snapped at once.

Clang—

The heavy bronze coffin crashed onto the stone platform, making the ground tremble slightly. The impact knocked the coffin lid askew, opening a narrow crack, and a rotten stench mixed with dense cold Yin energy immediately drifted out.

Xu Jin had no intention of stepping forward to inspect it. He raised his hand and sent another sword aura slashing straight through the gap into the coffin.

Just as the sword light was about to fall, a black shadow abruptly shoved open the coffin lid and shot out, narrowly avoiding the sword aura before landing heavily on the ground.

It was the male corpse of an ancient Han Dynasty cultivator, dressed in a Daoist robe. Its flesh was plump and intact, without the slightest trace of decay. Two clusters of ghostly blue flame burned in its eye sockets, while its fingernails were long, black, and glinted with a dark sheen.

The corpse demon let out a sharp, ear-piercing shriek upon landing. Sha Qi surged from its body like rolling waves, and the temperature in the tomb dropped several more degrees.

Xu Jin's expression did not change, and his heart remained utterly still.

Of course. Nothing in a coffin ever lay there obediently. It was bound to rise as a corpse—novels truly did not deceive me.

Still, this thing's entrance animation had some flair. Ghostly blue eye-fire, an aura of Sha Qi—the standard loadout for an elite monster. I just wonder whether it drops any powerful equipment.

Before the corpse demon could make another move, Xu Jin unleashed his full firepower. Several streaks of golden light slashed out in succession, and Solar Flame scorched the Yin Baleful Qi until it hissed and crackled.

Solar Flame naturally countered Yin evil. The corpse demon was driven back again and again, with the sword aura burning multiple charred wounds into its body.

"Stop, junior!" the corpse demon rasped in a hoarse, dry voice. Its Sha Qi condensed into a temporary barrier before it. "All the pill-cauldron inheritance in this tomb shall be yours. Spare my life—how about it?"

Xu Jin turned a deaf ear. Instead, his sword aura grew denser and more urgent, every strike slashing toward its vital points.

Villains die because they talk too much. Why the hell would I waste words with you? I'll cripple you first.

He mocked it inwardly, but his hands showed not the slightest mercy.

Wang Lei hid behind a stone pillar and swiftly searched through the copied records of the Demon Suppression Bureau that he carried with him. His fingers skimmed page after page until he finally found the corresponding entry under "Corpse Evil Entities."

His eyes lit up, and he immediately shouted at the top of his lungs, "Brother Xu! I found it! This is a Yin-Shedding Corpse Demon!"

"Han Dynasty evil cultivators used pill-cauldron Yin-water methods to refine corpses and preserve themselves in the world. It sheds its skin once every hundred years, and it's currently in its shedding period! This is when its body is most fragile and its Sha Qi is weakest!"

"Its chest is its vital point! Focus your attacks on its chest! If it successfully completes its shedding, it'll transform into a great water-baleful demon. Then the entire riverway will suffer disaster!"

Oh—so it had a weakened-phase mechanic. Xu Jin's mind stirred, and he stopped probing.

The Molten-Gold astral energy around him surged explosively. Scarlet-gold radiance enveloped his entire body, and behind him, the faint phantom of a Golden Crow beast raised its head. Its ferocious pure-Yang aura pressed down so hard that the Sha Qi throughout the tomb was forced back step by step.

With a tap of his toes, he lunged forward. The sword aura around him condensed into a massive sword several yards long, which came crashing down from above with a searing heat wave.

The corpse demon let out a miserable shriek and desperately drove its Sha Qi into a thick shield. But when the shield struck the enormous pure-Yang sword, it shattered layer by layer like thin ice meeting blazing fire, unable to hold for even half a breath.

Xu Jin closed in, slammed a palm onto the corpse demon's chest, and poured scorching pure-Yang astral energy wildly into its body.

"Refining corpses and shedding your skin, are you? You're too slow—let me help you."