Strange Tales

Yu Chen turned his wrist, and the Fire Snake Dart fell into his hand. The Yin Snake Chain transformed into a little white snake and slithered down his robe to the ground.

The man had no idea someone else was nearby. Not long after the female corpse left, he impatiently rose to his feet, went before the open earthen mound, and reached in to pull out a child. With a strange laugh, he said, "A Corpse-Born Child—it really is a Corpse-Born Child!"

As he spoke, he took several more bottles from his sleeve and raised one, about to pour its contents into the child's mouth.

Go! Yu Chen flicked his finger, and the Fire-Snake Mark shot forth as a serpent-shaped streak of flame, aimed straight at the man's brow.

"Ha!" Faced with the sudden attack, the man retreated half a step. Rather than loosen his hold on the child, he let the bottles in his hand fall to the ground and swung his free hand fiercely through the air.

The Yin Qi, turbid Qi, and Sha Qi swirling through the mass graveyard converged and flowed into the man's palm, transforming into an invisible blade of light that struck the Fire Snake Dart with a piercing screech.

But before the man could determine where the attack had come from, a snake shadow sprang from the ground and bit for his wrist.

Unable to change his move in time, the man could only release his grip and slap at it. Rolling Sha Qi burst from his palm, turning into streak after streak of invisible blade light in midair. They struck the Yin Snake Chain and sent it flying away.

Three-Yin Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber!

Yu Chen's expression shifted slightly. In the Eastern mythological system of the game world of old, this divine ability had been quite famous, hailed as one of the nine great Dharma-protecting divine abilities before one entered the Dao. Its entry requirements were so low that only the widely circulated Eight Great Divine Incantations surpassed it; among the other Daoist arts, few had a threshold as low as the Three-Yin Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber.

This art was a collective term for a major category of unorthodox techniques. Its origin was said to lie in the Xuantian Tradition, borrowing the power of the True Martial Grand Emperor. Through prayers, kowtows, and sacrifices, one stored three strands of True Martial divine power within the three hand-yin meridians: the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian, and Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian. When needed, they could be unleashed. Within a radius of one zhang, the invisible blade light rivaled divine weapons and treasured blades in sharpness, while containing the True Martial Grand Emperor's divine power to slaughter evil and subdue demons. It was a first-rate Dharma-protecting divine ability.

Later, after spreading among the common folk and undergoing all manner of alterations, it became an unorthodox art based on drawing upon the power of the northern Black Tortoise constellations, or even primarily on yin-cold elemental Qi.

Compared with the orthodox Three-Yin Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber technique, such unorthodox paths were inferior in every respect and carried more or less some negative effects. Yet they also offered far more choices. Depending on the external power borrowed, the three hand-yin meridians could store anywhere from roughly three to thirty-six blade lights.

From Yu Chen's experience, this short man seemed to follow a path that used the power of the northern constellations as Heavenly Yin, the Sha Qi and turbid Qi around him as Earthly Yin, and the yin-cold Qi within his body as Human Yin. When activating it, Human Yin served as the main force, Heavenly Yin as support, drawing in the surrounding Earthly Yin until the three yins merged into one and formed chilling blade light.

By Yu Chen's estimation, this method could condense at least twelve blade lights. Naturally, he would not stupidly rush out to clash head-on with the other party.

Standing where he was, Yu Chen raised his hand and traced one illusory shamanic glyph after another through the air. The snakes and insects living nearby answered the summons and gathered here in droves.

The man also realized something was wrong and tried to rush out of the mass graveyard. But the Demon-Slaying Saber technique he cultivated had not reached a high level; its Sha Qi was broad but impure, its Yin Qi wicked but crooked. Against ordinary people, it naturally possessed boundless might, but against the Yin Snake Chain and Fire Snake Dart, refined through shamanic rituals and cleansed with Yu Chen's Dharma power, it could hardly damage their fundamental spirituality.

With a slight summons from Yu Chen, the Yin Snake Chain and Fire Snake Dart once again came under his control. They hid at the edges and knocked the man back to where he had started whenever he was about to break free.

After going back and forth several times, the man had activated the Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber repeatedly in a short span. His Yin Qi and Sha Qi began to slip out of control, with some of it invading his body and turning his face bluish-green.

Yet the snakes at the side showed no sign of dwindling. Instead, influenced by the corpses of their kind nearby and Yu Chen's shamanic incantations, some began to mutate. Absorbing the deathly Qi around them, they became corpse snakes and charged at the man one after another, wave upon wave.

Damn it! The man turned his wrist and unleashed two more blade lights, then pulled a copper coin sword from his robes.

This copper coin sword was less than a foot long. Its ancient copper coins, round without and square within, were bound together by a slender red thread, while faint Incense and Fire Prayer Power flowed across their surface.

He raised it and swept it around him. An aura resembling shamanic arts, yet distinctly different from them, emerged and dispelled part of the effect of Yu Chen's shamanic incantations. Some of the mutated corpse snakes suffered backlash and fell to the ground.

However, he failed to notice wisps of mist winding around his ankles as the corpse snakes around him died. Overjoyed, he thought only of leaving this place as quickly as possible, but the Yin Snake Chain and Fire Snake Dart shifted back and forth, sealing off every route of escape.

What troubled him even more was that, as time passed, corpse snakes once again gathered around him, while the copper coin sword's wondrous effects grew weaker and weaker. Some corpse snakes were no longer affected by it at all.

Gritting his teeth, the man took out two yellow talismans and pasted them onto his calves. Then he threw away the infant in his hands and slashed out seven or eight blade lights in succession, cutting apart the corpse snakes around him and knocking away the Yin Snake Chain and Fire Snake Dart as they shot forth.

The man leaped into the air. A horse's shadow appeared over his body, then wrapped around him and swiftly vanished from Yu Chen's sight.

Divine Travel Art? Yu Chen's eyes lit up as he casually summoned several mist snakes to protect the child.

The technique the man had just used was called the Divine Travel Art, while the talismans pasted onto his calves were known as Horse-Armor Talismans. In all manner of folk tales, those bearing titles such as Divine Traveler Protector or Thousand-Li Steed were generally masters of this art.

According to legend, the speed of the Divine Travel Art depended on the number of Horse-Armor Talismans used. Using two at once allowed one to travel five hundred li in a day; using four at once allowed one to travel eight hundred li in a day. It was a very typical spellcraft of the Eastern system.

Combining it with the Demon-Slaying Saber technique from before, Yu Chen had already vaguely guessed the other party's background. He hurriedly summoned over the mist snake that had just saved the infant and lowered his head to look.

The child was skin and bones, his face bluish-green and his Yang Qi weak. Yet a lone point of Yang at his chest stubbornly suppressed the Yin Qi within his body and preserved his life.

Yu Chen could not help sighing. So it really is a Corpse-Born Child.

The original text of Strange Tales: Corpse-Born Child recorded: "A pregnant woman is buried, her soul unwilling to rest. It attaches itself and gives birth to the child; this is called a Corpse-Born Child. After growing up, its limbs are cold and its face blue-white, like that of a dead person. Only the lingering Yang in its heart protects its soul and guards its body..."

Put simply, after a pregnant woman died, she was unwilling to let go and forcibly retained one breath, giving birth to the child that had already taken shape. Because this child had been nurtured by a dead person, it was born resembling a corpse, but a breath of innate Yang Qi remained in its chest to preserve its life.

From a certain perspective, an existence like a Corpse-Born Child, poised between life and death, yin and yang, was exceptionally suited as material for refining living corpses, or as prime material for cultivating unorthodox arts.

In the game world of old, the method for maximizing the value of a Corpse-Born Child had also been discovered: refine it into a living corpse and feed it to its mother. Use the point of innate Yang Qi in its chest to stir the Yin Qi within the mother corpse, harmonizing yin and yang and creating the illusion that the female corpse had become pregnant again.

At that point, in order to nurture the child, the mother corpse would madly devour human blood. In the end, the vitality and deathly Qi within her body would reach equilibrium, the innate Yang Qi would meld into the Yin Qi, and the dead mother corpse would revive, becoming a Corpse Mother capable of commanding dead bodies and contaminating the living.

Strange Tales: Corpse Mother recorded: "A woman's love for her child drives her into madness. Her soul is trapped within her corpse, unable to transcend, growing increasingly foul by the day. Her seven emotions severed, she devours her child to return to life, drinks the blood of a hundred people, gives birth anew, and becomes a Corpse Mother."

Although Yu Chen had never triggered the linked storyline of the Corpse-Born Child and Corpse Mother in the game world, he still knew a little about the specifics.

If this really is that storyline, then the man who escaped should be the shop waiter known as Chen Ergou. Judging by the methods he displayed just now, he should possess a fragment of the <Supreme Truth Life-Seizing Message Yin Talisman Treasure Register>.

Yu Chen held the child in his arms and was just about to sense the mark he had left on Chen Ergou when he heard the sound of some large animal running.

Turning his head, he saw the woman who had gone out to buy rice paste charging madly toward where Yu Chen stood.