Naga Sorcery, Belt-to-Snake Technique

Roam Northern Yue at dawn, reach Cangwu by dusk; with a green snake in his sleeve, his courage ran deep.

"This was the real Wong Tai Sin."

Huang Bai's appearance meant his techniques had already reached completion.

Zhi Gang and the others were naturally overjoyed.

The atmosphere on the other side was far less cheerful. The entire forest fell silent for a moment.

More than two hundred gunmen held their weapons, staring up at the Daoist suspended in midair. The ferocity on their faces gradually turned to bewilderment, until all that remained was irrepressible terror.

The leader was the first to recover, and his face suddenly darkened.

"Playing tricks." He raised a hand and pointed into the sky. "Shoot him!"

He did not believe there was a ghost hunter in this world who did not fear guns and artillery.

The instant he finished speaking, gunfire erupted.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

Muzzle flashes spat wildly as a barrage of bullets swept through the air like a torrential downpour.

Hundreds of guns fired at once, making the valley hum and quake. Bullets traced searing paths through the air, rushing densely toward the floating figure.

Zhi Gang's heart leapt into his throat.

Huang Yaozu and Li Guoqiang's expressions changed drastically as well, and they instinctively wanted to rush out.

But what happened next left everyone rooted to the spot.

The bullets hit.

Every shot landed.

Huang Bai's body swayed repeatedly in the air. His chest, shoulders, waist, abdomen, and temple were all pierced by bullets. Countless bullet holes riddled his figure, nearly turning him into a sieve.

Yet there was no blood, let alone broken bones or an instant death.

The bullets merely passed through him, as though they had struck a phantom.

Huang Bai remained standing in the air, his long hair whipping about and his Daoist robe fluttering loudly.

"Wh... what is that thing?"

"Can't hit him?"

"It's not that we can't hit him... it's that it does nothing!"

Tongtian King stood where he was, the smile on his face frozen.

He could sense that the thing in the sky was not a living human body at all. It was a soul leaving its body, the ability in which the vicious ghosts took such pride.

And now, they had discovered that they were not the only ones capable of it.

The leader's expression changed completely, and panic surfaced in his eyes for the first time.

"Keep shooting! Don't stop! Shoot him down!"

The gunmen could only grit their teeth and pull the triggers again.

At that moment, Huang Bai moved. He raised a hand and formed a spell gesture, golden light flaring from his fingertips.

The next instant, Huang Bai dove from the sky like a divine thunderbolt crashing down from the heavens.

Boom!

He landed squarely amid the gunmen. Golden light shot wildly through the crowd as earth exploded and shattered stones flew everywhere. The shockwave sent several nearby gunmen flying, while the streaking golden light instantly claimed more than ten lives.

Before anyone could react, a sword gleam flashed.

Buzz!

The ritual sword left its sheath, its cold radiance piercing.

The four gunmen in the front row were cut in half, bodies and guns alike. A bloody mist burst beneath the morning sun, while severed limbs and firearms littered the ground.

Without slowing, Huang Bai lunged forward and fired the Solar Curse three times from his left hand.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three streaks of golden light pierced through the crowd in succession. The foreheads of three gunmen in the rear, who had raised their guns to launch a sneak attack, burst apart at the same time, and their bodies toppled backward.

"Stop him!"

"Shoot! Shoot him!"

"Don't let him get close!"

The forest descended into chaos, gunfire, screams, and furious curses all mixing together.

To Huang Bai, these people were little different from wooden stakes.

Guns and artillery were useless against a soul body.

Huang Bai charged into the crowd with his sword. His movements were so fast that they nearly left afterimages. Wherever his ritual sword passed, hands were severed or heads were taken.

Some had only just raised their guns when their wrists flew away; others turned to flee, only to have golden light pierce straight through their backs.

Blood streamed down the slope, and the grass and trees beneath their feet were quickly stained red.

This was a slaughter in the truest sense, utterly one-sided.

The composure on Tongtian King's face vanished completely, and he turned to retreat.

But Huang Bai had already fixed his eyes on him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Before the words had even faded, Huang Bai kicked off the ground and shot forward close to the earth, reaching him in the blink of an eye.

Unable to escape, Tongtian King raised a hand and unleashed an evil technique. His orange monk's robe billowed as a black shadow shot out.

It was a two-headed cobra, a Naga Sorcery from Thailand. This evil art was capable of harming soul bodies.

The two-headed cobra stretched several meters long and bit toward Huang Bai's soul body.

Slash!

The ritual sword came down mercilessly, cutting the Naga snake in two. Its body fell to the ground and transformed into a brown cloth belt.

At the same time, three streaks of golden light shot toward Tongtian King.

Half of Tongtian King's body split open on the spot. His monk's robe, flesh, bones, and black aura exploded together.

"Aaaah!!!"

The old ghost let out a shrill scream. His corpse hit the ground, while his ghostly form shattered into four pieces and turned into a mass of drifting glimmers that all surged into Huang Bai's body.

"Tongtian King!"

The leader's eyes nearly split open in disbelief.

This old monk might not have been the strongest among the Ghost King's subordinates, but he was no disposable minion to be killed on a whim. Yet in Huang Bai's hands, he had not even lasted three moves.

"Retreat!"

The ghost leader roared sharply and turned to flee deeper into the woods.

Huang Bai tilted his head and glanced at him.

The next second, Huang Bai rose into the air and passed through layer after layer of tree shadows.

The ghost leader had only run a dozen steps when Huang Bai landed before him and immediately slashed out with his sword.

The ghost leader roared. His face instantly transformed into something ghostly, fangs jutting outward as his hands swelled into jet-black ghost claws that tore viciously toward Huang Bai's chest.

The remaining gunmen rushed forward together.

Whoosh!

Huang Bai vanished.

The next moment, one of the gunmen revealed a strange smile and raised his gun, firing a shot that pierced through the leader's chest.

The ghost leader froze, overwhelming despair surging up within him.

That was a vicious ghost's technique.

And this man was even stronger. He could even possess a body already possessed by a vicious ghost.

In the instant he was distracted, Huang Bai appeared again, golden light severing his neck.

The ghost leader's head rolled twice across the ground, terror still frozen on his face.

Huang Bai raised a hand and followed up with another Solar Curse. Golden radiance entered through the ghost leader's brow and emerged from the back of his head.

Bang!

A huge mass of yin energy and drifting glimmers was sucked into Huang Bai's inner core like a whale swallowing water.

This time, the entire forest truly collapsed into panic.

"The ghost leader is dead!"

"Run!"

"Run for your lives!"

The remaining gunmen could no longer hold themselves together and scattered in every direction. Some threw away their guns, while others stumbled and fell. There was not a trace left of the savage presence they had shown while surrounding the mountain.

Huang Bai did not give chase immediately.

Zhi Gang and the others had already come out with guns to finish things off.

Standing amid the corpses strewn across the ground, he slowly raised his head and looked at the helicopter circling overhead.

The people in the helicopter had been sweeping the mountain with spotlights just moments ago. Now they were frantically scrambling about, desperately trying to gain altitude.

Huang Yaozu stared at Huang Bai in the sky, his eyelid twitching violently.

"He isn't thinking of chopping that thing down too, is he...?"

Before Li Guoqiang could speak, Huang Bai had already moved.

His figure shot into the sky.

Morning light fell over him as golden radiance flowed around his body and his Daoist robe billowed. He was as fast as an arrow loosed from a bow, catching up to the helicopter in the blink of an eye.

The faces of the people inside the cabin turned white.

The pilot frantically pulled the controls, but it was already too late.

Huang Bai drew close to the cabin door, and golden light pierced through the pilot's forehead.

Boom!

The entire helicopter crashed and exploded. Fireballs and fragments filled the sky, like blood-red fireworks blooming amid the dawn clouds.

He slowly descended back into the forest, standing beneath the rising sun with his ritual sword hanging at his side, not a single drop of blood staining him.

Corpses lay everywhere around him, firearms scattered across the ground. Firelight and bloodlight mixed together, casting his peerless ferocity into sharp relief.

Huang Yaozu, Li Guoqiang, and Zhi Gang were all dumbstruck.

After a long while, Zhi Gang was the first to come back to his senses. He wiped his face hard and burst into laughter.

"Awesome!"

"Sure enough, only immortals can keep vicious ghosts in check!"

"You damned vicious ghosts can possess people, but so can we!"

Huang Yaozu's chest rose and fell, and even the hand gripping his gun trembled.

Looking at the figure ahead, he suddenly felt that the humiliation he had suffered and the beatings he had taken over the past few days had finally been repaid, if only a little.

Li Guoqiang was even more speechless. He only felt that this sight before him would be enough to stay with him for the rest of his life.

Huang Bai sheathed his sword and turned to look at the three of them.

"We can catch up later. First, finish them off."

"Right, finish them off!"

"Don't let a single one escape today!"

Huang Bai's soul body flew to a secluded spot and returned to his physical body.

He then went to Tongtian King's remains.

He found a leather-bound book inside the monk's robe, its cover covered in crooked ancient seal script.

"Belt-to-Snake Technique."

Just as Huang Bai had guessed, such remote villages had instead preserved ancient arts intact.

"Let's return to Hong Kong."

Humanity's counterattack began at this moment.