Black clouds bore down on the town, and blue smoke coiled like a dragon.
The Temple of Lord Guan had a long history. It had stood here since the Southern Song dynasty, every brick and tile bearing the marks of time.
It was a large temple with three successive courts.
[Earth God's shrine at the entrance]--[Statues of the two blade-bearing generals in the main temple]--[Lord Guan himself]
The seething mass of dark souls instantly crushed the entire front hall. The Land God's shrine had long since turned to dust, and only the Deity Statues of Lord Guan's two Dharma Protectors, Zhou Cang and Guan Ping, manifested within the Temple of Lord Guan.
Their appearances were reasonably convincing.
Divine light blazed around them.
Zhou Cang in particular was broad-backed and powerfully built. Wielding an executioner's blade, he sliced through several dark souls with a whistling swing. But his aura was feeble, his imposing appearance merely a facade. Once the countless souls crashed into him, his true form was immediately exposed.
At a glance, he was nothing more than a vicious ghost made from a few scattered bones and a little rotten silver, mixed with a measure of malevolent energy. He had been captured and confined here to serve as a blade-bearing general.
The layer of divine light around him came only from taking advantage of his position and receiving a share of the incense offerings.
The dark souls' charge instantly stripped him back to his original form.
In moments, the paper figures tore him apart and devoured him.
As for "Guan Ping," he was even less capable of resisting. The sinister entity that had seized the Temple of Lord Guan had only managed to replace one and a half Deity Statues. It had never had the strength to disguise the remaining