After finishing his dried meat and taking a sip of water, Lu Mian took the Great Cleaver off his back and poured Talisman Water over it, holding another mouthful in his mouth.
A short while later.
The sun sank swiftly in the west, leaving only a final trace of twilight in the sky, barely illuminating Flying Cloud County Seat.
Yet Lu Mian, standing by the roadside, could already clearly sense that something was wrong with his surroundings.
Malicious gazes seemed to be peering at him from the pitch-black houses lining the street.
Hateful, sinister, cruel.
And there was more than one such gaze. Every house seemed to harbor one.
A chilling dread rose in Lu Mian's heart.
Lu Mian narrowed his eyes and forcibly suppressed his fear.
He knew that in such an eerie, terrifying environment, he absolutely could not let his emotions slip out of control.
Once he broke down, those evil spirits and weird beings would exploit the opening. They might even take over his body, possessing him outright.
Only by remaining calm could he face whatever dangers arose.
"Hehehe."
"Don't run. I'm coming to find you."
A burst of shrill, eerie laughter suddenly rang out.
Lu Mian's gaze snapped toward an alley entrance.
That eerie laughter had come from inside the alley.
The instant he heard it, an unnatural fear rose within him, bringing an urge to flee!
Yet Lu Mian refused to be frightened by that eerie laughter. Instead, he did the exact opposite, charging toward the alley entrance.
A woman with bloody tears streaming from her eyes and a deathly pale, vicious face happened to step out of the alley, just in time to see a savage, chilling flash of steel descend from above!
"Aaaah!!!"
The woman screamed.
Wasn't this fellow supposed to be terrified, flee in a blind panic, and finally die after I slowly toyed with him?!
Lu Mian's Great Cleaver showed no mercy.
The icy blade slashed down with savage force, cleaving the woman in two!
The Talisman Water coating the blade burned her straight to ash.
Lu Mian shook the Great Cleaver, flicking off the pus clinging to it, then spat the Talisman Water in his mouth onto the blade.
He chose not to absorb the woman's supernatural power.
She seemed capable of instilling fear in her enemies through sound.
But against anyone with a firm will, its effect was practically nonexistent. Her supernatural power was not strong enough.
Besides, Lu Mian already had No Truth. That was a truly lethal weapon; there was no need to waste another ten years absorbing this power.
Just as Lu Mian was about to leave, his heart suddenly clenched.
Whoosh!
Without the slightest hesitation, he swiftly twisted around, sweeping the Great Cleaver upward.
A deathly pale man had silently appeared behind Lu Mian. He had intended to launch a soundless sneak attack, never expecting his target's senses to be so keen.
He had only just extended his arm when the Great Cleaver sliced it clean off.
Immediately afterward, Lu Mian's left hand, already charged with power, opened wide and struck fiercely!
Subduing the Waves, Calming the Sea!
Whoosh!
The palm strike instantly whipped up a tremendous blast of air and landed squarely on the man's face.
Bang!!!
Lu Mian's palm blasted the pale man's entire head apart, and his body dissolved into white smoke.
"There really are a lot of evil spirits and weird beings in Flying Cloud County Seat."
"No wonder they sent us here to clear them out."
Lu Mian quickly regulated the blood and qi within his body.
He raised his head and looked at a house up ahead.
A face was pressed against its window, staring fixedly at him.
"What are you looking at?!"
Lu Mian strode toward the house and brought the Great Cleaver down with unrestrained force!
In a dim alley.
A six-person squad was locked in fierce combat with seven or eight resentful souls. After a close call, they finally slaughtered them all.
"Huff, huff..."
"That was close."
"That resentful soul's claws nearly caught my throat."
A thick-lipped man panted heavily.
A falcon was embroidered on the left side of his chest.
"That's why we need to be more careful from now on."
"Let's rest a bit and coat our weapons with Talisman Water."
A burly, somewhat balding man spoke in a low voice.
No one knew when the next wave of evil spirits and weird beings would appear.
Soon, the group finished recovering and preparing their equipment, then left the alley for the gloomy main street.
The moment they emerged, everyone's nerves tightened.
They saw a woman in a white dress dancing gracefully in the street ahead, her face impossible to make out.
Her dance was light and beautiful. Beneath the moonlight, she looked like a celestial maiden descended to earth.
The wariness in the balding captain's eyes vanished, replaced by absorbed admiration.
The same happened to the other squad members.
They watched the White-Dressed Woman dance, utterly entranced, forgetting everything else.
Before they knew it, a new desire arose in their hearts: they wanted to dance with her.
But they could not follow the White-Dressed Woman's dance at all. Their movements became grotesquely awkward, even horrifying!
Crack!
The balding captain seized his left hand with his right and forcibly snapped the joint backward.
Even his spine began twisting counterclockwise.
It sounded like the hands of a clock being adjusted.
His vertebrae snapped one after another with crisp cracks.
The twisting spread all the way to his neck. Even after his head had turned a full hundred and eighty degrees, it did not stop.
Still, they wanted to dance. Their joints kept snapping, twisting and tangling together with sharp cracking sounds.
Beneath the moonlight, the White-Dressed Woman had already vanished.
All that remained were several indescribably horrific corpses on the ground.
An hour later.
A stern, powerful figure entered the street.
"Hmm..."
Lu Mian's expression hardened when he spotted the grotesquely twisted corpses on the ground.
Their degree of distortion went far beyond anything he had imagined.
"Come dance with us..."
Suddenly, the heads of those twisted corpses all turned toward him at once. Their eyes fixed on Lu Mian as they issued their invitation.
For a moment, Lu Mian felt as though his limbs were slipping out of his control.
"Break!"
He abruptly circulated the tortoise-snake force within his body. It surged like a great wave, immediately restoring his control.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The corpses leaped off the ground and lunged at him in a frenzy.
Lu Mian drew the Great Cleaver and swung it fiercely forward with both hands, unleashing Fierce Tiger Sweeps the Forest!
The heavy, forceful blade sent the corpses flying.
Immediately afterward, Lu Mian leaped into the air and unleashed Furious Tiger Turns Over.
Cold blade light spilled down like moonlight, blasting apart the head of one twisted corpse.
Bang, bang, bang!
Lu Mian followed up with a succession of slashes.
Heavy chops, explosive cleaves, ferocious thrusts...
Under his heavy blade, the twisted corpses were hacked apart one after another, flesh scattering and bones shattering.
Bang!
Lu Mian brought his blade down.
The last twisted corpse was cleaved to pieces.
"This must have been a Falcon Squad."
"For all of them to have died here... they most likely encountered a First-Tier Fierce Spirit."
"I can't stay in this area!"
Without even pausing to catch his breath, Lu Mian gripped the Great Cleaver and started to leave.
Just as he reached the end of the street.
He suddenly spotted a white-dressed figure appearing at the intersection ahead.
She danced gracefully beneath the moonlight, her movements elegant and breathtakingly beautiful, like a celestial maiden descended to the mortal world.
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