With this stroke of my brush, let all horrors cower!

Riding the Wolf King, Lin Yi followed the giant wolf for a full kilometer before reaching the place where it had gone on alert.

"An unlucky convoy?"

Lin Yi and the Wolf King hid in the shadows.

Before them lay a scene of unbearable carnage, a hell on earth.

Bodies covered the ground.

The corpses were mutilated; not a single one was intact.

Overturned vehicles surrounded them. They had clearly suffered a terrifying attack. Wreckage littered the area as far as the eye could see.

At the center of this hellish scene, an old Daoist in purple robes stood against the wind, a longsword in hand.

But his once-purple robes were now stained with all manner of dark-brown filth-congealed blood!

Before the old Daoist loomed a massive, hideous ghostly face.

The face measured a full four meters across.

It floated in midair, black fumes billowing from it.

Its eyes were scarlet, and its torn maw chewed incessantly.

As it chewed, severed human limbs tumbled from its mouth.

Clearly, it was the culprit behind the convoy's destruction!

Just then, the old Daoist moved.

He pointed his sword at the sky, his voice ringing out.

"Resplendent heavenly might, Five Thunders Orthodox Law!"

Boom!

Countless bolts of purple lightning gathered in the sky, then hurtled toward the ghostly face.

Boom!

The lightning collided with the face, unleashing another terrifying explosion.

"Aaaah!!!"

The ghostly face let out an agonized howl.

Its impenetrably dense black fumes surged.

As though enraged, its features began to contort.

The old Daoist's body seemed to slip beyond his control, gradually stiffening.

Then he actually drew his longsword toward his own neck.

Just then.

The old Daoist abruptly bit through the tip of his tongue, and clarity returned to his eyes.

A furious roar pierced the heavens.

"Xuanqing, watch closely! This move can only be used once in a lifetime!"

"Heaven is round, earth is square; the laws have nine chapters."

"With this stroke of my brush, let all horrors cower!"

As he spoke, the old Daoist traced intricate steps.

A taiji diagram and the eight trigrams appeared. The ghostly face howled, but could not draw any closer!

As his words ended, the old Daoist spat out a mouthful of blood.

"With the second stroke, the patriarch's sword summons the heavenly gods!"

Behind him, an immense phantom slowly took shape.

The phantom looked like an enlarged version of the Daoist.

Its features were indistinct. When Lin Yi looked, all he saw was distortion.

It could not be looked upon directly!

The old Daoist continued chanting.

"With the third stroke, fierce gods retreat! What ghost dares show itself? What fiend dares stand against me!"

The old Daoist raised his sword, and the phantom raised its sword.

"Roar!"

As though sensing fear, the ghostly face turned to flee.

"Answering the Three Pure Ones above and the heart below, heaven is clear and earth is numinous!"

As the old Daoist finished speaking, an unremarkable sword stroke seemed to cross space itself.

The sword struck.

There was clearly still some distance between the longsword and the ghostly face.

Crack, crack, crack.

A grating sound of shattering rang out.

"Aaaah!!!"

The ghostly face screamed shrilly, its features breaking apart piece by piece!

Finally, filled with bitter resentment, it turned into black smoke that scattered through the air and vanished.

Clatter. The longsword fell with a sharp ring.

Thud. The old Daoist collapsed, devoid of life.

The phantom behind him gradually dissipated as well.

Lin Yi had not expected the old Daoist to pay for his attack with his life too.

In the old Daoist, he seemed to see the moment Da Sha had saved him.

He remembered what Da Sha had said before fading away.

"Some powers always come at a price..."

"Ah."

Thinking of Da Sha, Lin Yi could not help sighing. A golden monkey hair appeared in his hand, leaving him momentarily lost in thought.

"Master... Master..."

The sudden voice made Lin Yi stiffen.

Trembling slightly, he looked up. "Da Sha..."

No, it was not Da Sha.

From behind a wrecked vehicle, a youth in tattered white Daoist robes came scrambling toward the Daoist's body.

The youth reached the Daoist's side and stood rooted there, staring blankly at his corpse.

Tears pattered down.

"Master... Master..."

He slowly crouched and frantically wiped the blood from the Daoist's face.

Sadly, the Daoist never responded again.

"Waaah... Master... Master..."

Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

The youth paled, quickly picked up the Daoist's longsword, and looked warily behind him.

The newcomer had a handsome but rather cold face.

Behind him stood a Wolf King whose presence was oppressive.

It was Lin Yi.

Without a word, Lin Yi approached the Daoist.

Group Transfer activated.

The ice covering the ground, mixed with soil, instantly appeared off to the side.

A shovel appeared in Lin Yi's hand. He casually tossed it to the youth. "In Huaxia, we believe the dead should be laid to rest in the earth. You wouldn't want your master to have no peace even after death, would you?"

The youth glanced at Lin Yi, then looked at the old Daoist's peaceful face.

He bit his lip and wiped his tear-streaked cheeks.

Without speaking, he gently placed the Daoist's remains in the pit, then picked up the shovel and filled it with soil, one shovelful at a time.

Lin Yi went to where the ghostly face had vanished.

A mask lay quietly on the ground.

He picked it up, and its information appeared.

[Anomaly name: Grimace's Mask.]

[A certain Daoist's final swan song.]

[Anomaly ranking: 3007.]

[Trait 1, False Face: the ghostly mask can take on anyone's appearance.]

[Trait 2, Hallucination: creates illusions and confuses the mind!]

[Cost of use: the moment you put on the mask, you will lose all facial expressions!]

"An Anomaly ranked in the three thousands, huh?"

Lin Yi glanced at the youth digging the grave and casually tossed it to him. "Your master paid for this with his life. Keep it safe."

The youth caught the mask and froze for a moment. He had not expected Lin Yi not to keep it for himself. "Thank you."

"Heh, I don't like taking advantage of others." Lin Yi waved a hand and wandered through the convoy. "Hmm, plenty of supplies. Mine. This is mine too. Hmm, a modified vehicle. A bit smashed up, but that's mine too..."

The youth: ...

He could no longer quite make sense of the man before him.

But soon, he quietly resumed burying his master's body.

The youth was just an ordinary person, and he did not bury him quickly.

The burial alone wasted a full half hour.

Lin Yi, meanwhile, found three Anomalies in the convoy.

They had been left behind by dead Sequence Transcendents.

He had to admit, a favorable wind was nowhere near as fast as a light-fingered hand.

Unfortunately, their sequence rankings were all too low to serve as smelting materials for piecing together a proper vehicle. Lin Yi gave them a glance and tossed them into the Blood Ring to gather dust.

Lin Yi mounted the Wolf King and turned to leave.

Unexpectedly, the youth dropped to his knees before the Wolf King with a thud and looked firmly at Lin Yi. "Senior, I know you're a capable man. I want to follow you."

"I want to kill evil spirits until peace is restored to the world!"

Lin Yi gazed at the youth. "I can't teach you anything."

The youth clenched his fists. "I don't need you to teach me anything. I only need you to give me time to grow!"

After Da Sha's death, Lin Yi had actually decided not to form too many ties with anyone again.

But the master and disciple before him had reminded him of Da Sha.

After a moment's silence, Lin Yi finally sighed and said, "Then if one day I ask you to die for me, would you still be willing?"

"I would!" The youth blurted it out almost instantly.

"Gather your master's belongings and get ready to leave." Lin Yi waved a hand, signaling for the giant wolf to take the youth along.

But the youth hesitated at his words and pointed at the severed limbs scattered across the ground. "I want to lay them to rest."

Lin Yi glanced at them, somewhat speechless.

How much time would it waste to bury them all? Still, his expression remained unchanged. "Do your own work yourself."

The youth nodded, took the shovel, and began chipping at the ice, one strike at a time.

Lin Yi simply sat on the Wolf King, showing no intention of helping.

About half an hour later.

A graceful figure in white came across the ice.

Lu Hanxue stood in midair, her eyes fixed on Lin Yi.

"What brings you here?" Lin Yi was somewhat puzzled.

"Oh, Li Jie was afraid you'd died." Seeing that Lin Yi was fine, Lu Hanxue turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Lin Yi: ...

He did not understand, but he respected it.