After using a talisman to purge the corpse poison from Yan Jujian's body, Shi Xuan went over to the other side and woke Ding Mingde with a pat. Ding Mingde came to in a daze. "Brother Zi'ang, what was that sound just now? Why was it so piercing?"
"It should have been that ghost creature's innate divine ability, something akin to the Soul-Shocking Technique. But judging by the looks of it, she didn't know any other spells, or she wouldn't have been so easy to deal with." Shi Xuan made his judgment. In truth, that ghostly howl had been more like the banshee's scream from novels he had read before, only far less powerful.
With the poison removed, Yan Jujian slowly woke up. Seeing Shi Xuan and Ding Mingde standing beside him, he hurriedly got to his feet. He looked back and forth between them, then asked in confusion, "Did you two save me just now?" As he spoke, his eyes swept over the female corpse beside them. Its rotten appearance gave him a start as well. "This is that woman from before? How could she..." Suddenly recalling how crushing the woman's pulse gate earlier had done nothing, he did not continue.
Ding Mingde eagerly spoke before Shi Xuan could. "Hero Yan, Brother Zi'ang is an immortal walking this world with immense magical power! You didn't see it—the female ghost was effortlessly destroyed by Brother Zi'ang's immortal methods!"
Yan Jujian looked at Shi Xuan, then at the female corpse. He solemnly gave Shi Xuan a deep bow. "Thank you, Celestial Master, for saving my life. There was much misunderstanding before. I am truly sorry."
"All right, Hero Yan, you are worrying too much. But this is not the time for idle talk. The three ghost creatures they sent have all been destroyed by us. A larger-scale assault will surely follow, so we must prepare ourselves." Shi Xuan reminded them.
Only then did Ding Mingde remember that they were still in the ghost creatures' lair, and his face immediately went pale again. Yan Jujian was somewhat flustered, but he quickly steadied himself and said to Shi Xuan, "In this matter of eliminating ghosts, I will obey the Celestial Master in all things. Whatever the Celestial Master wishes me to do, I will do."
"Actually, with the abundance of your Qi and Blood, Hero Yan, ordinary ghost creatures would not dare approach you. The moment they came near, they would be scorched by the Yang Energy on your body. To harm you would require ghost creatures of a higher realm. At the very least, the three from before were incapable of it. They were simply very strange—not the kind of ghosts I am familiar with—so there must have been some special reason they could do so." Shi Xuan took the time to explain, since Yan Jujian was manpower he could still use later. "I am telling you this so that you do not lose confidence. When the ghost creatures attack later, you can still handle the ordinary ones. You only need to be more careful."
After hearing Shi Xuan's explanation, Yan Jujian visibly let out a long breath. He then signaled for Shi Xuan to quickly give them instructions on how to prepare.
Seeing that Yan Jujian had regained some confidence, Shi Xuan said with satisfaction, "Go shut all the windows and doors, then barricade them with tables and chairs. I will handle the rest."
Ding Mingde was somewhat puzzled. "Brother... Celestial Master, will blocking the doors do any good? Those are ghosts!"
Shi Xuan waved his hand. "Go do it quickly. The barricades are to guard against people mixed in among the ghost creatures."
Though Ding Mingde and Yan Jujian still had questions, such as why people would be together with ghost creatures, time did not permit them to ask more. The temperature throughout the courtyard seemed to have dropped several degrees, while gusts of wind swept through in waves.
Seeing the two begin their work, Shi Xuan did not remain idle either. He picked out the more than twenty talismans he would soon need one by one and laid them on the table. This sharply depleted his supply of talismans. Aside from the dozen or so Old Daoist Xu had left behind, fewer than twenty of those he had drawn himself remained.
Ghost Dispelling Talismans, Soul Suppression Talismans, Evil Breaking Talismans, and many others were activated one by one after Yan Jujian and Ding Mingde finished their work, then affixed to the appropriate spots on the windows, doors, and walls. After placing nearly twenty talismans, Shi Xuan was drenched in sweat from exhaustion. Unfortunately, he did not yet know any defensive formation spellcraft, or he would not have needed to use so many. At the same time, he placed the remaining seven or eight talismans in the easiest-to-reach spots in his sleeve pouch and on his belt.
Now green light, now white light, now red light—the successive flashes of spellcraft left Yan Jujian and Ding Mingde staring wide-eyed as Shi Xuan chanted incantations and activated talismans. Only then did Yan Jujian truly believe that Shi Xuan was an expert with genuine magical power, while Ding Mingde was so excited he could neither sit nor stand still.
When Shi Xuan finally stopped, Ding Mingde attentively poured him a cup of water. Shi Xuan checked that there was nothing wrong with it before drinking with relief, then dropped heavily onto a stool. "Now we are fully prepared. All that remains is to wait for them to make their move."
"Celestial Master, I wonder... I wonder... about becoming... a disciple?" Ding Mingde held it in for a long while, unable to figure out what exactly he wanted to ask.
"All right, you should still call me Brother Zi'ang. Brother Mingde, what do you wish to ask?" Seeing Ding Mingde's hesitant, struggling expression, Shi Xuan guessed that he wanted to ask whether he could take him as a master and learn spellcraft. Shi Xuan aspired to the Dao Path and had no time to accept disciples, but he and Ding Mingde could be considered fated. Moreover, over the past few days, he had seen that Ding Mingde was a person of fairly good character. If he truly made the request, the Returning to Truth Scripture had yet to find a successor anyway, so Shi Xuan could first teach him its first three layers. If Ding Mingde truly achieved something in the future and they met again through fate, it would not be too late to give him the latter portions.
"Let's... let's talk about it after this matter is settled." Ding Mingde could not quite let go of worldly life. In the legends he knew and the storybooks he had heard, those seeking immortality had to enter the deep mountains to cultivate.
Shi Xuan did not press him, for he had already sensed many ghosts and corpse creatures pouncing toward them from every direction. Rising to his feet, he said to the other two, "All right, the ghost creatures are here."
Yan Jujian and Ding Mingde sprang to their feet and listened intently. Faintly, they could hear countless ethereal cries, shouts, and wails drifting over, drawing ever closer.
Yan Jujian took a deep breath, picked up his enormous sword, and took up a position diagonally in front of Shi Xuan, directly facing the room's door. Ding Mingde kept murmuring under his breath, "The Master did not speak of strange powers and disorderly spirits..." Then, slowly bolstering his own courage, he moved to stand beside Shi Xuan.
The nearest ghost creatures soon reached the courtyard. To Shi Xuan's senses, these were the most orthodox sort of ghosts, rather than those strange ghost creatures from before that had been thick with Death Qi. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Orthodox ones were good—at least the talismans he had put up would have no trouble blocking this wave. Of course, this was only the first wave.
The closer the ghosts came, the more piercing their shrieks became. A single one was not much, but with so many ghosts gathered together and screaming at once, their power was enough to surpass the ghost creature's scream from before. Yet the instant those shrieks approached the room where Shi Xuan and the others stood, they triggered the talismans' effects. Streams of golden light flowed like water across the windows, doors, and walls, blocking every sound wave produced by the shrieks.
Thus, the sounds heard by those inside had already been filtered through the talismans. None of the three became dizzy or disoriented, though Ding Mingde did appear somewhat restless and agitated.
More and more ghosts poured in from outside. When their shrieks proved ineffective, the ghosts at the front began crazily ramming themselves against every part of the room. Any ghost that struck the golden light scattered into smoke amid a shriek, yet they surged forward one after another, without the slightest hesitation. Under this suicidal assault, the golden light slowly began to dim.
The surroundings were black as ink. Even the moon, which had still been visible earlier, was now obscured by dark clouds that had appeared over the courtyard. The entire courtyard was so dark one could not see one's own outstretched fingers. Outside the door, beyond the windows, behind the walls, and atop the roof, piercing ghostly shrieks and the sounds of bodies crazily striking the golden light came from all directions except beneath their feet. Yan Jujian and Ding Mingde, inside the room, were both gripped by extreme tension from the atmosphere. One had many experiences and could hold himself together, while the other's legs were already trembling and his entire body shook.
Shi Xuan remained fairly calm behind the door. After all, he still had many talismans on him. If those he had put up could wipe out these weak ghostly foot soldiers, that alone would count as completing their task. At the same time, he was secretly alarmed. He had originally thought that a person with vigorous Qi and Blood would not be attacked by ordinary ghosts, but at this rate, Yan Jujian could likely withstand only forty or fifty ghosts' suicidal attacks before his Qi and Blood weakened and he was devoured by the ghosts behind them.
In less than a quarter of an hour, nearly a thousand ghosts coming from all directions had died beneath the golden light. Only a few scattered stragglers remained, still hurling themselves against it. The golden light had already dimmed to near darkness and likely could not withstand many more attacks.
At that moment, heavy thudding footsteps sounded from not far away, slowly yet steadily approaching the courtyard. Shi Xuan sensed around a hundred of them. Their aura was very similar to that of the three ghost creatures from before, only their Death Qi was thicker and more sluggish, and they moved very slowly. It seemed that because of this speed, they had not launched their attack alongside the earlier ghosts.
After this period of regulating his breath, Shi Xuan had recovered to the state he was in before using the talismans. Yan Jujian and Ding Mingde, having grown accustomed to things, were no longer quite so nervous either.
The ghost creatures slowly entered the courtyard, their footsteps heavy, and they appeared to possess considerable strength. The one at the front cried out in a hoarse voice, "The master kindly entertained you, yet you do not know good from bad. While the master is cultivating, you ruined the master's beloved maidservant. This old servant has come specifically to seize you and await judgment." It was unmistakably the Head Steward who had led them in.
Shi Xuan had not opened his Heavenly Eye before, but now that he looked at the Head Steward again, he could tell that his aura was basically the same as the three maidservant ghost creatures from before—thick with Death Qi, yet retaining considerable spiritual intelligence. Mm, there were also two beside him with roughly the same intelligence.
Thinking of the traits of those maidservants from before, Shi Xuan said to Yan Jujian, "The ghost creatures outside should be much like the ones we killed earlier. Their fleshly bodies are more like garments, so unless you destroy their core, you will not cause them any real harm. Hero Yan, take care. It would be best if you can sever their necks or smash their heads."
Yan Jujian nodded with conviction. "After seeing the Celestial Master act twice, I have some confidence in killing ghost creatures. But that shrieking attack is impossible to guard against. Must we plug our ears? But then how could we listen to the wind and discern sounds to evade attacks?"
Shi Xuan nodded. Taking out talismans, he used the Disaster Aversion and Blessing Incantation, the Righteousness and Evil Resistance Incantation, and the Earth Absorption Armor Technique on each of the three. Of these, the Righteousness and Evil Resistance Incantation was chiefly used to resist mental and soul attacks from ghost creatures. Shi Xuan sighed softly. Nine more talismans had vanished from his person at once. Only eighteen of those he had drawn himself remained: five Qi Induction Thunder Talismans, five Golden Light Soul Breaking Talismans, two Earth Armor Talismans, one Soul Sealing Ghost Summoning Curse talisman, one Righteousness and Evil Resistance Incantation talisman, one Toxin Removal Talisman, two Universal Salvation Sweet Rain Incantation talismans, and one Fire Burning Talisman.
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