Paper Figures

"?!"

Before he could act, more and more green vines broke through the earth. In the blink of an eye, they had bound his hands and feet, even wrapping his mouth tightly shut.

"How dare you, you skulking rat!"

Lu Xiaowei's eyes nearly split with rage. Three short nails gleaming with black light flew from his sleeve and hovered in midair as he watched his surroundings warily.

"Sheng Nian..."

A figure appeared atop the waterfall cliff, his voice carrying down into the valley.

"What do you want with him?"

"Song Yesheng..."

Lu Xiaowei ground out each word through clenched teeth.

"Ambushing the three of us fellow disciples on a dark, windy night-is this how a righteous, reputable sect behaves?"

Song Yan sneered. "Who told you our Dongyuan Sect was a righteous, reputable sect?"

"I should be asking you... what have you come back for at this hour?"

"..."

Lu Xiaowei's gaze froze, and he fell silent.

What truly horrified him was that the cliff stood at least fourteen or fifteen zhang from the valley floor. Controlling a Law Technique from that distance...

This Song Yesheng...

Could he be a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator?!

"It's late..."

Beneath the clear moonlight, Song Yan's voice sounded somewhat cold. A standard-issue flying sword hovered beside him, its tip aimed straight at Lu Xiaowei, poised to strike.

"I'll give you only thirty breaths to explain..."

"What is your master plotting..."

"What do you want with A-Nian..."

"And... did you have anything to do with those three missing villagers from Yunding Village?"

The other disciple beside Lu Xiaowei quietly reached toward his Heaven and Earth Bag, though it was unclear what he intended to take out.

"Hiss-"

Hearing something strange beside his ear, he turned to look. A pair of blue-gold slit pupils entered his vision.

The back of his neck went numb, and a violent wave of dizziness swept over him. He immediately collapsed to the ground.

"..."

Lu Xiaowei turned to look, but the little snake had already vanished. Song Yan's voice came from behind him.

"You have twenty-five breaths left."

It was not that Song Yan was unwilling to show consideration. Although his Divine Sense could sustain it, the strength of his spiritual power only allowed him to squander thirty-odd breaths controlling a Law Technique at this distance.

"You forced me!"

A trace of madness flashed through Lu Xiaowei's eyes. His fingertips brushed his Storage Bag, and three streaks of blood-red spiritual light flashed.

Hum-

The counting on Song Yan's lips stopped at once. At that same instant, the flying sword beside him shot straight toward Lu Xiaowei's face.

Clang!

A dull sound rang out. Song Yan frowned, and a Spirit Stone quietly appeared in his hand as he began drawing spiritual power from it.

The bloody spiritual light faded, revealing three coffins of spirit wood standing upright before Lu Xiaowei.

Song Yan's flying sword was embedded squarely in the middle coffin.

Bang!

All three coffins split open at once. Foul-smelling black mist gushed out, and three walking corpses slowly stepped down from within.

Coarse hemp clothing, withered features, eerie green ghost-fire flickering in their eye sockets...

These three walking corpses should be the three missing villagers.

The look in Song Yan's eyes abruptly turned cold. Now, he had completely snuffed out any thought of sparing these three men.

He extended his right hand and closed it around empty air from afar.

Behind Lu Xiaowei, the first-level Qi Refining cultivator, almost wrapped into a human rice dumpling by the green vines, seemed to sense something and began struggling violently.

Boom!!

Blazing flames spread across the green vines in an explosive instant, but several vines still bound his mouth tightly, leaving him unable even to scream.

Song Yan paid him no further attention. His fingertips tapped repeatedly as he prepared to recall his flying sword, only to see the middle walking corpse suddenly leap high and snatch the sword out of the air!

"?"

Song Yan's expression sharpened, doubt rising in his mind.

In fact, techniques for controlling walking corpses were not necessarily of the Evil Dao. Quite the contrary: tracing them to their origins, they had actually arisen from the Wu Nuo Tribe's beautiful wish for souls to return to their homeland after death.

Later, to punish cultivators guilty of heinous crimes, some members of the Wu Nuo Tribe refined their bodies into Yin Corpse Puppets to guard the tribe, repaying the sins they had committed in life.

Only then had techniques for controlling Yin Corpse Puppets begun to develop and evolve.

Although Song Yan had never seen a genuine technique for controlling corpses, he had once read a sect elder's comments on such techniques in a certain text.

"In the Southern Border, there are techniques for controlling corpses. However, those that can be controlled during Qi Refining move slowly and have fragile bodies. In battles between Qi Refining cultivators, they often win through numbers..."

Lu Xiaowei was only at the third level of Qi Refining...

How could this corpse leap more than a zhang into the air with such ease, like a martial arts master?

Before Song Yan could think further, the corpse gripped the flying sword in a reverse hold and swung hard, hurling it toward him wrapped in thick black blood!

Song Yan brought both his spiritual power and Divine Sense to bear, seizing control back. Yet the black blood on the blade seemed capable of obstructing the manipulation of spiritual power, making the flying sword less responsive to his commands.

But Song Yan did not panic. He merely put the flying sword into his Heaven and Earth Bag without a change in expression.

"My experience fighting others is still too shallow..."

In that moment of distraction, the three walking corpses actually climbed swiftly up against the waterfall, their joints making teeth-grating friction sounds.

The leading corpse suddenly opened its jaws, spraying a foul wind laden with putrid poison straight at Song Yan's face.

Fireball Technique.

The hand seals in Song Yan's hands changed in rapid succession. Three streaks of flame shot out one after another, sweeping aside the poisonous mist.

"Hahahahaha... so what if you're at the middle stage of Qi Refining? With the Yin Corpse Puppet Rebirth Nails Master gave me... urgh... cough, cough..."

Lu Xiaowei barely looked human now. His eyes were blood-red, and the color rapidly drained from his face.

Kneeling on the ground, he coughed up blood repeatedly. The protective Spiritual Qi around him faltered and dispersed on its own.

"Kan position, reverse!"

As though he had expected this, Song Yan neither dodged nor retreated. He merely stared at Lu Xiaowei, gave a few cold laughs, and hooked his fingers in a hand seal.

Twelve Law Artifact fragments scattered beforehand flew backward from behind Lu Xiaowei, passing through his body with ease.

The sounds of several fragments piercing flesh rang through the valley.

After passing through Lu Xiaowei's body, most of the fragments fell at the waterfall's edge. Only three continued flying toward Song Yan without slowing.

Just as the three walking corpses were about to close in...

Pfft, pfft, pfft.

The three fragments pierced the walking corpses' skulls, carrying out the three sinister black nails lodged inside their foreheads. Then their speed plummeted, and they shot into the rocks behind Song Yan.

The leading corpse collapsed like rotten meat, falling beside Song Yan's feet.

Whatever else Fireworker Stockade lacked, it had no shortage of Law Artifact fragments.

"You're dying now... and you still won't talk? What exactly did you want with A-Nian?"

"You, Song... heh... hehehe..."

The emotions on Lu Xiaowei's face were complex: "regret," "release," and even "exhilaration"...

Yet there was no "remorse."

"Master... will surely accomplish a mighty undertaking to endure through the ages..."

"This human realm..."

"Is nothing but something already in our sect's bag!!!"

"Hahaha... hahahaha... ha..."

Lu Xiaowei collapsed onto the ground, his laughter growing weaker and weaker until, at some point, he breathed his last.

"..."

Song Yan wasted no more words questioning him. He simply watched quietly as he died.

Whoosh.

Two Fireball Techniques flew out with a flick of his fingers, landing on Lu Xiaowei's body and that of the first-level Qi Refining cultivator whom Xiao He's venomous fangs had already killed.

Watching the fiercely burning bodies, Song Yan pondered.

"The more I hear... the more they sound like Devil Cultivators..."

The Rogue Cultivator of Xin Mountain...

A Rogue Cultivator?

Song Yan had heard that Rogue Cultivators would also establish marketplaces resembling villages or mountain stockades on some mountain, huddling together for warmth.

Usually, anyone who dared name himself after a mountain like this would have to be its top figure, wouldn't he?

But Song Yan had never heard of a place called Xin Mountain in the State of Chu.

"Hm?"

Song Yan's thoughts were interrupted, his gaze turning somewhat blank.

From the three sets of remains burned to ashes before him, three bloodstained little paper figures were slowly crawling out...

"This..."

The little paper figure belonging to Lu Xiaowei's remains waved both hands, sweeping the ashes aside.

Its scarlet "head" slowly rose, looking at Song Yan not far away...

As though it wanted to remember his appearance.