The next morning, before the rising sun had completely dispelled the chill of the Gobi Desert, a muffled, thunderous sound of horses' hooves suddenly came from outside the stone village. Dust billowed into the sky, and shouts of men and neighing of horses, along with a strong sense of menace, surged in.
"The bandits are coming! Old people and children, hide quickly! Young men, follow me to fight them!"
The village was immediately tense but not chaotic. Under the command of Third Master Zhang and Fifth Master Zhang, the old, weak, women and children quickly hid, while dozens of young men gripped their weapons and gathered in front of the simple village gate, their eyes resolute.
Outside the stockade, dozens of fierce riders arrived in an instant.
These bandits wore simple leather armor and rode Dragon Scale Horse were eight feet tall at the shoulder, covered with cold blue scales, and neighed violently.
They all reeked of blood, and their eyes were cruel; they were clearly a group of ruthless killers.
The leader was a one-eyed man dressed in a dark red blood-red robe. His face was sinister, and a deep, bone-revealing claw mark ran from his forehead to his jaw, adding to his ferocity.
What is most striking is the small, dark-colored banner hanging from his waist.
The banner, no bigger than the palm of a hand, faintly contained the writhing, twisted phantoms of vengeful spirits, emanating a chilling aura that made one feel uneasy.
The Dragon Scale Horse he rode was also taller than the other bandits' horses, and with each thud of its four hooves, a hint of dark red malevolent energy emanated from it.
He raised the bone whip wreathed in black energy, pointing it directly into the stronghold, his voice hoarse like an owl's. " Zhang San, Zhang Wu! The time limit has been reached, and the Source Stone are insufficient. Today, I will use the lives of your entire stronghold to sacrifice for this Nether Ghost Head Banner!"
The roaring sound carried a sinister power that eroded the mind, causing some of the younger, stronger men in the village with lower cultivation levels to turn pale and their souls to tremble.
However, before he could finish speaking, a calm voice, seemingly containing the ultimate truth of the universe, rang out from the village.
The sound, neither too loud nor too soft, was like a warm, smooth jade chime, instantly dispelling the evil sound waves and clearly reaching the ears of every living being, even resonating deep within their consciousness. "Disturbing one's peace and quiet, it seems the characteristics of the Northern Region are indeed everywhere."
The numbers, though merely numbers, seem like the grand pronouncements of the Dao, carrying an irresistible majesty.
The one-eyed man felt as if his primordial spirit had been struck by a heavy hammer. He groaned, and the murderous aura surrounding him instantly dissipated.
The dozens of fierce Dragon Scale Horse behind him were terrified. They reared up, let out mournful cries, threw off the bandits on their backs, collapsed to the ground, trembling and unable to get up.
Only the one-eyed leader, relying on his Dao Palace Realm cultivation, managed to hold on, but even he was suffering from turmoil, his single eye filled with horror and disbelief as he stared intently into the stronghold.
A figure in a blue Daoist robe appeared, silently standing in mid-air. There was no divine light emanating from him, but he seemed to have merged with the entire world, becoming a tangible form of the Tao.
His gaze fell calmly, like a deity high in the heavens, looking down upon the chaos of the world, without joy or sorrow, indifferent Eternal.
The one-eyed man was terrified. He had only sensed this kind of aura when he met the patriarch of the Soul Refining Sect who had been in seclusion for many years. The person in front of him was even more unfathomable!
He no longer cared about saving face, and almost rolled off the Dragon Scale Horse, prostrating himself on the ground. His voice trembled violently with extreme fear. "Immortal, Immortal Venerable, please forgive me! I, I did not know that the Immortal Venerable was cultivating here in seclusion. I deserve to die!"
I am willing to offer all my savings, only begging the Immortal Lord to spare my life!
He dared not mention his sect in the slightest; before such an existence, the name of a sect was nothing but a path to death.
Li Qingshan looked down at the thugs kneeling before him like ants, his eyes showing no emotion whatsoever.
He didn't even bother to speak to him, but simply pointed his fingers like a sword and lightly slashed at the Void.
"Buzz!!!"
A dazzling Five-Colored Divine Light appeared in response to the command, initially only a foot or so long, moving as nimbly as a swimming dragon.
The instant they left the body, they transformed into dozens of small, five-colored dragons. These dragons seemed to disregard the rules of space, traversing distances in an instant and precisely entering the dantian ( Bitter Sea) of every bandit on the ground.
"No! My cultivation level!!"
The bandits cried out in terror, discovering that the Bitter Sea had instantly fallen silent, and all divine power had been completely suppressed.
The one-eyed leader reacted the fastest. The instant Li Qingshan raised his hand, a look of madness and despair flashed across his face. He suddenly tore off the dark banner from his waist, bit his tongue, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the banner.
" Ten Thousand Souls Devour the Immortal! Arise!"
He roared furiously, and the Nether Ghost Head Banner grew taller in the wind, reaching a height of about ten feet, with black mist billowing on its surface, and a howling wind raged in an instant.
Countless ferocious vengeful spirits roared out, emitting piercing screams, and condensed into a gray-black soul tide that swept towards Li Qingshan and Shizhai like Shrouding the Heavens!
Wherever the soul tide passed, the light dimmed, the grass and trees withered instantly, and even the essence of heaven and earth was polluted and eroded.
"To command living souls and forge them into an evil banner is an even greater crime."
Li Qingshan's eyes turned slightly cold. Facing the terrifying soul tide that was enough to instantly annihilate the souls of the Dao Palace cultivators, he simply opened his mouth and gently inhaled.
This inhalation was like Kun Peng swallowing the sky, revealing the surging, Shrouding the Heavens, dark gray tide of souls ahead.
Like a long river flowing into the sea, it transformed into a twisted torrent, which was swallowed up by it without any hindrance!
The shrieks of ten thousand souls abruptly ceased, the pervasive evil aura vanished, and the world returned to its clear state.
"Burp." Some sharp-eyed villagers even seemed to hear a faint burp.
Immediately, Five-Colored Divine Light flowed slightly around Li Qingshan, instantly refining the swallowed soul-destroying energy and returning it to nothingness.
The one-eyed leader, whose life-bound evil banner had been broken and whose mind was now connected to the enemy, suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, and his aura instantly weakened.
He tried to struggle, but Li Qingshan flicked his finger, and a faint five-colored light arrived first and entered his body.
"Ah!"
The one-eyed leader let out a scream ten times more shrill than when he had been attacked, as if he had been thrown into a five-elemental hell.
It felt as if five completely different forces were simultaneously tearing, crushing, burning, freezing, and eroding my internal organs, limbs, and bones!
His body surface was sometimes charred black, sometimes covered with frost, sometimes withered muscles, and sometimes swollen as if about to burst.
Five-colored light flickered within his body, leaving him unable to live or die.
As for the remaining bandits, they had already been completely sealed off by the five-colored dragon, as if bound by invisible shackles, stiff on the ground, unable to move even a finger, their eyes filled with boundless fear.
Li Qingshan moved slightly, as if teleporting, and appeared in front of the bandit leader who was wailing in the Five Elements Purgatory. Ignoring the horrifying scene, he pointed a finger at the bandit's ancestral aperture between his eyebrows.
"Soul Search."
The word "cold" is like the final judgment.
The bandit leader's body convulsed violently, and the light in his single eye quickly faded. The secret information about the forces behind him and the periphery of the Primordial Ancient Mine, which had been protected by the restriction in his memory, was revealed to Li Qingshan like an open scroll.
A moment later, Li Qingshan withdrew his finger and casually flicked his sleeve.
The bandit leader, who had been tormented by the power of the five elements to the point of near annihilation and barely clinging to life, was tossed onto the scorched, blackened earth in front of the stone village gate, which had been eroded by the evil banner's yin energy, as if discarding a piece of tattered trash.
These people are now in your hands.
His voice remained calm and undisturbed, as if the devouring of the soul tide and the application of the Five Elements Extreme Punishment with a flick of his finger had merely brushed away a speck of dust from the corner of his robe.
He didn't even glance at the complex gazes of the people in Shizhai, a mixture of extreme shock, ecstasy, the pleasure of revenge, and deep awe.
His figure faded into the background and disappeared from the spot, as if he had never been there.
For him, the bloodshed of revenge was nothing more than a few minor disturbances on the path to enlightenment.
His gaze had already pierced through the Void, landing deep within the Demon Mountain shrouded in endless mystery and danger.
With the Stone Garment in hand, the path ahead is clear. It's time to explore the legacy of the Great Emperor Wushi and the extraordinary book, " The Source Heaven Book," which can reveal the origin of heaven and earth and control the dragon veins of mountains and rivers.