The Battle to Defend the Village

Following the traces of human activity, the monsters found their way.

"Boom!"

Another Soul Shock Blast exploded. This time, Lin Xu had chosen a spot in the middle of the monster horde.

A Demon Fly in flight burst apart, sending a psychic ripple as tangible as solid matter spreading from it. In an instant, the ripple swept through the entire horde.

The two nearest Demon Flies were caught in the shockwave and burst into fireworks of blood and flesh on the spot.

Two Evil Eyes were caught in it, and their souls were immediately dealt a devastating blow. Cracks spread across their pitch-black eyes, and dark purple blood seeped from their shattered pupils. Their enormous flesh-ball bodies swayed, nearly falling to the ground.

Compared with those in the air, the monsters on the ground fared even worse.

The monster nearest the chosen Demon Fly was only three meters below it.

At such close range, it was struck by the soul shockwave almost in the blink of an eye.

The nearest black-robed magician froze in place. The next second, his head exploded on the spot.

Another black-robed mage nearby spat out a mouthful of blood, then lay down and fell asleep. The other three mages swayed, barely able to stay on their feet. Clearly, they had been dealt a devastating blow.

The three dark warriors closer to those mages, on the other hand, froze for only a moment before recovering. They did not appear to have suffered severe injuries.

The skeleton soldiers suffered the greatest losses. These bone frames wielding bone swords shuddered all over and scattered into piles of bones—the fragile soul fires in their skulls had already gone out the instant the soul shockwave swept over them.

The deliberately aimed soul shockwave swept down a swath of monsters.

This time, the monsters, having suffered heavy losses, finally reacted. They quickly spread out into a skirmish formation and advanced toward the village.

Seeing the monster horde's scattered formation, Lin Xu breathed a small sigh of relief.

The Bright Light Lamp refined large quantities of Dharma Coins, converting them into magic power and then into a beam of light that entered the Evil Eye's sea of consciousness, replenishing its spent magic power.

Since it was magic power refined through the same Lamp Kindling God-Descending Chapter, the Evil Eye only needed to refine it a little before taking it for its own use.

The magic power expended by the two consecutive Soul Shock Blasts was rapidly recovering.

The dungeon monsters continued to close in, and Lin Xu began a new round of harassment.

With a thought, several paper figures floated from the sleeve pouch of his Daoist robe. Upon landing, they grew to the size of ordinary people and held weapons, looking quite the part.

Five yin soldiers floated out of the Soul-Nourishing Pagoda. Over the past few days, Lin Xu had found time to subject them all, including the yin soldier squad leader and the elite resentful spirit, to Water and Fire Refinement and Deliverance, refining them into guardian spirits that were nearly spirit bodies.

These soul bodies, emitting a faint spiritual glow, rushed into the paper figures. They passed through them as seamlessly as water blending with milk, instantly becoming one with them.

This was a special ability the yin soldiers gained only after undergoing Water and Fire Refinement and Deliverance.

Name: Yin Soldier / Paper Figure · Cyan

Race: Spirit Body / Puppet

Level: 3

Strength: 14

Agility: 15

Constitution: 7

Spirit: 9

Intelligence: 5

Health: 74/74

Skills: Netherfire Pierce · White (Intermediate), Traverse · Cyan (Intermediate)

Paper Toughness · Cyan (Beginner): Skin like oil-soaked cyan paper, resistant to ordinary swords and blades; physical defense +5

Evaluation: Combining the qualities of both physical and spirit bodies, its form is like wind and shadow, its attacks and defenses impossible to trace.

After merging, the yin soldier paper figures' base attributes rose sharply, and their combat power increased considerably.

The six paper figures flashed, becoming a streak of white light that shot out of the village like an arrow loosed from a bow, covering four or five hundred meters in an instant.

By this time, the dungeon monsters had already drawn close to the village. Some Evil Eyes had even seen the fortifications built on its outskirts.

Just then, several streaks of white light flashed into the monster horde and transformed into paper soldiers wearing helmets and armor.

The paper blades in their hands had been empowered with magic power and were like weapons of iron. With a flash of white light, one pierced a goblin's bright green head, spilling green blood and brains across the ground.

After killing it in one strike, the yin soldier did not hesitate, pouncing on the panicked dark elf archers ahead.

Caught by the sudden attack, the goblins froze briefly and stopped in their tracks without thinking.

Just then, an invisible psychic force swept over them. The greenskins' vision blurred, and a group of little dwarfs appeared in their ranks at some unknown point, strutting and flaunting their might at them.

Ah! Gnomes, those damned bugs!

The goblins flew into a rage and charged, waving their rusty short blades.

More than a dozen goblins had their minds bewitched by the elite resentful spirit and attacked the nearby dark elves. The archers were thrown into disarray and could no longer threaten the paper figures.

As the monsters fell into chaos, the elite resentful spirit slipped behind a black-robed mage like an assassin and reached out with its illusory claws.

The black-robed mage had only just sensed his shield being touched when his vision blurred, and a familiar figure appeared before him. "Ah, my lord, how did you..."

In his surprise, he lost his last chance.

The next moment, the shield was pierced, and the ethereal claws seized his soul...

Under Lin Xu's precise command, the first to suffer the yin soldiers' surprise attack were the mages and archers, the most vulnerable yet highly threatening members of the monster horde.

By now, the monsters had spread out, and the yin soldiers' sudden attack immediately put them at a disadvantage.

"Whoosh!"

A fireball streaked toward an attacking paper figure.

But white light flashed, and the paper figure dodged the fireball. Wielding a long spear, it went straight for the caster. The spearpoint, burning with ghostly blue flames, pierced the caster's chest in an instant.

Blue fire danced on the corpse, illuminating the monsters' terrified faces.

"Ha!"

As the yin soldier paper figures seized the advantage and slaughtered everything in their path, a low roar suddenly came from the chaotic monster horde. A dark warrior advanced with heavy but swift strides, the greatsword in his hands tearing through the air as he chopped straight at the nearest paper figure.

The greatsword came down with crushing force, but in that instant, the paper figure turned into a sheet of paper and drifted away on the wind, avoiding the fatal blow.

The next instant, the sheet spun lightly through the air like a butterfly before abruptly reforming into a human figure. The paper spear in its hand stabbed out like a venomous snake darting from its hole, its ghostly blue light shooting like an arrow straight for the dark warrior's brow.

The dark warrior's dark battle Qi burned, and the greatsword in his hands, heavy as a mountain, swept toward the approaching paper figure. Its momentum was like an ink-black thunderbolt, tearing through the air.

"Crack!"

The paper spear shattered before the ink-black thunderbolt, its fragments fluttering like butterflies.

The yin soldier was driven back several steps by the tremendous force. Cracks appeared all across its tough paper skin, and ghostly fire flickered between the gaps, burning the paper away bit by bit.

The dark warrior's battle Qi erupted, and a streak of ink-black sword light tore across the sky, striking the battered paper figure in an instant.

The paper figure's chest exploded. Ghostly fire scattered in all directions, and its shattered body abruptly dissolved into a sky full of ash. The ashes swirled into a spiral on the wind, then flew straight toward the village.