An inexplicable chill sent shivers down Xie An's spine.
In an instant, countless past details flashed through Xie An's mind:
The words Su Yuqing had said during their initial transaction…
Su Yuqing often stood alone in the courtyard, gazing at Great Yin Mountain, her desolate and lonely figure… undoubtedly reflecting the unimaginable pressure this Princess was enduring.
Now it seemed, Su Yuqing's real concern was the thing inside the cellar, wasn't it!?
There was also something else that gave Xie An a clearer guess: When he was absorbing the Undead Qi of the Silver Corpses at the White Feather Hall's cavalry camp, he had experienced a tug-of-war.
Su Yuqing had explained that it was the work of the High Priest of the Corpse Refiners.
But at this moment, Xie An felt: Perhaps the High Priest was just an intermediary, and the one truly engaged in the tug-of-war with him… was this fellow in the cellar!?
Gulp!
Xie An swallowed hard.
Being forced to this place by the Corpse Men…
By a twist of fate… Xie An had discovered such a huge secret.
Xie An, who was usually calm and collected, couldn't help but feel a little panicked at this moment.
It was human nature to panic when faced with crisis and unfavorable circumstances. But Xie An knew that such emotions would not help solve any problems, but only make things worse.
He took several deep breaths in a row, allowing his brain to regain its calm and think.
He held his knife horizontally in front of him with his right hand and quickly scanned the direction of the courtyard. He saw that more and more Corpse Men were gathering, roaring and gesticulating wildly, but they still dared not step into the courtyard.
"Why are the Corpse Men so mad, but still dare not step into the ancestral hall?
Is it because the High Priest has set rules?"
Xie An felt that this was unlikely.
People in a state of extreme madness would do things that overstepped the line. Even an ordinary, gentle young man would fight back if pushed too far.
Not to mention the enraged Corpse Men? Would they care about the High Priest's rules?
Xie An followed this line of thought and analyzed: If the Corpse Men were not afraid of the High Priest's rules, then they must be afraid of something even more?
As for what that thing was, Xie An had already thought of it: It was the thing in the cellar.
The thing in the cellar was quite frightening.
Corpse Men in front, a cellar behind.
This was going to be deadly…
Fortunately, the Crystal Commander hadn't arrived yet and hadn't led the Corpse Men to rush in.
The scene looked scary, but the actual danger… hadn't started yet.
There was still time!
Xie An shook his head, withdrew his gaze from the direction of the courtyard gate, and stared at the cellar again.
He knew very well that the Corpse Men were just a bunch of puppet tools. The key to breaking the situation was not the Corpse Men, but this cellar.
"That's not right!"
Xie An saw that although the Undead Qi around him was constantly entering the cellar, it was not being completely absorbed.
That didn't make sense.
"It seems… these Undead Qi are nourishing the thing in the cellar!"
Nourishing… that made more sense.
Just then—
Bang!
A loud noise came from outside the courtyard. It was a Crystal Stone that had arrived on the scene.
Yu He, who was standing inside the threshold, was also stunned. The palm of her hand holding the sword paper was sweating, and she was ready to activate the sword paper at any time… Unexpectedly, the Crystal Commander was dead?
And died so inexplicably.
Su Yuqing and the people from the Demon Suppression Division hadn't arrived yet, so it was obviously impossible for them to have done it.
Then…
Yu He suddenly turned her head and saw Xie An sitting cross-legged in the center of the ancestral hall, looking very focused.
Was it Master?
But she didn't see Master make a move…
Yu He's intuition was right.
The moment Xie An saw the Crystal Corpse Commander appear, he directly activated the Dao Talisman in his mind and sucked away a batch of Undead Qi.
Since Xie An didn't know which transparent vessel the Crystal Commander outside the door corresponded to, Xie An directly sucked away the Undead Qi from the three vessels in one go: twenty-eight strands, twenty-nine strands, thirty-six strands.
He judged that these three vessels should correspond to the three Crystal Corpse Commanders of the entire Corpse Refining Hall.
Sure enough… he guessed right.
Without the Crystal Corpse Commander leading the way outside the door, the remaining Corpse Men dared not enter the ancestral hall, still roaring and shouting in a chaotic manner. This gave Xie An and Yu He a great breathing space.
However, Xie An absorbed ninety-three strands of Undead Qi in one breath, and his brain was greatly impacted. He had a splitting headache, and his skull was about to explode.
Every minute and every second became extremely painful, worse than death.
Fortunately, Xie An had extraordinary willpower. He bit his lower lip and relied on the piercing pain to maintain his sobriety. Then, he constantly urged the Bright Jade Skill, allowing the heat in his body to constantly circulate around the sky, accelerating the digestion and adaptation of the new Longevity Fate's fusion degree.
After two weeks, the discomfort in his body gradually disappeared, and the skull that was about to crack slowly returned to calm.
[Level 1 Fate has grown]
[Current Fusion Degree: ]
[Bright Jade Skill: Summer Solstice 61/100]
[Remaining Years: 48 years]
Phew!
Xie An breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew that ninety-three strands of Undead Qi had been completely absorbed. However, when he absorbed it just now, he felt something tugging at him… Fortunately, the Dao Talisman didn't disappoint him.
But this process really made Xie An feel frightened.
"Master, are you okay?"
Yu He came over at this moment, took out a handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from Xie An's forehead.
Xie An's heart warmed, and he said, "I'm fine. The Crystal Corpse is dead. Besides the Crystal Corpse, is there anything else that can let the Corpse Men in?"
Yu He shook her head, "I only know that the Crystal Corpse can take the lead in rushing into the ancestral hall in an emergency to protect this place. As for whether there are other ways, I don't know."
I hope there aren't any more…
Xie An thought to himself, but he still didn't dare to be careless, "Yu He, you continue to stand inside the threshold, I'll sit cross-legged for a while."
Yu He was very obedient, said "Okay" and returned to her original position, staring intently at the Corpse Men outside the courtyard with their bloody mouths exposed.
And Xie An also adjusted his mentality and stopped thinking about the terrible things in the cellar.
Thinking too much… is useless.
It's better to free up time to absorb Undead Qi.
Since there was so much Undead Qi here, Xie An planned to absorb it little by little.
He would absorb as much as he could, and stop when his brain couldn't take it anymore.
Absorbing ninety strands at a time was almost the limit.
For sustainable development, Xie An reduced the one-time absorption range to sixty strands, which was more comfortable.
"Absorb sixty strands!"
Xie An began to issue commands to the Dao Talisman.
The Dao Talisman did not disappoint and obeyed as expected.
Seeing that things were gradually getting on the right track, Xie An's mood began to improve.
If he couldn't eat eight thousand strands in one bite, then he would take his time and nibble bit by bit…
…
Late at night, at the beginning of Hai hour.
The entire Corpse Refining Hall's stronghold had been completely disrupted.
The forbidden area and the ancient pagoda were on fire at the same time. Countless Corpse Men and Demon Men went to put out the fire. Some people were carrying buckets to the river to fetch water, while others were carrying water tanks to the fire to pour water.
However, the fire was too big to be quenched with a drop in the bucket.
Once the fire started, it grew with the wind. It was very difficult to put out.
Not to mention in the Great Qian Dynasty, where technology was backward, it was very difficult to put out big fires even in Xie An's previous life.
Many Corpse Men were burned alive.
"Who is setting the fire, damn it! If this continues, our century-old Corpse Refining Hall will be burned down."
"Come on, stop putting out the fire, follow me to the ancestral hall. The thief has hidden in the ancestral hall, we must kill the thief!"
"Let's go to the ancestral hall…"
Countless Corpse Men rushed towards the ancestral hall in a chaotic manner.
Usually, the Corpse Men lived in their own rooms, and there didn't seem to be many people. But now that everyone came out of their rooms and gathered together, there were a lot of people, as many as tens of thousands.
All of them rushed towards the ancestral hall.
Just then, a huge golden hammer suddenly flew through the air and slammed into a Golden Corpse.
"Who the hell is attacking me…" The Golden Corpse felt the crisis coming and thought it was a normal attack. He turned around and punched out, trying to kill the opponent.
However, after coming into contact with the golden hammer, the Golden Corpse realized that the power of the golden hammer was so terrifying that it instantly smashed him into minced meat. Even so, the power of the golden hammer did not diminish at all. It continued to rush forward, smashing more than a dozen Corpse Men to death along the way before smashing a pine tree as thick as a water bucket and stopping.
Giddy up!
A galloping horse came quickly. The brawny man with a beard on the horse's back grabbed the drum hammer on the ground and charged into the Corpse Men crowd, "Kill all the Corpse Men. Leave no one alive."
"This young master is here!" Wei Haoran held a long spear and charged into the Corpse Men crowd on horseback. As the spear light flashed, he instantly cut off the heads of five or six Corpse Men, "Remember, this young master doesn't change his name or surname, Wei Haoran."
"A smug look!" Zhao Qing'er spat, then drew her sword and struck, and in an instant, the sword light flashed, cutting off the heads of Corpse Men one by one: "I am Zhao Qing'er."
Wei Haoran: "…"
The three of them charged into the Corpse Men crowd like fierce tigers descending the mountain, and heads rolled wherever they went.
The hundreds of horsemen following behind were all elite experts from the Nanyang Demon Suppression Division, each with extraordinary skills and unparalleled bravery, following the three people in front to kill their way into the horde of corpses.
In an instant, the hundred-man cavalry was like a torrent of steel, unstoppable, and wherever they passed, corpses lay everywhere, leaving no survivors.
However, the number of corpses was simply too many, numbering in the tens of thousands. Although the hundred-man Demon Suppression Division team gained the upper hand and created momentum, the corpses quickly recovered and began to besiege them.
Soon, they were caught in a deadly battle.
Some Demon Suppression Guards were besieged by three or five corpses, some of whom bit the horses' eyes like monsters, causing the horses to overturn and fall to the ground, and then the remaining corpses swarmed up and devoured the Demon Suppression Guards completely.
......
Outside the Lian Shi Hall.
Thousands of soldiers in armor surrounded the mountain stronghold, and hundreds of yamen runners with sabers also arrived, surrounding the stronghold, but not attacking.
Leading them were Magistrate Wen Zaiqing, Xie Mingfeng, the garrison commander of the Weisuo, and Liu Chun, the head of the Demon Suppression Bureau…
Liu Chun stood at the forefront, with Wen Zaiqing and Xie Mingfeng standing on either side.
This showed that Liu Chun was in charge of this operation.
Such a large-scale operation naturally involved the entire high-level leadership of Qingwu County.
The main reason was that Su Yuqing lacked manpower.
Nanyang Prefecture also needed to assist in defending against the main force of the Changsheng Sect, so the manpower that Su Yuqing could mobilize… was too little. This was why Liu Chun notified the Weisuo and the county yamen to send additional manpower.
Wen Zaiqing and Xie Mingfeng, upon hearing the order, immediately counted their men and rushed to help with enthusiasm.
Previously, they had been implicated in the murder of Li Xiaoting. Afterwards, they knelt at the entrance of Baiyutang to beg for Su Yuqing's forgiveness, but they were not summoned by Su Yuqing. This caused them to feel uneasy and they had been looking for an opportunity to express their loyalty.
Now, this opportunity was extremely rare.
The two planned to put in great effort and perform well.
"Head Constable Liu, judging from the sounds inside, they should be fighting. Is it appropriate for us to just keep guarding here?" Xie Mingfeng asked.
Liu Chun, backed by the Demon Suppression Division, spoke very impolitely, "There are tens of thousands of corpses in the Lian Shi Hall, each of them a vicious and desperate monster. Your men rushing in will only be delivering heads and won't be of much use."
Xie Mingfeng stated: "It is the Weisuo's duty to wipe out heretical cults and demonic people. Even if it means paying a great price, this general will not hesitate."
Wen Zaiqing followed suit, "As the magistrate of Qingwu County, I should naturally take the lead."
Liu Chun glared at the two of them, and roughly understood that they were eager to seize the opportunity to show their loyalty to Su Yuqing.
To be honest, Liu Chun didn't think much of these two in his heart, but now was the time to use people, so Liu Chun didn't show it, "I know your intentions. However, your task is to block the Lian Shi Hall and never let any demonic person escape. If you do your job well, it will naturally be a great achievement."
Hearing this, the two of them breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then—
Boom!
The ground suddenly shook violently. The three of them looked up at the Lian Shi Hall and vaguely heard the terrifying roar of some beast inside, like a tsunami.
Even though they were several miles away, the three of them felt a chill in their hearts.
Wen Zaiqing took a deep breath: "Head Constable Liu, has something unexpected happened?"
Liu Chun frowned and said: "It's really possible that something unexpected has happened. Weren't you two wanting to slay demons and eliminate evil? Good, bring a hundred good men with me and go in. The others stay here. If you find any demonic people fleeing, kill them without mercy."
Although Xie Mingfeng and Wen Zaiqing sensed that something had changed inside and it was very dangerous, after weighing the pros and cons, they still mustered a hundred good men and followed Liu Chun into the Lian Shi Hall stronghold.
Stepping into the stronghold, they saw blood flowing everywhere, corpses strewn all over the ground. A thick, bloody smell permeated the air, making people want to vomit.
Seeing Liu Chun leading the way straight to the forbidden area on the back mountain, Wen Zaiqing couldn't help but ask: "Head Constable Liu, the battlefield is over there, what are we running to the back mountain for?"
Liu Chun looked nervous, and while speeding up, he said: "The adults from the Nanyang Demon Suppression Division are over there, we can't help them even if we go. Su Daren told me before that the key to victory or defeat lies in the forbidden area of the back mountain. Let's hurry!"
Wen Zaiqing and Xie Mingfeng didn't ask any more questions and quickly followed.
After traveling for several miles, they arrived at the forbidden area on the back mountain.
A raging fire was burning here, illuminating everything around as bright as day, and the heat was rolling.
Wen Zaiqing saw a huge mass grave, where the skeletons and corpses… were actually moving. Many skeletons crawled out of the coffins and rushed towards the ancient pagoda of the Lian Shi Hall.
"Damn! Something big is going to happen, quickly fight a bloody path to the cemetery!" Liu Chun drew his saber and slashed at a pile of skeletons, leading the way forward.
The hundred-man team followed suit.
Fortunately, these skeletons and corpses didn't have much attack power, they just looked scary, but they couldn't withstand the weapons in everyone's hands. Soon, they fought a bloody path and arrived at the cemetery.
The fire in the cemetery had already been extinguished.
But Wen Zaiqing saw a scene he would never forget in his life:
Countless black coffins were arranged in a fan shape facing the center. At this moment, the coffins were opened one after another, and crystal corpses walked out. These crystal corpses were powerful, and they slaughtered the hundred-man team like cutting melons and vegetables…
They were instantly routed.
Even Liu Chun could only barely resist two crystal corpses. The remaining crystal corpses slashed and killed all the way, and then threw down Liu Chun and the others, and rushed towards the ancestral hall of the Lian Shi Hall in a mighty manner…
A full hundreds of them!
Even Liu Chun, the head constable of the Demon Suppression Bureau, was dumbfounded, "Damn, this is going to be the end."
Just then, a fiery horse galloped over, and under the moonlight, a woman in a light blue dress was sitting on the horse, blocking the front of the four hundred crystal corpses.
Then, the crystal corpses split into two groups, one group to fight the woman, and the other group detoured and went straight to the ancestral hall…
……
Lian Shi Hall ancestral hall.
"Thieves, if you have the ability, come out and fight!"
"Damn thieves."
"Are you cowards?"
A large number of corpses gathered at the gate of the courtyard,趴 on the surrounding wall, constantly cursing. They were trying to use provocation to get Xie An and Yu He to rush out and fight them to the death.
But… Yu He and Xie An would naturally not fall for such low-level provocation.
Yu He stood inside the threshold like a heroine, holding a sword talisman in her hand, staring intently ahead.
And Xie An was still sitting cross-legged on the ground of the ancestral hall, absorbing the Undying Qi in batches.
After half an hour, Xie An had absorbed a full two hundred wisps of Undying Qi. Although his body was very uncomfortable, at least nothing unexpected happened. The fusion of the Longevity Destiny had also been greatly improved.
Taking advantage of the break, Xie An pulled up the panel:
【Level 1 Destiny has gained growth】
【Current fusion: 】
【Bright Jade Skill: Lesser Heat 61/100】
【Remaining years: 48 years】
"The Bright Jade Skill has entered the eleventh solar term, the progress is quite terrifying, exceeding the progress of one year of liver explosion. But my brain doesn't seem to be able to handle it anymore. If I continue to absorb, I feel like something will go wrong."
Xie An had to stop.
At that moment, Yu He suddenly excitedly said, "Master, listen, there's the sound of fighting outside. It seems that the people from the Nanyang Demon Suppression Division have arrived. We're saved."
Huh?
Xie An immediately got up, moved closer to Yu He, listened carefully, and was overjoyed, "It really is, then let's hold on a little longer."
Having stayed in this place with wolves in front and tigers behind for almost two hours, Xie An's spirit had always been in a state of high tension. Now that he heard there was hope of surviving, he was naturally very happy.
It seems that the Long Princess is reliable after all.
Suddenly—
Boom!
A violent tremor came from the ground. Immediately followed by the roars of countless beasts. It made Xie An and Yu He's faces change.
Xie An couldn't help but ask: "Yu He, do you know what's going on?"
Yu He looked up at the direction of the forbidden area on the back mountain, "Judging from the sound, it's coming from the forbidden area on the back mountain. That's not right, I already sent people to set fire to the forbidden area, how could there be such a roar? Could it be… something happened in the cemetery?"
"Cemetery?" Xie An couldn't help but be curious, he didn't know what the situation was in the cemetery.
Yu He explained the situation of the cemetery, and finally said: "I've seen those black coffins. I even tried to open them, but I couldn't. I vaguely felt that there were terrifying things lying in the coffins. And there were many of them."
Xie An felt a bad feeling listening to this.
Before long, the ground shook more and more violently, as if a large group of terrifying monsters were rapidly approaching.
Clang!
Xie An instinctively drew his saber and pointed it towards the distant gate.
Suddenly…
Boom!
The courtyard wall of the ancestral hall was suddenly knocked down by a huge force.
Seventy or eighty crystal corpses rushed in like tigers!
Seventy or eighty…
"Protect the Holy Master, kill these two thieves!"
Xie An was dumbfounded.
How could they fight this?
Seeing the crystal corpses getting closer and closer, Yu He was about to throw out the sword talisman, but Xie An grabbed Yu He's hand, "Don't throw it, there are too many of them, once we get entangled, we're sure to die."
Yu He exclaimed, "Then what do we do?"
Xie An looked back at the dark cellar, "Follow me, go down to the cellar!"
Then, Xie An pulled Yu He and rushed straight into the cellar…
