When Jiangche’s ferocious and ruthless energy burst out, it startled Cong Jingnian in an instant. He reacted quickly, deploying the Renwang Banner and launching it at Jiangche.

It was the White Tiger spirit consciousness from before — the one from Huguo Temple.

Cong Jingnian’s eyes gleamed with greed as he leapt to his feet. Before he could even get a clear look at Jiangche’s form, a sudden chill shot down his back.

A deadly premonition!

Almost the instant that thought arose, he twisted his body sideways and dodged the sneak attack from behind, simultaneously flicking two pale-green, coldly-glinting bone nails between his fingers and firing them rearward with tremendous force.

However, by dodging that way, he had walked straight into Lang Jiuchuan’s trap, crashing directly into the Five Thunder Talisman she had thrown toward him — and it detonated with a bang.

“Aah!”

Cong Jingnian let out a cry of anguish.

He was nothing more than a body of flesh and blood, and he was not particularly old. No matter how talented in cultivation, he was far below the level of Cong Bian or the jiangshi. Struck by the Five Thunder Talisman’s blast, his skin and flesh were scorched and torn, blood pouring freely, dark blood vomited in streams, his hair standing on end.

A smell of charred flesh spread outward from his body.

Lang Jiuchuan herself had barely dodged those dark red, yin malice bone nails. She gave Cong Jingnian no chance to catch his breath — she swung the Dizhong Bell, and the tremendous force surging from within the bell transformed into dense golden light talismanic script that pressed down upon him, sending excruciating pain through his soul so that he clutched his head and screamed.

The moment things erupted on this side, the jiangshi immediately felt it. It turned to look — and only then realized that somehow, several insignificant intruders had gotten into its lair.

This is bad!

The jiangshi was immediately alarmed, and no longer paying any attention to Gong Tinglan and the others, it turned and prepared to fly away at speed.

Gong Tinglan saw it trying to flee and understood that Gong Qi’s side must have made progress. He commanded sharply: “Stop it! Shift to the Ghost-Binding Ten-Method Formation!”

Everyone immediately shifted formation, their attacks growing even more fierce.

Kong Xu Zi watched and waited for his moment, eyes fixed on both sides, gripping the wooden figurine tightly. It should be about time.

Blocked from escaping, the jiangshi’s ferocity grew to new heights. Its throat produced a grating, teeth-aching crackling, and several sharp shrieks pierced the air. Dense black malice completely enveloped it, sealing it in like a black cocoon.

And with that shriek, the white bones within the corpse mountain seemed to receive a summons. The partially-transformed skeletal figures swayed and staggered upright, then suddenly flew into the air.

The moon, without anyone noticing when, had taken on an ominous blood-red hue.

The blood moon rises, matching the divined signs.

Lang Jiuchuan’s expression changed. She called out to Jiangche: “Leave him to you — if you can’t kill him, then you’re useless!”

Among the players in this hundred-year plot, Cong Jingnian was the easiest to handle — a normal living person. She had already broken him down by half. If he still couldn’t be dealt with after all this, then Jiangche would truly be worthless.

A tiger fights for its pride.

Jiangche transformed into a massive, imposing beast and let out an earth-shaking tiger’s roar, leaping and pouncing toward Cong Jingnian. A beam of cold, ice-bright golden light shot toward him, and before he could even cry out, the White Tiger’s overwhelmingly ferocious malice energy had wrapped around him — transforming into ten-thousand blades that mercilessly tore him apart.

Lang Jiuchuan came to Princess Zhao’an’s side. Her gaze fell upon the woman’s face — that gaunt, hollow face, now coated in a layer of ashen black death energy.

Her gaze then moved from the woman’s face down to her abdomen. It twitched faintly downward, as though something were eager to come out.

Lang Jiuchuan placed her hand on the abdomen, concentrating her Dao intent in her palm and pressing down. The fetus seemed to sense the threat, and writhed without stopping.

The wooden fish suddenly spoke: “Even if it is covered in yin energy, it was also born from the union of living people. It has not yet incurred karmic debts through its own will. If you act, it becomes a karmic killing. Do you feel no fear?”

This fetus — even if its father was an undead creature, that was while he was still alive, when he joined with a living person to produce it. The fetus had not yet been born, and had not yet harmed anyone.

If she killed it — it would be karmic murder!

“For the sake of all living beings, I feel no fear.” Lang Jiuchuan said, her face expressionless.

The wooden fish spoke no more.

The force in Lang Jiuchuan’s hand surged, and she pressed down upon the fetus with force.

Princess Zhao’an felt a sudden spasm in her abdomen and actually opened her eyes. They were gray-black — staring vacantly at Lang Jiuchuan, then shifting strangely to look at her swollen, distended belly.

A yin wind carrying the stench from the corpse mountain swirled around them.

Far off, the jiangshi felt a surge of urgency. It had lost all patience with these tenacious insects that clung to it without end. It spat a mouthful of dense black mist at one of the clan elders — that black mist carried a corpse poison that would corrode flesh and skin. The elder let out a scream, and his entire face began to bubble and rot with a sizzling sound.

Everyone was horrified at the sight.

Gong Tinglan pulled the elder back, then fired seven coins from his hand toward the jiangshi: “Heavenly Constellation suppresses evil — Edict!”

Those seven coins seemed to have developed consciousness, automatically arranging into the Seven Stars Northern Dipper formation, radiating purple lightning and golden light as they bore down upon the jiangshi.

The jiangshi spat another mouthful of black mist, spreading its ten fingers into claws and snatching at the coins. In an instant, the coins were reduced to powder and scattered.

Gong Tinglan’s expression darkened. Not even exorcism copper could harm it? Not even the Five Thunders had destroyed it? This vile creature — could it have refined a coating of corpse malice to protect its body?

His mind turned rapidly. He looked at the dense yin malice energy behind the jiangshi, and a flash of unusual light crossed his eyes. He called out loudly: “Divide the group — destroy the corpse pit!”

Once the corpse pit was destroyed, the yin malice energy would no longer accumulate, and it would lose its source of nourishment.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Several figures flew toward the corpse pit.

At the same time.

Jiangche had seized the freshly-departed soul of Cong Jingnian and was heading toward Lang Jiuchuan to claim credit for its work.

Lang Jiuchuan summoned the Xiaojiu Pagoda, sealed Cong Jingnian’s soul within the Demon-Slaying Formation, tossed Jiangche several Five Thunder Talismans, and said: “Destroy this corpse mountain.”

Jiangche caught them, smashing the talismans while letting out its roar, spraying golden flames. Boom, boom, boom — the corpse mountain was collapsing.

The Daoist cultivators who had just descended onto the corpse mountain were somewhat startled, but had no time to attend to that, and joined in smashing talismans to destroy the mountain.

“You dare seek death!” The jiangshi’s blood-red eyes filled with shock and fury, and it actually formed a complete word.

It no longer wanted to be entangled with Gong Tinglan. Moving at tremendous speed, its ten fingers curved like hooks, the long sharp cold-glinting nails reaching toward the cavity of his heart.

Gong Tinglan sensed the danger and instantly struck his own chest with his palm from behind, spitting out a mist of blood. He simultaneously flew backward to dodge while drawing across the blood mist with his purple-gold coin sword: “Soldier, fighter, man, all, array, formation, line, forward, advance — Slay!”

The purple-gold talisman struck the jiangshi, causing a brief hesitation in its forward lunge — just enough for Gong Tinglan to dodge that killing blow.

“The time has come.” Kong Xu Zi sat cross-legged, placed the wooden figurine before him, held the talisman that Lang Jiuchuan had given him between two fingers, and rapidly formed his hand seals: “Infinite Heavenly Venerable, awe-inspiring across the eight directions, Thunderlord Edict — slay the evil and destroy its form!”

The talisman paper burst into flame without a spark, striking the wooden figurine.

Boom.

The wooden figurine caught fire, and in the same instant, the jiangshi’s body that had been momentarily frozen burst into flame as well. Thunder rumbled through the air, and several bolts of purple lightning, each as thick as a water bucket, came crashing straight down upon its body.

These bolts of purple lightning were unlike the earlier ones that had only struck at its body — these sought to extinguish its soul, to erase its very existence from between heaven and earth.

“No!” The jiangshi, without even thinking, broke free from its jiangshi body. Its yin essence emerged, moving like a gale, rushing toward the direction of Lang Jiuchuan.

Lang Jiuchuan turned her head around, her eyes cold and sharp. It’s here!

Her hand was just about to press down upon Princess Zhao’an’s abdomen when the princess rolled to the side to dodge, and — beneath Lang Jiuchuan’s incredulous gaze — she clenched her jaw, appearing to be suppressing something with tremendous effort. Her hand had somehow closed around a broken leg bone. With both hands gripping it tightly, she drove it savagely into her own abdomen: “I’ll do it myself!”

Oh — oh my—!