A sudden and terrifying change.
A ghostly, sinister force came at Lang Jiuchuan from behind.
An enormous black shadow enveloped her entirely, and from within the darkness, a massive palm came smashing toward her. She instantly shifted her footing, evading the yin-malevolent strike, then retaliated in kind, unleashing a palm-thunder at the black shadow.
A thunderous boom rang out.
The entire bone pit trembled, and the white bones within it rattled and cascaded downward from the violent shockwave.
Jiangche too unleashed its killing force, charging toward the white-bone creature that, to its eyes, appeared as a massive monster.
By now Lang Jiuchuan could see clearly what had attacked her. It was a white-bone creature standing a full ten feet tall, assembled from countless skeletal fragments and remains. It had nine skulls — the enormous central one had two smoldering spectral flames in its eye sockets, glowing a dim green shot through with blue light. Its lower jaw clicked and clacked open and shut, letting out a soundless roar.
Having failed to land its first strike, and having instead been blasted by a thunderclap, bones cracked and fell away from its body — only for it to summon new ones from the bottom of the pit and reassemble itself with terrifying speed. Enraged, it swung its colossal bone claws and lunged at Lang Jiuchuan and Jiangche, jaw stretching wide: “ROAR!”
A reeking wind saturated with concentrated dead-resentment yin malice rushed at them like a wave — bone-piercingly cold.
“GRRAWL!” Jiangche let out a furious roar. The tiger’s roar subdued souls and seized spirits. Rather than retreating, it charged forward — hind legs launching it into a leap, transforming into a great white tiger, claws razor-sharp and crackling with biting ferocity, slashing at those colossal bone claws.
BOOM!
Tiger claw met bone claw. The shockwave rolled in all directions. Jiangche’s form staggered, crashing onto the mountain of bones, while the enormous bone claw shattered into fragments — though the creature’s resentful energy surged even stronger than before.
With its other bone claw it swiped at empty air, and from the pit below, countless razor-sharp bone shards fired outward like arrows — a sky-covering barrage launching directly toward Lang Jiuchuan and the others.
“Protect your body!” Lang Jiuchuan saw that the bone-shard arrows were steeped in the spectral-green yin chill of corpse poison and barked the command. The Dizhong bell was already raised in her hands: “Thunder hidden in silence, divine thunder rumbling loud — by the Emperor’s decree, swift as law’s command — ANNIHILATE!”
Powerful Dao resonance struck the Dizhong bell. The toll rang out like thunder, shaking all eight directions. Lightning force surged toward the bone demon — an explosion of purple-white radiance crackled and snapped, and the creature’s skeletal body fractured and fell apart piece by piece. Even among its nine eerie skull-heads, only the largest one remained.
The bone demon shrieked, and from its skull blasted a dim-blue corpse miasma. Immediately after, the bones of the pit were once more drawn up to reconstruct its body.
“Seal off your five senses — target its joints.” Another sharp command from Lang Jiuchuan. Her figure flashed, leaping toward the creature’s skull. She raised the Dizhong overhead like a great hammer and brought it smashing down with full force.
The skull cracked. The body the bone demon had just reassembled began swaying and tottering, and before it could mount any counterattack, Jiangche came roaring in with a collision — a streak of lightning, white tiger claws driving precisely at the joints of its skeletal frame.
The two of them — one human, one tiger — fought in seamless coordination, forcing the bone demon to split its attention. And in that single unguarded instant, the body it had just rebuilt shattered once more into rubble. As though pushed beyond all patience, the creature’s skull took flight — spectral flames bursting outward — shooting straight toward Jiangche.
Those ghost-flames carried a force capable of searing the very soul. Jiangche’s fur stood on end. Cunning as ever, it refused to clash head-on, and with a sharp whoosh, darted clear.
Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze turned razor-sharp. The bone pit itself was the creature’s weapon. Without destroying it, the creature would simply keep using those thousands upon thousands of bones to reassemble its skeletal form endlessly.
A flash of insight struck her. She formed hand seals with both hands and summoned multiple bolts of heavenly lightning, striking them down at various points across the bone pit — and one she directed straight at the grave mound.
The moment that bolt struck the grave mound, the bone demon flew into a panic. With a low snarl it shot toward the mound at its maximum speed.
Understanding dawned on Lang Jiuchuan immediately. This bone demon was almost certainly a guardian protecting the corpse phantom, including her tomb — or rather, that tomb itself was the eye of this supreme-yin malevolence formation encompassing the entire pit. The eye could not be lost. Hence the creature’s frantic response.
Protective instinct — perfect.
She immediately changed her hand seal. Concentrating primordial chaos energy at her fingertip, she rapidly chanted the thunder-fire incantation, and drove that chaos energy straight into the grave mound. When the lightning fell, it transformed into chaos thunder-fire and crashed into the pure-black yin-wood coffin within the tomb.
BOOM — a purple-golden fire serpent instantly engulfed the yin-wood coffin, burning with a radiance so bright and brilliant it seared the eyes.
“ROAR!”
The bone demon erupted with rage. Its skull came hurtling at Lang Jiuchuan like something gone mad, its massive jaw gaping open to reveal rows of ghastly, razor-sharp fangs within.
Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold laugh and hurled another bolt of chaos thunder-fire directly into its gaping maw. The fire-tongue plunged in and detonated with a thunderous crack — the skull became a fireball and crashed into the bone pit below.
When that fireball hit the bottom and met the corpse-oil waters, the flames roared even higher — and spread at terrifying speed. The black liquid of the bone pit ignited like hellfire itself, the blazing inferno swallowing the dense and stifling yin-resentment death energy whole.
And at that very same moment, in a town somewhere else, a woman radiating an unusual fragrance — having just spat a mouthful of corpse miasma at Gong Tinglan, who had been relentlessly pursuing her — found her jet-black, sharply-pointed nails mere inches from his face when her body suddenly seized mid-motion. Her expression underwent a violent shift, and she vanished on the spot without a trace.
Gong Tinglan stepped back twice, formed a finger-lock, and pressed it to the point between his brows — driving out that wisp of corpse miasma. Then he set off in pursuit of the direction where the corpse phantom had disappeared.
Thinking back on the expression on the corpse phantom’s face when it changed, his heart stirred. He drew out his communication jade talisman and sent a message to Lang Jiuchuan.
Back at the bone pit, Lang Jiuchuan watched the bone demon’s skull rolling and tumbling in a sea of roaring flames — watched the mountain of white bones consumed by the same inferno — and her expression grew cold and still.
She formed a wind seal, feeding the blaze even higher.
The resentful dead-energy was better off unmade entirely.
Her jade talisman was vibrating.
Lang Jiuchuan drew it out, formed the seal, and listened — it was Gong Tinglan, reporting that he had located the corpse phantom’s trail and engaged her in battle, but for unknown reasons she had suddenly vanished. He was now tracking her aura.
Lang Jiuchuan looked at the burning grave mound and sent back a single message: “Her lair is on fire. She’s probably rushing back to put it out.”
She relayed her current location at the same time.
The blaze was fierce and fierce. The yang primordial chaos fire devoured the dead-resentment energy. Lang Jiuchuan was forced to retreat to the shaded side of the bone pit, watching this place of accumulated sin — cracked open by the chaos fire — as it fell into ruin. The corpse miasma was pierced through, and the true sky above was revealed. She looked one more time at the grave mound.
What a fitting coincidence. That grave mound had to be the eye of the supreme-yin malevolence formation — the yin-wood coffin preserving the corpse, sealed by talisman script on the lid, nourished by dead-resentment energy, waiting for the right moment for the corpse phantom to emerge from her coffin and bring chaos to the world. And through it all, whose hand had harvested the life-force and fortune of tens of thousands of people, and who would benefit?
Furthermore — did it not seem strangely familiar? Like how she herself had once been sealed beneath the royal mausoleum formation eye, nourishing something alongside the dragon vein. Here too, this one called Luo Zheng had been nourished by the corpse miasma — could she also be a killing weapon? The circumstances of their respective sealing were different, yet both served a purpose, pushed toward a single goal. And come to think of it — Luo Zheng was almost certainly of a supreme-yin constitution!
Only a supreme-yin constitution could yield the greatest possible utility.
Jiangche’s heart sank.
Which meant — this corpse plague, this catastrophe — it truly had been engineered by human hands.
If the life energy and fortune of all of Dapan was harvested, who would gain? And if this plague could not be resolved, could not be contained — all of Dapan would become a living hell. What national fortune would remain? The dynasty would fall.
Lang Jiuchuan’s cold gaze pierced into the empty air. “That is precisely why I had Gong Si relay my message to the Holy Maiden — asking him to come forward and save the people. It was equally a test. If he comes, the common folk should survive unharmed, and he gains one more wave of faith-power — even if this entire spectacle is self-directed theater, just like the Pancheng incident. But if he does not come — then this outcome is precisely what he desires. And if the latter is true, then his thousand-year scheme has likely entered its final phase.”
“Its final phase?”
“Exactly. If the final phase is underway, then the right timing, the right conditions, or the right alignment of forces that he has been waiting for — all of it has ripened. He will make his move — whether to form his core and ascend to immortality, or to become the supreme ruler of this realm. And to ensure his plan unfolds smoothly as designed, the vast life energy and fortune of this world’s living beings will serve as his ultimate shield.”
Jiangche was horrified.
If that was truly the case, then he really did need a great calamity to harvest that life energy — such as the current corpse plague.
“Then the corpse phantom…”
“She likely cannot come back now.” Lang Jiuchuan rose to her feet and looked out across the bone pit as it was consumed by the chaos fire. The countless white bones had been reduced to drifting ash. Even the dead-resentment energy was beginning to dissipate, stripped of its purpose.
“The corpse phantom as a killing weapon has already been unleashed into the world. Since she was deliberately cultivated, she can be directed and controlled — she won’t be sent to her death here for nothing. Instead she will be used to — accelerate the spread of the plague!” Lang Jiuchuan’s expression darkened. “We move. Back to the village now — we need to develop the antidote as quickly as possible.”
At that moment, another message arrived from Gong Tinglan: the corpse phantom’s aura had turned and was heading north. As expected.
And simultaneously, a message came from Gong Si: the National Preceptor was in seclusion, praying for the people — and had only issued a mystical decree calling on the Buddhist and Daoist sects to relieve suffering and heal the sick.
A surge of fierce, righteous fury rose within Lang Jiuchuan’s chest. She stared up at the heavens for a long moment.
Heaven sees nothing — then I will be the one to set things right.