The Honglian statue stepping down from the lotus pedestal had shocked everyone present.
In all their lives, they had never truly understood what it meant to experience something genuinely thrilling, to truly witness something beyond ordinary reckoning.
What was unfolding before their eyes — this was the most extraordinary scene any of them had ever encountered.
Only — they truly had not wanted to witness anything quite like this.
Luo Tian glanced at the young woman beside him. She looked slight and fragile, delicate and soft, the kind of person who seemed like she could be poked to death with a single finger.
And yet…
Was he imagining things?
This Miss Lang, faced with the now-living Honglian statue, showed not a trace of fear. On the contrary, her eyes gleamed with excitement.
Why?
Standing there in the dim light, she somehow looked even more frightening than the Honglian statue itself. The only way he could describe it was — ferocious.
And besides, listen to what she had just said. Cowering? Was she seriously provoking that thing?
Luo Tian’s heart filled with a kind of reverent awe. He had been right all along — following Miss Lang was the only wise path forward. Somehow, he found he wasn’t quite so afraid anymore.
It was just a clay statue after all. A few good slashes and it would be in pieces. He alone could handle ten of them.
The Honglian statue walked slowly toward them, fixed its gaze on Lang Jiuchuan, and let out a soft, lingering sigh. “You and I were once walking the same road. Why have we become strangers?”
Jiangche: “She’s calling you an evil creature just like her!”
What did “walking the same road” mean, if not that she was saying they were cut from the same cloth?
If that wasn’t an insult, what was? An insult without a single profanity was still an insult.
Lang Jiuchuan’s brow furrowed. She caught the scent of something — blood. Fresh, thick, and pungent enough to turn the stomach.
“She just killed someone. Are you certain you found no trace of the missing people at the bottom of that cliff?”
With a blood scent this heavy and viscous, whoever she had gotten her hands on likely had very little hope left.
Jiangche said, “Nothing down there — just piles of old bones.”
“Then there must be another place where she’s keeping people. With a blood scent this strong — how many has she killed?”
“Never mind how many. We act on behalf of Heaven and carry out justice — that’s all there is to it. Some Mountain God. An evil spirit dares to call itself divine.”
Jiangche gave a contemptuous snort. It had spent several hundred years cultivating and still didn’t dare call itself a divine beast.
Lang Jiuchuan said, “Keep watch over Lord Shen and the others.” She paused, then added, “And send a thread of your awareness toward the front of the village. I did leave some spirits there as a precaution, but there’s no guarantee this evil god won’t suddenly go berserk and sweep through the entire village, catching innocent people in the chaos.”
Jiangche tugged at his whiskers and said, “I hadn’t taken you for a soft-hearted one.”
“Get lost!” Lang Jiuchuan spat at it, then hurled the Dizhong toward the Honglian statue in the same breath. “Enough talk — come and fight. Let’s end this quickly.”
The Honglian statue had not expected her to be so decisive. It began to smile. The two red lotuses in its eyes drifted free, and from within those lotuses, blood tears began to fall — not one or two drops, but pouring down like a mountain flood breaking free.
The scene inside the temple shifted in an instant. It transformed into a thick, suffocating sea of corpses and blood. Countless severed heads floated in the crimson depths, their mouths opening and snapping, flinging themselves at anyone in sight, filling the air with a soul-crushing dread.
Shen Qinghe’s gaze sharpened. He pulled out the official seal he kept on his person at all times and gripped it hard.
An official seal held dominion over life and death in the mortal realm — a weapon of authority, righteously sharp, capable of making evil spirits flinch and recoil.
A solemn, upright aura of dignified clarity radiated from him. The severed heads dared not draw near, scattering away from him in all directions.
Shen Qinghe was somewhat surprised — it actually worked.
When they had first set out for this village, Lang Jiuchuan had told him to keep the official seal on his person at all times, saying that it was a powerful talisman against evil that could serve as a protective charm.
She truly was not one to waste words.
At that moment, Lang Jiuchuan poured her full will into the Dizhong and drove it hard toward the Honglian statue. Her intent surged with overwhelming force, causing that small object — one that could normally be held in a single palm — to become as massive and immovable as a great mountain, and with a resounding crash, it smashed the clay statue to pieces.
Dense, thick blood energy condensed into a wave of gore and came surging toward Lang Jiuchuan from every direction, as though it sought to drown her entirely.
Even the Blood Sea of the deepest hell could not have been so overwhelming.
“Those who walk the same road yet meet a different end — shall be slain!” Honglian’s voice came from within the sea of blood. The gore churned and heaved in clots and masses, slowly taking on human shapes. Mouths opened and closed rhythmically — true blood-people, every one of them.
Murderous energy surged skyward, like the roar of a colossal dragon.
The malevolent energy within the blood was dark and vile, like countless razor-sharp bone spikes, finding every crack and gap.
The blood-red Honglian was smiling. The moment those malevolent spikes bored into Lang Jiuchuan’s already frail body, she shuddered — and her expression shifted, flooding with hunger and desire.
“This body of yours,” Honglian said, “how extraordinary.”
Honglian’s greed spiked to its absolute peak in an instant.
What was the point of being a god trapped inside a clay figure? She was still nothing more than something buried in earth and mud. But if she could seize a living person’s body and take up residence within it — wouldn’t she become a true divine woman in flesh and blood? She could taste all seven human emotions. In time, she would have both power and a physical form. Perfect in every way.
The moment that desire arose, Honglian mobilized every last reserve of her strength. Her evil intent surged outward like blood-drenched spikes, seeking to force Lang Jiuchuan out of her own body and claim it for herself.
Lang Jiuchuan felt that malevolent power — tinged with the essence of accumulated prayer — transform into a wave of corrupted energy that engulfed her completely. She let out a short laugh.
This again.
“There are always shameless creatures coveting this body of mine.”
Jiangche, already deeply unsettled: ——!
Don’t think for a moment it couldn’t understand that. She had just swept it into the insult too.
Lang Jiuchuan’s expression went cold. She opened her spiritual core wide, and let that malevolent force pour in freely.
Jiangche had been on the verge of shouting, but the moment it saw this, an inexplicable tremor ran through it.
This scene was achingly familiar — just like what had happened to it, long ago. And there she was again, playing the patient fisherman.
Here we go.
Then it watched as Lang Jiuchuan summoned the Panguan brush. This time, she did not even draw a talisman — she simply drove her intent directly, standing the brush upright above her head, her hands flying through seal-signs, her lips chanting in a low murmur:
“Above the nine heavens, the Five Directional Thunder Gods — I know your true names, and at my call you shall come. Swift lightning, cracking whip, splitting sky — I summon all the gods to heed my call, destroy the wicked, cleave the demonic, swift as the law commands — be it so!”
Jiangche went rigid from nose to tail.
No. She couldn’t possibly be about to—
Boom.
The nine-layered heavenly thunder came down without so much as a heartbeat’s warning — without a shred of hesitation, without any caution at all — and descended into this poor creature’s miserable world.
The memories of its own suffering came rushing back to life.
Jiangche went numb.
The nine-layered heavenly thunder struck Lang Jiuchuan directly, crashing straight into her spiritual core. Lightning of the utmost righteousness and yang energy — the kind that could annihilate demons, destroy the wicked, and sever all dark and sinister paths.
Honglian — who had been just as unprepared — let out a piercing, agonized shriek and made a frantic attempt to flee. But Lang Jiuchuan, that reckless madwoman, cared nothing for the fact that her own soul was going numb and fracturing under the assault. She clung on without letting go, holding Honglian in an iron grip, letting bolt after bolt of heavenly thunder crash down upon them both.
Honglian was on the verge of losing all reason. She had no choice but to throw every last scrap of her power into the fight. Waves of dark, corrupted energy tore through every inch of Lang Jiuchuan’s body, seeking to burst open her meridians from within, fighting desperately to tear free. And yet…
Something was wrong. The harder she struggled to break free, the more tightly the other held on — and with every effort she made, her own power grew weaker.
Honglian glanced aside to understand why — and her eyes went wide with pure, incandescent fury.
“You shameless wretch — how dare you!”
No wonder Lang Jiuchuan had clung to her without flinching, enduring bolt after bolt of lightning without the slightest hesitation. She had been using the Panguan brush to strip away the pure prayer energy that was woven into Honglian’s power.
That was the faith offered to her by the people of this world — her shield against harm, the foundation of her very existence.
Once that faith was gone, she would be nothing but pure evil. And when that moment came, never mind the nine-layered heavenly thunder — even a common bolt of ordinary lightning would be enough to destroy her entirely.
Evil things, after all, are destined to be struck down.
For the first time, true fear showed through Honglian’s eyes.