Chapter 136
Chapter 136
“I’m finished! This time, I really might die.”
Helplessness and despair flashed through my heart.
Even an optimist like me couldn’t help believing I might die at the hands of the vicious entity in the red dress tonight.
But the next instant, hope suddenly reignited within me.
I realized the corpse energy wrapped around me had only restrained me. It hadn’t launched any substantial attack.
“What’s going on?”
The black hand of corpse energy encircling my right arm pressed tightly against my skin, as though trying to burrow inside.
“Could it be…”
I suddenly understood.
This strange entity in the red dress could split its power in two, but it couldn’t split its mind.
It wasn’t particularly intelligent, perhaps not even on the level of a normal human.
But it certainly possessed a mind.
How else could it fight me?
It had just played a trick, secretly detaching some corpse energy while my attention was elsewhere, then sending it drifting behind me for an ambush.
But corpse energy couldn’t think or employ fighting techniques. It could only rely on the inherent nature of such sinister power to attack living things.
At the moment, the entity’s main body was in corpse-fiend form and immobilized by my Corpse-Suppressing Talisman, while the separated corpse energy attacked me by instinct.
Its method was to burrow into my body and assimilate me into a ghost servant.
It was probably the same technique the entity had used to kill Fifth Elder Xia.
Unfortunately for it, I was neither an ordinary person nor a frail old man.
Rattle, rattle!
The body of the entity in the red dress, eighteen inches in front of me, began trembling violently. It would break free of the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman on its forehead at any moment.
Once that happened, I really would be finished.
I had to overcome the corpse energy restraining me before the entity broke free.
But both arms and my neck were bound. I couldn’t move at all.
“No choice. This is going to hurt.”
Steeling myself, I bit down hard on the tip of my tongue.
Holy crap!
The pain went straight to the bone.
It felt as if I had bitten a tiny piece of flesh clean off the end of my tongue. There was no time to test the pressure gradually with my teeth, so I had simply guessed and bitten down.
Blood filled my mouth.
Its heavy metallic scent made my head spin.
Then I opened my mouth and sprayed the black corpse energy wrapped around my right arm.
Pfft!
Scalding blood from my tongue splattered all over the arm. The corpse energy binding it immediately began to sizzle, while the skin beneath burned as well.
A faint, agonized shriek seemed to sound beside my ear. The pressure around my right arm loosened, restoring its movement.
“It worked!”
Delight flashed through me. Holding the ritual blade in a reverse grip, I swept it in an arc across my body and stabbed at the corpse energy wrapped around the left side of my neck.
Corpse energy should have been incorporeal. It was a form of gas, a physical manifestation of the vicious entity’s power.
But when the ritual blade struck, its tip felt as though it had stabbed into tofu.
An instant later, the mass of corpse energy binding me collapsed and dispersed.
The restraint vanished. My entire body could move again.
At the same instant, the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman on the entity’s forehead exploded into scraps that fluttered like butterflies.
Savage, vicious light gleamed in its deathly white eyes.
It had broken free and regained control of its body.
However…
It was too late.
Following through with my motion, I swung the ritual blade fiercely from left to right. Its tip stabbed squarely into the right side of the entity’s neck.
Shnk!
The entire blade sank in, accompanied once more by the sound of water striking boiling oil.
“I’ve won this fight to the death!”
As the thought passed through my mind, clouds of black smoke poured from the entity’s neck, carrying a powerful charred stench.
“Aaaagh!”
Its shriek was so sharp and agonized that my eardrums hurt and my head spun.
It felt as if drills were boring into my temples.
I hurriedly released the hilt and retreated several steps.
I knew I had won.
A corpse-fiend stabbed in the neck by Master’s ritual blade–no, my ritual blade now–couldn’t possibly turn the tables.
The blade’s intense evil-repelling power and the power contained in the runes engraved along its surface had begun permeating the entity’s body completely.
Foul black corpse energy gurgled from its mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.
It released a horrifying roar and swiped its sharp claws as it tried to charge me.
But its movements had slowed so much that I evaded them with ease.
Like a hunter, I needed only wait for my prey to bleed out.
At the same time, the yin energy and white mist filling the entire bedroom rapidly dispersed, no longer strong enough to sustain themselves.
Ooo, ooo, ooo!
Only now, when the vicious entity in the red dress had reached the end of its road, did it seem to remember that it could flee.
It roared in pain, turned, and charged toward the bedroom door.
My heart skipped a beat.
I immediately shouted, “Secretary Xia! Uncle Degui! Be careful! That thing is coming straight at you!”
I had no idea whether they could hear me.
At least I had warned them.
Fortunately, before entering, I had specifically told them to prepare themselves for anything.
They should…be fine, right?
Even if they weren’t, there was nothing I could do about it.
The entity was already on the verge of death. If two large, well-rested men with thick wooden clubs still couldn’t handle it, they would be absolutely useless.
During my desperate fight with the vicious entity, I had hardly noticed my own exhaustion. Now that I had won, strength deserted my entire body.
Not only was my dantian completely empty, without the slightest trace of qi remaining, but every muscle ached and my head spun.
My forehead felt hot, as if I had a fever.
My legs went weak after only a few steps, and walking felt like treading on cotton.
I forced myself over to the bed first and checked Xia Dong’s condition.
Fortunately, she was in no danger.
The vicious entity had knocked her unconscious with its violent shove, but otherwise she was unharmed.
At worst, she would sleep for a few more hours.
Once I confirmed that Xia Dong was fine, I prepared to check the doorway.
“Those two are both big men, and Xia Degui obviously got into plenty of group brawls while working in the city. Surely they can handle a monster with less than a tenth of its fighting strength left?”
With that thought, I slowly started toward the bedroom door.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to walk faster. I truly had reached the limits of my strength.
“Master was right. With my current cultivation, forcing myself to use this ritual blade is still too much. I swung it only a few times, and it sucked my qi dry and drained every bit of my stamina. Thank goodness I dealt the entity a killing blow at the last moment. Otherwise, I would have collapsed on my own before it even touched me.”
At that moment, the remaining yin energy and white mist in the bedroom suddenly dispersed without a trace, ending its isolation from the outside world.
Then I heard two voices at the bedroom door.