Chapter 207
Chapter 207
A pungent stench of blood instantly filled the entire courtyard.
My pupils contracted, and horror crossed my face.
“Is this… the smell of human blood? How can there still be so much blood inside a coffin buried underground for at least a century?”
Trickle, trickle.
The bloody fluid pouring from the coffin’s seams did not stop. Instead, it flowed faster and in greater quantities.
Thick, sticky blood covered the ground.
What in the world was this thing?
Could a corpse-fiend produce this much blood?
More blood had probably flowed out than the coffin itself could hold. It was truly sinister!
Old Cao’s expression grew even more severe.
“I know what it is. If I’m not mistaken, it should be… a blood corpse!”
A blood corpse?
Big Bull sounded surprised.
“Don’t those normally appear only in large ancient tombs? I’ve heard grave robbers sometimes encounter them and suffer terrible casualties.”
I had heard of blood corpses too.
They were corpses that had undergone a transformation inside certain ancient tombs!
They possessed tremendous strength and formidable offensive power.
Before robbing a tomb, grave robbers were said to probe the earth with a tool called a Luoyang spade. If they discovered soil as red as blood, it meant a blood corpse might exist in the ancient tomb below, posing an immense danger.
But ancient tombs containing blood corpses also tended to hold rich burial goods.
Grave robbers therefore often took desperate risks, entering such tombs in search of treasure despite the possibility of fighting a blood corpse.
Grave robbers were likewise part of the eclectic arts within the esoteric world!
In the broadest sense, theirs was another profession that “made its living from the dead.”
But digging up other people’s graves was ultimately no virtuous act. The lineage of grave robbers had a poor reputation overall and held low status within the esoteric world…
In response to Big Bull’s question, Old Cao said gravely, “Blood corpses readily arise in large ancient tombs, but that doesn’t mean they can only appear there. They can be created in many different ways.”
Ergou spoke up.
“But I’ve sometimes heard grave robbers passing through Lianghe Town boasting that a blood corpse is only red all over and occasionally drips rotten blood. This one is pouring out so much…”
This time, Old Cao did not need to explain. I stared fixedly at the bleeding coffin and answered.
“As a type of corpse-fiend, blood corpses are also divided into different levels. Ninety-nine percent of those encountered by grave robbers are only ordinary walking corpses. The creature we’re about to face is at least a top-tier vicious corpse. It may even be… a corpse fiend!”
A corpse fiend!
The two words made Big Bull and the others suck in sharp breaths.
Although everyone had already prepared themselves mentally, truly facing one still made their skin crawl.
Even Old Cao was no exception!
I saw that the hands gripping his phoenix pole and phoenix rope had stiffened slightly.
Clearly, even he was not completely confident against the corpse-fiend about to break out!
To ease the atmosphere, I deliberately cracked a joke.
“Of course, I hope I’m wrong. Maybe the thing in the coffin is neither a corpse fiend nor a vicious corpse. Maybe it’s just an ordinary walking corpse with unusually heavy bleeding, and we’ll knock it flat with one blow. Heh heh heh…”
Heh… heh heh heh!
A shrill, grating chuckle suddenly came from the coffin, cutting off my forced laughter.
My scalp prickled.
Good God!
The monstrous thing inside was actually laughing along with me?
An inexplicable chill entered my heart.
The next instant…
Bang!
The entire coffin lid flew outward, hurtling straight at us.
Some tremendous, unnatural force inside the coffin had blasted it free.
It flew like a wooden cannonball.
“Everyone, watch out!”
Old Cao shouted a warning, and we all hurriedly dodged.
None of us was foolish enough to waste strength meeting a coffin lid launched by a corpse-fiend head-on.
Whoosh…
The lid grazed past Big Bull and slammed into the wall behind him.
Boom! Crack!
The wall collapsed, and the coffin lid shattered.
Fragments of stone and wood flew everywhere.
The terrifying corpse-fiend finally appeared before us!
It wore a black robe. Its face was horribly decomposed and drenched in blood, yet we could vaguely tell that it had been a young person…
The nails on both hands were about half a foot long, like sharp steel blades.
But instead of the glossy black typical of a corpse-fiend’s nails, these were blood red. They even possessed a faint translucence, like red crystal.
That made them appear all the more eerie and evil.
Its eyes were open and equally blood red. They radiated terrifying viciousness and icy cold as they swept back and forth across us.
It had originally lain inside the coffin.
Now that the coffin stood upright, it too was standing.
We faced it as though confronting a mortal enemy!
We held our breath, focused our minds, and stared at the strange corpse-fiend.
Corpse and humans appraised one another.
With everything still unknown, neither side wanted to move first!
An unbearably oppressive atmosphere spread through the blood-reeking courtyard.
Moonlight spilled from the sky and washed the place in pallor, adding to its cold, silent eeriness.
In the end, the corpse-fiend moved first.
Its body twitched. Its right leg stepped out of the coffin, followed by its left… and both feet came down on the ground.
Deprived of the corpse-fiend’s support, the coffin toppled backward with a bang and sent dust surging across the ground once more.
Old Cao’s gaze grew graver still. He spoke softly, his voice tinged with helplessness.
“You jinxed us, Xiao Wu. Every bad thing you mention comes true! Its joints can move freely, so it has probably become a corpse fiend. We must be careful when we fight. Don’t go and lose your lives here.”
I nodded with a bitter smile.
“How can you blame me? Judging by the coffin and the way blood gushed like a spring before its occupant emerged, there was already a strong chance it was a corpse fiend.”
Corpse-fiends formed when dead bodies underwent transformation.
After a person died, the body quickly stiffened.
The joints in particular lost all ability to bend!
Even after becoming a walking corpse or vicious corpse, the joints could hardly bend normally like those of a living person. The body remained rigid.
Once it reached the level of a corpse fiend, however, dense corpse qi nourished the body’s muscles and certain joints, softening them again.
It could then perform agile movements resembling those of a living person!
When the blood corpse walked out of the coffin moments earlier, its legs had clearly bent. Its knee joints had returned to normal.
That meant this thing was a blood fiend!
Although nervous before the blood fiend, Big Bull still spoke with bold bravado.
“I’ve carried coffins for more than ten years, but I never imagined I’d see a terrifying thing like a blood fiend. If I fight it today, even dying will be a glorious death!”
I hurriedly shook my head.
“Brother Big Bull, don’t talk nonsense! We’re all going to stay alive and well. Don’t say such reckless things.”
The blood fiend stood more than two zhang away from us.
Its eerie blood-red eyes swept back and forth. Then it opened its mouth.
Caw, caw, heh heh…
It uttered a string of strange sounds–clearly corpse speech!
Unfortunately, none of us could understand it.
Old Cao could not understand it either.
And there was no need to understand!
He ordinarily treated me with great warmth, but he was hot-tempered by nature.
Now he sneered and said mockingly, “I don’t care what you evil thing want to say. You shouldn’t exist in this world in the first place! Lie down obediently, let us bury you underground again, and allow us to seal you properly. We might spare your life then. You won’t have to die so quickly–you can die a little more slowly!”
The blood fiend stared at Old Cao.
It gave two more strange caws, then erupted into motion!
Kicking off with both feet, it lunged through the air at Old Cao.
They had been separated by more than two zhang–six or seven meters!
Yet it crossed that enormous distance in a single flying leap.
Beneath the moonlight, it carried a dense, pungent stench of blood and stirred gusts of reeking wind.
The sight was inconceivable and utterly terrifying.
“Watch out, Old Cao!”
Big Bull, the others, and I shouted together and finally attacked.
As the strongest among us, Old Cao naturally did not lose his composure.
He raised the phoenix pole in his hands–the hard wooden staff he had used to carry coffins for many years–then stomped forward and swung it with all his strength at the blood fiend’s head.
From the left, I cast the strongest offensive talisman art I currently possessed–the Evil-Shattering Talisman!
The talisman consumed a considerable amount of qi, but its power was correspondingly great.
It produced an explosive, burning effect specifically against demons, monsters, and ghosts. Besides injuring them, it could directly blast away some of their evil qi and weaken them.
Big Bull, Ergou, and Flat-Top raised their phoenix poles and struck at the blood fiend from the right.
Their weapons tore through the air!
I had to admit, our coordination was exceptionally smooth.
Everything happened in less than a second!
Our head-on, life-and-death struggle with the blood fiend erupted in full.
Clang!
Old Cao’s phoenix pole struck the blood fiend’s hands. As the creature lunged through the air, it had managed to respond to his counterattack by swiftly raising both hands before its head.
Its palms were incomparably hard. Old Cao’s phoenix pole rang like metal striking metal when it hit.
Several tiny sparks flickered.
It was truly horrifying!
Of course, this also proved that Old Cao’s phoenix pole was no ordinary weapon. As expected of a wooden staff used to carry coffins for countless years, it had become something like a ritual implement.
Although made of wood, its hardness did not seem far inferior to steel.
Old Cao’s strength was astonishing too. His blow forcibly halted the blood fiend’s airborne charge and knocked it back to the ground.
As Old Cao clashed with it head-on, the attacks from Big Bull, the others, and me landed at the same time.
Bang… boom!
The Evil-Shattering Talisman I had cast struck the blood fiend’s body at close range and exploded into a ball of fire as large as a human head.
It looked exceedingly powerful.
Yet the blast did not appear to injure the creature’s torso. Any ordinary corpse-fiend–even a vicious corpse–would have been left with a wound as large as a bowl.
That showed how formidable this corpse fiend was!
The phoenix poles wielded by Big Bull and the others struck the blood fiend solidly as well.
They produced a series of heavy thuds.
But the sounds were not as loud as Old Cao’s blow, nor did their strikes scatter sparks.
Caw…
The blood fiend cried strangely and tried to turn and stab Big Bull and the others with its sharp claws.