Chapter 208
Chapter 208
The nails on the blood fiend’s hands were more than half a foot long, vivid red, and sharp as steel blades!
If they stabbed someone–or even merely grazed them–the consequences would be severe.
Old Cao had just met it head-on and had not yet recovered enough to strike again.
I was too far away to help.
They could only rely on themselves!
At that critical moment…
Big Bull and the other two remained calm, their coordination exceptionally smooth.
All three thrust their phoenix poles forward again and crossed them together, trapping the blood fiend’s wrist in the fork!
Its blade-sharp nails could not advance another inch.
Their reactions were truly fast.
Hah!
Big Bull expelled his breath with a shout, used the momentum to leap, and kicked with all his strength.
His muscular leg shot toward the blood fiend’s chin–one of the weakest parts of a human head, easily shattered or dislocated by a kick.
But there was only a heavy bang!
The blood fiend took Big Bull’s kick squarely without moving an inch, its chin completely unharmed.
Instead, it gave a savage cry, raised both hands with tremendous force, and erupted in fury.
The three phoenix poles trapping its wrist were instantly flung away. Big Bull, Ergou, and Flat-Top were hurled through the air as well. They hit the ground and rolled several times, looking rather battered.
But they had bought time for Old Cao and me!
We attacked from behind the blood fiend.
Old Cao swung the phoenix rope in his hand and cast it out.
Whoosh…
Like a living creature–a writhing snake–the rope tightly coiled around the blood fiend’s neck.
“Fall!”
Old Cao roared and hauled backward with both hands.
The phoenix rope around the blood fiend’s neck dragged it backward and slammed it heavily to the ground.
Already prepared, I rushed forward and raised my ritual blade high. Surging qi poured into it through my palms, and the unsharpened edge began to emit a faint white glow.
I stabbed downward with all my strength!
Straight toward the fallen blood fiend’s heart.
I meant to pierce its heart with a single thrust…
Shnk!
The ritual blade’s tip actually broke through the blood fiend’s skin and stabbed inside. My heart leaped with joy.
Unfortunately, it stopped after penetrating only an inch.
It would go no farther.
“How is that possible?!”
Horror seized me.
Ever since Master gave me this ritual blade, it had swept aside virtually everything before it!
I used it as my ultimate killing move.
Whether against the terrifying ghost the little girl had become at Xia Family Hamlet or the toad demon in Mafang Village, drawing the ritual blade had always given me the upper hand.
Now my cultivation and arts were much stronger than before, and I was more skilled at wielding the blade!
Its attacks were therefore considerably more powerful.
Yet it had penetrated only an inch into the blood fiend’s body.
Sizzle…
A piercing sound like water striking boiling oil came from around the blade embedded in the blood fiend’s chest. Wisps of blood-red vapor rose into the air.
The ritual blade was clearly reacting with the blood fiend’s body!
Ordinarily, the blade’s power would easily melt and destroy a wicked creature’s body or spirit.
But now blood-red corpse qi coiled around the blade and resisted it, with neither side gaining the upper hand!
“Watch out, Xiao Wu!”
Old Cao’s anxious warning snapped me back to my senses.
Only then did I realize that although my ritual blade had failed to kill the blood fiend in one strike–had not even gravely wounded it–it had still caused the creature pain.
With a strange cry, its sharp claws raked toward me from both sides!
The blood fiend was lying faceup, putting us effectively face-to-face.
If its claws caught me, it might pull me straight into its “embrace.” At such an intimate distance, my chances of dying were extremely high!
“I have to dodge, or I’m finished!”
The thought flashed through my mind like lightning.
But it seemed too late!
I still gripped the ritual blade’s hilt with both hands and knelt on one knee.
If I had stabbed with one hand, I could have braced the other against the ground and sprung backward–an evasive lower-body technique from internal martial arts.
But in my haste to kill with one strike, I had grown impatient. I had also trusted and relied too heavily on the ritual blade’s miraculous power, making the mistake of leaving myself no retreat!
At that critical instant…
Something tightened around my waist.
Whatever had wrapped around me yanked me backward through the air, wind howling past my ears. The movement pulled the ritual blade free of the blood fiend’s chest as well.
As I flew backward, the scene before my eyes seemed to slow!
I watched the blood-red claws, sharp as steel blades, close from both sides. Slowly, ever so slowly, they swept past with barely any space between them and my arms…
I could even sense their terrible sharpness and corpse qi, and gooseflesh rose across my entire body.
Thud!
I landed, staggered back one step, and was caught by a steady, powerful arm.
It was Big Bull!
“Young Mr. Wu, are you all right?”
At the critical moment, Big Bull had thrown his phoenix rope around my waist and pulled me back!
The technique was essentially the same one Old Cao had just used to snare the blood fiend’s neck and drag it to the ground.
The difference was that Old Cao had used it to subdue the blood fiend, while Big Bull had used it to save me!
The same method could produce different effects when applied in different ways. Pure theory could never teach this kind of skill; it could only be developed through countless magical battles and life-and-death struggles…
“Thank you for saving me, Brother Big Bull!”
“It was nothing worth mentioning.”
“But didn’t your phoenix ropes snap when you tied down the coffin?”
“Heh. A coffin carrier doesn’t carry only one phoenix rope. This isn’t the time for that, Young Mr. Wu. Let’s go help them!”
While Big Bull saved me, Ergou and Flat-Top had thrown their phoenix ropes around the blood fiend’s ankles!
They pulled backward and outward with all their strength.
Together with Old Cao’s rope pulling the blood fiend backward by the neck, the three ropes pulled from three directions to form a triangle, lifting the fallen blood fiend and suspending it in midair.
Ancient times had the punishment of dismemberment by five horses. This was a battle between good and evil–a three-man version of it against a corpse fiend!
Swish, swish, swish…
Hoisted so abruptly, the blood fiend lost its balance. Its sharp claws could only flail wildly through the air. Then it bent its elbows backward, trying to cut Old Cao’s phoenix rope.
Before it could seize the rope, Big Bull and I closed in from the left and right!
Big Bull looped his phoenix rope around the blood fiend’s left wrist, while I clamped both hands desperately around its right wrist!
A corpse fiend possessed tremendous strength, but even that strength had its limits.
It twisted and struggled desperately in the air.
Yet all five of us were strong, and with us restraining it together, escaping was difficult!
For the moment, we had the blood fiend under control again.
“Old Cao, what do we do now?”
I shouted.
At the same time, I hesitated over whether to stab the monstrous thing in the heart with my ritual blade again.
The first thrust had penetrated only an inch, but the wound still had not healed. Dark-red, rotten blood slowly seeped from it, proving that the blade had injured the creature!
But attacking again carried risks.
With my current qi and stamina, I could use the ritual blade only three times.
I had already used it once. If I attacked again… the two attacks together would use up sixty or seventy percent of all my strength!
Together with the struggle so far and the powerful Evil-Shattering Talisman I had cast, that would leave me with only about ten percent of my qi.
Then I could only fight this corpse fiend hand-to-hand with raw strength, like Big Bull and the others!
Before Old Cao could answer, a burst of clattering hoofbeats came from outside, accompanied by a horse’s neigh.
Then Silent Gourd called out!
“I’m back!”
We turned to look.
Silent Gourd was charging from the front courtyard toward the backyard astride a red-and-green paper horse. Seated behind him was a paper figure with ruddy cheeks, dressed in black burial clothes.
He had arrived with the paper horse and paper figure that possessed spiritual resonance!
“Wonderful! Silent Gourd may not talk much, but he’s thoroughly dependable. His timing couldn’t be better.”
I shouted in delight within my heart.
Old Cao was clearly overjoyed as well.
“Hurry, Silent Gourd! We’ve restrained the corpse fiend for now. You, the paper figure, and the paper horse attack its vulnerable points together.”
As a coffin carrier, Silent Gourd naturally knew the vulnerable points of corpse-fiends. Old Cao did not need to explain.
“Got it!”
As Silent Gourd answered, the paper figure seated behind him flew up from the horse.
It drifted rapidly across the night sky and reached the struggling, writhing corpse fiend in the blink of an eye.
Then it plunged!
It now held a black dagger gleaming with cold light. The weapon was also made from funerary paper coated in ink, yet beneath the moonlight, its edge flashed with the cold sharpness of true steel.
I did not doubt that the paper blade was now even sharper than an actual steel knife.
The paper figure drove its blade precisely into the wound my ritual blade had made in the corpse fiend’s chest–stacking injury upon injury!
The paper blade sank another half inch inside.
Caw! Caw! Awooo!
The corpse fiend released terrifying cries, and all of us could hear its fury and pain!
The paper blade immediately shattered, scattering scraps in every direction.
An invisible, terrifying force flung the paper figure several meters backward and sent it crashing to the ground.
Pain flashed through Old Cao’s eyes, but no one had time to worry about the paper figure with spiritual resonance.
Silent Gourd and the paper horse with spiritual resonance had already closed in!
Neigh!
The paper horse reared like a frightened living steed and viciously kicked its hard front hooves toward the corpse fiend’s temple…