Chapter 193 Jade Shatters, a Thousand Armies Survive; Mad Female Ghost Opens the Yellow Springs!

Li Zhiyao's wrists didn't stop moving.

The crimson paper banner sliced through the Yin wind of the underground palace; the Soul-summoning incantation struck the rock walls and bounced back, circling once through this subterranean space where eighty thousand lives were buried.

Song Zhentian put down the scalpel.

That face, crisscrossed with surgical sutures, slowly turned around.

The misaligned muscles twitched, and a crack split open the flesh at the corner of his mouth.

The sound squeezed from his throat didn't sound like a human laugh; it was a raspy hiss like that of a beast clinching its prey.

"A Yin God?

Just in time."

He folded his fingers, forming intricate and dense seals.

Every fingertip was turned-out flesh, and the angles of his knuckles bent in arcs no living creature should possess.

"Takamagahara: Deathly Defilement Art!"

The incantation fell.

The space around the high platform suddenly collapsed.

A viscous swamp churning with black bubbles appeared out of thin air.

Fetid yellow water rolled within it, possessing extreme corrosiveness as it seeped through the cracks in the air, spreading toward the jade skeleton on the white marble platform.

He wanted to destroy Li Chengfeng's remains.

Li Zhiyao's eye sockets split.

Without buildup or warning.

Two lines of bloody tears fell straight down her cheeks, dripping onto her moon-white qipao and blooming into two startling red plum blossoms.

She bit the tip of her tongue.

Before the metallic taste in her mouth could dissipate, a mouthful of Origin heart's blood was already sprayed onto the paper banner.

"Borrowing a Path from the Yellow Springs—Styx Backflow!"

The white paper lantern exploded with blinding white light.

A crack several zhang wide was torn open in the ground.

Turbid, foul yellow water from the River Styx surged up from the crack, flowing backward to strike the swamp of deathly defilement.

The vile waters of the two realms met, devouring each other.

White smoke rose, accompanied by a scalp-numbing sizzling sound as the noise of dissolution continued unabated.

But Li Zhiyao was merely a Reincarnator wandering between the two realms.

Her thousand years of yin virtue were nearly exhausted under the Styx Backflow.

The River Styx water retreated step by step, and the toxic water slowly flooded up, seemingly about to submerge the skeleton's toes.

"The supreme technique of the Great Sun Black Dragon Cult."

Song Zhentian looked down from above, his tone full of arrogance.

"With your meager foundation, you think you can stop me?"

Before he could finish his sentence.

A clap of thunder suddenly exploded within the underground palace.

It wasn't a Spell, a seal, or any typical cultivation method.

It was just a step.

With the step Zhou Ran took, the bluestone slabs beneath his feet exploded into powder.

His entire being turned into a purple-black line, plunging into the deathly defilement swamp.

The Black Dragon Cult's proudest method of ultimate Yin corrosion.

Before the law-breaking power of the qilin arm, it was like a piece of soaked, rotten paper.

It was torn apart from the center, the swamp splitting in two.

Before the toxic water could touch his skin, it was burned into black ash by his protective Demonic Fire and scattered in the wind.

Zhou Ran stepped over the remains of the swamp, heading straight for the high platform.

This was his qilin bone!

How could he allow this old thing to desecrate it!

Song Zhentian's eyeballs bulged.

He stomped his right leg fiercely; on that stitched-together elephantine leg, dozens of half-meter-long pale bone spikes burst through the skin.

They twisted and deformed in mid-air, turning into dozens of sharp katanas, their blades coated in eerie green venom, sealing off all paths of entry.

"Ghost Slash!"

Zhou Ran didn't stop.

Facing the web of blades, he opened the five fingers of his left hand and made a grasping motion forward.

No incantations, no hand seals.

Just his Physical Body.

*Crack—*

Dozens of bone katanas, sharp enough to cut through steel bars, were snatched in his palm; the Qilin Force erupted, and the katanas shattered into a handful of bone shards.

The debris fell from between his fingers, clattering onto the white marble steps.

Song Zhentian finally panicked.

He wanted to retreat, but his legs wouldn't move.

Zhou Ran had already closed in.

His right fist was charged with purple-gold Demonic Essence, and with a piercing sonic boom, he punched toward Song Zhentian's chest.

*Boom.*

That powerful Physical Body, stitched together from the organs of over a dozen types of monsters, had its chest cave in on the spot.

The force of the punch penetrated his internal organs, broke through his back, and exited his body.

Half of his body disintegrated into a mist of blood.

Shredded meat mixed with fragments of unknown organs splashed onto the rock walls and trickled down the crevices.

Zhou Ran withdrew his fist and looked down at the half-corpse on the ground.

Beneath the torn muscle tissue was not bone, but extremely precise wooden mechanical parts.

There were also layers of closely arranged, finely interlocking Yamata Serpent Scales, still clicking and rotating like a broken but still running clock.

This thing had never been human.

"Spent all that effort just to hit a toy."

Zhou Ran shook the debris off his hand, his tone showing no emotion.

The half-head on the ground hadn't died yet.

Song Zhentian's remaining eye was bloodshot; he rubbed his chin against the ground.

A raspy laugh crawled out of his mouth, intermittent but exceptionally piercing.

"Worm of the Xia Kingdom."

"You think you've won just by shattering a shell?"

"The Empire's Soul of Shattered Jade—has only just awakened."

...

Song Zhentian's remaining left hand gripped the throbbing black core inside his chest cavity.

His fingers tightened.

He crushed it.

The sound was very faint, as light as stepping on an insect.

But in the next moment, the four walls moved.

In the tiered sacrificial pits, the eerie green ghost fires flickered simultaneously.

A heavy grinding sound came from deep within the rock walls.

Low.

Persistent.

Getting closer and closer.

*Thud.*

*Thud.*

*Thud.*

Countless mounds of sealing earth were smashed open from the inside.

Withered arms reached out from the black soil.

Then came heads, shoulders, and entire bodies.

Tattered crimson Tosei-gusoku armor and Hannya Demon Masks.

Behind the masks were no eyeballs, only two clusters of flickering black flames.

Those were eyes that held nothing but killing intent.

With katanas gripped in their hands, they leapt from the rock wall pits to the bottom of the underground palace.

Upon landing, they didn't make a single sound.

Zhou Ran's Divine Sense swept over them; there were at least a thousand.

He cracked the knuckles of his qilin arm and scanned the surroundings.

He didn't take them seriously at all.

Right now, he was a Cultivator at the Seventh Level of Foundation Establishment; his confidence was swelling immensely!

"Is this your trump card?"

"Kill!"

A thousand Shattered Jade Samurai spoke in unison.

They formed an ancient battle formation, their katanas slashing down in unison, the blade energy connecting into a crimson wave-wall that swept across the sky.

Zhou Ran stood in front of Li Zhiyao, throwing out a series of punches.

The fist-force, as thick as buckets, smashed into the crowd of samurai.

The dozens at the front were blown to pieces along with their armor; severed limbs flew everywhere, and armor fragments clattered as they hit the ground.

But the fragments began to wriggle as soon as they hit the ground.

A flash of black flame.

Broken bones reassembled, armor returned to its place, and those samurai who had been blown apart were molded back into their original forms by an invisible hand, standing up, raising their blades, and continuing to charge.

Zhou Ran's brows furrowed.

Li Zhiyao quickly retreated behind him, her fingers lightly brushing her brow as her Yin Eye opened.

"Don't waste your energy."

Her voice was raspy, and she spoke very quickly.

"These things have no Souls inside them; they are killing machines refined by island nation Onmyoji using Shikigami grudges mixed with Death Qi.

Physical destruction is useless; they can reassemble even if crushed into powder."

"How do I kill them?"

Zhou Ran kicked over three samurai who had approached, not even looking back.

"Yellow Springs."

Li Zhiyao tossed the white paper lantern high into the air.

She bit her right middle finger and drew a blood talisman in the air.

"I offer a thousand years of yin virtue as a sacrifice to open the Gates of the Netherworld."

Zhou Ran sucked in a breath of cold air.

This unhinged woman is literally risking her life just to protect her brother's remains!

Although there was no sign of life in Li Zhiyao.

Yet, through the perspective of Zhou Ran's Demonic Pupils.

The yin virtue and Death Qi on her body were dissipating at an extremely high speed.