“Ha ha ha! Nine Yin Ghost Mother, save my broken soul! Through a hundred deaths and endless tribulations, I shall become immortal!” The two shopkeepers and their hundreds of followers erupted into wild, crazed laughter.
Their faces twisted, smiling madly, as if they were all weary of living and only craving death, gone utterly mad.
The voice of a woman came from inside the “Safe Journey” carriage—sweet, clear, cold, hauntingly beautiful.
“Darling, shall we play a matching game together?”
A thick mist burst forth from the coffin shop, accompanied by piercing, tragic howls.
The prison guards who had just stormed in to capture and search burst out like grass thrown by a hurricane.
Midair, their bodies rapidly shriveled and withered, instantly turning into dried corpses that fell heavily to the ground.
Within the mist, a vague, illusory female figure slowly emerged.
She wore a red headscarf, a red bridal gown, and embroidered red shoes.
Around her floated several crimson lanterns, radiating an eerie blood-red light that dyed everything within thirty meters in a bloody hue.
Where the blood light touched, a hissing sound echoed continuously.
A terrifying coldness spread from the blood light into the bodies of the prison guards and strongmen.
White mist erupted from their skin as thin layers of ice crystals rapidly spread across their bodies.
At the same time, bullets thrown by the coffin shop personnel fell heavily to the ground.
Amid the dull explosions, clouds of poison gas rapidly diffused.
Some bullets hit the shops along the street; cracking open, they splattered green phosphorescent flames which quickly ignited dozens of wooden buildings on either side of the street.
The midwinter cold wind carried the flames, rapidly setting ablaze many points along the way.
The poison gas spread, and dozens of prison guards clutched their necks with both hands, collapsing to the ground heavily.
The coffin shop people screamed battle cries, faces contorted terribly, becoming as ugly as demons.
Like desperate men on the edge of death, they launched furious assaults on the prison guards around them.
The commanders, strongmen, and guards of the prison were also skilled fighters—most of whom, like the three-tailed Black Scorpion brothers, were desperate outlaws who had been forced to join the prison forces to survive.
Facing the coffin shop’s onslaught, these prison members instantly unleashed their deadliest counterattack.
Blades and swords flashed, spears and halberds thrust in chaos.
Archers and crossbowmen on high ground released a rain of arrows like locusts, piercing through the bodies of the coffin shop people.
One desperate attacker after another fell to the ground.
Even when cut down and pinned beneath the enemy, or pierced and riddled with arrows like a sieve, these men writhed violently on the ground, never forgetting to shout loudly: “Merciful Ghost Mother, save my broken soul!”
Some coffin shop fighters broke through to the prison guards’ side.
Their palms shifted into strange hues of green, blue, and cyan, nails glowing with black phosphorescence.
Silent and fluid, they wildly slapped and struck around them.
Though their movements seemed weak and feeble, their palms harbored poisonous power.
When a prison guard clashed fists or palms with one of them, a single strike would leave the fighter’s palm seemingly unscathed, but the poisonous force had already invaded the bones and muscles, causing injury.
Even worse, highly toxic venom entered the body alongside the palm’s force.
In an instant, dozens more prison guards collapsed to the ground.
Two crimson-robed generals roared furiously, leading squad after squad of commanders, strongmen, and guards, joined by heavily armored “Earth Ghost” troops arranged in dense formation, surging forward.
On the ground was a fierce charge and encirclement; above, arrows flew in a relentless storm.
Most importantly, the prison forces wielded the finest weaponry of the Great Yin Dynasty—top-tier arms and armor, far superior in lethality and defense to the common swords, spears, and clubs found in the underworld.
Within just half an hour, hundreds of coffin shop people were nearly all slaughtered outright, the rest badly wounded.
Each lay bleeding heavily on the ground.
The dead were gone, but the wounded laughed madly, cursing and roaring hysterically at the prison guards, begging for swift death!
They only sought “death”!
Meanwhile, the eerie woman who had emerged from the coffin shop silently hovered amidst the mist, radiating chilling cold that sent shivers down the spine—but she showed no sign of movement.
Gradually, as more and more fell wounded or dead around her, sparkling blood mist visible to the naked eye rose from the wounds.
It was drawn into the red lanterns floating beside the mysterious woman.
The lanterns’ flames burned brighter and brighter, gleaming like ruby jewels, their fierce light illuminating an area over a hundred meters wide.
The chilling aura emanating from the lanterns grew ever more intense and hard to bear.
Lu Qin quietly stood behind Luo Qingzhou.
At this very moment, Luo Qingzhou’s side was the safest spot along the entire Oil Basket Street.
Beneath his feet lay a prison guard clad in soft armor, holding a steel-pointed tiger-head spear just over twelve feet long.
Originally, this spear belonged to the guard.
When the guard charged forward with the troops to subdue the coffin shop folks, Lu Qin had eyed his spear, immediately striking him unconscious from behind and taking the spear for himself.
He even propped the guard’s unconscious body beneath his feet.
This spot also fell within Luo Qingzhou’s protective sphere.
Lu Qin felt that borrowing this weapon and arranging a “safe,” “good position” for the guard was already a great act of kindness and duty.
Around them echoed cries of agony, and the sounds of blades cutting into flesh.
Luo Qingzhou paid no heed to the surrounding noises, staring intently at the twisted woman standing before him.
A sharp aura of cold rolled within him—a visible scattering of icy light burst forth from his body, ringing out like the clang of countless blades sweeping, shattering the cold air around him.
The cold radiated from the crimson lanterns could not approach within three meters of Luo Qingzhou.
Besides Lu Qin, three other commanders and eight strongmen closely followed behind Luo Qingzhou.
Seeing this strange phenomenon, their eyes all flickered with a hint of hope.
When most of the coffin shop people were slaughtered on the spot, the two shopkeepers were slashed until their bodies were covered in wounds, pinned to the ground and tightly shackled, Luo Qingzhou finally spoke.
“All your men have fallen. Will you surrender, or continue to resist to the last?”
The hazy, ghostlike woman let out a soft giggle.
“You’re not going to put out the fire? Darling?”
Luo Qingzhou drew his strange-shaped flexible sword, a one-and-eight-foot long blade without forging intent, stretched taut.
A faint, continuous sword hum rose as Luo Qingzhou pointed his sword at the woman.
“You mean Four Extreme Workshop?”
No sooner had he said the word “workshop” than Luo Qingzhou suddenly struck.
The flexible sword twisted and flicked like a startled viper, and with the sharp notes of sword singing, over a hundred streaks of icy light spiraled, rolling white sword energy that tore through the fog and chill.
They came down straight at the woman, slashing fiercely.
In a flash, one hundred and twenty sword strikes rained down.
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Sword lights flashed like lightning, ripping through the void.
From a distance, a group of Haojian Gong Sword Guards detained by several prison guards cheered in unison: “Fine swordsmanship!”
Lu Qin gripped his steel-pointed spear tightly, a glint of blue light flickering in his eyes.
He was one of the few who clearly saw Luo Qingzhou’s sword intent.
One hundred and twenty sword strikes fell like a dense rain of ice, generating sharp sword auras that screamed piercingly, chilling hearts like spirit-reaping messengers.
Luo Qingzhou’s swordplay was both elegant and terrifying; every hit counted, all pouring toward the weird woman’s vital points.
The flexible sword whipped, twisted, flicked, and struck; sword beams even swooped from behind the woman, stabbing her deadly spots in the back.
But she stood still like a statue.
Every one of the one hundred and twenty sword strikes hit true.
The puncturing sounds never ceased as sword light pierced through the woman’s figure—but no trace remained on her body.
“She is not human,” Luo Qingzhou realized for the first time.
Up till now, he had only heard reports from Lu Qin, Old He, and several commanders and strongmen, but now he witnessed it himself: these ‘women’ were truly not human!
His sword could cut through thousands of men.
But if the opponent was not human, then what?
His sword energy could cleave metal, cut through city walls—but it had no effect on this ghost woman.
What could he do?
Lu Qin stared blankly as Luo Qingzhou wildly swung his sword at the woman, who remained motionless.
The blood-red radiance within the lanterns burned even more fiercely, the blood light slowly contracting, concentrating within a territory of several meters.
A fine layer of icy crystals appeared on Luo Qingzhou’s sword tip, cold spreading from the flexible sword deep into his palm and arm.
His hand gradually turned pale and then greenish, with cold mist curling steadily up his arm.
There was no doubt—his sword energy cultivated through martial Dao had almost no effect on this woman, nearly zero damage.
Lu Qin’s mind roiled with intense spiritual light.
Suddenly, he raised his right hand, slashed sharply on the spear tip.
His palm was cut open, hot blood flowing down the shaft.
He raised the spear, body tilting slightly backward, then thrust forward.
A pale blue light spiraled around the spear shaft.
Oceanic Force infused the spear, concealing a breath of pure breeze summoned through his spirit.
The breeze wrapped around the one-and-a-half-foot spearhead, with a sharp spear cry like a roaring tiger shaking the plains, rattling souls—making Luo Qingzhou look back amid his busy battle.
Lu Qin stood behind Luo Qingzhou, his body coiled like a bow, the spear like an arrow.
One spear thrust flew forward, piercing through the motionless woman’s chest.
A miserable scream rang out.
Lu Qin’s spear tore a fist-sized transparent hole in the woman’s chest.
His blood touched the wound, burning it with a sizzling sound, white smoke constantly rising.
A breath of wind force also penetrated her body, swirling like a spinning wheel of blades, continuously enlarging the wound.
The woman screamed in pain, body swaying.
The mist rolled up, enveloping her and the crimson lanterns; they lunged toward a nearby wall, instantly passing through it, disappearing without a trace.
“Well done... but why?” Luo Qingzhou shouted hoarsely in astonishment.
Lu Qin retracted his spear, shook it off lightly, and said softly:
“Maybe it’s because I’m still a virgin male—virgin blood can break evil spirits... Um, Lord, you don’t read those weird fiction stories, do you?”
“Gah?” Luo Qingzhou and the dozens of generals, commanders, strongmen, and guards were all dumbfounded.
“Virgin male body?”
Countless people muttered those words, their expressions turning extremely strange.
If it truly was because of this, then no wonder among the thousands of prison guards on Oil Basket Street, only Lu Qin was able to severely wound and scare off this ghost woman!
Luo Qingzhou suddenly stomped his foot.
“I owe you a great merit… Quick, take us to the Four Extreme Workshop!”
(End of chapter)