Chapter 164 - 160: Demons

Chapter 164: Chapter 160: Demons

Screams blended into one as the people who had been helping in the courtyard scrambled madly for the gate.

The crowd surged together, slamming against the courtyard gate with a loud CLANG. One of the red lanterns on the doorframe was shaken loose, and it rolled twice on the ground.

Cui’s head hovered just off Shi Zhen Shu’s shoulder. Her eyes swept over the terrified, fleeing people, a flicker of cruel amusement in their depths.

"Why run? What’s the point in running?"

Cui’s voice rose higher, laced with a hysterical excitement. "Join us! Stay! Stay and serve the master, and live forever!"

As Cui’s voice faded, the people who had been rushing wildly for the gate came to an abrupt halt.

Then, they slowly turned their heads.

Their eyes were empty and lifeless, their pupils shrouded in a gray mist.

Their faces were expressionless, their features as stiff as masks, yet their lips were pulled into doll-like smiles.

Every single person’s gaze fell upon Chen Yue in unison.

The next instant, they lunged at Chen Yue with near-frenzied desperation.

And that wasn’t all.

Shen Dujiang and Hu Shaoyu felt a change in their bodies at almost the exact same moment. An icy power seeped from the void, infiltrating every fiber of their being.

They tried to raise their hands, but their arms were heavy as lead. They tried to take a step, but their legs felt nailed to the ground, as if their bodies no longer belonged to them.

Cold sweat beaded on Shen Dujiang’s forehead. ’This is even more terrifying than the Alchemy Ghost we encountered in Youlin County.’

But Lin Quan’s condition was even worse than theirs.

His eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites visible as his pupils vanished completely.

His face twisted, his features contorting into a ferocious snarl.

He violently threw up his hands, fingers splayed, and lunged to choke Chen Yue.

The force was astonishing, his knuckles making CRACKING sounds from the strain.

"ROAR!"

A tiger’s roar erupted from Chen Yue, spreading out in all directions, piercing through the eaves of the roof and through every person’s body.

The ordinary people lunging at Chen Yue froze in unison.

Their bodies went limp as if all their strength had been siphoned away, and they collapsed to the ground one after another.

Shen Dujiang and Hu Shaoyu felt the weight on their bodies lift almost simultaneously.

Lin Quan’s eyes rolled back down, but having lost all his strength, he fell backward. Shen Dujiang caught him and gently laid him on the ground.

As for Chen Yue, before the tiger’s roar had even fully faded, he had already vanished, reappearing directly in front of Shi Zhen Shu.

Chen Yue’s Qi Blood surged to its absolute peak, and a faint red halo bloomed across the surface of his skin.

He extended his right fist, aimed it at Cui’s head, and threw a punch.

"AARGH!"

Seeing Chen Yue suddenly appear before her, Cui’s mouth stretched to a grotesque angle as she let out a shrill shriek.

The shriek was even more piercing than her laughter from before, like a thousand needles stabbing into one’s eardrums.

Endless resentment poured from the head like a bursting dam, flooding toward Chen Yue.

But Chen Yue didn’t move an inch.

Three feet from his body, the black resentment collided with an invisible wall of fire, letting out a SIZZLING sound as it rapidly evaporated and dispersed.

Under the assault of the resentment, the faint red halo around Chen Yue didn’t weaken. Instead, it grew even brighter.

The next instant, Chen Yue’s fist crushed Cui’s head.

There was no spray of gore as one might expect. The moment his fist made contact, the head melted away, visibly dissipating.

In its final moment, Cui’s face twisted into an expression of extreme malice, mouth wide open, before she vanished completely.

Shi Zhen Shu’s body swayed like a statue that had lost its support, and she slowly began to topple to the ground.

But just as her body tilted halfway, a multitude of black legs suddenly shot out from behind her.

The legs were long and twisted, like those of a drowning person kicking and struggling underwater.

They were packed densely together, planting themselves on the ground to steady Shi Zhen Shu’s body.

The next instant, countless hands burst forth from under her ribs, from her shoulders, her back, and her waist.

Fingers splayed and nails black and sharp, they clawed madly at the nearby Chen Yue.

The number of hands was astonishing, layered one on top of another like a blooming flower.

"Kill you! I’ll kill you!"

On the palm of each hand, a face of Cui appeared—the same features, the same expression, the same sinister aura.

Their mouths opened and closed, the sounds overlapping to form a piercing wave that surged toward Chen Yue.

Chen Yue didn’t retreat. He pushed the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell to its limit, and the Qi Blood within him erupted.

The red halo around his body abruptly expanded, growing even more incandescent.

Before the countless ghostly hands could even get near Chen Yue, they were blocked by the halo of Qi Blood. Accompanied by sharp screams and black smoke, the hands vanished one by one.

People fear ghosts, but if a person possesses abundant Qi Blood, ghosts cannot even approach them.

Just like this very moment.

The multitude of ghostly legs behind Shi Zhen Shu sprang at once, tracing an arc through the air before landing in another corner of the courtyard.

Shi Zhen Shu’s features shifted as if kneaded by hand like clay, finally settling into the likeness of Chen Yuqing.

It was a delicate and cold face with exquisite features, her eyes holding an innate arrogance and detachment.

But compared to the Chen Yuqing from Youlin County, this version lacked the liveliness of a living person, possessing more of the stiffness of the dead.

Cui’s head grew out from beside Shi Zhen Shu’s once more. Cui’s face was still filled with unwillingness and resentment, her eyes locked on Chen Yue.

"How did your cultivation become so strong?" Chen Yuqing spoke.

’How could a minor character at the Skin Refining Realm grow to this extent in such a short time?’ she truly couldn’t understand.

A Qi Blood so abundant it could scorch Ghostly Creatures—such a thing shouldn’t belong to someone who came from a backwater like Youlin County.

Chen Yue looked at Chen Yuqing, his gaze as calm as still water.

"I’ll tell you later."

As his voice fell, Chen Yue’s figure vanished again.

Chen Yuqing’s pupils constricted violently. She didn’t even see how Chen Yue moved. In just an instant, he was right in front of her.

He struck out with his palm.

His palm, red-hot like a branding iron, carried an almost tangible Qi and Blood Power as it descended upon her face.

The multitude of ghostly legs beneath Chen Yuqing sprang into action, launching her body sideways at a bizarre angle in an attempt to dodge Chen Yue’s palm strike.

Chen Yuqing was fast, but Chen Yue was just as fast.

In an instant, dense afterimages filled every corner of the courtyard.

Shen Dujiang and Hu Shaoyu supported Lin Quan as they retreated to the courtyard wall. They had considered helping, but upon seeing this scene, they immediately abandoned the thought.

’It’s only been a little over a month since we last saw him, and Chen Yue’s strength has undergone another earth-shattering transformation.’

’Last time, we could still see how he punched and how he moved. We couldn’t keep up, but at least we knew what he was doing.’

’But now? We can’t even see him clearly.’

"Kill him! Kill him!"

Cui’s shrill shriek erupted from Chen Yuqing’s body. Her voice was even more frantic, more hysterical than before, carrying the rage of a cornered beast about to be driven to its doom.

In an instant, a host of ghostly hands shot out from her torso again, even more numerous than before, densely packed in layer upon layer, clawing madly at Chen Yue.

But just like before, the ghostly hands were incinerated by Chen Yue’s abundant Qi Blood before they could even get close.

They posed no threat whatsoever. This was the natural suppression that ultimate yang energy held over ultimate yin creatures.

Instead, with the massive loss of ghostly hands, the icy aura surging from Chen Yuqing began to noticeably weaken.

"ROAR!"

Another heaven-shaking tiger’s roar. The halo of Qi Blood around Chen Yue expanded violently with the sound, forming a visible shockwave.

The soundwave swept over Chen Yuqing’s body, and she froze abruptly.

Chen Yuqing’s cold indifference completely shattered, replaced by unbearable agony. Her brows knitted tightly, and her lips parted in a silent scream.

Cui fared even worse. Her face crumpled, her features twisting until they were almost unrecognizable as she let out a piercing, ear-splitting howl from her wide-open mouth.

In that exact instant, Chen Yue’s palm struck Shi Zhen Shu’s body.

There was no spray of gore. Instead, a black shadow was slapped out of Shi Zhen Shu’s body.

The shadow was as thick as congealed ink, its edges constantly writhing, as if countless tiny things were churning within it.

The moment the shadow was knocked out, a multitude of shrill wails—the cries of ghosts and howls of gods—erupted from within it.

There were men and women, old and young. Some were crying, some were howling, some were muttering softly, and some were screaming madly.

The sound made one’s very soul tremble.

Chen Yue’s gaze swept quickly over Shi Zhen Shu’s body as it crumpled to the ground.

’From the start of the fight, I could tell that Shi Zhen Shu’s body was real flesh and blood, not an illusion simulated by Ghostly Creatures.’

’And those faces that appeared on her, and the dense mass of ghostly hands and legs later on, they are parasites attached to this body.’

That was why Chen Yue hadn’t destroyed Shi Zhen Shu’s body.

’As for Chen Yuqing and Cui, they aren’t two separate Chong Ghosts.’

’They are an amalgam of countless Chong Ghosts, devoured by the Mountain Monarch, then crushed and kneaded together into this twisted existence.’

’And Cui and Chen Yuqing are merely two chosen from among these countless Chong Ghosts.’

Chen Yue appeared before the black shadow, his second palm strike already on its way. The Palm Force was like a collapsing mountain, carrying immense Qi and Blood Power as it slammed viciously into the black mass.

"BOOM!"

A tremor struck directly at the level of the Heart Spirit. The black shadow twisted violently under the Palm Force, and countless roars exploded in Chen Yue’s ears at once.

The sounds mingled into a piercing wave, like the lamentations of a thousand souls in Hell.

Unmoved, Chen Yue expanded his Qi Blood halo to its maximum.

Bathed in the red light, the weaker Chong Ghosts within the black shadow didn’t even have a chance to struggle before they swiftly melted and dissipated.

But as the Chong Ghosts in the shadow were burned away by his Qi Blood, Chen Yue began to see many familiar figures.

They were people from the Chen Family.

They looked at Chen Yue, their eyes holding no resentment or anger, only an indescribable weariness and sorrow.

The apothecary’s apprentice clasped his hands in a salute to Chen Yue. His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but ultimately no sound came out.

Then, his figure began to turn transparent, dissipating bit by bit, starting from his feet.

Finally, he gave Chen Yue a smile of release.

The other figures did the same, one after another. Expressions of release appeared on their faces as they gave Chen Yue slight nods or clasped-hand salutes, then silently faded into the air.

The corner of Chen Yue’s eye twitched slightly.

’These ghosts... they were all civilians from Youlin County. They weren’t born as ghosts. They were innocents devoured by the Mountain Monarch, victims forcibly turned into Chong Ghosts.’

By burning them away, Chen Yue was, in a way, freeing them from the Mountain Monarch’s control.