Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 302 Everyone Became an Immortal

The riverbank was very high, and the lights from the threshing ground couldn't reach the water's surface, leaving it completely dark.

Zeng Jianqiu picked up a few palm-sized stone shards from the ground: "You go first."

Xue Baoping nodded, let out a quick, short breath, and leaped into the river. As she neared the center, Zeng Jianqiu tossed a stone slab. Xue Baoping touched the slab, and her body bounced slightly upwards. As she fell again, a second stone slab arrived. She used this one for leverage, landing safely on the opposite bank.

Zeng Jianqiu waited for five breaths before jumping across the river. Using a pebble thrown by Xue Baoping, he landed on the other side with just one step.

The two climbed onto the riverbank, and Zeng Jianqiu pointed to the side of the big house: "You support me from behind that pile of firewood."

Xue Baoping nodded, and the two immediately separated into two dark figures—she flew behind the woodpile, while Zeng Jianqiu went up to the roof of the big house.

The house had a tiled roof. He moved aside a section and saw the straw underneath. He then peeled back the straw to reveal a layer of bluish-gray clay. He scraped away the clay to expose a thin wooden board. He channeled his blood energy into his small sword and cut a palm-sized piece off the board, revealing the interior of the house.

There was a large bed in the room, with the curtains drawn. A candle was lit on a small table, and another candle was lit on the candlestick by the door. He couldn't see clearly whether anyone was on the bed, but he couldn't find the large vat that Sun Yu had mentioned.

He wanted to wait a little longer, but when he glanced into the distance, he saw Sun Yuzhi—he was no longer on the roof, but by the wall of corpses. A man in a Taoist robe walked over, seemingly trying to stop him, but Sun Yuzhi bowed slightly and spoke to him.

Zeng Jianqiu was initially unsure if they were talking about his relationship with Xue Baoping, but he understood when he saw the man take a talisman from his sleeve. The man he was speaking to took the talisman, examined it, and then turned his face towards the direction of the main house.

Zeng Jianqiu immediately shrank his head behind the roof ridge, raised his hand and slammed his palm against the edge of the small hole, blasting a hole in it.

At that moment, people were being selected outside the threshing ground, and the clamor of the starving people drowned out the sound of his attack. But if anyone was inside, they certainly weren't deaf—Zeng Jianqiu, sword in hand, leaped inside. As he landed, he hurled a piece of tile at the bed curtain, tearing it open with a loud rip, revealing the person inside—

There really was someone, and it really was a person—a man who had been resting fully clothed on the bed when he was startled awake by the sound of the roof being smashed, still in a daze. He only fully came to his senses after being hit by a tile, and when he saw Zeng Jianqiu in mid-air, he immediately opened his mouth and reached into his clothes.

Before he could make a move, Zeng Jianqiu launched a flying sword, which landed squarely on the wall beside his face. He then flipped his wrist and pulled hard, causing the flying sword, along with its blade, to wrap around the man's neck.

He had just landed when he immediately shouted, "Don't move!"

The man, gripped by the sword's thread, felt as if a steel wire was wrapped around his neck, and his face immediately turned red. He dared not move, sitting on the bed and slowly raising his hands.

"what's your name?"

"week……"

Zeng Jianqiu loosened the sword line slightly, and the man took a deep breath: "...the sea."

"So you're Zhou Hai. Alright, where are the Blood God Cult members?"

Zhou Hai rolled his eyes, looked at the small sword hanging in front of his chest, and his pupils widened slightly: "You're a swordsman?"

"Stop talking nonsense—"

"If you're a swordsman, why bother? What do you want? Food, or elixirs and magical herbs? Come with us to Mount Dajie, we have everything!"

……

Hidden behind the woodpile, Xue Baoping could just see the sedan chair. It was a small sedan chair, too small for an adult to stand in; one could only sit inside. A man would have to move very restrictively; it must have been a sedan chair for women in wealthy families. The curtain hung smoothly, completely still.

Then she heard noises inside the house and knew that Zeng Jianqiu had rushed in. After that first sound, there were only very low voices, indicating that Zeng Jianqiu had subdued the people inside.

The Blood God Sect's ability to kill Qi Refining cultivators in the martial world with a single blow is far below Master Zeng's, and might even be below her own, so she's not worried.

But as this thought crossed his mind, he saw two people hurrying over from a distance, passing through the group of starving people who were eating and drinking—one of them was Sun Yu!

This... bastard! He's actually quite clever!

She was about to pick up a pebble from the ground to warn the house when she saw the curtain of the sedan chair move.

It resembled a flying sword… but only resembled one—a section of the blade slowly emerged from behind the sedan curtain, looking like it originally belonged to a slender sword, only it was broken. However, it wasn't held by a hand, but by a sticky, reddish-black substance, like vines or tendrils wrapped around it.

The blade slid along the ground with a soft rustling sound, then glided to the wall and the window, before probing a section of it through the window crack and prying it open slightly.

It looks just like a snake, peering into the house!

Then she realized that it really was looking out—a round thing slid out from behind the sedan curtain along the tentacles… It was a black and white eyeball, covered in pale pink mucus, swirling around and trailing wisps of bright red veins. It slid all the way to the windowsill, stopped at the tip of the sword, and suddenly turned to look into the room.

The talking inside suddenly stopped. Xue Baoping knew she now had to choose—to take action against the things in the sedan chair, or to wait?
She chose the latter—gripping her flying sword tightly in her hand, channeling her inner energy, ready to unleash its power. Then, watching Sun Yu and another person quickly walk to the door, she knocked first: "Master Zhou?"

There was no response from inside. The two waited for three breaths, then the other person hesitated slightly before pushing the door open—

A sword light shot out and struck the man's forehead. He seemed stunned, standing frozen in place before falling backward. Sun Yu instinctively reached out to support him, only realizing something was wrong after catching him with both hands. But Xue Baoping heard Zeng Jianqiu shout from inside the room, "Come in if you don't want to die."

Sun Yu looked caught in a dilemma, her eyes darting around as if she wanted to run, but then her gaze fixed on something else—she guessed that Zeng Jianqiu had revealed his flying sword. Sun Yu used her strength to support the corpse in front of her and took a step into the house—

The broken sword blade on the windowsill shot up like a venomous snake, smashing the door and window panels to pieces with a loud bang and flying into the room!
Almost simultaneously, Xue Baoping drew her sword, the small blade aimed directly at the contents of the sedan chair. First, it twisted the sedan curtain into a pile of shreds, and then she heard a clanging sound—she truly saw a large vat inside the sedan chair!
The large vat was shattered by the flying sword, and the contents inside exploded like a nest of startled snakes—countless sticky tentacles, just like the ones she had seen earlier, burst open with a buzzing sound, instantly shattering the entire sedan chair.

This thing, covered in organs, bones, eyeballs, and teeth, with bright red veins running through its entire body, was completely inhuman, dripping a mixture of pus and blood. In its center was a dark mass, which, in the instant it opened, revealed a dozen or so white, menacing eyes, staring intently at her, as if to terrify her and make her lose her composure!
But she had raised human skin before, so she wasn't afraid at all!
Just as this thing braced itself, Xue Baoping's flying sword was withdrawn, and she launched another attack!
She could hear the sounds coming from inside the house—a series of explosions, half the roof had been blown off, it seemed Zeng Jianqiu had fought with the people inside and with the broken sword blade. A gasp of alarm erupted in the courtyard; everyone had seen what it looked like, and forgetting about eating or begging, they were all fleeing.

But she remembered what Zeng Jianqiu had said: When you start fighting, don't think about anything else, just deal with what's in front of you!

Just as the second sword was about to pierce the creature's body, a gourd suddenly emerged from its body. With two tendrils wrapping around it, a soft popping sound came from the gourd's mouth, and a beam of green light shot out, striking her flying sword squarely.

Her flying sword was still shrouded in the previous murderous aura and remained unharmed, but when the sword line behind it was illuminated by the blue light, it immediately became limp and the flying sword drooped down.

The blue light continued to rush towards her, but Xue Baoping kicked away a pile of firewood in front of her, then slid to the right behind the firewood and pulled the flying sword back.

The sword's edge is tainted, preventing the flow of vital energy. However, the opening chapter of the Flying Immortal Sword Transformation arc doesn't teach how to use a sword, but rather how to use hidden weapons and rope darts!
The sword thread wrapped around her wrist, and she stretched out her body, channeling her power from her lower body up her lumbar spine into her arms before suddenly swinging them. The flying sword, along with the sword thread, was flung out, and with a whoosh, it wrapped around the tendrils holding the gourd, immediately spinning around and severing them.

The monster seemed to let out a human-like cry of pain, and quickly stretched out a few more tentacles to pick up the gourd that had fallen to the ground. But there were scattered firewood and fragments of the sedan chair on the ground. The three sticky tentacles grabbed at the debris a few times, but ended up with twigs and pieces all over them, becoming limp and powerless. They could only lift the gourd up, shake off the debris, and then pick up the gourd.

In the blink of an eye, it was delayed for a split second. Xue Baoping had already grabbed a handful of firewood with her left hand and drawn a long knife from her waist with her right hand, rushing over. The firewood pierced the creature's dozen or so eyeballs. It let out an extremely fierce scream. The long knife in her right hand swung into a ball of light, instantly severing more than a dozen tentacles that were trying to entangle her, and then she slammed into it!
It was as if she had crashed into a puddle of mud covered with pebbles and bones. She and the thing slid back five or six steps, feeling as if she had crushed it. There was a crackling sound of something exploding beneath her.

Then I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder, and I turned around and stabbed them—

Zeng Jianqiu dodged quickly, but a large piece of his clothes was cleaved off his chest by the knife. He quickly shouted, "Alright, alright, it's me!"

Xue Baoping raised the knife again before pausing, then stared at Zeng Jianqiu with wide eyes.

"It's me," he said again. Xue Baoping finally breathed a sigh of relief and jumped up from the ground. She saw that the thing under her was still moving and wriggling toward the dozen or so tentacles scattered around it, but it was already limp and powerless, as if it had really turned into mud.

Zeng Jinqiu drew her flying sword and shouted at the thing, "Are you human or what? If you move again, I'll cut you down with this flying sword!"

The creature understood, trembled slightly, and stopped climbing outwards.

Only then did Xue Baoping notice that the large house was half-destroyed, and Sun Yu's head lay on the ground, his body nowhere to be seen. Two more corpses lay in the ruins, and fragments of a broken sword lay scattered on the windowsill. Not far away, six seemingly rogue cultivators, armed with weapons, hesitated, preparing to encircle them. Further away, the starving people had retreated into the streets and alleys, leaving behind a trail of trampled corpses.

She transferred the saber to her left hand, wrapped the sword thread around her right wrist, and let the small sword hang below her fingers. As she paced around the courtyard, she stared coldly at them.

The torch was still burning, and the bloodstained dagger gleamed brightly in the firelight. The six men stopped in their tracks when they saw the dagger.

Then he heard Zeng Jianqiu speak from behind: "Can't you speak? Are you from the Blood God Cult?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the thing slowly move again, but instead of expanding outwards, it shrank inwards. Then, two other magical artifacts were squeezed out of its body: a small bell and a cymbal. Zeng Jianqiu immediately kicked them aside.

“That’s right, I am from the Blood God Cult.” It was a male voice speaking, the voice strange, as if it were being forced out of his throat.

Then another male voice said, "It's us, it's us!"

Then came the third voice: "Don't think we're afraid of you. We've all become immortals, we're not afraid of anything! We just want to have a proper talk with you!"

Then came a fourth voice: "That's right, hehe, you two foolish swordsmen, do you even know what our cultivation level is?"

Zeng Jianqiu snorted: "No matter how high their cultivation level is, they will still be defeated by us."

"Hehe, you think we're talking about high, but we're actually talking about low! I told you you're stupid! We're all Foundation Establishment cultivators, do you understand? Foundation Establishment! After becoming an immortal, you can kill Qi Refining cultivators! What's so great about you?"

"Yes, yes, yes, you think the name of a swordsman is intimidating now, but it won't be long before the whole world trembles at the mere mention of the name Blood God Sect! Hehe! Hahaha! Hahahaha!"

"Become an immortal?" Zeng Jianqiu said in a deep voice, "Is your Blood God Sect's Daoist temple really located at Great Calamity Mountain? What is your relationship with the Great Calamity Alliance?"

"Haha, this idiot is still asking questions!"

"Ask, ask, ask! Your cult leader is dead, why are you still asking! Hahaha!"

"No, their leader Mei isn't dead. He was still alive when we ran away!"

"Pah! You didn't see it. I told you to hold them back, and I saw it! They're dead! That Li Wuxiang ate their leader! I told you there was no need to run! You cowardly idiots!"

"You're talking nonsense! What I saw was their leader, Mei Qiulu, eating Li Wuxiang!"

"Shut up, all of you shut up! Listen to me!" Suddenly, a mouth popped out of the mud-like thing, and then an eyeball appeared with a gurgling sound, forming a face that could barely be called a face.

"Listen up, you foolish swordsmen! Your sect leader and your Nascent Soul cultivator Li Wuxiang have both become immortals! Just like us! And you still don't know what's good for you, still refusing to become immortals!"

(End of this chapter)