Mountain and River Festival

Chapter 57: The Poisoned Martial Artist
This once again proved that Dugu Qingli's judgment was correct... There was no need to touch these corpses at all, the breath of these living people was the fuse for the zombies to turn into corpses!
"Swoosh!" A divine sword with a faint purple light hung in front of Shen Tang. It was her trump card flying sword that Lu Xingzhou had never seen her use since they met.

"Boom!" The overwhelming sword light rolled over, and the corpse had no time to stand up before it was crushed by the sword, instantly turning into broken limbs, which was extremely cruel.

The emperor was so powerful that even gods and ghosts were afraid.

But Shen Tang's sword strike was effective, and his expression became even more solemn.

The corpses began to wriggle and piece themselves together again.

"Clang!" Dugu Qingli unsheathed his ice sword, a figure flashed by, and a sword light appeared.

The white-haired girl stood in the middle of the corpse group with a sword in her hand. The wriggling corpses around her gradually froze, and then shattered with a bang, and ice crystals scattered everywhere.

Lu Xingzhou felt that no matter how powerful these two were, at least they had a perfect grasp of beauty. They were really beautiful...

"Not as strong as I imagined," Dugu Qingli commented. "These are probably the guests' followers. They were caught off guard as they passed through the corridor and were killed by the formation here... In life, they were of upper third rank, but they've been dead for so long, their power has vanished, and the remaining soul fire is extremely weak. They won't be difficult to deal with."

With top three ranks as followers, and so many of them at that, anyone else would probably be terrified, but none of the three people present expressed much surprise.

All three of them have profound heritage, and coincidentally they happen to be the top three in Daqian today... Although they are all green and have only obtained a small part of the heritage, it is enough to call themselves the knowledge ceiling of rookies.

They all knew that true immortals didn't even use the current nine-grade classification system; that was a classification invented by current practitioners themselves. The so-called upper three grades today were probably just the beginning in the eyes of immortals. The specifics weren't entirely clear.

"Formation..." Lu Xingzhou wheeled around in a circle. "There is indeed a soul-sucking formation hidden here. Their souls were directly extracted and they died instantly. The formation was quickly destroyed... Well, you guys stay ten feet away."

They both retreated ten feet and watched as Lu Xingzhou pulled out a set of formation flags, inserting them on the left and patching them on the right before swiftly swishing away again. "I've modified this formation. It's now a soul-fixing formation. If you encounter a difficult opponent later, remember to lure them here. The flickering soul fire of the dead is easily suppressed by this formation."

Dugu Qingli looked at the way he was trying so hard to act, thinking, "See if you can stop telling me that I have no effect on you," and subconsciously a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

I always feel that Lu Xingzhou is deep and unfathomable, but to be honest, he is still a young man...

She didn't know that her smile looked like a ghost to Shen Tang.

This might be the first time Shen Tang had seen her smile in all the time he had known her! But the smile faded in an instant, and Shen Tang wondered if he had just seen things.

Never mind. This isn't the place to focus on that.

Dugu Qingli continued to push Lu Xingzhou, while Shen Tang continued to clear the way ahead. There were divisions and forks ahead, mostly for alchemy rooms, refining rooms, and the like.

Shen Tang also pushed the door open and took a look. There were no finished products in the refining room, but there were a few good materials, which he collected directly; the alchemy room was full of expired medicinal materials, no finished pills, and no furnace.

It's normal, the furnace and the pill are outside... This place is basically used to store medicinal materials, but it's a pity that it has been useless for too long.

Judging from the overall layout, this cave is not large and is relatively simple, just a temporary residence. A short distance further forward, at the core of the cave, a standing corpse came into view.

The muscles of the corpse were intact, and he was tall and mighty, with distinct muscle lumps and blocks. It could be seen that he had trained his body strongly during his lifetime. Even after death, he stood with his eyes wide open and angry, and it seemed that he must have been a brave martial artist in his lifetime.

I carefully walked around to the front and saw that the death was extremely tragic. The body looked intact from the back, but the abdomen was completely corroded and the intestines were pierced, revealing a large empty hole, and all the internal organs were gone.

Lu Xingzhou's mind raced, "There's something wrong with the tea in the front hall... He discovered it was poisoned and went after the original owner in anger, but he ultimately died of the poison."

"Then... where is the original owner?" Shen Tang looked around but didn't see him, but he saw phosphorescent lights suddenly light up in the corpse's eyes.

Dugu Qingli, who was well prepared, immediately stabbed the corpse puppet in the center of its eyebrows with a sword. The frost instantly spread from the center of its eyebrows, freezing the soul fire.

"Frosty Moon?" The corpse puppet actually spoke: "Why are you so weak..."

Dugu Qingli: "..."

The iron-like arm whipped towards Dugu Qingli's lower abdomen like lightning. Shen Tang raised his sword and slashed at the arm. With a "clang" sound, the arm was not even cut, but Shen Tang's domineering power still caused the corpse puppet's attack to be slightly deflected.

But it's only slightly offset.

Dugu Qingli dodged and the ice sword was already at the back of the corpse puppet's head.

The corpse puppet still took her sword attack without dodging, and swung Shen Tang's sword away with one hand: "The emperor's shocking... the heavenly sword technique? Huh."

This familiar tone proved nothing other than the antiquity of their heritage, not even their former foes or friends. In truth, friend or foe, good or evil, these were meaningless in the corpse's puppet state. He would only retain a lingering hatred before his death, destroying all living beings equally.

The two women didn't say a word, but just circled around the corpse puppet like a spinning lantern, attacking it fiercely without any damage.

It seems impossible to fight, unable to break the opponent's defense, and the opponent's fist is so powerful that it can hurt anyone who is touched.

Even though it had been dead for so long and its strength had degraded a lot, this corpse puppet was now definitely a third-grade or higher! Fortunately, this wasn't a deliberately arranged corpse, otherwise, if it had retained its strength in life, no one would be able to deal with it.

Lu Xingzhou observed for a moment, then patted his wheelchair and moved back: "Come."

The two immediately remembered the formation they had modified before and quickly escaped.

Even though the corpse puppets could speak and possess spiritual auras, those auras were actually chaotic, their soul fire flickering, and their reactions were sluggish. Seeing the two opponents who had been fiercely battling him suddenly flee, he was stunned for several breaths before stalking after them. "Cowards... As expected, Maha's disciples are all cowards..."

Maha? Who is that...

He recognized the Frost Moon Sword and the Imperial Supreme World Sutra. Could they both be inherited from Maha? But there was no mention of such a person in the ancient texts... Or perhaps there was another explanation: Maha was the original owner of this place, and this person, in his dimwitted state, believed he was battling Maha and therefore believed everyone else was his disciple. As for why Maha's disciples possessed these techniques, he lacked the necessary brainpower to comprehend.

The second explanation is more likely.

With a flash of thought, the three of them had retreated to the front of the formation.

"Boom!" The corpse puppet paused and shot out like a cannonball, heading straight for Lu Xingzhou, who seemed to be the most unable to move.

Lu Xingzhou slapped the wheelchair, and it bounced several feet away with great flexibility. The corpse puppet seemed to have never seen such a "high-tech" thing. It was slightly stunned and fell into the formation.

The next moment, he hugged his head tightly, let out a painful roar, and the soul fire in his eyes flickered.

Soul-fixing formation!
Shen Tang and Dugu Qingli were waiting for this moment. Two sharp sword beams flew straight towards his temples from left and right.

Lu Xingzhou held the talisman in his hand, which ignited rapidly. A bolt of thunder from mid-air struck the corpse puppet's forehead heavily.

The Five Thunders Righteous Method is the absolute nemesis of the Yin corpses!
"Roar!" A violent aura burst out from the corpse puppet, knocking Shen Tang and Dugu Qingli away together.

It was better for Shen Tang as he had a higher level of cultivation, but Dugu Qingli was obviously injured internally and spat out a mouthful of blood in mid-air.

Lu Xingzhou was just in the direction where she was flying backwards, and he immediately adjusted his wheelchair to catch her.

With a "bang", Dugu Qingli fell in. Lu Xingzhou couldn't hold her with his hands, and the whole person fell into his arms, and his internal organs were almost dislocated.

The wheelchair was knocked backwards and hit the corner of the wall.

Unexpectedly, it happened to be a revolving secret door. I bumped into it and went straight in. The secret door turned and closed again.

"Damn!" Lu Xingzhou couldn't stop his momentum and threw out a talisman at the moment the secret door closed.

Over there, Shen Tang stopped falling and quickly flew over to try to open the door, but this time he couldn't push it open no matter how hard he pushed.

Shen Tang was stunned when he saw the closed wall.

You just hid in the dark room hugging each other like this?

Should I play the flute outside to liven up the atmosphere?

The corpse puppets were still there, and the situation didn't allow Shen Tang to slowly search for the switch. She quickly picked up the talisman that Lu Xingzhou had just thrown out, turned around with her sword, and stared nervously at the corpse puppets in the formation.

The corpse puppet stood there woodenly, soul fire flickering in its eyes: "Am I... dead?"

Calming the soul naturally had this effect, allowing his soul to be at peace and naturally understand the current situation. Their swords and Lu Xingzhou's thunder had also had a related effect.

Shen Tang did not dare to be careless and said cautiously: "Yes. We are the younger generation who came here to explore, not the enemies of the seniors. Just now, the senior's soul fire was in chaos, so we could only offend him."

The corpse puppet was silent for a moment, then slowly asked, "Where's Maha?"

As expected, Maha is the original owner... Shen Tang said: "We didn't see him."

"Yes, he was seriously injured and fled far away... But he will definitely come back..." The corpse puppet said slowly: "He borrowed the power of the mountains and rivers to sacrifice and refine the Dragon and Tiger Pill, hoping to ascend to immortality in one step... The pill was not yet completed. When the pill is completed, he will definitely come back to get it..."

Shen Tang remained silent.

It turned out that the original owner had fled with serious injuries, and for some unknown reason never returned, even missing the day the elixir was completed... There was a certain chance that he had died outside or been captured and trapped. But as long as he was not dead, he could still come back at any time.

The corpse puppet continued, "Maha fled in a hurry and left many things behind. Since you are here to explore, come here and I will tell you where Maha's things are..."

Shen Tang walked over slowly, stepped into the formation, and was immediately shocked: "Not good!"

"Greedy fool!" The corpse puppet laughed wildly: "How about a taste of my own soul-fixing formation?"

As he spoke, his soul fire suddenly grew stronger, and an extremely cold aura rushed straight to Shen Tang's spiritual platform: "This body is broken, and I can't wait for Maha to return... Although you are a woman, you have practiced the Huangji Jingshi Sutra very well, which is enough for me to stay for a while..."

Seize the house!

A sarcastic smile appeared in Shen Tang's eyes, and a talisman suddenly appeared in his hand, which he stuck on his forehead with a "snap".

Corpse puppet: "?"

A simple talisman to ward off evil spirits!

Shen Tang sneered, "If you really want to tell me where Maha's things are, why do you need me to go closer? Do you really think I'm stupid?"

The corpse puppet's spirit felt as if it had slammed headfirst into a wall, nearly shattering its already weakened soul fire. With a scream, the corpse puppet's spirit returned to its body, unexpectedly breaking free from the soul-binding formation and retreating towards the core of the cave.

Shen Tang glanced back at the secret door: "There is a treasure here. I can't let him out of my sight. If he recovers or obtains some powerful magic weapon, we will all die here... I will go and pester him, you guys come out as soon as possible... Don't make a baby!"

(End of this chapter)