Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 271 concludes the story; there is no war in the capital.
First kill the Ghost King, then destroy the Pear God.

The Pear Goddess, already sealed within the Three-Seven Divine Sword, struggled and resisted for less time than the Ghost King.

It was 2:30 a.m.

Chu Tianshu sat in the reception hall in the eastern part of the manor and breathed a sigh of relief.

The longsword lying across his knees felt light again.

The pear blossoms that had always been faintly visible on the mirror-like sword blade finally vanished completely.

The waiters who were originally in the hall had already scattered like birds and beasts when they heard the various explosions coming from the artificial lake.

After defeating the Ghost King, Cai Shanjun led dozens of his subordinates to find Liu Yanqi to work together on matters in the city.

Now, only Chu Tianshu and Sun Feng'an remain in the hall.

Oh, and there's also Yuan Zai lying on the ground.

“I’m here to obliterate the Pear God, and I have no interest in the affairs of the capital, but you…”

Chu Tianshu said, "Don't you want to show your face and increase your share of attention to help your Jiangdong faction secure its future position?"

Sun Feng'an sat on the opposite sofa, holding a plate of cake in his left hand and using a fork to skewer the fruit on it.

"I'm very tired too."

He ate some fruit and mumbled, "From the very beginning, I stood by General Cai's side to protect him, using the ribs of my fan to help him resonate."

"Strictly speaking, I've been vibrating my fan for just as long as General Cai has been playing the zither, and I'm almost out of energy too."

"Whether those people in the capital surrendered or resisted, I have no interest in them now."

Sun Feng'an casually poked at the cake with a fork.

"As for Jiangdong, those who are capable and competent will naturally be able to keep their positions."

"If I need to contact the newly surrendered people in the capital in advance, we can rely on each other to consolidate their future position."

"Wouldn't that make them a bunch of rats?"

Sun Feng'an scooped up a piece of cream and tasted it, saying, "How could a fine man like me possibly run around helping a bunch of scoundrels?!"

Chu Tianshu laughed, put the sword on the table, and got up to cut a piece of cake.

The cake uses fresh fruit and has a rich, creamy flavor. It's slightly rich but not overly sweet.

After a series of battles, eating something like this feels quite satisfying.

Chu Tianshu ate a piece in a few bites, then picked out another piece with lots of fruit for himself, and walked over to Yuan Zai while eating.

"Master Yuan, this whole table is covered in food, and it's all stuff that spoils easily. It's a shame to throw it away. Do you want to die eating your fill?"

He lightly kicked Yuan Zai's shoulder, transferring the force to release the pressure point that had rendered him speechless.

Yuan Zai said, "You just want to know the whereabouts of the Dharma Master from me. Don't play these tricks."

The old Taoist priest has shown no signs of recovery since his mental breakdown, and his eyes are somewhat unfocused.

"I never imagined in my life that the Dharma Master might die before me."

"Hehehe, very well. I have witnessed the Five Witches Cult reach its peak over the past few decades, and I will witness its demise before I die. It can be said that I have had a beginning and an end."

There was no need to share food; Yuanzai then began to talk about the whereabouts of the Five Witch Gods.

In recent years, the Five Witches have been plotting to return to the Dragon Vein.

According to Chu Tianshu's deduction, every world he has traveled through so far has a similar existence to the spirit world.

However, these spirit realms have different focuses and are quite different in scale.

The spirit world in my hometown truly feels like a world unto itself.

Physical matter also exists within the spirit world, and various different races exist there, spontaneously multiplying.

According to various ancient texts, the spirit world, or dragon veins, in the Republic of China era did not contain any physical matter.

Moreover, as early as thousands of years ago, the dragon vein has been filled with the original texts of famous people from all over the world.

With the growth of the world's population and the evolution of systems and technologies, it is almost inevitable that the number of original texts will continue to increase.

The scale of the dragon vein is relatively limited, which, in this case, becomes a good thing.

Human achievements have continuously filled the void, directly squeezing out the living space of ghosts and spirits.

Therefore, by the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, before the dragon veins had moved away, many ghosts and gods were no longer willing to reside within the dragon veins.

For the spirits and deities of this realm, the interior of the dragon vein has become a more polluted and harsh environment than the real world.

However, once they actually arrived in reality, the dragon veins had moved away, and their spirituality in reality had faded.

Now the environment has deteriorated even more severely than within the dragon vein.

They went from one extreme to another.

The ghosts and gods, plagued by misfortune, remained dormant for nearly two thousand years.

Some ghosts and spirits suffocated themselves.

People like Wu Chang not only didn't die, but also saw a tremendous opportunity.

If you take advantage of the dragon vein's return, you should be the first to move in.

While humans in this era are not yet making good use of dragon veins, and they are not very active in it.

Not only can the Five Witches do whatever they want within it, but they can also steal and replace things, gradually becoming the most influential entity in the dragon vein.

"...So back then, we took the statue of the Dharma Lord that we had worshipped for generations to the Shibei Hutong Arsenal and, taking advantage of the local war, held a blood sacrifice to help the Dharma Lord completely squeeze into the dragon vein."

This attempt actually failed.

The dragon veins of today are indeed not as active as before, but the original scriptures from back then have not only not disappeared, but have become solidified.

To squeeze in, one must wait for the power of the original text to be developed and loosened. However, if the original text is developed too much, the dragon vein will become active again and will continue to repel ghosts and gods.

To strike the right balance.

The Wu Chang lineage thus developed the method of stealing the original scriptures, transferring the power of these scriptures to unsuitable people, and creating opportunities for the Wu Chang gods.

Although that incident failed, it resulted in the Five Witches Dharma Master's legendary statue being stuck halfway between the dragon vein and the other half in reality, making it impossible to move.

This statue still stands at the former site of the Shibei Hutong Arsenal.

Shibei Hutong is located in Xicheng District.

Chu Tianshu, unfamiliar with the area, finished his cake, held his longsword upside down in his left hand, and grabbed Yuan Zai with his right to point the way. Sun Feng'an followed along to join the fun. However, as they approached the West District, they discovered that every street and alley was filled with people moving about in a panic.

Even though it was already past midnight, the knocking and barking were still incredibly noisy.

There were also groups of beggars wandering around.

Upon arriving at Shibei Hutong, I even encountered a familiar face.

Cai Shanjun arrived carrying his zither.

"What are you doing?"

Chu Tianshu and the other party asked the same question in unison, and then laughed and said, "The Five Witches' hiding place is right here."

"I see."

Cai Shanjun gazed into the distance and said, "I have come here to quell the riots."

"Many people in the capital have already surrendered to us, but some are still harboring evil intentions, or know that there is no chance of survival. After we controlled the key military locations, they started to have wicked ideas here."

There were many poor people and beggars in the western and northern parts of the capital.

Especially the area around Shibei Hutong.

The blood sacrifice performed by the Five Witches God here back then failed, leading to the explosion of the gunpowder depot.

The book "Tian Zhi Ou Wen" also records this incident, saying that due to carelessness at the arsenal, an explosion occurred, destroying the factory on the spot. The kitchen of the nearby nunnery was also blown to smithereens, with only the Buddhist hall barely remaining.

The surrounding people suffered heavy casualties.

The emperor ordered a thorough investigation, which ultimately revealed that only six people had died.

The imperial court did not investigate this deceptive practice further, but the changes among the people could not be hidden.

Since the explosion, few well-off families have been willing to live in the vicinity, and more and more poor people have moved here.

In the early years of the Republic of China, a poor people's reformatory and a mental hospital were simply set up here.

Tonight, those with malicious intentions packed their valuables and fled their homes, only to find that they could no longer leave the city, and hiding in the city was not a solution either.

They then thought of setting fires to create chaos and inciting the poor to loot everywhere under the pretext that a mutinous army was about to enter the city.

In this way, those bastards could find an opportunity to sneak out of the city.

Chu Tianshu asked, "Do you need my help?"

"Slaying the Five Witches is a major event, you go and get busy."

Cai Shanjun floated onto the roof and placed the guqin in front of him. "I would like to invite everyone to listen to a piece of music."

Chu Tianshu nodded and walked into the former site of the arsenal.

In this place, the remains of collapsed walls and houses still remain, and the ground is covered with scorch marks and ravines torn by gunpowder explosions, with rubble everywhere and not a blade of grass growing.

Yuan Zai bit his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Ahead, half a wall was in ruins, stained with specks of scarlet.

A black-faced deity with eyes like copper bells appeared above the ruined wall, its height similar to that of an ordinary person.

As soon as it opened its eyes, it stared at Yuan Zai, then suddenly turned to Chu Tianshu, revealing a look of fury and unleashing its divine power.

Chu Tianshu didn't take it seriously and walked to the side to look at it with interest.

The statue was indeed only half complete.

It's like being cut in two; the latter half doesn't exist in reality.

The sound of a piano had already begun outside.

It is not a piece of music about "pillowing a skull," nor is it a means of inducing hallucinations or causing people to kill each other.

Instead, it's a pleasant and relaxing melody.

The sound of the zither is like a spring flowing down from a high mountain, flowing into the countryside and through the city.

The restless sounds in the West District—people shouting, dogs barking, banging on doors, sticks poking at tiles, horse-drawn carriages speeding by—all subsided and became faint.

It's like being washed and filtered by layers of clear spring water.

This is Cai Shanjun's ambition: to sit on a high mountain and watch the flowing water in his spare time, and to have a clear spring flowing into the countryside.

The flames of war have been extinguished, the decay washed away, and everyone can taste some coolness and sweetness.

"what!!"

The roar of the Five Witches, seemingly both near and far, emanated from the arsenal.

The statue waved its arms rapidly, resisting the four-leaf clover patterns that fluttered like wildflowers.

The silver-white longsword spun around Chu Tianshu once before landing in his right hand, where the aura of death had not yet dissipated.

"Shocking..."

With the divine sword raised high above his head, Chu Tianshu used his left hand to trace the sword's spine.

"go!!"

It was as if a dreamlike silver ray of light first locked onto the forehead of the statue.

Immediately, the tiny, meteor-like sword beam of the soldier's spirit arrived in a flash along its predetermined trajectory.

Crack! With a cracking sound, the sword's edge pierced through the brain and went straight into the dragon vein.

The half-body hidden within the dragon vein was shaken by the sword's light, exposing the entire statue to reality.

Chu Tianshu instantly spun around and slashed horizontally with his sword.

Clang! !

The Five Witches statue's eyes were wide open, and its neck suddenly snapped open, decapitating it on the spot.

The music grew more melodious, and the quiet moon and flowing clouds filled the square city with peace.

Liu Yanqi stood in the large square in front of the palace gate, where thousands of people of all kinds looked uneasy.

At this distance, only Liu Yanqi could still hear the zither music, feel the sudden surge of divine power, and then feel it being shattered, and smiled knowingly.

With the Five Witches without a head, there will be no more fighting tonight.

(End of this chapter)