The Terror of the Heavens Begins with Gu

Chapter 106 A Suicide Surrender and a Battle of Wits Hundreds of Miles Apart (Part 2)
As soon as the talisman touched Wu Zhiling's body, Wu Zhiling let out an even more violent scream.

Hissing white smoke appeared where the two parts came into contact.

The middle-aged Taoist's right hand began to tremble uncontrollably.

"The divine light of the Three Pure Ones shines across the nine heavens, the Five Thunderbolts suppress the demon king... The Mysterious Maiden's golden blade cuts away the impurities, the blazing flames of the spiritual talisman purify the dust and light..."

Before the exorcism incantation was finished, the talisman had already turned into black ash.

The middle-aged Taoist's expression changed drastically. Upon looking at Wu Zhiling, he noticed that a layer of short, black hair had sprouted on Wu Zhiling's face, turning it into an eerie black.

The short hairs continued to wriggle outwards, making strange "squeaking" sounds like some kind of living insect.

A tremendous evil aura emanated from Wu Zhiling, turning the area around the altar into a sinister and eerie place.

Wu Zhiling pleaded with the middle-aged Taoist priest, "Senior brother, kill...me! I don't want to...live anymore! Please! I'm in so much pain! Please!"

The young Taoist priest who was assisting with the ritual next to the altar looked even more unpleasant upon seeing this.

The middle-aged Taoist priest quickly returned to the seven small oil lamps and began to perform the ritual steps around them.

"...With the three luminaries shining together and the seven planets gleaming, we look up to the celestial pole and bow down to the mysterious gate. We wish to receive the power of the stars to cleanse our divine abode and illuminate the Niwan Palace to penetrate the vast universe..."

After quickly and clearly reciting a spell, the middle-aged Taoist priest touched each oil lamp with the Seven Star Sword in his hand.

The thin, dark clouds in the sky completely dispersed.

The Big Dipper in the sky became even brighter, condensing into a visible silvery-white beam that fell on the seven small lamps.

The middle-aged Taoist's aura surged again, and his whole body became hazy as if draped in starlight, giving him a mysterious and unreal appearance.

He grabbed the talismans from the altar with his left hand and scattered them outwards. All the talismans seemed to have a spirit and flew to Wu Zhiling's side, arranging themselves in an array.

“Now an evil spirit has invaded my Changshan Mountain and offended the dignity of our ancestral master. Your disciple Mingzhen once again begs the ancestral master for help to eliminate the evil spirit!”

The middle-aged Taoist priest grabbed a handful of rice from the altar and sprinkled it on either side of Wu Zhiling.

There was no one on either side, but Bai Mi seemed to have bumped into something, making a slight explosion before bursting into flames and emitting plumes of black smoke.

A strange, distorted "squeaking" sound came, making everyone who heard it feel dizzy.

The middle-aged Taoist priest solemnly raised the Seven Star Sword in his hand.

He remained still, but another Taoist priest appeared on the left side of the altar, looking exactly the same.

The figure flickered, and the third Taoist appeared beside Wu Zhiling.

The Taoist priest in front of them slowly disappeared.

The Taoist used his Seven Star Sword to pick up a talisman on the ground, and then used the talisman to stab Wu Zhiling seven times in seven different locations on his body. Finally, he pressed the talisman onto Wu Zhiling's forehead.

The talisman shimmered with golden light.

The evil aura emanating from Wu Zhiling was completely swept away.

The strange, distorted squeaks became even more piercing.

Wu Zhiling's terrifying short hair twisted and retracted into his skin, gradually restoring his face to normal.

The itching suddenly disappeared, and the weak Wu Zhiling collapsed on the ground, panting heavily.

Seeing this scene, the young Taoist priest next to the altar finally breathed a sigh of relief.

In the Changshan School, the opening of the altar generally serves two purposes.

One method is to bless oneself through rituals, such as the "Seven Stars Worship Ritual," which serves this purpose.

The second is to summon the assistance of past patriarchs.

The Changshan School places great importance on honoring its past patriarchs, especially the three first patriarchs. It is perfectly normal to ask the patriarchs for help when in trouble.

With the help of both of these, the middle-aged Taoist briefly achieved the state of astral projection, making him a first-rate cultivator in this Dharma-ending Age where the Great Dao is not yet manifest.

Even if that evil person is terrifying, he cannot possibly stand against the current Taoist priest.

The young Taoist priest wiped the sweat from his forehead and suddenly his eyes widened.

……

The red-eyed bat hanging on the eagle owl's carcass opened its eyes and let out a strange cry in a certain direction.

A faint golden talisman appeared in the eyes of the red-eyed bat, only to be instantly dispelled by the bat's evil aura.

coming……

Sensing something, Li Zhen opened his eyes and uttered a rapid, indistinct incantation.

A few minutes later, a talisman suddenly flashed on the photo that was nailed to the coffin.

This talisman's head is not the three hooks representing the Three Pure Ones, nor is it the common character "敕" (chì), but rather a complex script.

The moment the talisman appeared in the photograph, the coffin nails on it were forced to pop upwards slightly.

Li Zhen placed his right hand on the coffin nail and gently pressed down, pushing the loose coffin nail back in place.

Neither of the two spells cast by the opponent had a significant impact on Li Zhen.

Li Zhen withdrew his arm.

Suddenly, a series of "poof" sounds rang out from his body, followed by a wisp of blue smoke rising from his clothes.

Li Zhen looked down and saw tiny holes, about the size of rice grains, on his chest and abdomen, as if something small had pierced through his clothes, leaving a dense network of wounds on his skin.

His right side was already covered with blisters and wounds of various sizes, and now these dense wounds made Li Zhen look even more terrifying.

But Li Zhen's face showed an interesting expression.

There really are amazing people in the real world...

Just as Li Zhen raised his hand, he felt another sharp pain that seemed to emanate from his very soul, causing him to let out a muffled groan.

The pain intensified with each wave until it gradually subsided after the seventh time.

A faint talisman appeared on the front of the photo, dispelling the evil spirits emanating from it.

All the coffin nails in the photo shook at the same time, and then were slowly pulled upwards.

You've got some skills...

Li Zhen's primordial spirit is very strong, so the damage from the opponent is not very serious for him, and the pain caused is also acceptable.

If it were any other sorcerer whose primordial spirit was far inferior to his, they would probably be writhing on the ground in pain right now.

If the other party wants to break his curse, they will definitely cast a spell on him first to distract him.

However, Li Zhen could not give the other party that opportunity.

Picking up the cup filled with bodily fluids, it slowly poured the fluids onto the coffin nails and the photograph.

The talisman's light grew dimmer and dimmer.

But the coffin nails were still being pulled upwards.

Throwing aside the cup containing the corpse fluid, Li Zhen raised his right hand and drew three circles on the coffin nail, then slammed it down hard, pushing the pulled-out coffin nail back into the altar.

A strong upward force came from the coffin nail, attempting to pull it upwards.

During the stalemate, Li Zhen's hand, which was pressing down on the coffin nails, began to tremble slowly.

The red-eyed bats on the altar emitted strange "squeaks".

The eyes of the bat-faced evil god statue also became brighter and brighter.

A constant stream of malevolent energy emanated from Li Zhen's body, making his figure even more sinister.

The blurry shadow that Li Zhen formed under the candlelight slowly began to writhe, transforming into the true form of a six-armed bat-faced demon, before returning to Li Zhen's own silhouette.

The talisman in the photo suddenly shattered.

A piercing scream reached Li Zhen's ears.

In Li Zhen's eyes, the figure of a Taoist priest flying backwards flashed by.

……

Under the incredulous gaze of the young Taoist, the celestial-looking Mingzhen Taoist seemed to have been struck a heavy blow, suddenly flying backward and crashing heavily onto the altar.

The Seven Star Sword fell to the ground.

Various ritual implements on the altar also rolled to the ground.

Wu Zhiling's screams became even more shrill.

A large amount of thick hair grew from his body, and in the blink of an eye he was transformed into a wild man covered in a mane.

A massive amount of evil energy formed a terrifying bat-shaped black shadow on Wu Zhiling's body.

A strange, distorted squeak echoed in everyone's ears. The two Taoist boys promptly fainted beside Wu Zhiling.

As the headquarters of the Changshan Sect, this place should have been an inviolable place for evil spirits, but now it has become a place filled with evil energy.

This sudden change left the young Taoist priest utterly astonished.

Seeing that Daoist Mingzhen was struggling to get up from the ground, he realized what was happening and hurriedly helped Daoist Mingzhen up.

"Senior brother... Senior brother, how are you?!"

Master Mingzhen spat out a mouthful of blood, his breath becoming extremely weak. He tried to say something, but when he opened his mouth, he spat out another mouthful of blood.

He shakily reached out his hand and pointed to a bamboo tube that had fallen to the ground.

The young Taoist knew what Mingzhen Taoist wanted to do with just one glance.

"I come!"

The young Taoist priest hurriedly picked up the bamboo tube and a piece of yellow paper.

The Taoist priest Mingzhen grabbed the hem of the young Taoist priest's clothes.

The young Taoist looked back and immediately understood what Mingzhen Taoist meant: the other party was too terrifying, and it would be useless for him to do it.

The young Taoist priest had no choice but to hand the bamboo tube to Mingzhen Taoist priest after glancing at Wu Zhiling, who was already self-harming.

He then picked up the cinnabar pen that had fallen to the ground and hurriedly wrote Wu Zhiling's birth date and time on a piece of yellow paper.

After struggling to his feet, the Taoist priest Mingzhen stuffed the talisman into the bamboo tube. Then, using his own blood as ink, he shakily drew two strokes on the bamboo tube.

"The soul returns to its home, the Big Dipper... becomes the homeland, the three souls enter the Dipper, and the seven spirits hide away..."

"Heavenly protection, Earthly Fiends... impervious to harm, ensuring peace and tranquility for ten thousand years..."

After reciting the incantation intermittently, Mingzhen Daoist, having exhausted the last bit of his magical power, left behind the words "Find my master uncle" and collapsed to the ground.

The young Taoist priest suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. He shakily reached out and checked Mingzhen Taoist's neck. He found that although Mingzhen Taoist's pulse was weak, it had not completely disappeared. He breathed a slight sigh of relief.

The entire Changshan region is now supported by this Daoist Mingzhen. If Daoist Mingzhen were to pass away, Changshan would lose its only pillar.

The panicked young Taoist priest managed to calm himself down, found some yellow paper next to the messy altar to seal the opening of the bamboo tube, and then used the Changshan Dharma Seal to press an imprint on the bamboo tube.

Picking up a few talismans and sticking them onto the bamboo tube, the young Taoist priest hurriedly chanted: "The talisman commands the heavens to be clear, the talisman commands the earth to be spiritual, the soul is hidden in the bucket to protect the true spirit, evil spirits are driven away to ensure peace!"

This is Changshan's method of concealing the soul. By hiding the victim's soul to prevent it from being found by evil spirits or others, one can avoid being harmed by evil magic.

However, this magic can conceal the soul but not the body, and it cannot help those who have already been afflicted by the evil magic to escape from it.

Master Mingzhen must have realized that the evil magic had not yet corrupted Wu Zhiling's soul, which is why he used this technique to buy Wu Zhiling some time.

After the young Taoist priest completed the final step of the Soul Concealment Technique, Wu Zhiling on the other side immediately fainted.

His soul has been hidden away, so his physical body will naturally fall into a coma.

But Wu Zhiling's mane continued to grow outwards.

If the problem cannot be solved quickly, even if Wu Zhiling's evil magic can be broken, his physical body cannot be saved.

However, this soul-concealing technique could not preserve Wu Zhiling's soul for too long.

The young Taoist priest felt even heavier as he looked at the black bloodstains that had appeared on the bamboo tube.

He tucked the bamboo tube into his bosom, dragged the barely breathing Mingzhen Daoist, the mane-covered Wu Zhiling, and the two young Daoist disciples into the main hall, and then hurriedly ran towards the front mountain to find his senior uncle.

Changshan is divided into the front mountain and the back mountain.

The back mountain is a quiet place for spiritual practice, while the front mountain is a tourist destination for visitors.

In this era, not many people send their children to cultivate Taoism, so there are fewer and fewer people in the back mountain.

The number of outer disciples recruited by the front mountain to serve tourists is increasing.

Besides this main altar, Changshan has branch temples in many places in coastal provinces.

Many formally initiated disciples in the back mountains are sent out to preside over a local Taoist temple after they have achieved success in their cultivation.

Over time, the hill behind the main altar gradually fell into disrepair.

About twenty minutes later, the young Taoist priest hurriedly returned to the main hall with a slightly plump and well-off Taoist priest.

Upon seeing the chaos outside the main hall, the portly Taoist priest felt a pang of unease.

The young Taoist priest had been running too fast on the road, so he only hurriedly told him the general course of events without going into the details.

Now, seeing the fallen altar and the lingering evil aura, he finally understood just how terrifying the "terror" the young Taoist had described truly was.

Upon entering the main hall, the portly Taoist priest didn't even glance at Wu Zhiling, whose mane was full of hair.

After examining Mingzhen Daoist's body, he took out a talisman from under the statue of the patriarch.

After the incantation was recited, the talisman burned to black ash on its own.

The portly Taoist threw the talisman ash into the bowl in front of the ancestral master's statue, reached out and stirred the ash with water, then pried open the mouth of the Mingzhen Taoist and fed him the talisman water.

"Uncle-Master Xuan Gui..."

The portly Taoist priest, known as Xuan Gui, waved his hand, interrupting the young Taoist priest.

"Help! Even if you're about to die, you can still get one out."

After examining Mingzhen Daoist's eyelids and checking his pulse, Xuan Gui Daoist said with a stern face, "His life has been saved, but he will have to stay in bed for at least two months."

The young Taoist priest said urgently, "Uncle-Master..."

Xuan Gui Daoist interrupted impatiently, "Mingzhen's primordial spirit and vital energy are both damaged, and he has been invaded by evil energy. His lifespan will be reduced by at least seven or eight years. He is lucky to be alive. This is the good deed you have done!"

The young Taoist priest, his expression pained, whispered, "Junior Brother Wu Zhiling has managed to find a way to get help from the mountain..."

Xuan Gui Daoist sneered, "He came begging, so we have to help him? Haven't you cleaned up his messes enough? Why don't you come and ask me? Do you think I'm too weak and only good at handling trivial matters?"

"When I heard that Junior Brother Wu Zhiling had been afflicted by the evil spell, I thought... in order to uphold the dignity of Changshan, even if it was Junior Brother Zhiling who caused the trouble, we should break the evil spell first before talking to the other party."

"You have a good idea, but things didn't go as you expected, did you? Do you really think the Changshan Sect is omnipotent? You should go to the front mountain to handle some miscellaneous matters instead of hiding here all day long in seclusion."

"My senior brother consulted the True Lord, and the True Lord did not object..."

"Why is the True Lord objecting? It's already a favor that the True Lord isn't directly killing him."

"This……"

"Don't you know what he did? That pregnant woman came to Changshan and cursed us and all the patriarchs of our time. What makes you think the patriarchs didn't want to come up from below and strangle him? What a terrible sin!"

"The True Lord is a highly accomplished immortal, he might not be... so petty..."

"Heh, stingy. If I were a True Lord, I would have just killed him. Every cause has its effect. We Changshan must bear the consequences of our own sins. That makes sense." Xuan Gui Daoist looked at the young Daoist. "I have always told you to be cautious in your actions."

The young Taoist priest said with shame, "During the first half of the night, the process of my senior brother performing the ritual to break the evil spell on junior brother Zhiling went very smoothly. We thought there wouldn't be any major setbacks, but who knew that junior brother Zhiling would suddenly..."

"Seeing that Junior Brother Zhiling's life was in danger, I had no choice but to open the altar directly."

Xuan Gui Daoist looked around and said solemnly, "Such a strong evil aura. This kind of aura... must be some kind of extremely evil curse, or some kind of bloody witchcraft, or some evil method inherited from witchcraft."

"Sigh, how can there be such a powerful unorthodox figure? Logically speaking..."

The young Taoist asked, "What should we do now? Should we call back our other senior and junior brothers?"

"Call back the closest ones," Xuan Gui Daoist said coldly. "Mingzhen is already injured like this, calling back more won't make a difference."

"But Junior Brother Zhiling..."

Xuan Gui Daoist said sternly, "What do you care about Wu Zhiling? What you should be worried about now is our Changshan Sect being wiped out by someone else!"

The young Taoist priest opened his mouth.

Xuan Gui Daoist sneered, "Having seen so much comfort, you think there's no bloodshed in this world? What can you do if someone wipes out your Changshan Sect overnight?"

"Mingzhen almost died. What if he had actually died just now? What could you have done?"

“That bastard Wu Zhiling, I told you long ago that he should be kicked off the mountain and left to fend for himself, but none of you listened.”

"You all want to repay your teacher's kindness, right? Now you can do it."

The young Taoist priest was speechless.

Master Xuan Gui said, "Go make a call now. Oh, where is Wu Zhiling's phone? Take it out and see if you can find any clues about who he offended."

"If we can't find him, we'll risk releasing his spirit to ask him."

"In my opinion, this is definitely that bastard's responsibility."

The young Taoist priest, who had been terrified, suddenly regained his composure. While making a phone call, he hurriedly left the main hall and soon returned with a cell phone.

(End of this chapter)