Martial Arts Crossover: The Sweeping Monk of Wudang? That's our patriarch!

The Banner of Ten Thousand Souls is an extremely malevolent weapon of the Demon Realm. For thousands of years, only an even more ferocious calamity could suppress it; only self-destruction of the Great Dao could destroy it. Ordinary cultivators dare not even entertain the thought of drawing their swords upon seeing it.

Lin Daochen knew that this thing was beyond his power, so he immediately took to the air, and the power of the Great Dao in his palm surged like molten gold, condensing into a blazing white spear that pierced straight into the heart of the banner—he did not want to kill, but to seal! As long as he could suppress the Myriad Soul Banner again, his status in the cultivation world would spread like wildfire, his reputation would soar, and his path of cultivation would be broadened accordingly.

The spear pierced the air and stabbed fiercely into the banner.

Unexpectedly, the banner was harder than the Chaos Black Iron, and when the spear tip struck it, only a series of piercing sharp sounds erupted. Immediately afterward, countless souls howled in unison, the sound waves like knives, cleaving straight into the sea of ​​consciousness! Lin Daochen's mind exploded with a buzzing sound, excruciating pain shot through his body, his vision went black, and he staggered back several steps, veins bulging on his forehead.

At that moment, he understood completely: the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls was something he couldn't possibly control right now. And that withered old man from the Netherworld Village had no chance of wielding it. Someone must have secretly orchestrated this, hiding the banner here and using the village chief as a mere puppet guarding the gate.

But this banner doesn't need anyone to guard it—it is a cage and a sharp blade in itself, capable of devouring people silently even without anyone controlling it.

Since we can't destroy the banner, let's remove the hand holding the chess piece. First, let's kill the village chief of the Netherworld Village!

Once the thought was made up, Lin Daochen spread his divine sense like a net, instantly scanning the entire village. In less than a moment, his pupils shrank—beneath the dilapidated altar behind the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, a ghostly figure was curled up.

With a stomp of his foot, he shot off like an arrow.

Sure enough, in the shadows of the altar, a man was trembling. Clad in a black robe, his features were lewd, his face a mass of fleshy, scarred marks, as if repeatedly scraped by a dull knife. Upon seeing Lin Daochen approach, his face turned deathly pale, and he forced out a strange cry: "Damn it! Protect me—the Myriad Soul Banner!"

Before he could finish speaking, the giant banner in the sky suddenly swooped down, its black mist churning, and forcefully blocked his way!

Lin Daochen's heart skipped a beat: The unclaimed banner actually understands human will? Could it have been spawned by an evil spirit?

Without a second thought, he twisted his body and rushed straight into the depths of the banner's shadow—first break the banner's power, then take a life! At that moment, he recognized him: this scarred village chief was the same hunched old man he had encountered at the foot of the mountain. Every scar on that face was a result of the backlash from evil magic; the skin and flesh were twisted, and the veins were turned outwards—clearly the evil consequence of feeding him human flesh and blood time and time again.

Everything in the world is governed by the balance of Yin and Yang, but evil magic goes against the natural order, pushing the Yin and filth to their extremes, dragging people into an abyss of no return.

At this moment, Youming, the village chief of Youming Village, slowly strolled over.

A pale, bluish smile played on his lips, emanating a chilling aura that sent a shiver down Lin Daochen's spine—not out of fear, but out of instinctive alertness.

He had cultivated Taoism for decades, slaying vengeful ghosts, suppressing demon kings, and fighting countless ferocious demons, but he had never seen such a strong and piercing aura of evil spirits.

Even from ten steps away, the eerie, sticky, and rotten smell pierced through the skin and flesh like needles, penetrating straight to the bone marrow.

Lin Daochen was still able to maintain his composure, but Yang Kai, standing beside him, had already turned pale, his Adam's apple bobbing, and he blurted out:

"How many lives have you taken to cultivate this insidious and venomous nature? I bet you didn't even spare your own villagers, did you? They called you 'village chief'—how could you do that?"

Before the words were finished, the ghost suddenly threw his head back and laughed wildly, his laughter dry and shrill, like a dull knife scraping against a stone slab: "You really know how to pretend! Who was it that set up the cages, cut off the water supply, burned the shrines, and slaughtered the priests back then? Now you turn around and ask us 'why we fell?' Ha... Who wanted to be a demon? You forced us to put on this human skin, and then you tore it off yourselves!"

"Coercion? That's nothing but a coward's fig leaf." Yang Kai sneered. "You're clearly instigating the villagers to devour each other, using flesh and blood to refine their souls, feeding your evil arts with living people!"

"Hmph, further words are useless—you will die here today."

Yang Kai charged forward, but before his punch could even land, Lin Daochen had already blocked his path. His gaze was deep and fixed on Youming, his brow furrowed with a tense, impending storm.

"I won't ask why you chose this desperate path, and I believe you have your reasons. But no matter how much you suffer, you can't turn your fellow villagers into a furnace, using their lives as fuel! If they're gone, no matter how high your skills are, you're nothing but an empty shell—your soul will dissipate and your spirit will shatter sooner or later. In the end, what will you gain?"

Youming's face suddenly turned ashen, his lips trembling as if a fatal blow had been struck. He paused, then suddenly gritted his teeth, his voice hoarse as sandpaper grinding iron:

"Lin Daochen! How dare you stop me? I knelt before your mountain gate begging for help, saying that Youming Village had suffered a ten-year drought, with corpses strewn in ditches and children eating dirt to survive... And what did you do? Not only did you stand idly by, but you also used the pretext of 'purging evil spirits' to strike down three of my nephews and two of my sister-in-laws with a single lightning talisman! Later, although you used magic to bring them back to life, their souls have returned, but the pain remains, the scars remain, and the hatred—remains even stronger!"

Lin Daochen lowered his eyes, his throat tightened, and he offered no explanation. It was indeed his oversight, a glaring mistake.

But the mistake has already been made, how can it be allowed to fester and become a sore? He was unaware of the tragic state of the village, but he knew that there was still a sliver of clarity in the eyes of the man before him—he was not a villain, but an ordinary person who had been forced to the edge of a cliff, his hand trembling as he gripped a knife.

He took a deep breath, his voice low but steady: "Things have come to this point, any further words will only cause more trouble. I'll only ask one question: Are you willing to use this chance to atone for your sins in exchange for the lives of everyone in the village? I will help you suppress the evil spirits and save them."

Youming froze, then let out a sneer, his laughter filled with icy malice: "Ha... Immortal Master, you truly are high and mighty. While we were starving and digging for Guanyin clay, thirsting and drinking corpse water, you were brewing tea and admiring the moon on your cloud platform; while we were kneeling and begging for a breath of life, you were in seclusion in your cave, meditating on the Dao. What do you know? You only know 'rules,' not the sound of a living person breathing!"

As soon as Lin Daochen finished speaking, his heart sank, as if gripped by an invisible hand. Then, scenes of past tragedies crashed into his mind: the burning sensation when his broken bones were being reattached, the piercing pain when his veins were being soaked in the icy pool, the acrid taste of gnawing on tree bark when he was starving... Back then, even his breath was laced with blood, and he suffered a hundred or a thousand times more than the people in front of him.

What end is there on the path of cultivation? It's clearly a long, dark tunnel, and he's walked it stepping on blades, the pain etched into his very bones. The villagers' grievances are nothing more than grains of sand falling into the sea, so light they can't even create a ripple.

Now, some people are repeatedly chewing on the word "pain" in front of him, like a three-year-old child waving a candy wrapper as a flag, but Lin Daochen is too lazy to even lift his eyelids.

"Fine, words are no substitute for action." His voice was low and husky. "Since you're determined to hit a brick wall, then show us what you've got."

Youming sneered, and the dough suddenly peeled off, revealing its true form, a bluish-gray tinged with purple. He reached into his robes, pulled out a heavy, dark earthenware jar, and smashed it to the ground with a backhand—"Clang!" Shattered pottery flew everywhere, and the yin energy within the jar exploded!

Hundreds upon hundreds of purple shadows soared into the sky, surging like a burst dam, tearing the entire sky to shreds with their mournful cries. The wronged souls, dragging their broken bodies, circled and howled, each one a life still warm and a soul still lingering.

Lin Daochen's brows furrowed, not out of fear of the other party's power, but because he was staring at those drifting purple shadows—those were living souls that had been gouged out. If he were to kill them, they would be condemned to eternal damnation and never be redeemed.

The moment the thought arose, the surroundings were densely packed with vengeful spirits, numbering over a thousand in the blink of an eye. Their malevolent aura solidified into a tangible form, and the chilling wind felt like knives cutting through the skin.

The Netherworld opened its maw wide, black mist churning in its throat, sucking in all the wronged souls filling the sky! Instantly, the wailing of ghosts was deafening, so mournful it made one's teeth ache. Lin Daochen subconsciously raised his hand to stop them, but his fingertips froze in mid-air—he knew very well that if he acted rashly now, the collision of the two violent forces would have a backlash force that could tear him to pieces.

Just as a storm is about to break and thunderclouds are rolling, who dares to cleave it with a sword? If one is not careful, the lightning will strike the sword-wielder first.

Sure enough, a thick, blood-red mist rose from Youming's body, and Lin Daochen's pupils contracted slightly: This was an evil technique that used the Yin power of the dead to temper one's own body—quick, domineering, and depleting one's very foundation. How could an ordinary mortal body withstand such a tearing force? This guy was clearly just an ordinary person whose spiritual energy couldn't even be sensed before; how could he possibly withstand such violent soul pressure?

A thought flashed through his mind, but he ultimately didn't delve into it—the Netherworld had begun its transformation. Instead of swelling and bursting, the body rapidly shrank, shrinking in the blink of an eye into a dwarf thirty or forty centimeters tall, its skin a pale, amber-like color, with countless purple shadows frantically colliding beneath its skin, like poisonous bees trapped in a glass jar.

A moment later, the commotion subsided, and the short figure froze completely. He lightly touched the ground with his toes, and he pounced in a blur—his sleeves fluttered, and Lin Daochen flew out like a kite with a broken string. The dull thud of his back hitting the rocks shook the entire hillside, causing rocks to fall in a flurry.

The heavy blow slammed into him, his bones seemed to shatter inch by inch, and his flesh was on the verge of falling apart. Fortunately, the power of the Great Dao surged and flowed like living water, instantly healing his injuries—by the time he crashed to the ground, his torso was completely healed.

He pushed himself up, wiped away the dark red blood seeping from the corner of his lips, and stared coldly at the dwarf who was less than three feet tall in front of him.

"Oh, Netherworld, the 'surprises' you've given me are one after another. I don't know where you stole this evil power from, but today you've crossed my line. Now, you'll slowly taste the retribution I've personally served you."

Before he finished speaking, a furious roar suddenly erupted from his throat. The Qingfeng Sword flashed with cold light, and with a flick of the blade, a sword aura that tore through the sky was unleashed!

The sword energy swept across the sky, carrying with it the seven-colored flames transformed from the light of the Great Dao, and crashed down towards Youming's face. Youming, however, remained unmoved, and with a wave of his hand, all the dormant souls within him burst forth, shrieking and swirling in front of him, their sound waves like knives, piercing the eardrums painfully.

Lin Daochen subconsciously covered his ears. In that moment of distraction, Youming flicked his finger again, and several black shadows shot out, rushing in from all directions. The cold wind carried resentment and evil spirits, and in the blink of an eye, they surrounded Lin Daochen and killed him.

Those wronged souls were churning with bone-corroding poison. Before they even got close, Lin Daochen felt his limbs stiffen and his meridians become sluggish, as if countless ice threads were binding his limbs and bones, making it extremely difficult to even lift his hand.

But Lin Daochen was no ordinary person. His eyes turned cold, and the Qingfeng Sword swept out diagonally. With a loud "hum", another sword aura shot into the sky—more than a hundred times larger than the previous one, as vast as a celestial river pouring down!

Youming's pupils constricted, and his expression finally changed. This kid was far more difficult to handle than he had anticipated! He turned and fled, attempting to command the vengeful spirits to stop Lin Daochen. Unfortunately, those spirits that rushed halfway were pinned in mid-air by an invisible pressure, unable to advance any further.

Lin Daochen's lips curled slightly, his gaze sharp as a blade, piercing straight into Youming's back.

"What's wrong? Your palms are sweaty? Only now do you realize how far apart we are?" He slowly approached. "Don't rush, this is just the first page—the real show is yet to come."

Before he finished speaking, his figure vanished in an instant, leaving only a wisp of wind behind.