Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

Chapter 256 Robbery

Meanwhile, in several other halls within the ruins, fierce battles were raging.

But no one noticed.

The blood of the dead seeped into the cracks of the floor tiles, as if it had been sucked away by something.

The corpse slowly shriveled up unnoticed, the flesh and blood disappeared little by little, until only a thin layer of skin remained to cover the bones.

Even those souls vanished silently into the air and sank into the ground.

Beneath the floors of those grand halls, dark red veins, like blood vessels, transport flesh and souls to the deepest part of the ruins.

It was a closed space with no entrance and rough rock walls on all sides.

In the center of the space, a huge mass of flesh and blood floated.

That mass of flesh was three zhang tall, its surface covered with a dense network of blood vessels and meridians.

Inside the flesh and blood, a dark red light flickered, like a giant heart beating.

With each jump, the air in the space trembles.

With each tremor, a portion of the flesh and soul transported from beneath the main hall was absorbed by it.

Gradually, the dark red light grew brighter and brighter, and the frequency of its pulse increased.

"Click."

A crack appeared on the surface of the mass of flesh.

The gap widened, and a hand emerged from it.

That hand was slender and fair, with long, delicate fingers and rounded nails like seashells, forming a stark contrast to the ugly appearance of the mass of flesh.

A woman's figure emerged from the crack.

Her long, black hair clung to her body, damp and glistening. She had delicate features but a flat chest.

The kind of person who would go unnoticed in a crowd.

She looked down at her hands, her fingers spreading and closing, as if she was getting used to the body that had just been formed.

"Finally...it's out."

She raised her head, her gaze sweeping over the surrounding stone walls and slowly across several halls.

Upon seeing the survivors, she frowned slightly, clearly showing some disdain.

After searching around, her attention finally settled on a side hall.

There was only one person in this side hall, dressed in a gray outfit stained with blood.

Judging from his attire, he was a wandering martial arts practitioner.

He had a handsome face and looked to be in his early twenties. Although he had a few new scars on his face, they did not detract from his good looks.

"This is it."

The woman's lips parted in a grin, and her body transformed into a cloud of dark red mist, which passed through the rock wall and quickly drifted toward the side hall.

In the side hall.

The young man was tearing off his shirt to bandage the wound on his left arm when he suddenly felt a chill run up his spine.

He looked up sharply.

There was nothing there.

The side hall was empty, with only the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat.

He frowned, thinking he was just too nervous, and continued bandaging.

The moment he lowered his head, dark red mist seeped from the wall behind him and silently crept into the back of his head.

"Ding!"

The young man's body suddenly stiffened...

Beyond Cuiwei Peak, the red moon hangs high in the sky.

Chen Mo sat cross-legged behind a rock, blending his body into the shadows.

He had been crouching behind this rock for a day, the thick fog from the depths of the mountains constantly churning.

The entrance to the ruins is faintly visible, but there has been no movement.

Chen Mo began to have doubts.

Is there any other way out of these ruins?

Otherwise, why haven't any of the people who went in come out?

Otherwise, why would the people from the Zhenyi Division go in?

Or perhaps everyone inside was...

Earlier in the evening, even the Zhenyi Division, which was originally sealed off outside, entered the ruins, leaving only two or three people guarding the outside.

As soon as the official forces left, several groups of people appeared in the surrounding woods.

I suspect they had the same idea as him: to take advantage of the chaos and loot the people inside once they came out.

Time passed slowly, the crimson moon gradually moved westward, and the mist continued to swirl.

Just as Chen Mo began to doubt whether he had waited in vain, the mist at the entrance suddenly changed.

Instead of rolling aimlessly as before, it began to shrink towards the center.

The entrance is about to close.

Chen Mo's eyes narrowed, and he instinctively jumped onto the rock, staring intently at the narrowing crevice.

Finally, someone emerged from the crack in the fog.

The first to come out were the people from the Zhenyi Division; their black uniforms were too easy to spot.

When these people came out, they were no longer as aggressive as when they went in, and many of them were injured.

Chen Mo silently counted the number of people who came out.

There were nearly fifty people when they went in, but less than forty have come out now.

It's down by a full 20%.

Those who didn't get out, it's obvious they're stuck inside forever.

After the people from the Zhenyi Division came out, they did not rest on the spot, but instead helped each other and hurriedly retreated down the mountain without even looking back.

Two or three people who were originally on duty were also taken away along with them.

Immediately afterwards, more figures squeezed out from the increasingly narrow cracks in the fog.

This time it was those sects and unorthodox sects, with even fewer people, only three or five.

As soon as they came out, they scattered and fled, disappearing into the vast night.

Chen Mo stood on the large rock, looking down at everyone who came out of the entrance.

There is no Master Baidu.

By this time, the crack in the fog had shrunk to only an arm's width, and fewer and fewer people were still crawling out.

In the end, only two or three blood-covered figures crawled out of there.

The cracks closed completely, and the thick fog returned, sealing the entire site shut.

He looked at the thick fog that had returned to silence, his brows furrowed deeply.

Why didn't Master Baidu show up?

died?

That old guy is so unlucky?

Just as Chen Mo frowned, his gaze suddenly swept over a Taoist priest with a cloth banner stuck on his back.

He remembered that this person seemed to be in cahoots with Master Baidu.

Just as I was about to mount the kite, four or five people suddenly darted out from the pile of rocks on my right.

The leader was a burly man with a fierce face, a short beard on his chin, and a chipped, large dagger at his waist.

"Old man, are you from the underworld?"

The man asked in a low voice, his gaze sweeping over Chen Mokong's swaying waist and hands before settling on the kite in mid-air.

"Sir, you've been squatting here alone for so long, do you have a specific target in mind, or are you just picking up random bargains?"

"If you have a goal, we won't get in your way."

"If we don't have a target, let's team up. There are too many people who escaped from this area; one person can't handle it all."

"Yeah." A skinny guy next to him came up, rubbing his hands together with a grin, "How long have you been watching, sir?"

Which direction are you referring to? We assure you we won't compete with you; we're just checking the market situation.

"I'm not here to rob, I'm just seeking revenge. Do whatever you want, just don't bother me."

Chen Mo waved his hand expressionlessly, ignoring them, mounted his kite, and soared into the air, disappearing from their sight in the blink of an eye.

"Goodness, it can fly."

The man looked up from the sky and beckoned the others to head into the ravine.

The skinny man glanced in the direction Chen Mo had disappeared and smacked his lips.

"I wonder who was so unlucky as to offend this old man."

"Anyone who can make such a master personally stake out a place for a whole day and night to seek revenge is probably no pushover."

"Who cares who he is? It's none of our business. Let's go, it looks like another one is coming out over there."

Outside Cuiwei Peak, the Ghost Banner Taoist strode into the valley to the northwest without looking back.

The thick fog behind us had completely enveloped the Cuiwei Peak, and the mountains under the red moon were getting farther and farther away in our field of vision.

He ran very fast, and the hem of his gray Taoist robe was torn into strips by thorns.

However, due to the excessive consumption of his essence and blood, his hands and feet felt weak for a moment.

But he dared not stop to rest, or even slow down.

Because what he carried was enough to make any heretical cultivator in this land want to kill him.

The storage bag of Master Baidu.

That old devil actually had such a good thing hidden away.

He had only heard about it from others before, and had never actually seen it.

After running for about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, we finally left the area of ​​Cuiwei Peak and entered a low hilly area.

The moonlight of the red moon was much dimmer here, and the hills were covered with waist-high thatch grass, which rustled in the night wind.

Ghost Banner Taoist suddenly stopped, pulled out the last triangular banner from behind his back, and coldly asked, "May I ask which branch of the Dao you belong to?"

"Hehe, fellow Daoist, you have such keen intuition."

Three people emerged from the bushes, as if they had been lying in ambush, waiting for him to walk right into their trap.

Leading the way was a thin old man wearing a gray cloth long gown.

What was most eye-catching was the bundle of joss paper hanging from his waist, covered with red runes.

Several sharpened bamboo strips were still stuck into the bundle of paper, making it look like an unfinished paper skeleton.

Behind the old man was a short, plump middle-aged woman wearing an indigo blue coarse cloth jacket and a headscarf of the same color.

She carried a white paper lantern in her hand. The lantern had no fire inside, but it emitted a faint green light.

Under the red moon, you can see several blurry faces painted on the lampshade, each with a different expression, some crying, some laughing.

The last one to stand up from the thatched bushes was a young man who was extremely thin, with prominent bones and deep-set eyes.

He had no weapon, only a handful of white rice in his hand, but the rice was black, as if it had been smoked.

Ghost Banner Taoist had seen this trio before.

The paper craftsman sets up a trap to block the road, while the mourning old woman locks up the soul to cover the rear.

As for that young man, it must be because of the black rice blocking the road.

This is the work of corpse-driving craftsmen from western Hunan, but it's not entirely their style. It's more like a deviant method, where scattering rice can freeze the shadows of living people.

Those who frequent unorthodox places know that when you encounter this combination, you should avoid them if possible, and if you can't, you should throw away your valuables to save your life.

"Brother Daoist, what are you doing running around in the wilderness all by yourself in the middle of the night?"

The old man's gaze lingered on his bulging waist for a moment, a forced smile on his face. "Just came from Cuiwei Peak?"

"Take out what you're carrying and let us guys have a look."

The old woman who was wailing didn't speak, but the white lantern in her hand lit up briefly, and the green light intensified.

The crying face pattern on the lampshade began to slowly move, its corners gradually turning downwards.

Ghost Banner Taoist's heart sank to the bottom.

Without saying a word, he gave a jerk of his right hand, which was gripping the flagpole.

The triangular banner, when unfurled, was a full six feet long.

A huge ghost face was embroidered on the banner with black thread, and a dark red bead was embedded in each of the ghost face's eyes, which gleamed with a bloody light under the moonlight.

The Ghost Control Banner.

This was all he had left to rely on.

Previously in the ruins, in order to kill the Hundred Poisons Old Ghost in one blow, he did not hesitate to expend a lot of his essence and blood, destroying two of the poles.

Now we can only hope that the last ghost-controlling banner can suppress the three opponents.

To his disappointment, the paper craftsman's expression only changed slightly when he saw the banner, but he quickly returned to his ambiguous, half-smiling expression.

"A ghost-controlling banner? That's a good thing."

"But brother, your aura has weakened so much, how many more times can you wave this banner?"

Ghost Banner Taoist didn't answer, but suddenly waved the banner.

A hazy mist emerged from the banner, carrying seven or eight translucent ghostly figures that shrieked as they lunged at the three paper craftsmen.

The old man's expression changed drastically. He pulled out a bundle of yellow paper from his waist, and with a flick of his wrists, several sheets of yellow paper unfolded in the air, instantly transforming into the shapes of several paper figures.

The paper figures were deathly pale, their paper clothes were crimson, and their eyes were two red dots made of cinnabar. They faced the ghostly figures in the air.

The paper figure's body was torn apart by the ghostly figure, and the pieces of paper scattered all over the ground like snowflakes.

But with each paper figure torn apart, a ghostly figure would be entangled by the yin energy attached to the paper figure, and its movements would slow down.

The old woman behind the old man raised a white lantern and patted the bottom of it with her other hand.

Three wisps of black smoke drifted out of the lantern, transforming into three blurry human faces that opened their mouths to bite at the Ghost Banner Taoist.

Three faces: one crying, one laughing, and one cursing.

Crying, laughter, and more laughter came from different ghost faces, mingling together and making Ghost Banner Taoist extremely irritable.

He waved the ghost-controlling banner, summoning back several ghostly figures to block his way, but the three faces of the mourning woman kept squeezing into the gaps between the ghostly figures, and were about to bite his neck.

"Don't kill it; the living are more valuable than the dead."

Just then, the young man who hadn't moved at all gently flicked his wrist.

Black rice flew from his palm and scattered in mid-air.

Instead of flying towards Ghost Banner Taoist, it circled around him and landed near him.

The moment the black rice hit the ground, Ghost Banner Taoist felt as if his feet were nailed to the ground.

He was horrified to see that it wasn't his feet that were nailed down, but his shadow.

Somehow, the black rice grains embedded themselves in the shadow, firmly anchoring the shadow to the ground.

The shadow couldn't move, and neither could he.

This is a variation of the corpse-driving technique; it's not about driving corpses, but about fixing people in place.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the paper craftsman pulled out two bamboo strips from his sleeve, quickly wove them a few times, and a paper skeleton the size of a palm took shape in his hands.

Then he took out an unfinished piece of joss paper from his pocket and pasted it onto the skeleton.

The paper figure's face quickly appeared, its features blurred, but one could vaguely discern a resemblance to the Ghost Banner Taoist.

"I'll stab you, my substitute, and shatter every bone in your body."

The old man muttered incantations, picked up the paper figure made of bamboo strips, and was about to throw it to the ground.

Ghost Banner Taoist struggled desperately, but his shadow was pinned down by the black rice and could not move an inch.

He still held the Ghost Control Banner in his hand, but his magical power had been completely depleted, and he didn't even have the strength to wave it again.

The papermaker raised his hand high.

The paper figure is about to fall.

"Tsk."

A very faint sound, as if something had brushed past the tips of the grass.

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