A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Chapter 163 A Thousand Miles to Subdue the Dragon, Demons Set Sail

In the Han River valley, the water roars and flows day and night.

The banks of the river were bathed in a dim yellow light, consisting mainly of various earthen slopes and rocks half-buried in the loess.

At dawn, shouts echoed from the high bank, and the wind from palms and blades stirred up a whirlwind that covered the ground. Dust and smoke swirled for miles around, rising and falling as numerous figures leaped and swooped, fighting to the death.

There were actually several hundred people fighting fiercely here.

The most terrifying thing was a giant centipede that was wrapped in black mist and flew around, controlling various magical artifacts from a distance, creating black evil chains, flying skull heads, scarlet poison fire and so on. With a twist of its body, it could cover a distance of hundreds of feet and bombard everything. Most of the noise and dust here was stirred up by it.

However, the most vicious and cruel part of his attack was firmly blocked by the Zen staff in the hands of the Master of Rebirth.

This abbot's unparalleled Eight Steps to Catch the Cicada technique allows him to walk on flat ground in eight steps, traversing hundreds of feet in mid-air. His speed is no less than that of a flying centipede.

In fact, even though the centipede repeatedly tried to take advantage of its flight to fly straight up and create distance, it was always pushed back by the reborn master who chased it eight steps and soared into the clouds.

The advantages and disadvantages at the Grandmaster level can sometimes determine the course of the entire battle. Abbot Wangsheng currently holds a firm upper hand, but Li Gong's mood is becoming increasingly heavy.

Bang! ! !

Li Gong's palm strike stirred up dust, like a raging torrent, and heavily blasted away three cult members not far away.

These followers were all dressed in gray and black, with their hair tied in a bun on their heads, secured with hair ties instead of wooden hairpins. They were generally tall and burly, with heavy steps, and it would not be an exaggeration to call them as strong as iron towers.

The one that took the brunt of the attack had countless bones shattered by the force of the palm strike, especially its chest cavity, which flattened like a water-filled sack. Upon landing, blood gushed from its body, and with a mournful cry, it died completely.

The other two affected members, who should have broken several ribs and suffered internal injuries, scrambled to their feet as soon as they landed, letting out shrill, inhuman howls, and their bodies swelled up again.

The gray-black robes, which were originally very loose, were now stretched taut against their bodies, and finally, with a ripping sound, dozens of tears appeared on the robes.

You can see directly from the tear in the clothes that the angular muscles are covered with stiff, dark brown hairs growing at a visible speed. Even after the clothes are completely destroyed, the rags are caught and stuck by these hairs and do not slip off.

Their faces were now covered with short hairs of similar color, their eyes had turned completely golden and vertical, their fangs protruded, and their spines seemed to be slightly bent forward, forcing them to crawl on all fours.

As the two men exerted force with their limbs and lunged at Li Gong, their legs seemed unable to bear the weight, suddenly bending backward from the knees, causing a clenched heart and a strange, phantom pain to watch.

However, after Li Gong stepped to the side and sent the two monsters flying with two exquisite arcs of his palm, he discovered that their knees were not injured, but had become recurved joints. With a flexible turn in mid-air, they could propel their entire bodies forward after their feet touched the ground.

"magician!!!"

Li Gong's face twitched, and he unleashed the full power of his "Chaotic Lotus Palm" technique. His hands and sleeves created a flurry of afterimages, like lotus flowers in full bloom, with petals swirling and flying away, sharp as knives.

Each petal was a palm strike, unleashing over thirty strikes in succession, until the two monsters collapsed to the ground like mushy mud.

However, different howls came one after another from the surroundings. On the battlefield, the bodies of other members of the Demonic Cult had also changed one after another. Huge figures that had doubled in size tore out from under their robes.

Li Gong's spirits sank to rock bottom.

Of the three pursuing forces that set out from Dongdu, the one led by Li Gong was the first to make contact with the Demonic Sect.

The reason why Guan Luoyang and the other two, who were nominally senior and junior brothers and sisters, were assigned to the same team was because Li Gong thought that they might be more in sync in battle. After all, the martial arts foundation they had shown in the past was quite different from that of the common sects in the martial arts world. If the three of them were separated and placed in other teams, it would be difficult to produce a suitable cooperation.

However, after hearing about this allocation, Gu Lanxiang and An Feiyu took the initiative to hand over their communication tokens to the other two teams for easier communication.

The three top experts from Chang'an and the six generals from Xiushuo City, all of whom were accustomed to military practices, were assigned to be in charge of the second route.

Li Gong himself did not continue to travel with the three masters of Chang'an. Instead, he led the elite main force of the inner guards and took charge of the same route with the Shaolin monks.

Because any of the three teams, after encountering the demonic sect, must have the ability to fight and retreat, and to hold out for a long time until the experts from the other two teams come to their aid.

Guan Luoyang and his two companions all possess extraordinary skills. Although they are few in number, they are among the most highly skilled. Together with the three top experts from Chang'an and the six generals from Xiushuo City, they have enough confidence to engage in guerrilla warfare and entanglement.

While there are many skilled Shaolin monks, they live deep within ancient temples, and their judgment in battle may not be as accurate.

Moreover, their martial arts style is generally hard and forceful. Li Gong also knew that not long ago, the ancestral graves of Shaolin were almost dug up by those members of the demonic sect. It was precisely when these monks were at their most furious. If these monks were to be in charge of one group alone, he was afraid that if they encountered members of the demonic sect, they would not be able to react in time and would be surrounded and killed before the other two groups of people could come to their aid.

However, on the evening of the first day of their journey, after a brief encounter with the Demonic Sect's forces, Li Gong discovered that the Demonic Sect had also adopted a strategy of dividing their forces.

Although it's unclear whether they split into three groups, the group they encountered was led by a flying centipede, and Shao Lingxiao and Ye Motian were clearly not among them.

The sheer number of people was somewhat unexpected, but most of them were Fire Luo Cult members who hadn't even reached the first-rate level. They must have been elites drawn from the branch altars before the attack on Lao Jun Mountain, and were only called upon now.

Li Gong and the Shaolin monks alone successfully thwarted the attack on the local granary and pressed their advantage.

Overnight, the two sides traveled hundreds of miles, taking winding roads, from towns into the mountains and back again, and clashed six times.

At first, the abbot of the Wangsheng Temple firmly suppressed the centipede, and the inner guards and Shaolin monks were all skilled in large-scale formations, which gave them a certain advantage. However, after a whole night of fierce fighting, the remaining members of the Demonic Sect on the other side actually seemed to be getting more and more energetic.

Especially those followers who were not top-tier experts, their frenzied and excited state reached an abnormal level.

Now, even their physical bodies have completely exceeded the normal range!

"Gentlemen!"

Su Mu's voice rang out.

Abbot Wangsheng already knew that the centipede could speak human language, but apart from the moment it withdrew from Shaolin, it had never uttered a word during their six encounters and battles.

Even now, the moment he opened his mouth, the old monk had already sensed something was different.

This melodious tone, maintaining a leisurely demeanor amidst the fierce battle, still carried a chilling and sinister quality, quite different from his fierce yet discerning demeanor during his surprise attack on Shaolin, when he would become enraged and furious at the first defeat.

Like countless rising impurities, they settle back down, no longer yearning for purity, but content and happy to pursue a more turbid state. To use a somewhat inappropriate description, it can almost be called washing away the lead and impurities.

"Do you know that among tens of thousands of literary and artistic fantasy works, the public tends to see the feeling that good triumphs over evil or happiness triumphs over disaster? From this perspective, we 'villains' who actively instigate destruction and kill passersby seem to be destined to fail."

His unrestrained tone and casual word choice showed no regard for the speaking habits of people in this ancient Eastern world. However, what Su Mu said was not difficult to understand.

"But unfortunately, in this vast world, there are countless works that end in tragedy. Those are victories for the villains, and in fact, those are more realistic and more common."

Abbot Wangsheng ignored his words, his body falling from mid-air and then rising again, his tiger's mouth rubbing together, his hands tightening, imitating the staff technique of the Dragon King Ananda, and flying up like a giant dragon with a blue and red top, taking advantage of Su Mu's nonsense to strike the centipede's belly.

Besides wielding numerous magical treasures, this flying centipede was also covered in a carapace, and it repeatedly clashed head-on with the Abbot of the Rebirth Temple using only its shell without suffering any damage.

However, the Tanhua Zen Staff actually possesses the supernatural power to treat iron like mud and turn hardness into softness. Many people in the martial arts world think that the supernatural power is just a kind of manipulation of metal objects, which is a great underestimation of this Zen staff.

Whether it's copper, iron, metal, giant stones, crystal, or even the hides of giant beasts and the body of someone with unparalleled physical strength, the more solid the material is, the softer it appears in front of the Tanhua Zen Staff when its supernatural powers are truly unleashed.

Faced with such an attack, the black mist and demonic winds churning in mid-air suddenly surged into the centipede's body from hundreds of directions.

Su Mu's soul rested peacefully within the centipede's body, his wide sleeves like clouds, his hands forming a mudra in the darkness, as if he had been preparing for a long time.

A cold smile curled at the corner of his lips. Did he really think that I would underestimate him a second time?

The flying centipede's body shrank again and again, transforming into a seven-foot-long creature in an instant, flying like a sword and soaring like a rainbow.

The movement was so swift that no one could clearly see the exact moment the centipede and the staff intersected; it was as if both objects had become empty illusions, colliding and passing right through each other.

But soon, a clanging sound rang out in the air.

On the left side of the centipede's body, countless blade-like legs, resembling sharp iron blades, were severed during the brief exchange. After shrunk and detaching from the main body, the shrunken legs immediately returned to their original size.

It was like hundreds of oddly shaped broadswords, carrying the force of being struck by the monk's staff, shooting out and colliding with each other as they plunged into the ground.

The centipede was as fast as a flying sword, and it spun around from behind, severing the spine of Abbot Wangsheng.

With a flick of his staff, he parried from behind.

The two figures crossed paths again before separating.

"Conspiracies are always planned by the villains, and the initiative is in our hands from the very beginning. Unbridled destruction is always easier than careful protection."

The seven-foot-tall centipede spiraled upwards.

The mutated followers on the ground were sometimes like sheep or wolves, sometimes like snakes or elephants, and sometimes enormous with multiple legs, resembling some kind of grotesque creature. The guards and monks who fought fiercely against them were all driven back in horror by these mutations.

Those top-tier experts belonging to the Demonic Sect did not experience such changes in their bodies, and they had already received warnings. However, when they actually witnessed hundreds of monsters suddenly transforming from the bodies of ordinary people around them, they still felt as if they had forgotten to breathe, and their first thought was to retreat and get away.

The various howls of the monsters became a backdrop to Su Mu's voice.

"So, when they no longer have any fear of life or death, no longer are they bound by any route, and their minds are filled only with the two thoughts of running around causing destruction and heading west to Chang'an, can you still catch up with them, can you protect them?"

The seven-foot centipede had risen to an extremely high place when it suddenly exerted all its magical power, shattering the soul-summoning banner. Clusters of black smoke resembling dark clouds of skulls burst forth, pressing down and spreading for miles as it approached the ground.

Even though the abbot created a large breach, he couldn't completely stop it.

The magical restrictions that had long been hidden within those people—those demons—were activated, giving rise to two additional, iron-like, intents amidst their turbulent and rampant desires.

"Go, go, run about burning and killing, rush to Chang'an."

As these demons roared and charged out of the black smoke in a chaotic frenzy, choosing bizarre paths that no rational person should have taken, leaping between valleys, climbing cliffs, and crawling on the ground, disappearing into the distance in grotesque and upside-down manners, Li Gong and the Shaolin monks heard that unfinished mocking laugh.

"You launched the pursuit only to preserve more lives..."

It's a joke!

"Amitabha."

A booming sound rang out as the abbot's long, gilded beard, coiled and twisted, clung to the lower half of his face, giving him the appearance of an angry-browed Arhat. He dragged his staff backward, stepping out plumes of black smoke.

"When the monk asked me the purpose of my coming from the West, I replied that I would pick up my staff and chase after the yellow clouds."

Upon hearing this, the Shaolin monks felt a sense of clarity, put their hands together, and recited in unison the second half of the calligraphy and painting by the eminent monk Tanzong.

"Subduing the lone dragon and suppressing the poisonous tiger, why should I worry about being alone in the east or west?"

Jinmei Wangsheng turned and bowed to the monks, his mind and eyes completely focused on the centipede that was flying away, and chased after it.

………………

Also in the early morning, within Puzhou.

In the distance, city walls stood amidst the morning mist; nearby, mansions and pavilions stood in disarray, their buildings piled up to the ends of two long streets. Demons roamed the streets, eventually climbing the city walls.

The overwhelming sword intent that had pressed down on people's brows gradually faded away with the sound of the pipa lapping against the shore.

General Feng's figure was reflected down from the other side of the city wall.

The nearly ten-foot-long black iron spear swept across, shattering a demon. It roared angrily and turned to give chase.

General Yin stared intently at the scattered demons as they departed. His hair was slightly gray, his beard was unkempt, and he looked several years older in an instant.

He exchanged a glance with Sang, Lei, and the others, took a deep breath, and gritted his teeth before giving the order without turning his head.

"Six people in a group, each go and chase after it."

"Remember! I want to see you in Chang'an."

………………

On the third route.

Guan Luoyang arrived thirty miles away.

(End of this chapter)