Old Refining Spirit

But it was too late.

Li Xuangeng was like a heartless meat grinder, strolling leisurely down the middle of the long street. Wherever he passed, the stalls and houses on both sides, along with the monsters hiding in the shadows, all exploded inch by inch under the crushing force of his qi. Black blood, green liquid, and severed limbs intertwined in the air, creating an extremely bloody scene.

Accompanied by a piece of music with a strong rhythm, the sound of the monster exploding could even be used as a beat, which Li Xuangeng found absolutely dazzling.

In this one-sided massacre, Li Xuangeng's white robes were not stained with a single drop of blood. His slender fingers gently fiddled with the prayer beads, as if he were merely sweeping fallen leaves in the courtyard.

"Ding! Inferior Corpse Demon slain. Too many impurities. The furnace refuses to absorb it."

"Ding! A mutated zombie has been killed, but there are too many impurities, and the furnace refuses to absorb it."

"Ding! Low-level cougar killed..."

Hearing the disdainful notifications constantly coming from the system in his mind, Li Xuangeng's eyes grew even colder.

"Has the foundation of the Great Abyss Dynasty rotted to this extent? A county as prestigious as this can't even gather a single medicinal ingredient." He sighed with some disappointment, but his pace quickened.

After traversing the street he had carved out a bloody path through, a magnificent building finally appeared before the man and the girl—the Qingping County Government Office.

Two tall stone lions stood majestically on either side of the vermilion gate, above which hung a huge plaque that read "A Clear Mirror Hangs High".

If you ignore the blood flowing from the eyes of the two stone lions and the thick black mist swirling around the four large characters "明镜高悬" (a clear mirror hangs high), this place does indeed resemble the imposing site of an official government.

"The grievance drum?"

Li Xuangeng stopped in front of the county government office, tilted his head slightly, and "looked" at the huge cowhide drum placed on the left.

Under the [Aura Observation] technique, it wasn't some kind of cowhide at all. It was a complete human skin peeled off a young girl while she was still alive, with dark red bloody handprints left by the victim in her struggle before death still remaining on the surface. The drumsticks were made from two human thigh bones, with a glossy patina on them, indicating that they had been struck countless times.

"Using human skin to make a grievance drum, and human bones to make drumsticks. The officials of Qingping County are indeed well-versed in the ways of the bureaucracy in this Great Yuan Dynasty." Li Xuangeng laughed in anger, his Adam's apple bobbing as he stared intently at the gate of the county government office with the gaze one would give a fine Manchu-Han banquet.

"Halt! This is a restricted area of ​​the county government; no unauthorized personnel are permitted to approach!"

Eight constables from the county government, each with a long steel sword at their waist, rushed out of the door and surrounded Li Xuangeng. They were all gaunt-faced, with sunken eyes and an eerie red light flashing in their pupils.

"Unauthorized personnel?" Li Xuangeng slowly adjusted his cuffs. "I'm not here to stroll around today, but to collect debts."

"What are you collecting? You blind Taoist priest, are you tired of living? How dare you cause trouble in the county government!" The head constable drew his long sword, the blade gleaming with a chilling, poisonous light.

"Take the life of your county magistrate, and also his belly full of fat elixirs."

Before he finished speaking, Li Xuangeng's figure had already disappeared from the spot.

"Watch out!" The constable only had time to utter a single exclamation.

"Snap!"

Li Xuangeng had appeared behind the constable at some point, and his pale, slender right hand pierced through the constable's chest from behind and emerged from his front!

No blood splattered. Because in Li Xuangeng's hand, he was tightly gripping a still-beating, pitch-black heart that emitted a dense black aura!

"So it's a heart-stealing ghost. No wonder there's no heartbeat," Li Xuangeng commented gently, then clenched his fist tightly.

"Bang!" The pitch-black heart instantly exploded into a cloud of black mist. The constable's body collapsed limply to the ground like a puppet without its strings.

"Kill him! Fire!" The remaining seven constables were terrified and drew their swords wildly, while the two behind them even took out repeating crossbows.

Faced with this relentless attack, Li Xuangeng didn't even entertain the slightest thought of dodging. His absolute rationality allowed him to instantly calculate the landing points of all the attacks.

Instead of retreating, he advanced and charged straight at the blade!

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

A sickening metallic clang rang out. Those steel longswords, powerful enough to cleave boulders, shattered instantly upon striking Li Xuangeng's seemingly thin white robes! His body, protected by the [Creation True Qi], was as hard as ten-thousand-year-old black iron.

Li Xuangeng transforms into the Grim Reaper; every move he makes is extremely elegant, yet accompanied by the purest physical destruction.

He grabbed a constable's head and snapped his cervical spine 360 ​​degrees with a sharp crack.

He raised his foot and kicked another constable in the stomach. The force of the kick caused the constable's upper and lower body to separate in mid-air, and his internal organs were scattered all over the ground.

He didn't even lift his eyelids when faced with the crossbow bolts. He opened his mouth and bit down on the poisoned steel arrow, then spat it out on the ground with a "pui".

"It's too crispy."

In less than ten breaths, all eight constables with internal strength had been reduced to mangled corpses on the ground.

Li Xuangeng once again took out the clean white silk handkerchief and carefully wiped his hands, which were actually spotless. His tone was meticulous, almost obsessive-compulsive: "Handling such inferior materials is the easiest way to get your clothes dirty."

He walked up to the drum made of human skin and cried for justice. Instead of using the drumstick made of human bone, he clenched his fist and slammed it down hard on the drumhead!

"boom--!!!"

This punch carried the explosive power of divine thunder from the heavens. The enormous human-skin drum was instantly shattered, and the terrifying sound waves, mixed with thunder, transformed into a tangible shockwave that directly blasted the two heavy vermilion gates of the county government office into pieces, sending splinters flying everywhere!

"Zhu Dachang, Magistrate of Qingping County, your medicinal ingredient is ready! Get out here and face your death!"

Li Xuangeng's words were like thunderclaps in spring; his roar shook the entire Qingping County town.

Inside the main hall of the county government, Zhu Dachang, the magistrate of Qingping County, who was "investigating a case," suddenly sat up in fright from his large armchair.

The main hall was lavishly decorated, but the air was thick with a nauseating stench of blood. Zhu Dachang was an extremely obese man; his seventh-rank blue official robe was stretched taut by his fat, as if it might burst at any moment. He wasn't wearing an official hat, because on his head grew two enormous pig ears covered in coarse, black hair!

On the desk in front of him lay not a gavel and files, but the skull of a boy whose skull had been opened! Zhu Dachang was holding a small silver spoon and, like eating tofu pudding, greedily scooping out the red and white brain matter inside.

Below the hall, several trembling commoners knelt, having been captured and brought in as "reserve rations."

Hearing the thunder outside the door and that extremely arrogant statement, Zhu Dachang's pig eyes, squeezed into slits by fat, shot out a cruel and ferocious light.

"Where did this mad Taoist priest come from, daring to disrupt my business? He's got some nerve!"

Zhu Dachang threw down the small spoon in his hand and wiped the blood from his mouth. He suddenly stood up, and an immense, suffocating black demonic aura erupted from his body. This demonic aura combined with the "official fortune" bestowed upon him by the Great Abyss Dynasty, forming an extremely eerie sense of oppression—[Official Authority].

The laws of the Great Abyss Dynasty stipulate that officials, appointed by the emperor, possess the dragon energy of the nation's destiny. If ordinary cultivators attack officials, they will suffer a backlash from the nation's destiny, ranging from minor demonic possession to divine retribution. This is precisely why these demons dare to brazenly masquerade as officials and prey on the common people.