After the path was cut off

"Hiding so far away."

"What are you afraid of?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Qinghan's right hand firmly gripped the hilt of the Suihan Sword.

High in the sky, the tall, thin, and wicked cultivator felt a chill creep into his heart for no apparent reason.

Even though they were hundreds of feet apart, and even though the other party was stuck in the mud and surrounded by Yin Corpses, for a moment, he had the illusion that a sword was pressed against his throat.

Almost instinctively, he slapped the black eagle at his feet. The black eagle flapped its wings, as if trying to escape into the distance.

And at this very moment—

"A line of cold river".

With a sharp shout, Suihan drew its sword fiercely, and a sword arc shot out from the tip.

At first, it was as thin as an ice thread, clear and silent.

But as it soared into the sky, it devoured the surrounding spiritual energy, growing ever stronger with each flight.

The spiritual energy that had been disrupted by the Yin Corpse, talismans, and mud swamp magic, which was originally scattered and disordered in the wind, was now being drawn by the sword arc and attached to it layer by layer.

Take a breath.

Two breaths.

As time passed, the thin, thread-like sword arc not only did not diminish, but instead became more solid and brighter.

As it tore through the sky and slashed towards Black Hawk, it fell like a line of cold water hanging down.

The tall, thin, evil cultivator's expression changed drastically.

"How is that possible!"

He screamed and frantically scattered talismans from his sleeves as if they were free.

Protective talisman.

Golden Armor Talisman.

Shift symbol.

Layers of spiritual light exploded in front of him. But the sword light came too fast and too cold.

The first layer of protective aura cracked.

The second layer of golden armor talisman shadow cracked.

The teleportation talisman had just lit up when it was severed by the sword light, failing to move him at all.

Black Hawk didn't even have time to utter a mournful cry before the sword light cleaved him from his neck.

Blood and decaying feathers flew everywhere.

At the last moment, a wooden puppet on the chest of the tall, thin, and evil cultivator suddenly lit up.

Click.

The puppet split in two on the spot. The remaining sword energy pierced into the puppet.

Although the tall, thin, and evil cultivator escaped death, he was still shaken by the sword energy and coughed up blood. He tumbled off the eagle's back and crashed to the ground in a sorry state.

Li Qinghan didn't care about the outcome of this sword strike.

Because the Yin Corpses had already surrounded them in the mud beneath their feet.

It was densely packed from all directions.

Rotting giant bears, skeletal wolves, pieced-together human corpses, and mutilated remains that had been shredded by sword energy but had risen again all surged forward.

They piled up layer upon layer, completely engulfing Li Qinghan and Zi Qiu. The swamp held back the lower body, while the horde of corpses pressed down on the surroundings.

Li Qinghan stood on the back of the purple earthworm and glanced down at it.

The purple earthworm is struggling.

It was docile by nature and had little fighting power. Now, being dragged along by the mud, its body tensed up segment by segment, and a sense of unease was already emanating from it.

Li Qinghan raised his hand and flicked it. The mouth of the spirit beast pouch opened. The enormous body of the purple earthworm instantly transformed into a streak of reddish-brown light and disappeared into the pouch.

The next instant, the surrounding corpses pounced.

Claws, corpse fire, venom, and bone spikes all crashed down at once.

Li Qinghan lightly touched the mud with his toes, and instead of falling, his body rose higher.

A sword flashes in the cold winter.

A circle of cold white sword energy rippled out from her body, and the first dozen or so Yin corpses that rushed at her froze.

Then, it shattered.

Severed limbs and rotting flesh splattered out, but before they even hit the ground, they were trampled into the mud by the surging corpses from behind.

But the horde of corpses didn't stop; instead, it grew even more ferocious. Those undead corpses seemed to be linked together in some kind of evil magic, forming an array.

If the front breaks, the back is immediately patched up.

When severed limbs fall to the ground, enveloped in deathly aura, they will reassemble with the surrounding flesh and bone, transforming into something even more deformed and ferocious.

Li Qinghan's eyes were slightly cold.

No wonder they dared to use this thing to wear her down. If it were just an ordinary Yin Corpse, killing it would be pointless. But these corpses were interconnected, their death energy complementing each other, creating a sense that the more they were killed, the more chaotic and numerous they became.

And since there must be a medium to control so many corpses.

At that moment, dozens of corpses opened their mouths simultaneously. From their rotting throats, they squeezed out the same chilling voice.

"Li Qinghan".

"Are you looking for me?"

The sounds were layered and overlapping, as if they were crawling out of many rotten chest cavities.

"No need to look anymore."

"In each of these bodies, I am all of myself, yet none of them are truly me."

"No matter how fast your sword is, can it sever all my thoughts?"

Li Qinghan's sword strikes continued unabated, shattering yet another wave of rotting corpses. His voice was as cold as ice: "Actively severing one's divine consciousness, cutting off one's own path to enlightenment. Such a petty and short-sighted approach is indeed... very evil."

"Hahaha! Only concerned with the present?!" The voice of the controller came through the corpse, filled with madness and disdain.

"Splitting one's divine consciousness and damaging one's foundation is something a genius like you would disdain."

"But what good is a solid foundation if you die?"

"Only by living can one find a way."

"As long as you're alive, whatever path you take or whatever foundation you build, you can make up for it sooner or later."

Li Qinghan spoke coldly:

"So you only deserve to hide among corpses."

The sound paused. Then, the horde of corpses surged even more violently.

In the distance, the tall, thin, and sinister cultivator finally struggled to his feet. He hid behind the horde of corpses, his eyes filled with both fear and greed.

"Such sword bones, such chilling aura—if forged into a Corpse Princess, it would be worth at least thirty years of arduous training!"

"But that's still not as good as my substitute puppet!"

He shouted shrilly, his voice filled with unspeakable greed and hatred.

"The battle formation is complete; wear her down!"

"She absolutely cannot use that sword strike a second time!"

"Sword cultivators rely heavily on their last breath. Her sword momentum has already dissipated; she won't be able to hold on much longer!"

Upon hearing this, Li Qinghan's expression remained unchanged.

He wasn't wrong.

The Frosty River Sword is not a sword that can be drawn casually.

The reason that sword could cleave high into the sky was that since leaving the town, she had been pouring cold metal energy into Suihan to accumulate sword power, and she also used the scattered spiritual energy around her that had been disturbed by evil magic to enhance its sharpness.

With a single strike, half of the momentum was lost.

If it were an ordinary Qi-cultivating swordsman, she would indeed have retreated. But she came out today not to save energy.

She came to kill someone.

Li Qinghan slowly raised his sword.

On the blade of the Sword of Frostbite, layers of fine ice crystals condensed.

The ice crystals, like tiny snow peaks, emerged from the cold light of the sword and shattered into sharp edges in the next instant.

"A thousand peaks covered in snow."

The four characters fell.

A sudden gust of wind arose in the wilderness, carrying with it hundreds of sharp sword energies, condensed like solid ice shards, slashing out in all directions from her center.

The horde of corpses was swept away by the sword light and instantly disintegrated.

The rotten bear was beheaded.

The bone wolf has a broken spine.

The human corpse was neatly pieced together from the chest and abdomen.

Those remains that were originally linked by death energy and could be pieced back together, this time seemed to be nailed down by some kind of coldness, with a layer of fine white frost covering the broken edges, and the process of reassembly slowed down abruptly.

But Li Qinghan did not only slay the horde of corpses.

There are also swamps.

There was also a chilling wind.

And those seemingly empty corners, yet subtly entwined with threads of evil energy under the illumination of the [Mirror of Divine Radiance].

A sword aura slashed into the muddy swamp to the left front.

There was clearly nothing there, but suddenly a black bone bead the size of a thumb burst forth.

The moment the bone bead appeared, it was cleaved in two by the cold light.

A sword aura slashed towards the withered grass on the right.

Buried beneath the grass was half a finger bone, its surface covered with tiny, sinister patterns. When the sword light swept over it, it instantly turned to dust.

Another sword aura swept past the pile of rotting corpses behind them.

A grayish-white tendon hidden in the rotting flesh snapped instantly.

Then came the second, third, and fourth points.

The zombie horde's movements finally became chaotic.

Those originally ferocious and orderly corpses, like puppets that suddenly lost their grip, some froze halfway through their attack, some scattered again after just reassembling, and some even collided with each other, twisting into even uglier dead things.

The sounds overlapping among the corpses evoked panic for the first time.

"How could you possibly see that—"

Before he could finish speaking, the last sword light had already disappeared into the deepest part of the swamp.

puff.

A very faint cracking sound, like a lamp wick being cut.

Ten miles away, behind a rocky beach, the evil cultivator who controlled corpses suddenly clutched his head, blood gushing from all seven orifices.

"ah--!"

He screamed and fell to his knees, as a small banner made of bones exploded in front of him.

The dozens of wisps of remnant souls sealed within the banner shrieked and scattered, only to be pulled away by some invisible force in the next instant, disappearing into the unseen mirror light in the distance.

The evil cultivator who controlled corpses trembled all over, his face as pale as paper.

"Shadow Puppet... my Shadow Puppet..."

He simply doesn't understand.

How did Li Qinghan find the several mediums he had hidden?

unless--

She can see.

She really can see.

Overwhelmed by fear, the pain and anger vanished in an instant. The corpse-controlling evil cultivator dared not linger any longer and turned to flee.

-----------

The sword light gradually faded in the swamp.

The once impenetrable horde of corpses has now been reduced to a pile of broken bones and shattered remains. Filthy blood slowly seeps into the swamp. The poisonous mist is suppressed by the chill. The eerie wind has dissipated.

Li Qinghan stood in the center of the corpses, with Suihan lying beside him, yet not a drop of blood stained the blade.

Her sleeves fluttered gently in the wind, but her expression remained aloof, as if the ambush just moments before had merely brushed off a speck of dust from her clothes.

In the distance, the tall, thin, evil cultivator stared blankly at this scene, the last trace of color draining from his face.

He finally realized how terribly wrong he had been.

That sword strike that cleaved the heavens was not her only method.

From the very beginning, she never really took these corpses seriously.

The tall, thin, evil cultivator turned and fled.

But before he could move, Li Qinghan had already looked at him.

There was no anger.

There is no hatred.

There wasn't even much killing intent in them.

His gaze was as calm as if he were looking at something that had already become inanimate.

The tall, thin, evil cultivator froze.

"No...don't kill me!"

He fell to his knees with a thud and almost crawled on his hands and knees, kowtowing to her.

"Fairy, spare me! I'm useful! I know a lot!"

"I have a cave dwelling where I keep spirit stones, talismans, materials, and cultivation techniques I've collected over the years!"

"It's all yours!"

"I also know about the Bone Path, Blood Butcher, and many other hidden networks—"

"I am willing to offer my divine soul imprint!"

"I'd be your slave!"

"I beg the fairy to spare my life!"

Li Qinghan approached step by step.

She did not interrupt.

There was no urging.

I just listened quietly.

Seeing that she did not immediately draw her sword, the tall, thin, evil cultivator's eyes lit up with a faint hope, and he spoke with even greater urgency.

He poured out all the bits and pieces of information he knew, like beans spilling from a bamboo tube.

Where is the spirit stone hidden?

Where are those corpses kept?

Which of the refugee households came from Baigudao?

Which of the itinerant merchants from outside the town actually delivered letters for the heretical cultivators?

The more he talked, the more he felt he still had a way out.

When he had nothing left to say and his throat was hoarse, he finally spoke in a trembling voice:

"Fairy...I..."

Li Qinghan stared at him coldly. This kind of person didn't even dare to say a harsh word; his very existence was disgusting.

"Are you done talking?"

A flash of sword light in the cold winter.

The hope on the tall, thin, and wicked cultivator's face froze.

A thin line of blood appeared from his neck, and his head was simply moved aside. The area around his head was sealed by the cold, so not a drop of blood could be splattered.

His head rolled to the ground, his eyes still pleading for mercy until he died.

Li Qinghan bent down and skillfully pulled out several small bags hidden in his sleeve, then took out two talisman boxes, a bone bell, and a stack of unused talismans from his bosom.

She carefully put them away one by one.

There was not the slightest bit of disdain.

Li Wangchuan had taught her not to waste things that could be used. Qingfeng had also said that while the lives of evil cultivators might be tainted, their possessions might not be.

Baixi Town is lacking in everything these days.

After confirming that nothing had been missed, Li Qinghan looked up into the distance.

Within the sea of ​​consciousness, the clear light of the 【Precious Mirror Spreads Its Radiance】 gently swirled.

A ghostly figure has appeared on the mirror.

It was the tall, thin, evil cultivator she had just killed.

In addition, there was an even fainter and more fragmented soul shadow, composed of dozens of soul shadows, appearing and disappearing as if it might dissipate at any moment.

That must have been a fragment of the corpse-controlling evil cultivator's soul that was casually captured by the mirror image when she severed the medium between them.

Li Qinghan quietly watched the two soul shadows.

She suddenly remembered that when she prayed for the "Mirror of Light" earlier, a ray of light had also split off from between her eyebrows and been projected into the mirror.

That is to say-

The spirits of those who wield the [Mirror of Divided Radiance] will also enter the mirror.

And I'm afraid I've already left my mark on the mirror.

If she were to die one day, the [Mirror Master] would indeed be able to protect her true spirit.

But what happens after you protect them?

Is it reincarnation? Or restraint?

Li Qinghan lowered her eyes.

The master of the mirror currently harbors no ill intentions. However, such power is ultimately too heavy a burden. So heavy that it compels both respect and caution.

She didn't dwell on that; there were still living people to kill.