Zombie Life Begins in Hongxi Village

Zhong Kui led a group of little ghosts toward Sha Tin, intending to return to the underworld through the temporary Yin-Yang passage opened earlier by Zhong Jiu.

He can indeed open the gates to the underworld at will.

As the judge in the underworld of Fengdu, he has the authority to forcibly tear open a passage between the living and the dead anywhere, allowing him to return directly to his own judge's residence.

But he usually wouldn't do that. This is Acha's territory, and if a judge from Fengdu Underworld were to casually open the Gates of Hell on Acha's turf, she might take it as a provocation.

He's not like Lin Yi, who acts recklessly.

It was late at night, the moon was bright and the stars were few. The night breeze in the mountains carried a chill and rustled the roadside weeds.

When the judge went on his tour, countless wandering ghosts and spirits along the way retreated, and even the most arrogant old ghosts from past lives kept their distance.

As the group passed through a dense locust grove, Zhong Kui suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.

He gripped the demon-slaying sword at his waist and scanned his surroundings warily, but found nothing unusual.

All around was the rustling of the night wind through the treetops, and a few night birds fluttered by; everything seemed normal.

He frowned, thinking it was just his imagination, and loosened his grip on the sword hilt to continue walking forward.

However, as they passed through another forest, something unexpected happened.

A dark figure suddenly darted out from the depths of the forest, moving as fast as lightning that tore through the night sky.

The shadowy figure was thin and withered, but it carried a pair of enormous hammers that were completely disproportionate to its size. The hammers were wreathed in towering black flames, and within the flames, one could vaguely see countless twisted, vengeful spirits wailing and writhing.

The pair of golden hammers, carrying immense force, descended from the sky, aiming to smash Zhong Kui's head. Before the hammers even arrived, the resulting gale had already uprooted several large trees and shredded them into countless fragments.

Zhong Kui was startled, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Before he could think any further, he flicked his wrist, and the Seven Star Demon-Slaying Sword was already unsheathed, its crimson-gold light drawing an arc to meet the giant hammer.

"when--"

The golden hammer struck the demon-slaying sword, and an overwhelming force transmitted through the blade.

Zhong Kui felt an overwhelming force emanating from the sword.

Although he redirected the immense force to the ground in time, causing a huge spiderweb-like crack to appear in the ground.

However, he himself was still sent flying hundreds of meters away, and several little devils who couldn't dodge in time were almost blown away by him.

Zhong Kui reacted extremely quickly, slapping the Ghost-Swallowing Gourd at his waist with his left hand. A beam of green light shot out from the gourd's mouth, collecting all the little ghosts into the gourd.

These little devils are weak and can't even withstand the aftershocks of a battle of this level. Staying outside will only lead to their deaths.

"What kind of demon are you!" Zhong Kui roared, his voice booming like a bell, which shook the surrounding dust and smoke.

Divine light flowed around him, and the crimson light on his judge's robe burned like flames, dispelling the lingering smoke and dust.

He recognized the attacker.

The newcomer was thin and looked to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, but his body was shrouded in a tangible black and red aura of malevolence.

His eyes were bloodshot, and deep within his pupils burned pure savagery and murderous intent.

He held a golden hammer in each hand, the hammerheads glowing with a thick layer of black flame.

Zhong Kui's pupils suddenly contracted, and an expression of disbelief appeared on his face:

"Li Xuanba?! You haven't been reincarnated yet, but instead become a demon that can never be reincarnated? The Li family of Longxi is so cruel!"

"Zhong Kui...you severed my second brother's arm, I'll make you pay with your life!"

Li Xuanba let out a low growl like a wild beast, his scarlet eyes fixed on Zhong Kui.

"Die!" Li Xuanba roared, the ground beneath his feet cracked, and he charged out again like a bolt of lightning tearing through the night sky.

The double hammers swung without any fancy moves or techniques, just pure, unadulterated force—

Each hammer blow carried a devastating force, causing the void to groan in agony under its weight. Wherever the hammer's power passed, trees were uprooted and pulverized.

He was like a heartless, destructive machine whose sole purpose was to smash everything in his path.

Zhong Kui's beard and hair stood on end, and the Zhong Kui Demon-Slaying Sword in his hand transformed into a sky full of crimson-gold sword shadows, like a blazing sun, cleansing away demons.

His swordsmanship was exquisite; each strike did not directly clash with the mighty demonic hammer, but rather, like a skilled butcher dissecting an ox, he would thrust, flick, slash, and chop.

Precisely targeting the weak point of the raging demonic flames, the demon-slaying divine power at the tip of the sword peels away the layers of malevolent energy.

He continuously spewed demon-subduing fire from his mouth. The dark red flames sizzled and burned when they touched the demonic energy around Li Xuanba. The demonic energy melted away like snow being poured on boiling water, causing Li Xuanba to roar in pain.

The title of the number one expert in Fengdu Underworld is well-deserved.

Zhong Kui has sat in the position of judge of evil for thousands of years, and has slain countless demons and monsters. His combat experience is far more extensive than that of a fighting machine like Li Xuanba, whose mind is filled with murderous intent.

Zhong Kui's every sword strike landed precisely on Li Xuanba's weakest point, where his old strength was exhausted and his new strength had not yet been generated, forcing him to retreat step by step.

Li Xuanba's double hammers missed Zhong Kui, but the demonic aura around him was weakened layer by layer, and even the pair of golden drum-shaped hammers developed fine cracks.

Just as he was about to be suppressed by Zhong Kui, Li Xuanba suddenly looked up to the sky and roared, his voice filled with determination and madness.

"roar--!"

He opened his mouth wide, and a terrifying devouring power erupted from his chest cavity.

Deep within his soul, the dormant soul of the Golden-Winged Roc was forcibly devoured by his demonic thoughts!

boom!

An aura a hundred times more ferocious than the previous demonic aura surged forth from Li Xuanba's body.

Behind him, a pair of enormous, dark golden phantom wings suddenly unfurled, with a wingspan of tens of feet, and dark golden demonic flames burning along the edges of the wings.

His figure also swelled to tens of meters tall, and dark golden magic patterns appeared on his skin. The cracks on his twin hammers were filled with a dark golden bone material, and his aura surged to a level that even Zhong Kui felt oppressed.

He raised his head, and a dark gold vertical pupil appeared in the center of his scarlet eyes.

That was the coldness and indifference of ancient ferocious birds, devoid of any human emotion.

"kill!"

He swung the hammer again, his speed and power now on a completely different level.

The pair of golden hammers felt weightless in his hands, yet they produced sonic booms with each swing, creating a massive vortex in the air within a radius of hundreds of meters.

Zhong Kui's expression changed drastically. Without hesitation, he activated his divine power and transformed into a ten-zhang-tall ghost-god form to meet the attack.

His Demon-Slaying Sword also surged in power, with crimson malevolent energy and golden divine light intertwining on its blade, making it capable of splitting mountains and shattering rocks with a single strike.

However, he still underestimated the terror of Li Xuanba after he devoured the soul of the Golden-Winged Roc.

The hammers struck the sword with a force more than a hundred times stronger than before. What pierced through the sword was not only brute force, but also an extremely sharp and ferocious aura of the Golden-Winged Roc.

The malevolent aura pierced through the sword and rushed straight into his divine body, tearing fine cracks in the divine light protecting him.

Zhong Kui's true form trembled violently, he spat out a mouthful of divine blood, and was slammed into the ground.

At the bottom of the pit, hundreds of meters deep, his true form as a ghost could no longer be maintained and reverted to its normal size. His judge's robe was tattered and torn, and his ghost-slaying sword was stuck diagonally in the rubble beside him, its divine light dimmed considerably.

"Go to hell!"

Li Xuanba pressed his advantage relentlessly, taking a step forward and appearing above the deep pit as if by teleportation. He raised both hammers and smashed them down with destructive force!

At this critical moment, Zhong Kui threw away the Demon-Slaying Sword, stretched out his right hand, spread his five fingers, and aimed his palm at the peerless demon that was descending from the sky.

The golden rune that Lin Yi had slapped into his right palm suddenly lit up.

The light was initially only the size of a pinhead, but it exploded in an instant, like a sleeping sun awakening from the earth.

"BOOM!!!"

Golden lightning, even more dazzling than the sun, burst forth from Zhong Kui's palm, instantly engulfing Li Xuanba.

That was no ordinary lightning; it was the primordial divine lightning of the universe, supremely yang and powerful, capable of vanquishing all evil, and the ultimate nemesis of all demons.

Li Xuanba didn't even have time to scream.

His demonic body, empowered by both the Demonic Fiend and the Golden-Winged Roc's malevolent spirit, crumbled inch by inch, like snow meeting lava.

Finally, with a deafening roar, it exploded into a shower of ashes.

As the lightning dissipated, only a faint, pure golden light slowly drifted down.

That was the last wisp of pure remnant soul of the ancient ferocious beast, the Golden-Winged Roc, after its demonic nature was washed away.