Uncle Nine: You were supposed to drive corpses, so you summoned the Monkey King!

"What about the Five Thunder Talisman?"

Lin Chen held the yellow talisman, and Uncle Jiu's eyelids twitched twice.

How long has this kid been cultivating the Shangqing Great Cave True Scripture? It's one thing for him to draw corpse-suppressing talismans like eating beans, but now he can even casually pull out a Five Thunder Talisman.

"Where...where did you get this talisman?"

"I had nothing to do at the inn that night, so I took a purple bamboo brush and drew a few more pictures."

Master Simu rolled his eyes.

Did you draw this when you had nothing better to do? Back then, when my senior brother taught me how to draw the Five Thunder Talisman, I and my senior brother Fengjiao prayed in front of the altar for three days and three nights, and we were beaten seven or eight times before we could barely draw a half-finished product.

The apprentice spoke as casually as someone selling pancakes on the street.

Uncle Nine, not bothering to ponder Lin Chen's strange comprehension, pointed to the depths of the black water vortex, "The Five Thunder Talisman is specifically designed to break the accumulated Yin energy underground. The buoyancy is high down there, and the black water is highly corrosive; if you just throw this talisman down, it will shatter before it even reaches the bottom."

"We need to use a heavy object to guide it, so it can plunge directly into the center of the mass grave," Chizuru chimed in from the side.

"Heavy objects?"

Lin Chen turned around and glanced back.

In a corner of the prison, Mayor Li was rolling on the ground. The fat man, his face covered in blood, heard Uncle Jiu and Qianhe's words, his eyes darted around, and he limped backward.

Although Mayor Li didn't understand Taoist magic, he had just heard that these Maoshan Taoist priests wouldn't spare his life today. His warlord status was useless, and he couldn't win by gunfire. He had gone mad.

"If they won't let me live, then none of them should live either."

Mayor Li shouted and lunged at the cast iron support pillar, pulling a small knife from his waistband and wildly slashing at the brick seams beneath the pillar.

"The commander-in-chief has thousands of guns in Blackwater Town. If you dare to disrupt his plans, I'll release all the ley lines. We'll all die together."

With a few slashes, the brick seams, already softened by the black water, were hacked to pieces, and the foul-smelling black water almost splashed onto Master Qianhe's robe.

"You're courting death." Master Four Eyes swung his greatsword, ready to charge forward.

Lin Chen moved even faster.

With his left hand still clutching the Five Thunder Talisman, he reached down with his right hand and grabbed the Mauser rifle barrel that he had just twisted into a pretzel.

Lin Chen circulated the magical power of the Shangqing Great Cave True Scripture within his body, channeling the power into his arm and forcefully swinging it forward.

The gun barrel flew out, and Mayor Li, who was holding a knife halfway up his hand, was about to turn his head when he heard the noise. The gun barrel pierced through Mayor Li's chest, sending him flying half a meter into the air, where he was pinned to the innermost wall of the prison.

Mayor Li's limbs hung limply, a large hole opened in his chest, and he twitched twice before dying.

"You talk too much nonsense," Lin Chen said.

Master Four Eyes watched from the side and said, "Goodness, with that kind of strength, you'd be wasting your talent if you went to the provincial capital to forge iron."

Master Qianhe stood there stunned.

This is hardly the way a proper Taoist priest would do it! A single iron spear barrel pins a living person to the wall; this physical method of deliverance is even more efficient than that of bandits in the mountains.

With Mayor Li dead, Lin Chen turned his gaze back to the black vortex on the ground.

The vortex grew larger, and the black hole below expanded to nearly a meter wide. A scratching sound came from below, and it was unknown how many blood-fiend corpses from hundreds of years ago were still hidden there.

"Uncle-Master, you need something heavy, right?"

Lin Chen took two steps forward and arrived at the iron gate made of pure iron at the entrance of the death row cell.

The iron gate is two meters high, and it usually takes two soldiers to push it open.

Lin Chen gripped the two iron bars in the middle of the iron fence with both hands and poured his magic power into them.

"Get down."

Lin Chen gave a low shout, his arm muscles tensed, and two cracking sounds were heard.

Uncle Jiu and Qianhe watched as Lin Chen pulled the three- or four-hundred-pound iron gate down from the wall frame.

"I'll come and help..." Master Simu was about to take a step when he tripped and almost fell.

Lin Chen lifted the three- or four-hundred-pound pure iron gate with both hands, holding it upright in mid-air.

"Borrowing."

Lin Chen took out the Purple Bamboo Brush with his right hand, dipped it in the top-grade cinnabar that Qianhe had given him earlier, and drew a simple Qi-gathering array pattern on the top of the iron fence.

He affixed the Five Thunder Talisman to the center of the Qi Gathering Array.

As soon as the talisman was pasted on, the righteous energy of heavenly thunder from the lightning-struck wooden sword was attracted and climbed up the iron railings, covering the entire large iron gate.

"Senior brother, your junior nephew... really puts in a lot of effort when he works." Daoist Qianhe swallowed hard.

Uncle Nine fell silent. While others treasured their Five Thunder Talismans, Lin Chen used a three- or four-hundred-pound iron gate as a talisman holder.

"Master, Uncle-Master, please move aside."

In the center of the black water vortex, in the dark cave below, several blood-stained corpses covered in black water were climbing upwards, less than three feet from the ground.

Lin Chen raised the large iron gate high with both arms, and his internal magical energy vortex was fully activated.

"Go down."

Using Lin Chen's strength and its own weight, the iron gate was driven vertically into the depths of the black water vortex. The few blood-fiend corpses that had climbed to the cave entrance were smashed to pieces by the large iron gate before they could even utter a sound.

The massive iron gate reached all the way to the top, severing the earth's vein channels.

The Five Thunder Talisman at the top of the railing was activated.

A muffled thunderclap echoed deep beneath the death row cell, and the righteous energy of the thunderclap detonated along the iron bars in the center of the mass grave's veins.

The ground shook, and the oil lamps on the corridor walls fell down and went out.

The black water in the hole was heated by lightning, causing it to emit white steam.

With a loud bang, scalding hot steam burst out of the black hole.

The temperature in the cell rose, and the chilling atmosphere was blasted away by the thunder.

As the moisture dissipated, the whirlpool on the ground disappeared, leaving only a smoky pit blocked by a large iron gate. The surrounding black water stopped bubbling and slowly seeped back into the soil through the cracks in the wall.

"What a brilliant move, 'Five Thunderbolts Strikes the Head'!"

Master Four Eyes walked over from behind and said, "This method of using pure iron as a lightning rod is even more satisfying than blowing up zombies in Jiuquan Town."

Lin Chen lowered his hands and exhaled a breath of white air.

With most of his magical power depleted, the Shangqing Great Cave True Scripture within his body was still slowly circulating, absorbing scattered spiritual energy from the surrounding air to replenish its losses.

"The passage is blocked." Lin Chen glanced at the pit.

Uncle Nine walked to the edge of the pit and bent down to examine it.

The iron gate was driven deep into the ground, and the residual power of the Five Thunder Talisman still lingered on the iron bars, occasionally sending up a tiny arc of electricity. The connection between the mass grave and Blackwater Town had been severed.

"We managed to save Renjia Town."

Uncle Jiu breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and looked at Mayor Li, who was pinned to the wall, "This scourge is dead. The security forces outside have lost their leader and can't cause any big trouble."

Master Qianhe also came over, and just as he was about to speak, he stopped.

"Don't move, there's a noise."

The stagnant black liquid in the prison began to stir.

The black water that had seeped into the cracks in the floor tiles began to flow backward, gathering on the stone wall in the very center of the death row cell.

The black liquid writhed, leaving streaks of foul-smelling blood on the wall.

"It's an evil cultivator from Blackwater Town." Uncle Nine gripped the peach wood sword tightly. "His magic array was broken by the Five Thunder Talisman, and he's using the last bit of residual power of the array to retaliate."

The black water on the wall stopped, turning into a line of distorted characters, continuously dripping black blood.

Lin Chen looked up and saw that the handwriting was messy and fierce:

"The Ghost Festival has arrived. The hundred coffins have been unsealed and are coming to Blackwater Town to meet their death."

The putrid aura of corpses rushed out through the cracks. This aura not only contained Yin energy but also the bloody smell of battle from the previous dynasty, making it far stronger than the blood-fiend corpses from before.

"not good."

Master Qianhe shouted, "That evil cultivator was driven to desperation by the loss of the Yin energy in the mass grave here, and he opened the seals on the more than one hundred coffins in Blackwater Town ahead of schedule."

Uncle Nine punched a pillar next to him.

"Today is the eve of the Ghost Festival. With hundreds of coffins being unearthed, few will survive in Blackwater Town."

Lin Chen looked at the blood-dripping writing on the wall, sheathed the lightning-struck wooden sword back in his back, and touched his brow. The mark left by Zhao Tianlei, the vanguard officer of the Fire Department, was faintly warm.

"Uncle-Master, don't worry."

"They have a lot of coffins, and we have plenty of fire and thunder. Since they've called us over, we might as well go and wipe out those hundred-plus military corpses on the way."