Chapter 549: 虚字辈

Heavy, chaotic footsteps constantly reached Li Huowang's ears through the muddy ground. The sheer number of steps made his expression increasingly solemn.

He had been in Daqi for some time now, and he had never before felt such a significant disturbance. Whatever this was, it would likely be difficult to deal with.

"No matter what this commotion is, I must bypass it first!" Li Huowang, with his eyes closed, thought of this, then stood up without hesitation and rushed in the completely opposite direction.

Li Sui's tentacles emerged from his body, rapidly probing the surroundings like a blind person's cane.

"Daoist, you can open your eyes now. There's nothing foul around."

Hearing the monk's words, Li Huowang slightly opened one eye and found that he had somehow walked into a mass grave.

Under the calamity, the entire mass grave seemed unsettled, with some things in the distance having crawled out and aimlessly wandered about.

Li Huowang disregarded the horrifying environment, immediately lay down again, and listened intently.

Once he felt the sound had faded to inaudibility, Li Huowang finally let out a slight sigh of relief.

He hadn't intentionally come to Daqi to kill evil spirits; now Daqi was becoming increasingly dangerous, so he should find the Shangji Guan Kou and leave as soon as possible.

Li Huowang gathered his spirits and rushed towards the direction Zhuge Yuan had just pointed, thinking to himself, "Brother Zhuge, how much farther is it to the Shangji Guan Kou? We probably don't have much time."

However, after asking this question, Li Huowang found that Zhuge Yuan didn't react. After asking three or four times consecutively, Zhuge Yuan, who had one hand behind his back and was silently looking at the surrounding mass grave, finally reacted.

"Not far now, soon," Zhuge Yuan said in a low voice, then continued to silently look at the scattered bodies around them.

At this moment, Li Huowang seemed to understand what Zhuge Yuan was thinking internally.

In the past, as a storyteller, he had always wanted others to know about Daqi; Daqi was his world. But now that Daqi had become such a desolate place, he was likely feeling terrible inside.

More importantly, Li Huowang found it difficult to offer comfort at this moment because the situation in Daqi didn't look optimistic, and he didn't know what even more terrible consequences might follow.

However, these grand affairs of the world were not for Li Huowang to consider, as he was already too busy with his own problems.

Just as he was about to continue walking, a chilling wind swept past with a "swoosh," and half of Li Huowang's body instantly lost all sensation.

"Again?!" Li Huowang took the copper coin sword from Li Sui's tentacles and swept it forcefully towards the chilling wind. A large chunk of darkness was cut away by the copper coins, and a human skin floating in mid-air instantly appeared before him.

Seeing that Li Huowang could still move, the human skin immediately spread out in the air and swooped towards him like a large eagle.

Just as Li Huowang gripped his sword hilt, preparing to slice the human skin in half, it suddenly went limp and floated gently to the ground.

"Hmm?" Li Huowang, greatly surprised, used the copper coin sword in his hand to poke up the human skin. "Why did it suddenly stop moving?"

When he saw that the human skin was truly dead and not merely playing dead, Li Huowang slightly exerted force with his wrist and flicked the human skin off the copper coin sword.

The pale human skin moved out of Li Huowang's sight, and a strange human face appeared before him.

It was a woman's face with a red dot between her eyebrows; her unblinking eyes made her look incredibly eerie in the darkness.

However, if that were all, it wouldn't be enough to frighten Li Huowang. More importantly, her rouged face was cracked, revealing pale Xuan paper beneath the skin, covered in wild cursive script.

"Is that you?" the woman stared fixedly at Li Huowang and said this meaningless sentence in a thin voice.

Li Huowang wasn't about to waste time talking to such a creature; he gripped his spine sword without hesitation and swung it towards the strange face.

"It's you, it really is you, are you well?" The entire large face quickly shifted to the left, almost grazing the crack as it dodged.

A ghastly green glowing stone was also thrown over; as the green light illuminated the darkness, Li Huowang clearly saw the woman's body.

The only human-like part of this woman was her face; apart from that, she only had a huge, sturdy four-legged beast body covered in dark brown short fur, sprawled on the ground.

Fiery red manes grew from her three-clawed, four-footed limbs and from what resembled a lion's tail, swaying from side to side as her body occasionally trembled.

A rusty body armor, etched with a grimacing blue face and fangs, was hung by chains across her chest, making her appearance even more grotesque and terrifying.

"What in the world is this thing?!" Li Huowang's expression became grim; just from its appearance, he could tell that this thing was probably different from the ordinary evil spirits he had previously dealt with.

"What do you want?! We can talk!!" However, the creature showed no reaction to Li Huowang's attempt at negotiation.

"What's going on? Is she just mimicking speech, but can't understand what people say?"

Just as Li Huowang was thinking this, the creature charged forward, three sharp, long claws sweeping towards Li Huowang with a whistling sound.

Li Huowang's body suddenly flashed backward, instantly shifting ten feet to dodge the attack. The corpse on the ground took the attack in his stead.

Immediately after, Li Huowang witnessed a horrifying sight: the half-decayed middle-aged corpse rapidly aged at a visible rate, eventually turning into an old man.

Li Huowang swung his spine sword forcefully; it slashed across the crack, but the creature easily dodged it.

"Brother Li, be careful. This creature is 'Nian'."

"'Nian'?"

"Exactly. Not 'Wan Nian', but 'Xu Nian'. Don't make any physical contact with her, otherwise, your lifespan will be stolen."

He couldn't touch it and couldn't hurt it. In an instant, Li Huowang's situation became precarious.

Li Huowang originally wanted to use the crack to retreat to Daliang first, but the Xu Nian seemed to possess foresight. Whenever he drew a crack in front of himself, she would immediately rush over to disrupt it.

Under her continuous pressure, Li Huowang could only keep retreating.

Just as the creature pounced again, Li Huowang's expression hardened. He directly took two ribs from his navel and forcefully plunged them backward into his own chest.

Seeing the Xu Nian in front of him rear up on its front legs, roaring, Li Huowang's face showed a bloodthirsty killing intent. "So you know pain too!"

Seizing the moment of its pause, Li Huowang quickly pulled out a dagger, lifted his Daoist robe, sliced, and flicked. A bloody human skin instantly flew up and covered the Xu Nian's human head.

As she struggled continuously, blurred facial features were pressed through the human skin. She shook her head repeatedly but couldn't shake off the human skin.