Chapter 135: Daoist Magic

The faint black qi lingering around the surrounding rooftops and the Daoist priests completely dissipated. Instead of vanishing, this black qi gathered in mid-air to form a thin black garment.

Yin Chunxin flicked the horsetail whisk in his hand, and the black garment drifted onto his body, causing him to vanish into the dim night mist.

Meanwhile, Shen Zhongzhu was in an extremely poor state. Even though the wondrous white bandages on his body suppressed the burn injuries, the fiery momentum of the Winged Fire Snake still leaked out from the gaps between the bandages.

The leaked fire energy whipped about like venomous snakes, causing Shen Zhongzhu to suffer bone-gnawing agony across his entire body.

Swish.

A streak of white light from a horsetail whisk magnified within Shen Zhongzhu’s field of vision. The white light split into ten thousand fine threads, and these tough threads directly sliced Shen Zhongzhu’s body into neat sections.

"Fall!"

Shen Zhongzhu’s voice echoed from the other side of the rooftop. The spot where he previously stood had long since turned into a stalk of green bamboo, and it was precisely the bamboo stalk that the whisk’s white light had shredded.

Yet, despite Shen Zhongzhu reciting the incantation, after the night sky was shrouded in dark clouds for a moment, no lightning struck the place designated by his will.

Instead, Shen Zhongzhu coughed up a mouthful of steaming blood, resembling a glob of scorching magma.

The shattered pieces of green bamboo hit the ground, transformed into bamboo swords, and stabbed toward the hazy black qi where the whisk’s white light originated. However, with a gentle wave of the whisk, the green bamboo abruptly turned into harmless shards of broken roof tiles.

Clatter.

All the broken tiles fell to the ground.

Shen Zhongzhu frowned slightly. This purple-robed Daoist was somewhat more troublesome to deal than he had anticipated. What slightly irritated him the most, however, was that the latent injury from the Winged Fire Snake made it impossible for him to maintain a tranquil mind and focus his thoughts.

Even his thunder arts, which possessed the greatest lethality, were disrupted by the Winged Fire Snake's lingering injury and could not be cast at all.

That cluster of hazy black qi silently concealed itself within the night sky once more. Shen Zhongzhu pressed two fingers together, muttered softly, placed his fingertips against his forehead, and slashed downward fiercely.

"Open the Heavenly Eye!"

Shen Zhongzhu let out a low cry, and a bead of scorching blood flowed from the center of his brow down to the tip of his nose. Before it could hit the ground, Shen Zhongzhu abruptly pinched the scalding drop of blood between two fingers and flicked it toward his side.

The droplet of blood burst and scattered like fireworks, miraculously condensing in mid-air to form a blood talisman.

Observing this scene from another rooftop, Daoist Priest Si narrowed his eyes. He had not expected this fellow to be capable of whipping blood into a talisman, and certainly not some random, casual scrawl.

Instead, it was a genuine, top-quality Blood-Fixing Talisman, possessing the same effect as a Body-Fixing Talisman. However, this Blood-Fixing Talisman could not only immobilize the body but also freeze all the vital blood throughout the entire system.

If one failed to break this Blood-Fixing Talisman in time, the afflicted person would gradually experience numbness and stinging pain, turn pale with cold hands and feet, and finally die of severed breath.

This was an extremely vicious talismanic seal.

However, no sooner had the Blood-Fixing Talisman condensed in mid-air than a suddenly appearing horsetail whisk swept across it, several strands of white silk piercing straight through the vicious Blood-Fixing Talisman.

The runes on the Blood-Fixing Talisman were abruptly scrambled by the white silk, rendering the talisman useless as it drifted weightlessly through the hazy black qi that slowly emerged from the night sky.

"Aren't you eager to witness Daoist arts? Then I shall let you see your fill."

The hazy black qi dissipated, revealing Yin Chunxin’s calm expression. He stroked his graying long beard and looked mockingly at Shen Zhongzhu, who had forcefully pried open his Heavenly Eye using external force.

"Summon clouds."

Yin Chunxin waved his Daoist robe, and dark clouds instantly blanketed the night sky. The night plunged into pitch darkness, making it impossible to spot even a speck of starlight, so dark one could not see one's own hand in front of one's face.

"Borrow wind."

Yin Chunxin stared at Shen Zhongzhu with deep eyes and gave a low command. Immediately, eerie gusts of wind began to howl, chilling one to the bone and marrow, leaving the limbs entirely devoid of strength.

"Weave fog."

A short moment later, fog rolled in. Although this fog lacked the versatile nature of the green mist, it was more than enough to blur and obscure everything around them beyond recognition.

"Seize souls."

The souls of numerous wild beasts of the mountain forests that had just perished in the earth fissure emerged from beneath the ground. Even the ghosts, monsters, and goblins by Fan Xianyue’s side showed signs of drifting toward Yin Chunxin.

This discovery prompted Fan Xianyue to hastily retract the ghosts, monsters, and goblins back into her skirt. Combined with her Star-Gathering Skirt, she managed to suppress these restless entities.

"The Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Transformations! Who on earth is your master? How could such a figure exist on a small mountain in the Southern Wilderness Province?"

The lazy expression in Shen Zhongzhu’s eyes vanished completely as he earnestly watched the numerous Daoist arts being cast by this purple-robed Daoist. Compared to the seven-fake-three-true pace-stamping performed by the red-robed dragon-and-phoenix Daoist he had seen earlier, these Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Transformations were entirely genuine.

"You are not worthy of knowing my master's name." Yin Chunxin offered his horsetail whisk to the skies as a sacrifice, and then commanded coldly, "Form the array!"

Clouds rose and fog surged, winds howled and souls shrieked.

This luxurious horsetail whisk, inlaid with gold and jade, began to spin amidst the clouds and mist. The sorrowful, piercing souls arranged themselves in the sequence of the Three Wonders and Six仪 (Three Wonders and Six仪), while the churning fog derived the formations of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams.

Yet Shen Zhongzhu merely sat calmly cross-legged within the mist, his eyes closed.

"If there's no path to hell and you insist on crashing through, don't blame me for being ruthless!" Seeing this, the calm expression on Yin Chunxin’s face finally cracked into a ferocious smile as he spoke harshly.

"Incense smoke rises thick to correspond with Qian and Kun, igniting pure fragrance to pierce through the heavenly gates. The golden bird races like a clouded arrow, the jade rabbit's brilliance resembles a carriage wheel. The Southern Dipper and Northern Dipper shine across the full sky, colorful clouds stir in brilliant confusion. Peach Blossom Jade Maiden, please invite the immortals, worshipfully inviting the Supreme Lord of Pure Origin..."

Shen Zhongzhu suddenly turned devout, murmuring under his breath.

Watching Shen Zhongzhu chant his incantation with such piety, Yin Chunxin was unpanicked. Instead, his ferocious smile took on an added trace of mockery as he laughed: "The spirit-calling incantation of planchette writing? In this day and age, which revered deity could you possibly summon, and which immortal would even deign to come? If immortals could respond, this Southern Wilderness Province would never look like this!!"

Whoosh.

The earthy-yellow flag on the courtyard ground rapidly retreated.

Before Yin Chunxin could even react, followed in succession by the plain-colored flag, the azure flag, and the dragon-and-phoenix crimson flag bound by the deep blue jade bracelet, all of them retreated at flying speed.

And this was not something controlled by Yin Chunxin.

Yin Chunxin looked back toward the direction where these four directional sacred flags were rapidly retreating—it was precisely the direction of his master's secluded cultivation cavern. Before his mind could even process this, he heard an urgent cry.

"Senior Brother Yin! Master has transformed into a streak of golden light and bolted straight out of the cavern!"

Yin Chunxin’s pupils dilated abruptly as he violently glared at Shen Zhongzhu, who sat within the array. The bloody Heavenly Eye opened between Shen Zhongzhu's brows seemed to have slowly opened with a trend toward spiritual enlightenment.

Yin Chunxin opened his palm toward the sky, and the horsetail whisk fell into his grasp. Immediately afterward, a flash of golden light crossed beneath Yin Chunxin’s feet, and he vanished from sight.

Just as the newly arrived Daoist Priest Wang was still clueless about what had transpired, he saw Daoist Priest Si leap down from the roof to stand beside him, while Daoist Priest Pu, whose feet were injured, had already fled without a trace.

"Let's run," Daoist Priest Si said calmly.

Daoist Priest Wang muttered, "What about the Fufeng Temple?"

No one answered the bewildered murmuring of Daoist Priest Wang, as Daoist Priest Si had already slapped an earth-escaping talisman onto his body, his figure vanishing as well.