Chapter 475: Spirit Calamity

Chapter 475: Spirit Malice

When Li Huowang saw Zhuge Yuan's expression so deeply sorrowful, he understood that this friend must hold a profound significance for him.

Zhuge Yuan was a man of great loyalty, ready to risk his life for friends, and to force him to kill one would be enough to imagine how torn his heart must be at this moment.

At this point, Zhuge Yuan spoke again. "After my good friend was controlled by spirit malice, not only could he still use the techniques and powers he had learned in the past, but through the influence of the spirit malice, their strength had become even more formidable."

"Brother Li, the Heavenly Watch Bureau keeps saying how powerful the spirit malice is, but you must be cautious—this spirit malice does not abide by logic. What you will soon face may be the spirit malice itself one moment, and then something else the next."

"It can always switch bodies to inhabit, which is the most dangerous aspect of the spirit malice. You must strike it down instantly before it has time to react."

"If you encounter a spirit malice, you must have tenfold certainty before acting. If you are captured alive by it, it would be worse than death. Spirit malice—its essence lies in the 'malice,' not in the 'spirit.'"

As Zhuge Yuan finished speaking, he suddenly stopped. At his feet lay a withered monkey corpse, its mouth wide open, limbs twisted in grotesque shapes, belly split wide, revealing rotting organs spread like a flower across the ground.

"Brother Zhuge, according to what you've said, it seems we've finally found the real culprit?" Zhuge Yuan nodded solemnly.

Li Huowang moved with utmost caution, slowly walking deeper into the peach blossom grove. The ground was littered with increasingly numerous corpses twisted and deformed from torture—some were animals, others were humans, all in horrific states of death.

"Hush! Quiet! I think I heard something!" Li Huowang's words caused the monk’s chanting to cease.

He crouched on the ground, pressing his ear to the earth, listening intently. "Is that... breathing?"

"Hee... hee... hee..." A rhythmic puffing sound traveled through the ground into Li Huowang’s ears.

Li Huowang immediately gripped his sword hilt tightly and slowly approached the direction of the sound.

Just as the sound grew louder, Li Huowang parted a branch, and what he saw made his eyes tremble.

Not far away, on an open patch of land, a vast mass of blood, flesh, bones, and internal organs lay sprawled like a small lake on the ground.

"Hee... hee... hee..." Accompanying the breathing, this heap of flesh rose and fell, streaks of red falling from the sky, sinking into the gaps within the flesh.

Li Huowang looked upward along the red stream and realized with shock that it was actually the evening glow from the heavens—the creature was eating the sky's sunset.

"This is the spirit malice?" As Li Huowang thought this, a rat scurried across the flesh and burrowed into a distant withered corpse to gnaw on it.

Suddenly, the flesh began to tremble. It quickly gathered together, reassembling into a giant deer as large as a house.

This six-legged beast had massive antlers shaped like two peach trees atop its head. Its fur resembled a decaying rainbow—dim yet multicolored.

Li Huowang knew it was a female deer because beneath her belly hung a dead fawn, frozen mid-fall during labor.

"Brother Zhuge, where is this spirit malice taking residence?" Li Huowang asked quietly, watching the giant deer in the distance.

"The Yingzhao. Common people often call it the Nine-Colored Deer."

Nine-colored deer? Li Huowang stared at the decaying rainbow fur on the beast.

Suddenly, the spirit malice moved. Its body left behind blurred shadows as it rushed toward the corpse where the rat had been.

Though it could easily crush the rat with a single hoof, it chose not to. Instead, it stepped on the rat's tail with a hoof shaped like a plum blossom, then pressed another hoof against the rat's hind leg, rubbing it back and forth.

The rat screamed in pain, but the nine-colored deer showed no sign of stopping. It raised its head and bellowed joyfully.

When the rat’s limbs were completely crushed into pulp, the deer lifted a hoof and pressed it onto the rat’s chest, slowly pushing down.

Only after the rat had vomited all its innards onto the ground did the deer seem satisfied, returning once more to a pool of blood and flesh.

Li Huowang frowned, swallowing hard. He whispered in the lowest voice, "Brother Zhuge, is this thing driven mad, or does it simply enjoy torturing?"

"Spirit malice—Heaven and Earth show no mercy, treating all things as straw dogs. This is the sin born of Heaven itself. Its very birth is an offense," Zhuge Yuan said, as if recalling something, his face growing even more grim.

"Then Brother Zhuge, what is this Nine-Colored Deer up to?" Regardless of what it truly was, Li Huowang had already prepared himself for battle.

"It feeds on light and uses light. Keep your eye on it—those rays of light come from inside it."

"Mm." Li Huowang's body tensed like a hunting leopard, his jaw clenched tightly.

The distant spirit malice seemed to sense something. Bones and flesh reassembled into a deer, peering around the peach groves.

Suddenly, a red mahjong tile spun through the air and landed firmly on a peach tree. Just as the spirit malice turned to look in that direction, Li Huowang lunged out from behind the tree, his copper coin sword whipping like a whip toward the creature.

A sharp crack echoed. The blood and flesh struck by the sword quickly smoked and withered like flowers.

Though effective, the sword meant to cut through evil did not finish it off in one blow.

The spirit malice let out a shriek upon being ambushed. This time, it didn’t reform into a deer shape—it surged like a tide of blood and flesh toward Li Huowang.

Though it instantly wrapped Li Huowang entirely in its flesh, the man passed through unscathed. It was merely a phantom projection.

"Kill!" The purple sword, capable of slicing through iron like silk, slashed into the nine-colored deer, carving a deep gash.

Seeing the wound rapidly heal, Zhuge Yuan offered advice from the sidelines.

"Brother Li, this won't work. That physical form is just its shell. You must find the spirit malice within to make a real impact!"

At that moment, a ray of red light shot from the deer. Li Huowang blocked it with his sword, causing it to refract in the air and knock down a large section of the peach forest.

"What does that spirit malice look like?" Li Huowang quickly retreated, creating distance.

"You cannot see it. Even living beings burdened with ten emotions and eight sufferings cannot see what it truly looks like."

"If I can’t see it, then I won’t look!"

Li Huowang’s expression darkened. He immediately stripped off his red Daoist robe and drew his fire striker, slashing across his own body.