Chapter 422: To the Bitter End

Chapter 422: To the Bitter End

Whish!

Luo Cheng’s near-depleted divine sense strained to activate a crimson fire talisman.

A spark of flame reflected deep within his eyes, but the expression on Li Jun’s face grew only more brutal. Refusing to give Luo Cheng even a ghost of a chance to invoke the talisman, he brought his forehead slamming violently down upon the man’s mangled features.

The cracked phoenix-patterned visor shattered completely. Releasing his grip on the half-blade that Luo Cheng held in a death grip, Li Jun swept his foot out, tripping his opponent straight to the ground. He balled his left hand into a fist and sent it whistling downward!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The Four-Beast Daoist Armor—the very pride of the Gezao Mountain Dao Order—groaned and ruptured beneath the fists of the solitary Martial Order practitioner.

Talismans that had not even had time to activate were pounded into shards, while web-like fissures spread rapidly across the floor of the room.

Boom...

The floor could no longer withstand such an impact, and massive chunks of rubble plunged toward the story below.

Li Jun stood at the edge of the fractured floorboards, his left hand dangling a twisted mechanical body that was barely recognizable as human. At his feet lay a carpet of pulverized talisman fragments that had been destroyed before they could ever be unleashed.

“Damn it, he’s finally dead.”

Lord Ma leaned against a broken wall, forcing his heavily dismantled frame to stand upright. A stream of curses drifted from his red optical sensors: “What kind of bizarre art is this, that it can make a Dao Order bastard take such a beating?”

“He’s not dead yet.”

Before Lord Ma could finish his sentence, he was cut short by Li Jun’s raspy voice.

Li Jun saw it with absolute clarity; no fine, black characters had materialized in his field of vision.

Without any Mastery Points appearing, the man simply was not dead!

It was definitely not a Corpse Liberation; of this, Li Jun was certain.

Because right up until the moment his Dao Foundation was smashed to pieces by Li Jun, Luo Cheng had been constantly trying to activate his talismans to counterattack.

He could not possibly be undergoing Corpse Liberation while simultaneously continuing to fight back.

But if it wasn't Corpse Liberation, what kind of trick was this?

His face darkening, Li Jun whipped his head around to look at Lord Ma, whose red light remained frozen in his single eye, looking very much like a man in a daze.

“Tell Zou Sijiu to find him for me right now, no matter the cost!”

“The main body has been smashed to bits, yet the man isn't dead, and it's not Corpse Liberation... what the hell does this mean?”

In front of the izakaya, Zou Sijiu sat on the steps, drenched in sweat, his thumb flying across his knuckles so fast it left afterimages.

He had already pushed the Grand Archival Technique to its absolute limit, combing through every single celestial surveillance feed and terrestrial communication sweep within Dog Mountain City. He had even analyzed the behavior and movements of the participating Embroidered Uniform Guard, the garrison troops, and the entire population of the Southern District.

Yet even so, he still could not calculate Luo Cheng’s whereabouts.

“Could he really have vanished into thin air?”

His eyes bloodshot, Zou Sijiu recalled Li Jun’s words as relayed by Lord Ma. Without further hesitation, he fished out a small chessboards with ten squares from his trousers pocket—a Huarong Pass puzzle.

“It’s just one chance to call for aid from the entire Empire region. So be it!”

This kind of old, outdated toy was an incredibly rare sight in this day and age.

Yet Zou Sijiu manipulated it with extreme familiarity. In a mere instant, he had successfully helped ‘Cao Cao’ escape from Huarong Pass.

Beep...

A faint chime echoed from the board. Zou Sijiu knew that at this very moment, a message was being covertly transmitted via the Dao Ancestor Dharma Artifact patrolling the heavens. Passing through a backdoor left behind by the Yin-Yang Order, it traveled toward a magnificent, hundred-zhang-tall tower located in the Northern Zhili region of the Empire.

“This is the Imperial Directorate of Astronomy of the Great Ming Empire.”

A cold, raspy male voice echoed in his ear. “State your identity.”

“Yin-Yang Order, the four hundred and forty-ninth descendant of Zouzi.”

“Identity confirmed. Requester, Zou Four-Forty-Nine.”

The rigid male voice finally carried a hint of human warmth. “What assistance do you require?”

“Gezao Mountain Dao Order Rank Five, Luo Cheng. Southern District of Dog Mountain City, Yamato Region. I need his exact location right now!”

Zou Sijiu’s brow furrowed tightly as he rattled off Luo Cheng’s information and his own request at breakneck speed.

“Request received...”

The male voice on the other end paused for a moment. “This request falls under the scope of information assistance. It requires a one-time payment of twenty million Imperial Banknotes...”

“Fucking daylight robbery...”

“...and your standing as a descendant of Zouzi will be downgraded to the five hundredth place.”

Zou Sijiu’s expression shifted drastically. “Why do you have to touch my standing, and why drop it by so much?!”

“Upon verification, the target you wish to track possesses the latest technique of Gezao Mountain and is a primary focus of their cultivation.”

A faint, mocking chuckle crept into the man’s voice. “Furthermore, the true Zou Sijiu is highly displeased by your unauthorized use of his name.”

“...Do you honestly think Zou Four-Four-Nine is a goddamn human name?”

Ignoring Zou Sijiu’s resentment entirely, the other end of the communication line continued in its rigid tone: “Do you require assistance?”

Zou Sijiu looked thoroughly dejected, a powerful urge to flatly refuse rising within him.

But with his current capabilities, he could not find a single trace of Luo Cheng. If he delayed any longer, the man would likely escape from Dog Mountain City entirely.

“Fine, I accept.” Zou Sijiu gritted his teeth. “I ne—”

The final word was right at the tip of his tongue when two faint popping sounds suddenly resonated behind him.

As a member of the Yin-Yang Order, Zou Sijiu was intimately familiar with that sound—it was the cracking of talismans.

Stunned, he whipped his head around. There on the couch, the corpse that had been lying in a pool of blood was slowly sitting up, surrounded by the scattered remnants of two broken talismans.

A slender, blood-stained hand pulled away the suit jacket covering its head, revealing a perfectly intact, delicate face!

“Concealing form with the Gold Talisman, shifting the soul with the Spirit Talisman... You're Luo Cheng?!!”

Zou Sijiu cried out in alarm, but his vision was instantly swallowed whole by a sudden, blinding flash of lightning.

Crash!

The world shattered like broken glass, black and white twisting into reverse as colors warped and shifted.

In a bout of spinning vertigo, Luo Cheng, who had just awakened within his host body, lost his balance momentarily and stumbled back onto the couch.

“Using a Gold Talisman to disguise a chosen host as a corpse, and then transferring consciousness through a Spirit Talisman embedded in the body beforehand, achieving a second form of rebirth outside of Corpse Liberation.”

“And then there is this technique, which allows even an ordinary person without a Dao Foundation to successfully trigger a talisman with remarkable power. Your Gezao Mountain has certainly created quite a few new things in recent years.”

A mocking voice sounded in front of him.

Luo Cheng looked up. The man who should have been charred to a crisp by the lightning stood before him entirely unscathed.

A single lightning talisman lay right by his hand, its form completely intact, never having been invoked from start to finish.

“So it was a dream... You're that Yin-Yang Order practitioner from Dog Mountain City?”

Taking a deep breath, the dark and grim expression on Luo Cheng’s face slowly returned to a state of calm. He said placidly, “When did you discover the measures I left behind?”

Zou Sijiu raised an eyebrow, unable to help feeling shocked by the other man’s composure.

“It was just speculation before, but I was certain when you actually completed the soul transfer and woke up.”

“Then when did you pull me into the dream?”

“When you eavesdropped on my contact with the Observatory.”

Luo Cheng asked calmly, “How about making a deal? Just between you and me.”

Zou Si Jiu didn’t respond. Instead, he lowered his head and looked at the suit jacket he had thrown on the ground.

He walked over, picked it up, and brushed off the dust.

But the bloodstains had already seeped deep into the fabric.

“I remember that before, you Taoists and our Yin-Yang Taoists were the same. Both had basic respect for the dead, especially ordinary people who hadn’t even entered the sequence. It seems Chen Qisheng was right. You new-style monks have become no better than animals.”

Zou Si Jiu’s words were abrupt, and Luo Cheng didn’t understand what he meant at first.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not good at the rest of it. I’m handing it over to you, Old Li.”

Zou Si Jiu’s hands slid over his temples, he shook his head, and turned to walk out of the shop.

“Thank you.”

“We’re all the same, no need to be polite.”

Lao Jun, covered in wounds, brushed past Zou Si Jiu.

Outside the shop, Chen Qisheng stood with his hands on his shoulders, his eyes gleaming with greed.

Behind him, several talismans designed to cut off the process of soul release were activated and floating in the air.

At this moment, Lao Jun’s face was pale and haggard, but his expression was unusually excited.

“I’ve engraved this woman’s consciousness and sealed it in the talisman. If you let me soul-release and leave, I can give her back to you. With her as an anchor for summoning souls, Xie Bian’an can escape from the Yellow Turban Warriors.”

Luo Cheng directly stated his conditions, “If you think it’s not enough, you can make an offer. Treasure money, quotas, merits, talismans, Taoist weapons, including martial arts infusion devices—whatever you want, Ge Bai Mountain can meet your demands.”

“Heh.”

Lao Jun smiled, his eyes scanning: “I prefer you when you first arrived in Quan Mountain City, rather than taking money for your life now.”

“You’ve already killed Luo Tian and others. If you kill me again, Ge Bai Mountain will never stop pursuing you until you’re dead.”

Luo Cheng’s vision blurred, and his body lifted off the ground, his throat gripped by Lao Jun’s hand, his harsh words choked back.

“You got it backwards. It’s me and Ge Bai Mountain who won’t stop until you’re dead!”

Lao Jun stared at the pair of eyes that finally showed panic, his five fingers slowly tightening around his throat!

[Obtained 200 proficiency points]