Chapter 93: Unrecognizable After Turning to Ashes
Chapter 93: Unrecognizable After Turning to Ashes
"How could I be an evil spirit? Look, this is Wang Ruhai's head, and his strange skin. They all met their end under my blade."
Li Jianfeng held a bloody and mangled head in his hand, along with a soft and supple skin bag.
The skin bag hung down, partially revealing Wang Ruhai's facial features.
"Fellow Daoist Li, if you had mentioned this earlier, I wouldn't have suspected you wrongly and almost slandered you."
"As for the password, there actually wasn't one. If you had given one, that would have been suspicious."
Lu Xuan sheathed his silver-white sword and said with a smile.
"Fellow Daoist Lu is indeed clever."
The scar on Li Jianfeng's face, shaped like a centipede, twitched uncontrollably.
With their suspicions and worries dispelled, the two men drew closer.
When they were less than a zhang apart, Lu Xuan's right hand flicked ever so subtly.
Immediately, a thin, red needle shot out at an incredible speed, invisible to the naked eye. It pierced Li Jianfeng's left temple, penetrated his entire skull, and exited from the right temple.
A golden sword light followed suit, piercing Li Jianfeng's heart, creating a bowl-sized hole in his chest.
"Fellow Daoist Lu, what do you mean by this?"
Ignoring the gushing blood from his chest and the streaks of red and white brain matter oozing from his temples, Li Jianfeng glared at Lu Xuan and demanded an explanation.
"Suffering such severe injuries without any impact? You are indeed not Fellow Daoist Li Jianfeng!"
Lu Xuan retracted the red needle, his expression grave.
"Hahaha! If I'm not Li Jianfeng, then who else could I be?!"
"Fine, if you don't recognize Li Jianfeng, how about this one?"
Li Jianfeng reached up and forcefully tore off the skin bag, revealing a new face underneath.
It was one of the Spirit Planters who had accompanied Lu Xuan.
"And what about this one?"
"Do you recognize this one?"
One by one, pale skin bags were peeled off, floating beside Li Jianfeng. Lu Xuan recognized many familiar faces among them, including He Ping from the Hundred Grass Hall.
His face turned as dark as water. Three second-grade Sword Qi Myriad Seals quietly slid into his palm, and the Xuntian Sword Pellet in his dantian rapidly expanded and contracted, transforming his spiritual power into sword aura.
Over ten skin bags floated on the ground, swaying wildly in the night breeze.
"Come, take off the skin bag you're wearing and keep them company!"
The 'Li Jianfeng', or rather, the entity inhabiting the skin bag, was already in tatters. It laughed wildly as the over ten skin bags formed a semicircle and rushed towards Lu Xuan at top speed.
"Hmp!"
Lu Xuan coldly snorted. The three second-grade Sword Qi Myriad Seals lit up the sword patterns on the talismans, unleashing countless sword auras that swept out in a fan-like formation, piercing and shredding all the skin bags to pieces.
"You ruined my skin bags! You're asking to die! I'll peel the skin off your body alive!"
The entity inhabiting the skin bags flew into a rage as Lu Xuan violently destroyed the collection of skin bags it had amassed over time.
A thin, pale skin bag, so transparent it was almost invisible, flew out from Li Jianfeng's body. Countless overlapping human faces appeared on the skin bag, wailing silently and chillingly.
Lu Xuan's spirit was affected by the countless faces, causing him to pause involuntarily for a moment. The transparent skin bag seized this fleeting opportunity and pounced on Lu Xuan.
As the transparent skin bag rushed towards Lu Xuan, the Immaculate Jade in his chest quietly activated, emitting a layer of hazy spiritual light that pushed the skin bag aside. Lu Xuan's body was surrounded by purity and holiness, as if he could ward off any impurity.
Lu Xuan took a deep breath, and the essence and blood within his body ignited. Instantly, a small blood-red arrow shot out from his mouth, carrying an intensely hot and robust blood aura, and struck the unstable transparent skin bag.
A tiny sword pellet, no larger than an egg and composed of countless intricate sword auras, silently shot out from Lu Xuan's mouth.
The sword pellet pulsed with sword light, while inside, black winds raged and thunder rumbled.
Infinite deep black sword auras branched out from the sword pellet, forming a sword aura hurricane filled with flashing lightning, rushing towards the parasitic skin sac with unstoppable force.
Amid the vast and mighty torrent of countless sword auras, the parasitic skin sac seemed frozen by the overwhelming sword intent, helplessly watching as the sword auras converged to shred it to pieces.
Semi-transparent fragments of skin fell to the ground, no longer able to reassemble into any human form.
Ever since Li Jianfeng's appearance, the Immaculate Jade embedded in Lu Xuan's chest, which had been emitting a chilling aura, finally returned to normal, the coldness dissipating and leaving only a gentle coolness that permeated his skin, clearing his mind.
He now knew that this unusual parasitic skin sac had been successfully eradicated.
Out of caution, he quickly took out several Exorcism Talismans from his storage bag, bathing the entire battle area with layers of pure spiritual light to ensure that no trace of evil energy remained.
With a stir of his spiritual power, a fiery red ball the size of a head descended upon the fragments of the skin sac, quickly reducing them to black ashes.
"I could recognize you through all your transformations, but now that you've turned to ash, I can't identify you anymore."
Lu Xuan sighed, then approached Li Jianfeng, whose parasitic skin had been removed. He took off the storage bag from his waist, scanned it with an Exorcism Talisman, and burned Li Jianfeng's corpse to ashes as well, storing them in a jade bottle and burying it under a crooked-necked tree.
With that, the unusual parasitic skin sac was completely eradicated.
"The outside world is too dangerous. I just came out to help the Wang family gather and process spirit herbs, and I ended up encountering a demonic intrusion."
"Thankfully, it turned out well in the end. I obtained five Ghost-Faced Stone Mushrooms, and well, Li Jianfeng's storage bag should help soothe my wounded heart a little."
Lu Xuan took out a Blood Essence Pill, swallowed it, and replenished his blood energy.
The Xunlei Sword Pellet returned to his dantian, as he had unleashed almost all the sword aura that had been cultivated within the pellet to ensure the eradication of the demonic presence.
He would need to nurture it carefully once again before attempting another 'Sword Pellet Projection'.
After swallowing the pill, his pale face regained some color, and he identified the direction before resuming his journey towards the outer perimeter of the secret realm.
"The Dragon Whisker Grass camp must have been completely abandoned after the demonic disturbance. I doubt any surviving spirit herb cultivators will return there."
"To avoid any unforeseen complications, it's best for me to get back to the market as soon as possible."
"I wonder how the Grass Puppet and the four Iron Claw Crab cubs are doing. They should be able to manage, right?"
As Lu Xuan flew at high speed, he couldn't help but miss the spirit herbs and beasts in his spiritual fields.
Along the way, he opened the storage bag he obtained from Li Jianfeng and found dozens of preliminarily processed Dragon Whisker Grass, although he couldn't be sure how many were normal spirit herbs.
There were also some pills, two second-grade magical artifacts, over ten talismans, and more than two hundred spirit stones.
There was no sign of the heavy broadsword, and Lu Xuan had no idea what had become of the storage bags belonging to the other cultivators, as he couldn't find them on the parasitic skin sac.
Nonetheless, these findings were an unexpected bonus, and he had no intention of returning to search for more storage bags. At this moment, his sole focus was on leaving the secret realm and returning to his courtyard.
(End of Chapter)
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