Chapter 75: Trap
At Monk Eightfold Confusion’s shock, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor curled his lips into a grin.
“Just as I thought. I knew you’d recognize at a glance.”
As the youth stepped away from the ground slick with blood and entrails, Monk Eightfold Confusion stared at him steadily and asked,
“Since a dead man returned to life, should I simply assu it’s natural that you’re in a different body?”
“How is it? Aren’t you jealous? A vivid body, vivid blood. This isn’t so imitation of youth preserved by internal energy—this is real youth. Isn’t that difference enviable?”
“That you ca back to life is already tragic enough. How could I be jealous?”
At Monk Eightfold Confusion’s rebuke, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor twitched his lips.
“My, my. Even so, we’re friends—old friends at that. Is it really right to curse a friend’s resurrection like this?”
“Friend? Don’t you dare let that word pass your filthy lips.”
“If I don’t call a friend a friend, then what should I call him?”
“You are an enemy of Potala Palace, and an existence that stands against all righteousness in this world.”
“You always did like your grandiose words—past or present, nothing’s changed. Well, that’s probably why you ca running here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You still don’t get it? You’ve always been like this. You were especially sensitive to the presence of children.”
As he said that and turned his head, dozens of children were trembling in fear.
How could they not be afraid? They had witnessed a living man’s belly split open, his body hung dripping from a hook.
Clenching his teeth, Monk Eightfold Confusion looked back as the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor gave a greasy smile.
“Judging by how you ca alone, they scattered just as I expected.”
The feeling that the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor knew he had been together with the Cult Leader or the Vice Cult Leader weighed heavily on him.
Just then, Monk Eightfold Confusion’s eyes hardened as he noticed figures shuffling forward behind the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor—Living Jiangshi.
It was one of the things the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor had chattered about long ago, back when they were bound together under the na of friendship.
Back then, he had rely seed like an eccentric friend fascinated with strange things.
Recalling it only now, Monk Eightfold Confusion realized that perhaps the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor had been watching every battle he’d fought against Living Jiangshi all along.
Watching through their eyes, listening through their ears.
If that were true—
“It’s a trap.”
“That’s right. I laid a trap. Things went so perfectly according to plan that I almost feel bad about it.”
Watching the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor snicker, Monk Eightfold Confusion felt that today’s encounter was far more likely to bring misfortune than anything good.
To dig a trap and lure him in ant there was confidence behind it.
Shaking off his thoughts, Monk Eightfold Confusion clenched his teeth.
“It won’t go the way you want.”
“That’s sothing we’ll find out once it’s over.”
As the words ended, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor slipped back, and Living Jiangshi stepped into his place.
Making his intent clear that he would send them in first, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor drawled lazily,
“Well then, shall we wear down a little of our friend’s strength first?”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the Living Jiangshi charged with movents completely unlike before.
Monk Eightfold Confusion clasped his hands together, then released them, and his arms swelled to nearly twice their forr size.
The Great Hand Seal.
The pinnacle of Tibetan palm techniques unfolded there, at the edge of a remote village in Sichuan.
Each ti Monk Eightfold Confusion swept his arms, Living Jiangshi were sent flying with booming impacts.
But that was all.
They rose again and repeated their assault.
Even with every rib shattered, their waists broken, even with both legs snapped, the Living Jiangshi charged again without much difficulty.
Judging that palm strikes alone were useless, a deep Buddhist roar burst from Monk Eightfold Confusion’s mouth.
“Amitabha!”
At the end of that resounding invocation, his hands flew out at bizarre angles.
Severing Hand Blade.
True to its na, it was a technique that used the hand like a blade.
After all, with force energy said to be stronger than anything in the world wrapped around it, what could such a strike fail to cut?
Slice.
A beheaded Living Zombie staggered, but its headless body imdiately lunged forward.
Boom!
Now switching from palm technique back to strikes, Monk Eightfold Confusion’s Great Hand Seal smashed into it and sent it flying far away.
Even that proved useless. After writhing for a mont, the headless Living Zombie stood back up.
And it wasn’t as though there was ti to spare until that one returned.
The number of Living Jiangshi revealing themselves had already exceeded thirty.
Crashing from all sides.
Monk Eightfold Confusion’s frantic movents began.
What he used to fend off the crazed onslaught of Living Jiangshi were the Great Hand Seal and the Severing Hand Blade.
Supre Tibetan martial techniques were tearing apart over thirty Living Jiangshi.
Even so, the speed of the Living Jiangshi charging like lightning did not slow in the slightest.
Facing them, Monk Eightfold Confusion had to move without pause. A single lapse would leave regret to last a lifeti.
Watching that scene intently, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor made a small gesture with his hand.
In response, a Living Zombie—its arm twisted at an unnatural angle after being crushed by the Great Hand Seal—was pulled away from Monk Eightfold Confusion.
But the direction was the problem.
Living Jiangshi moved toward the direction where the children were shivering.
Because of the Living Jiangshi charging in like madn, Monk Eightfold Confusion failed to notice it at first, and only realized it when he turned his gaze at the children’s piercing screams.
At the sight of the Living Zombie nearly reaching them, a thunderous shout burst from Monk Eightfold Confusion’s mouth.
“Enough! Are you truly telling to walk straight into hell?!”
Even at Monk Eightfold Confusion’s roar, the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor rely kept smiling, showing no intention of dealing with the Living Zombie heading toward the children.
Blocked by the Living Jiangshi desperately barring his path, Monk Eightfold Confusion could not pull himself away.
Because of that, there was no proper way to catch up to the arm-twisted Living Zombie that had almost reached the children.
Alternating his gaze between the children crying in terror and the Living Zombie closing in on them, Monk Eightfold Confusion finally shut his eyes, his expression set as though he had reached a decision.
As the fighting raged on, Living Jiangshi soon sward in like a cloud of insects.
Even in that situation, Monk Eightfold Confusion’s hands remained steady. He brought his palms together in a prayer, then split them apart, one rising and one falling.
“Bodhi Great Hand Seal!”
At the end of Monk Eightfold Confusion’s cry, an enormous palm manifested in midair.
And then—
Thud!
The Living Zombie that had nearly reached the children vanished, caught between the palms that appeared in the air.
Drip.
Black blood flowed down between the palms that had t in midair.
The Bodhi Great Hand Seal, which materialized force energy into the shape of palms in empty space, demanded an enormous amount of internal energy.
So much so that even a master of Monk Eightfold Confusion’s caliber would feel his reserves drained.
Panting heavily, Monk Eightfold Confusion’s eyes widened. In that instant, he had lost sight of the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor.
The uninterrupted flow of internal energy had been forcibly cut in order to maintain the Bodhi Great Hand Seal, and the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor had aid precisely for that fleeting opening.
The backlash was greater than expected.
“Urgh!”
With a hoarse groan, Monk Eightfold Confusion’s legs buckled.
The Man-Sa Calamity Emperor’s hand-blade had flown in and pierced into Monk Eightfold Confusion’s side.
Monk Eightfold Confusion’s arm, which had been reaching for the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor’s neck as he pressed the hand-blade deeper into his side, stopped and began to tremble violently.
That was because the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor’s hand, buried inside his flank, was thrashing about wildly.
As his internal organs burst apart, imnse pain shook Monk Eightfold Confusion, enough to shatter even his lofty Buddhist resolve.
The Man-Sa Calamity Emperor did not miss the mont Monk Eightfold Confusion’s eyes lost focus.
After all, everything up to this point had been prepared for this very instant.
“All the evils of the myriad affairs, co to !”
As the Man-Sa Calamity Emperor released that chilling voice, his pupils were completely filled with black.
And the murderous aura that exploded outward from around him poured in through the arm buried inside Monk Eightfold Confusion’s body, flooding into him.
The Tang Clan’s pursuit forces were suffering massive losses on all sides.
Yul Han, the Ghost Demon, and the Cult Leader raced across the battlefield, dealing with Living Jiangshi, but in the anti far too many Tang Clan martial artists were dying.
Hundreds scattered, discovering Living Jiangshi in hundreds of locations, and battles erupted everywhere. Likewise, signal flares rose from those hundreds of places.
From as few as two or three to as many as a dozen, Living Jiangshi lay scattered throughout the area before encountering Tang Clan martial artists.
They should have avoided them and simply fired signal flares, but the Tang Clan martial artists could not.
Every ti they encountered Living Jiangshi, those monsters were in the middle of attacking a village or travelers, and so the Tang Clan martial artists who discovered them could not simply wait for Yul Han or the Cult Leader.
Even while foreseeing their own deaths, they threw their bodies boldly toward the Living Jiangshi.
Hoping that, in the anti, villagers and travelers would be able to escape.
Though the Tang Clan had lost its color in recent years by leaning toward profit, it was still undeniably a sect of the Hundred Paths that protected the weak and staked everything on righteousness.
At their most difficult mont, the Tang Clan’s martial artists burned that spirit without reservation.
The sacrifices of countless Tang Clan martial artists saved many lives, even though they could not save their own.
Yul Han and the Cult Leader, whom they desperately awaited, arrived little by little too late. Or rather, it was not that they were late—the Living Jiangshi’ movents were simply too fast.
There was not a single battlefield where Tang Clan martial artists were not already engaged.
A battle against Living Jiangshi that did not die no matter how many tis they were killed was devastatingly unfavorable to the living, breathing Tang Clan martial artists.
Even so, the Tang Clan martial artists fought desperately. They knew that the more Living Jiangshi they held back, even a little longer, the more lives they could save.
That was why their resistance did not end even when arms were severed or legs torn away.
As a result, the corpses of the Tang Clan martial artists were left in a horrific state.
Only after they fell one by one did Yul Han and the Cult Leader often arrive.
Even collecting the bodies of the fallen Tang Clan martial artists was not sothing they could do freely.
The area was too vast and scattered, Living Jiangshi were still appearing, and to aid the Tang Clan martial artists fighting them, Yul Han, the Ghost Demon, and the Cult Leader still had to move at a terrifying pace.
Because of that, no one knew.
That the worst Living Zombie, one that would gift hell to the martial world, was being born.
After all the fighting ended, the surviving Tang Clan warriors gathered.
Their number was barely fifty.
They were exhausted and covered in wounds, yet none of them regretted their choices.
They believed they had fought as the Tang Clan should, and died as Tang Clan martial artists ought to.
Alongside Yul Han, the Ghost Demon, and the Cult Leader—who had fought together with them against the Living Jiangshi—Monk Eightfold Confusion was nowhere to be seen.
Among the Tang Clan warriors who returned alive, not a single one claid to have seen Monk Eightfold Confusion.
Only then did a chilling feeling strike Yul Han and the Cult Leader, and they launched themselves toward the direction Monk Eightfold Confusion had first rushed off to.
What they saw upon arriving was the horrific sight of dozens of children’s corpses and a rural village subrged in a sea of blood.
Perhaps because they had already witnessed too many dreadful scenes since the Living Zombie incident began, the shock was muted, yet there was sothing that strangely gnawed at them.
Yul Han was the one who pinpointed it.
“Do they… drink blood?”
At Yul Han’s question, the Cult Leader shook his head.
“As far as I know, Living Jiangshi do not crave blood.”
“But these children……”
Trailing off, he approached the children’s corpses and saw—
“There’s no blood.”
“Yes. Not a single drop spilled, as if all their blood had been taken.”
“Hm……”
As the Cult Leader let out a low hum at his own words, Yul Han asked,
“Do you have a suspicion?”
“Ordinary Living Jiangshi do not seek blood. But.”
“But?”
At Yul Han’s question, the Cult Leader’s eyes, fixed on him, were trembling.
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