Yang Xiao narrowly pulled Beibei to safety, just avoiding a ghost child that descended from above, while Wu Zhengwu turned around and drew his sword in a smooth, flowing motion, slapping the boy in the cartoon jacket away with the flat of his blade.
But in the process of saving Beibei, Yang Xiao’s gun had fallen to the ground, and as he picked up Beibei to run, he had no ti to retrieve it.
"The fish cry, the cats leap, Granny Hong orders you not to smile, babies cry, children fuss, cut off your tongues and Granny Hong will laugh."
The eerie nursery rhy grew more grating, continually sapping the last of Yang Xiao and the others’ ntal strength. The children’s faces bore a dull and wooden smile as they clapped their hands and rocked their bodies, chasing after them.
At the critical mont, a series of gunshots suddenly rang out from up ahead, several ghost children waiting to ambush from the ceiling were repelled by the bullets. Reinforcents had arrived; Wu Zhe, left downstairs to finish up, ca rushing up with several team mbers.
However, seeing that the fallen were children in kids’ clothing, the deputy captain who had co to the rescue imdiately called out to stop, "Don’t shoot, there are children!!"
With that mont of hesitation, the ghost children hanging from the ceiling swiftly returned to the attack, moving more than twice as fast as before. Seeing this, Yang Xiao grabbed the deputy captain’s pistol and fired several shots to push back the ghost children, "Fire, don’t stop!"
At the sa ti, he took out the Ghost Lantern and aid it forward, the flas inside instantly expanding, dispelling the hazy darkness. The ghastly green light seed to follow a command, extending toward the clapping children. The next second, under the glow of the green light, their faces and bodies were covered in nurous blotches.
"Lividity!" everyone gasped.
What was more terrifying was that bullets did draw blood, but quickly, the clapping ghost children got up again, their expressions unchanged, as if they felt no pain at all.
With the eerie nursery rhy proving too much for even a few captains to handle, those who had co to help were faring even worse, with splitting headaches and their aim askew. Soon, a breach appeared in the defense line, and a ghost child in black clothes lurking on the ceiling suddenly leaped down, instantly pouncing on a team mber who was reloading.
Just as Yang Xiao and his team were about to render assistance, a horrific scene unfolded. The skin of the ghost child rapidly aged, with a weathered face, prominent cheekbones, and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes; an 8 or 9-year-old child abruptly aged into an old man.
anwhile, the team mber who was tackled appeared to have all the moisture sucked out of his body, with his skin visibly withering at an alarming rate. His muscles atrophied, his bones twisted, and in a matter of seconds, he aged from a man in his twenties to an octogenarian. That wasn’t all; monts later, he turned into a mummified corpse, his eyes like oversized raisins sitting in his empty eye sockets – his death was exactly like Sun Qiya’s.
The child, who had aged by decades, stumbled before collapsing dead after rising from the mummified corpse.
A buzz sounded in Yang Xiao’s mind; he had never seen such a bizarre form of death, but this undoubtedly showcased the power of the Venerable Level Heretic Cultivator, who could control these children to trade lives, causing the one seized to age to death.
"Don’t let these ghostly things get close!" Wu Zhengwu yelled, but soon enough, another was taken down amidst screams that tore through the heart.
After losing several team mbers in succession, their line of defense crumbled, and the group had no choice but to retreat while fighting. Wu Zhengwu’s close combat skills were completely useless in this situation, for just a touch from the ghost children ant aging to death—a truly terrifying ability.
However, a more desperate scene quickly unfolded; a wall suddenly appeared behind them, blocking their escape route.
It was the Ghost Hitting the Wall again, but this ti it was significantly more troubleso. Yang Xiao brought out the Ghost Lantern, and the wall was still a greenish tomb wall, only much sturdier than before. Wu Zhengwu struck it several tis with his sword but failed to break through. Instead, he could barely stand straight. Yang Xiao could tell that after such a prolonged battle, he was spent.
Beibei, pushing away the person supporting her, clenched her teeth and pulled out her pendant from her pocket, her eyes bloodshot as she stared down the approaching ghost children, "Damn it, I’ll fight you to the end!"
But Wu Zhe stopped her, "It’s no use, if we can’t find the true body of the Evil Cultivator, even killing all these ghost children will be pointless. You all break through this wall, and I’ll hold it off!"
He swiftly took a white glove from his pocket and put it on his left hand. In that instant, Yang Xiao felt Wu Zhe’s whole deanor change, becoming cold and unfamiliar. He raised his left hand, making a grasping motion at the approaching ghost children.
Almost imdiately, the ghost children who were previously chanting the nursery rhy went silent, stopping in their tracks, mouths agape as if they were gasping for air. Furthermore, as Wu Zhe slowly exerted force to the right with his clawing hand, the necks of so twenty ghost children twisted uniformly to the right, as if being grasped by an invisible ghostly hand intent on snapping their necks.
"Ga...gak-kzz..."
Yang Xiao even heard the sound of bones about to break, and he finally understood how the previously neck-snapped cultists died.
Suddenly, a girl in the corner to the right of the group of children moved; she was an inconspicuous girl, around 7 or 8 years old, not very tall, thin, with an unattractive look. Pigtails dangled from both sides of her head, and the dusty coat she wore made her complexion appear malnourished, that kind of pale.
The girl raised her emaciated left hand and made a grasping motion in the air next to her face. The next second, Yang Xiao heard the crisp sound of breaking bones, followed by Wu Zhe’s screams of agony.
By the ti he turned his head to look, Wu Zhe had already collapsed to the ground in pain, his left hand, donned in a white glove, now broken, with five fingers twisted irregularly together.
"She’s the Evil Cultivator!" Wu Zhe shouted through the pain, which by now was blatantly obvious.
With Wu Zhe’s restraint gone, the ghost children began to move and sing again—this ti, the nursery rhy, now mixed with waves of laughter, grew even louder. The children clapped their hands and crowded in, their faces wearing eerie smiles.
Finally, Wu Zhengwu let out a roar and cleaved through the tomb wall blocking their path, "Run! Every man for himself, whoever gets out alive must carry the materials on the Evil Cultivator!"
Given the current situation, an unscathed retreat was impossible. Even if they had broken through the ’Ghost Hitting the Wall’, escaping was not going to be easy. Several captains were dead or wounded, nearly devoid of any fighting capacity; if nobody stayed behind to cover the retreat, they’d likely all be killed.
"You go, I’ll fight her!" Beibei, thinking of the horribly deceased Sun Qiya, felt a surge of anger rise to her head. Although using her Resentful Eye again would co at a great cost, potentially leading to the uncontrolled rampage of the Puppet Ghost, there was no ti to consider the consequences now.
"Slap!"
Before she could even steel herself, Beibei received a slap on the back of her head. Yang Xiao grabbed her and started pushing her towards the exit, "Always wanting to fight, do you think you’re the captain or am I?"
"Everyone, get out of here! I’ll deal with it. You’ll only get in my way here," Yang Xiao straightened up, leaving his teammates with a reliable face.
Yang Xiao had thought that everyone might indulge in a mont of profound goodbyes like those seen in war movies, but he quickly realized he had thought too much. The others, without saying a word, picked up Beibei and fled. Wu Zhengwu looked back at Yang Xiao, saying, "Take care, Captain Yang," before following suit.
As for Wu Zhe, oh, he was long gone, having run the fastest, now not even a shadow of him was to be seen.
In the short mont Yang Xiao was caught off guard, another wall appeared, sealing his escape route. The ghost children, twisting their bodies, closed in on Yang Xiao. This ti, they slowed their pace, but the smiles on their faces and the singing beca even more exaggerated, as if toying with Yang Xiao, the abandoned one.
"The fish calls, the cat jumps, Granny Hong commands you not to laugh; the baby cries, the baby fusses, cut off the tongue and Granny Hong will laugh."
The ghost children clapped their hands, the nursery rhy growing louder and louder. At this mont, the Great Heretic Cultivator dropped the façade and joined the children in the middle, singing loudly with them.
Yang Xiao stopped pretending as well, pulling out a silver Great Dust Whisk from his person. Monts later, a giant White-robed Bodhisattva slowly erged from the void behind Yang Xiao.
Upon seeing the White-robed Bodhisattva, the smiles on the faces of the twenty or so children, including that of the Great Heretic Cultivator, stiffened. Their eyes widened as if they had seen a ghost.
"Keep singing, why have you stopped? I’ll make you sing to your heart’s content!" Yang Xiao, holding onto the Great Dust Whisk, was bloodshot with enormous spiritual pressure bearing down on him. With a swing of his right hand, the White-robed Great Bodhisattva brought its hands together in prayer, and countless auspicious clouds billowed around, its feet treading the void, shuffling towards the ghost children. Amidst the swirling mist, the solemn and grand chanting reverberated as if they were in the holy land of Mount ru.
"Om Mani Pad Hum..."
"Om Mani Pad Hum..."
The once joyful nursery rhy was instantly silenced. Without even being touched, simply being approached by the White-robed Great Bodhisattva was enough for the ghost children to kneel down and kowtow frenziedly to the Bodhisattva until they bled from their seven orifices and died. The presence this entity brought was overwhelmingly more oppressive than the ghost children before.
"Little Holy Spirit White-Robed Mother?!" Granny Hong, with her ponytail and the appearance of a little girl, cried out in shock, "You... are you a disciple of the Black Buddha Mother?"
Yang Xiao didn’t respond; he didn’t have the energy to. Summoning this evil being was a desperate move; he hadn’t expected it to be so wicked. In less than 10 seconds, he began feeling weak, his mind a chaotic ss, as if all his spiritual energy had been drained away. At this rate, in just over twenty seconds, he would be completely depleted.
In that ti, he had to take care of Granny Hong—capturing her alive would be ideal, but if not, she had to be extinguished.
Yang Xiao guessed these villains had co specifically for him, no doubt for the Soul-Capturing Mirror. These Heretic Cultivators really had no sha, traveling miles to steal from him.
He didn’t hand the Dust Whisk to the White-robed Bodhisattva, partly because he feared he couldn’t control it, and partly because he didn’t want to reveal his hand. After all, the killing thod of the Dust Whisk was too peculiar; if it were recognized, it would likely cause great trouble.
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