Damn it... it can even summon lackeys!
The abrupt turn of events caught Li Yan completely off guard.
Plans never kept up with changes. Though he didn't know how this cold-altar rampaging soldier had pulled it off, the situation had undeniably turned from a one-on-one duel into a pack brawl.
Looks like I went too far with the taunting...
Li Yan had no time for regret. He rose immediately and drew his blade.
Clang!
Holding the blade in his right hand with the tip angled upward, he sank into a semi-empty stance, his left hand reverse-gripping the scabbard horizontally across his waist as he slowly stepped backward.
This was called the Blade-Pressing Stance.
It offered readiness for both attack and defense. With the blade's point slanted upward, it could instantly stab any beast that pounced, while the scabbard could serve as a blunt weapon for striking or parrying.
Backing up until he reached the censer before the Earth God Temple, he halted, quickly crouched, snatched up the consecrated saber tassel, and shoved it into his jacket.
A wolf pack was terrifying, but the far greater threat was that cold-altar rampaging soldier.
This Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins tassel was his key to victory.
Of course, he could not rush to use it just yet.
Without the slightest hesitation, the wolf pack launched its attack.
Roar—!
Three wolves suddenly surged forward from the front.
Baring ferocious fangs, two charged along the ground with vicious momentum, lunging straight for Li Yan's lower abdomen as if intent on ripping him open.
The remaining one leaped high into the air, gaping jaws aimed straight for Li Yan's throat.
This was the pack's savagely coordinated hunting tactic.
An ordinary prey, even if it managed to protect its throat, would still be pinned to the ground, leaving the two wolves below to effortlessly tear its belly open.
Li Yan, however, had long prepared.
His semi-empty stance stepped forward. Before his right foot even touched the ground, a flash of blade light had already sliced through the air.
It created an illusion—as if the blade moved faster than the man.
This was the subtlety of the Guanzhong fast blade.
When ordinary fighters wielded a blade, their feet were planted firmly on the earth, drawing power from the ground and marshaling the strength of their waist and arms. Whether hacking down or sweeping across, their strikes landed with the weight of a thousand jin.
Yet the Guanzhong fast blade was unleashed before the foot ever hit the ground.
Formidable arm and wrist strength, paired with an exceedingly sharp, quality weapon, was more than enough to make up for any shortfall in force.
No matter how fierce your strike was, what good was it if someone slit your throat first?
It was precisely on the back of this singular, deadly skill that Guanzhong bladesmen had forged such renown across the land.
Those who mastered this style struck so fast that no one could react in time.
The pouncing wolf was no exception.
While still suspended in midair, the edge slipped in through its throat and plunged straight up into its skull.
Its momentum unbroken, paired with the keen edge of the Guanshan blade, sheared away half of the beast's head, sending blood spraying in all directions.
At the same time, the two wolves on the ground closed in.
Li Yan smoothly gave ground, his left hand reverse-gripping the scabbard to flick it upward, jamming it deep into the throat of the wolf on his left. The beast shrieked in agony as Li Yan's right hand snapped his arm downward, sweeping the blade in a vicious arc.
Squelch!
The wolf lunging from the right had a foreleg severed clean off, instantly throwing it off balance.
Planting his foot firmly from the empty step, Li Yan whipped out a horse-blocking leg sweep, blasting the three-legged wolf seven or eight meters away. It tumbled through the dirt, kicking up clouds of dust.
With one leg sheared off and its soft flank shattered by the kick, the creature whined, hacking up mouthfuls of blood until its struggles faded into stillness.
Only then did Li Yan flourish his weapon, plunging the blade downward in one fluid motion.
The wolf on the left, still thrashing frantically with the scabbard jammed down its throat, took the blade straight through the back of its neck, pinning it to the earth until it went limp.
Spurt!
Wolf blood sprayed across Li Yan's face.
His expression remained cold and unmoved, his chilling gaze fixed straight ahead.
Even wolf packs had tactical patterns. They did not swarm forward all at once; instead, they sought out weaknesses and attacked in waves.
Even if an assault failed, they made sure to leave their quarry wounded.
No matter how massive a beast was, under such relentless, tide-like waves of attacks, its body and spirit would inevitably collapse before long.
The virtue of this tactic was minimizing their own casualties.
After all, in the wild, suffering an injury often meant death.
The pack's tactics had not changed, but they clearly had not anticipated that Li Yan's blade craft would be so deadly, claiming three of their pack in the span of a single breath.
Their follow-up assault was shattered.
Sensing the murderous intent radiating from Li Yan, the remaining wolves whined and paced in circles. Though they refused to leave, none dared to charge blindly forward.
Li Yan's attention, meanwhile, was entirely fixed on the alpha wolf.
He could smell that familiar, rank stench clinging to it.
Compared to last night, it was noticeably weaker.
Widow Wang had been right.
This cold-altar rampaging soldier had suffered successive blows. Even after devouring the wandering spirits and wild ghosts within a ten-li radius, it had reached its most depleted state.
Right now, the wolf it possessed merely prowled outside the reach of the Earth God Temple's incense, showing no intention of stepping within.
It seemed it wanted the pack to drag him out.
Li Yan kept his face stern, standing his ground with blade held ready.
He wanted to rid the world of this scourge, and the creature equally craved his soul and flesh.
At this moment, it came down to who would lose their patience first.
Roar!
Perhaps fearing the coming hour of the cock's crow and the resurgence of yang energy, the possessed wolf suddenly let out a savage roar.
A burst of foul reek exploded from its body, frightening several of the wolves into wetting themselves on the spot.
Driven by its terrifying coercion, all of them charged toward the Earth God Temple.
"Die!"
Li Yan let out a thunderous roar. With his back pressed to the Earth God Temple, his Guanshan saber hacked left and slashed right, even snapping a skyward kick to launch an oncoming wolf through the air.
Chilling light burst forth, slaughtering two more wolves in an instant.
Yet the flaw of his lack of combat experience soon laid him bare.
With so many wolves swarming at once, he simply could not fend them all off. After a single flurry of exchanges, his moves grew overextended, leaving gaps in his guard that immediately put him at a disadvantage.
A wolf even clamped its jaws hard around his right wrist, which held the blade.
The others snapped their fangs, lunging in to tear at his flesh.
Even when Li Yan kicked them away, they instantly wheeled back around to strike again.
Howl!
From the distance came another wolf howl.
It was the possessed wolf, issuing a snarling command out of fear that the pack might ruin Li Yan's physical body. Sure enough, the wolves ceased their lethal bites, clamping down on his limbs instead and dragging him outward.
Severe pain wracked Li Yan's body, and a fierce wrath surged in his heart.
He knew this was the critical moment.
Even if he managed to break free, he would exhaust his strength fighting off the pack's siege. When that happened, even if he relied on the substitute idol to recover and slay the rest, he would still face certain death before that cold-altar rampaging soldier.
His only chance right now was to cut down the soldier itself.
With that thought, Li Yan gritted his teeth against the searing agony, clamping his fingers around the Guanshan blade and letting the pack drag him toward the possessed alpha.
Dust flew into the air, leaving a shocking trail of smeared blood along the path.
Before long, he was hauled to the edge of the official post road.
This spot was already beyond the protective boundary of the Earth God Temple's incense.
Unable to hold back any longer, the possessed wolf pounced directly onto Li Yan, slamming its forepaws onto his chest. Baring savage fangs, it let out a low, guttural snarl.
Li Yan clearly felt the icy sensation at the back of his heart suddenly swell, spreading rapidly outward.
The chill was so terrifying that it seemed intent on penetrating his five organs and six viscera. His skin began to go numb, and even his consciousness grew hazy.
At that very moment, the substitute idol took effect.
Li Yan's judgment had been right. The curse attacked the mind, but if this soldier wished to possess him and seize his soul, it inevitably had to alter his physical body.
If it took full possession, his innards would likely begin seeping black bile, exactly as Widow Wang had described.
The substitute idol's mending cleared Li Yan's head.
Without a shred of hesitation, he pulled out the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins tassel from his breast, pressed it to the Guanshan blade, and thrust upward with all his might!
The rampaging soldier was in the middle of casting its possession art and had no time to dodge.
A wet squelch rang out as wolf blood mingled with black fluid dripped downward.
Roar—!
A bizarre howl erupted from within the wolf's body.
The sound was partly beast and partly human, overlapping in a sickening resonance that echoed incessantly through the night air.
The remaining wolves seemed to break free from its control. Trembling all over, voiding their bowels in terror, they bolted wildly into the tall grass and vanished from sight.
Li Yan had no time to spare for them.
The instant the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins bonded with the hilt, a bone-chilling frost surged along the steel, piercing straight through the wolf above.
What it pierced was far more than mere flesh.
Li Yan could clearly smell the icy, bloodstained scent released as the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins fused with the blade, stabbing straight into the foul reek of the rampaging soldier.
The Yang Six Roots corresponded to the six senses, representing six supernatural perceptions.
The perception he had awakened was the sense of smell. Though not as visually direct as the Yin-Yang Eyes, it granted him the deepest awareness of shifts in power through their scents.
The "Valiant in a Hundred Battles" plaque and the Earth God Temple's incense carried a similar kind of power—warm to the senses and aligned with yang.
When clashing with the soldier's power, they canceled each other out.
The power of the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins, however, was fundamentally yin. It was colder and bleaker than the soldier's own dark energy, merging like ice slipping into water.
Far from diminishing, it was actively absorbing the soldier's power.
Roar—!
The uncanny howling grew weaker and weaker.
At last, as the soldier's foul stench completely dissipated, the wolf carcass above fell lifeless and motionless, leaving behind only the ordinary scent of dead game.
Thud!
Li Yan shoved upward, sending the dead wolf rolling to the side.
Gasping for air, he continued drawing on the substitute idol.
In the span of a few breaths, the wounds covering his body vanished without a trace.
Were it not for his shredded clothes and the gore staining him, no one would have guessed he had just survived a brutal, life-and-death battle.
The substitute idol could cleanse every adverse physical condition, including the soreness born of intense muscular exertion.
Thus, to a degree, it could also restore stamina.
Yet while his body was mended, the deep exhaustion born of extreme mental strain could not be erased. Li Yan lay on the ground for a short while before slowly pushing himself up.
Right then, his face froze.
Within his dantian, the injuries accumulated by the substitute idol finally reached their breaking point. Dense webs of fractures spiderwebbed across its surface, looking ready to crumble at any moment.
Whoosh—
Atop the idol's left shoulder, one flickering wisp of ghostly flame suddenly went out.
As if rebooted, the idol instantly restored itself, devoid of even a single scratch.
Just like that... I lost a life?
Anger surged through Li Yan's chest, and he couldn't resist spitting onto the ground.
Yet he understood that without the substitute idol, he would never have survived this ordeal.
Widow Wang enshrined a legendary Chuma Xian. Even if her spirit was in an abnormal state, the entity hadn't dared to show its face, which spoke volumes about the rampaging soldier's dreadfulness.
Suddenly, his brow furrowed. The Guanshan blade in his hand grew increasingly frigid, feeling as if he were clutching a jagged icicle.
A piercing cold stung down to his bones, and his skin began to numb.
Li Yan hastily dropped the tassel from his hand.
There on the yellow earth, the intricate tassel knot and the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins were drenched in wolf blood, radiating a heavy metallic reek.
Absorbing a portion of the rampaging soldier's power had actually strengthened this treasure!
This was by no means a good thing.
It meant that wielding this treasure would only become harder in the days to come.
He would have to find a way to resolve this.
Or perhaps, seek out a master, learn the craft, and step into that mysterious world!
With that thought, Li Yan swept away the traces of battle, carefully stowed the demon-suppressing tassel into a red cloth pouch, and melted into the night.
Before long, he arrived outside Widow Wang's gate.
Even before drawing near, his expression shifted.
The pungent, musky scent mingled with incense had vanished completely.
Sure enough, when he pushed open the courtyard gate, the place was entirely deserted.
The altar table, the spirit tablet, the red cord, the censer...
Every trace of Widow Wang and that Chuma Xian had been scrubbed clean, leaving the house looking no different from an ordinary peasant dwelling.
Li Yan's heart stirred, and he looked around.
Sure enough, the mysterious Qimen array formed of earthen jars had been casually overturned and scattered, filthy slop and waste running all over the ground.
At this moment, Li Yan was entirely certain.
Widow Wang and her spirit were fleeing from something...
Chapter 11