Screams and wild barking instantly tangled into chaos.
The lantern carried by one of the beggars crashed to the ground, igniting dry grass. Flames flared as dense smoke billowed outward, driving the feral dogs into an even greater frenzy.
The remaining beggars scattered at once.
"We're blown! Watch for hidden darts!"
"Greet him with willows, send him to his ascension!"
"Don't stir the clear breeze!"
As they dodged the dogs, they barked out thieves' cant.
While this jargon differed slightly across regions and factions, the martial world shared a common lexicon that anyone who listened often enough could decipher.
Translated, it meant: "We've been spotted, watch out for concealed weapons," "Release the snakes, kill him," and "Don't disturb that ghost."
Such codes might fool an outsider, but Li Yan understood them clearly.
Beggars were seasoned snake-handlers by trade. Given that they possessed secret arts to command wild dogs, using venomous snakes for an ambush was hardly surprising.
Yet the phrase "Don't disturb that ghost" caused Li Yan's heart to sink.
In all likelihood, that was the beggars' trump card.
When one invoked spirits, calling upon something troublesome often led to unpredictable consequences.
With that thought, he no longer concealed himself. Leaping from the hillside, he charged down toward them.
*Woof! Woof! Woof!*
The agitated pack of wild dogs caught sight of him immediately.
Already driven to feral ferocity, some continued chasing the beggars, but far more bared their fangs and lunged straight at him.
Not only that, but several beggars swung their cloth sacks off their shoulders, unfastened the clasps, and hurled them forward. A dozen or so black serpents shot out, darting across the ground in a swift slither toward Li Yan.
*Clang!*
His expression calm, Li Yan snapped his Guanshan blade from its sheath.
With a single thought of spirit preservation, the tassel bearing the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins swayed from side to side.
Having stepped past the threshold of Xuanmen, he had successfully achieved spirit preservation within his sea of consciousness. Though he had yet to build a tower observatory and the deity he visualized was merely a hazy orb of light, he could already employ this dharma artifact.
Guided by his spiritual intent, the ferocious baleful aura clinging to the tassel spread at once.
The entire blade turned biting as frost, exuding an icy chill.
According to Wang Daoxuan, only when combined with the imperial plaque bestowed by the court did these Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins form a minor sorcery formation—covert, venomous, and self-sustaining.
Taken alone, the coins produced a martial "momentum."
Though composed of yin sha, this momentum was fierce, unyielding, and primed for suppressing evil.
While the wild dogs were merely creatures of flesh and blood, years of gorging on human corpses had inevitably tainted them with yin sha qi, rendering their instincts remarkably keen.
*Whimper...*
The moment Li Yan drew his blade, the dogs' fur bristled from snout to tail. As though confronting their natural bane, they spun around and fled in all directions.
The black vipers fled as well.
Far more vicious by nature, they turned back along their tracks; some burrowed into the cloth sacks, while others lashed out abruptly, striking at the beggars instead.
Evidently, the snakes had run entirely out of control.
The beggars were caught off guard, but as veteran snake-handlers, they heard the whistling air and hooked their right hands into claws, snatching the vipers behind the head before hurriedly stuffing them into their pouches.
Yet in that fleeting span of a breath, Li Yan closed the distance.
*Slash!*
Before one beggar could even react, a blade opened his throat. Blood sprayed as he collapsed, clutching his neck and wheezing wetly until he fell silent.
Beside him, an older beggar clearly possessed far more combat experience. Leaping backward, he swung his dog-beating stick downward with a sharp whistle.
The strike was known as Striking the Dog's Head.
When confronting a vicious hound, a beggar would leap back the instant it lunged, opening distance while bringing the staff down vertically to crush its vitals.
Against a human, the target was not strictly the head.
A staff was a long weapon; striking the opponent's wrist was enough to shatter bone, disarming them, followed by a forward step and an upward thrust into the throat.
Even if the enemy dodged, the maneuver bought time to retreat.
The old beggar had calculated well, but Li Yan moved far faster. In the same motion as his kill, he dropped into a sideways roll, cleanly evading the descending staff.
The old beggar drew the staff back with the momentum, twisting his torso to prepare a horizontal sweep.
Yet as Li Yan surged to his feet, his palm scooped up a handful of gravel and dirt, flicking his wrist to cast it out.
The grit peppered the old beggar's face and eyes.
Panic seized him. Just as he attempted to retreat, he felt an icy coldness across his neck, and his vision spun wildly as Li Yan severed his head in a single stroke.
This was a fight to the death; Li Yan showed no mercy with his swift blade.
"Tough mark! The wind is fierce, make tracks!"
Seeing Li Yan's terrifying ferocity, the remaining beggars turned and fled.
Across the realm, the Beggars' Gang was vast, a motley gathering of all kinds.
Though these men had martial training within their beggar den, they were accustomed only to bullying commoners. When facing rival wanderers of the rivers and lakes, they relied on numbers, setting dogs and snakes upon them to catch them unawares.
Yet confronted by a ruthless figure like Li Yan—who shattered their hounds and vipers in a single stroke—they could only scramble for their lives. Li Yan sneered and gave chase.
He was in perilous territory, and he could not afford to act blindly.
He had to know why these beggars were interfering.
The fleeing beggars scattered. Though their lanterns were gone, they knew the terrain intimately and plunged into the densest thickets.
With his olfactory divine ability, Li Yan could track the scent of every man, but the scoundrels were slippery. A few even vanished straight down into open grave pits.
*There are hidden tunnels beneath the mass graves!*
Realizing the danger, Li Yan stooped mid-stride, scooped up a stone, and whipped his wrist.
"Oof!"
The rock struck the back of a beggar's head. His footing slipped, and he slammed headfirst into a tree, his mind ringing and his vision going black.
*Clang!*
Just as he struggled to rise, a chilling edge pressed against his neck—the Guanshan blade was already there.
"Who sent you? Why attack us?" Li Yan demanded coldly, wasting no words.
Yet with the blade at his throat, the beggar showed not a trace of fear. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth, pursed his lips, and whistled shrilly.
"Courting death!"
Li Yan's brows rose in fury, and with a flick of his wrist, he opened the man's throat.
Whistling in the dead of night was a grave taboo,
especially here in the mass graves where yin sha gathered.
Wang Daoxuan had explained the reason to him.
In ancient times before writing was invented, when folk recorded events with knotted ropes, hunting parties coordinated through hand gestures and whistles.
Those early signs were the origins of hand seals and shamanic incantations.
A similar weight belonged to the colors white and red.
White symbolized bitter cold, while red represented blood.
Deeply carved into the soul and bloodline, they passed down through generations. Even today, many occult arts remained bound to them.
Certain traditions and folk shamans still relied on whistling when performing rituals to summon souls or command spirits.
The beggar had clearly intended to drag him down into destruction.
Yet it was already too late.
The moment the beggar's throat was slit, a bitter gale swept through the surroundings, and amid the churning icy mist, phantom battle cries seemed to echo.
At the same time, Li Yan caught the scent of frigid blood.
It was slightly weaker than that of the cold-altar rampaging soldiers he had faced before, devoid of the musky reek of wild beasts, but it carried an overwhelming murderous intent, like the rust upon ancient blades.
A warrior spirit!
Li Yan's eyelids twitched. He stepped back at once, sheathing his blade.
Wang Daoxuan had told him about such yin entities.
The land of the Divine Continent had never lacked for war.
From the ancient tribal clashes, through the wars of Shang and Zhou, to every change of dynasties, countless lives perished in battle. Where yin sha gathered, burdened by heavy slaughter and tethered by unyielding heavenly souls, warrior spirits would emerge.
In some regions they congregated in vast hosts, becoming marching ghostly soldiers.
Wandering the land, they served as the primary source when cultivators recruited spirit soldiers.
The defining trait of a warrior spirit was its intolerance for the aura of weaponry. Once it caught the scent of cold iron, entangled by memories of past slaughter, it would lunge forward like a feral hound.
A marching ghostly army had once appeared outside a town, its cries of slaughter echoing day and night. A fraudulent shaman gave foolish advice, urging the townsfolk to brandish kitchen cleavers and clash their blades together to frighten the spirits away.
Needless to say, not a single soul in that town survived.
Though Li Yan possessed the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins, he had fought rampaging soldiers and understood that such entities could not be treated by ordinary logic.
Avoidance was best, lest he snuff out another flame of his life force.
*Whoosh...*
The yin wind deepened, and the cold scent of blood seeped from among the burial mounds, drifting through the air until it plunged into the dead beggar's body.
*Crack!*
With an unnatural twist of bone, the corpse jerked upright.
Li Yan held his breath, retreating slowly.
He intended to put distance between them, but to his surprise, the corpse lurched in his direction, its gait crooked as the freezing bloody miasma around it thickened.
Li Yan halted, a dangerous glint in his eyes, his palm resting on the hilt of his saber.
It seemed this thing could not be shaken off.
Yet the warrior spirit had also made a mistake: its longing for a physical body had driven it to possess a corpse.
The physical body was a vessel, but it was also a cage.
Destroying the vessel alone would only free the entity to seek another, but Li Yan possessed the Three Powers Demon-Suppressing Coins. So long as he chose the right moment, he could strike it down.
"Hold!"
Just as he was about to strike, a noise rustled behind him...
Chapter 37