*

Upon hearing this, Nan Qing turned her head and glanced at Qin Mobei, who was as cold as ice.

"Why do I feel like the way he looks at you is like a puppy seeing a bone?"

Qin Mobei glanced down at her, his eyes filled with helplessness, then looked up at the newcomer without saying a word, just a glance—

"Snap!"

Suddenly, several fine cracks appeared on the compass in the Taoist priest's hand, and then with a "bang," it shattered completely!

The bronze pointer landed, but before he could even be shocked, he was suddenly lifted up by an invisible force, his feet leaving the ground and dangling in mid-air.

"Well,,"

The Taoist priest's face instantly turned bright red. His eyes widened, the greed and madness in them replaced by astonishment. His hands futilely clawed at the air, but the suffocation around his neck prevented him from speaking. He could only grunt and groan as he struggled.

But then, the Taoist priest suddenly pulled out a jet-black bone bell from his robes and shook it fiercely—

"clang,,"

The piercing ringing of the bell briefly disrupted Qin Mobei's control over his aura. Taking advantage of this, the Taoist priest broke free of his restraints, staggered to the ground, glared at the three of them menacingly, then abruptly turned and shouted into the cave behind him:

"Everyone out!! Capture him! I need him to forge the strongest corpse puppet!!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a rustling sound and heavy footsteps suddenly echoed inside the cave. Then, dozens of stiff figures emerged from the darkness.

It's full of zombies!

They were all bluish-purple and shriveled, with sunken eye sockets and cloudy eyes, but they moved with extraordinary speed, and in the blink of an eye they surrounded the three of them.

Seeing that the corpse puppets had completely surrounded the three of them, the Taoist priest's face twisted into a ferocious grin, and a mad look reappeared in his eyes. He pulled out a blood-stained black command flag and shouted sharply:

"Charge them! Capture them!!"

The corpse puppets let out low growls, and strange incantations appeared on their bluish-purple skin. As if driven by some force, they all took a step forward.

Qin Mobei pulled Nan Qing into his arms, preventing her from seeing such an ugly creature, lest she later claim to be one of them. At the same time, he slowly raised his hand, his fingers slightly spread, dense black energy swirling around his fingertips. His eyes were icy, and his thin lips parted slightly:

"Kneel down."

These two words, spoken with utmost nonchalance, seemed to carry an irresistible pressure.

"boom!"

An invisible aura of malevolent energy belonging to the thousand-year-old Corpse King suddenly erupted, spreading outwards from Qin Mobei and his companions like a tidal wave. The originally ferocious corpse puppets trembled violently, their turbid eyes contracting sharply, as if they had sensed some kind of fear.

The next second—

"Bang, bang, bang!"

All the corpse puppets knelt down again in unison, their heads bowed, their decaying bodies almost touching the ground, as if they were subjects meeting their king, not daring to have even the slightest thought of resistance!

But when the Taoist priest saw this scene, he was not afraid at all. Instead, he was so excited that he trembled all over. He stared at Qin Mobei with a morbid fanaticism in his eyes.

"Hahaha, brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!!"

"This is the power of the Corpse King! With you, I will definitely be able to create the perfect Corpse Puppet King!!"

Nan Qing frowned in disgust: "Really ugly."

The Taoist priest laughed wildly, pulled off the jade gourd from his waist, unscrewed the stopper, and instantly, a chilling wind howled throughout the cave.

"You think I only have these grunts?"

He roared, his face contorted in pain, "Come out, my bride!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a thick, blood-red mist gushed from the gourd's mouth, and a slender figure slowly materialized.

She was a woman dressed in a tattered wedding gown. Her phoenix coronet and embroidered robe had long since faded, but their former splendor was still evident. She lowered her head, her pale fingers folded in front of her abdomen, and at first glance, she appeared quite dignified.

But when she slowly raised her head—

"Giggle..."

An eerie laugh echoed through the valley, and at that moment, her face was fully exposed to the eyes of Nan Qing and the other two.

Her face was covered by a rotting veil, vaguely revealing half of her beautiful face and the other half of her already bare bones. Her eyes were also covered in swirling veils; one eye had no pupils, only empty sockets, while the other was pitch black with no whites, and thick, sticky tears of blood were constantly seeping from it.

The Taoist priest held a peach wood sword and slashed it across his palm, the blade stained with blood, drawing blood-red runes in the air.

"Hahaha, today, none of you will escape!"

"She devoured the vengeful spirits of nine hundred and ninety-nine brides. Even if you are a thousand-year-old corpse king, you can't do anything about it!"

However, in his maniacal laughter, he failed to notice that when his most prized red-clad ghost met Nan Qing's clear and bright eyes, its soul trembled, its previously bulging armor quickly retracted by half an inch, and even the surging blood mist around it froze.

Nan Qing tilted her head, a hint of interest appearing on her round, soft face. She then turned her gaze to the Taoist priest behind the red-clad ghost, her voice soft as honey, yet each word sharp as a knife:

"Bound by karmic burdens, I wonder how many years you'll be sentenced to in the eighteen levels of hell when you get to the underworld. I'll definitely go and see for myself then~~"

As soon as Nan Qing spoke, the red-clad ghost flinched and took three small steps back, its dark pupils filled with fear.

The Taoist priest finally snapped out of his frenzied ecstasy. Seeing the red-clad ghost trembling in fear, his expression changed drastically, and he shouted sharply:

"Charge! Charge them!! Tear them to pieces!!"

He frantically brandished the peach wood sword in his hand, even biting his tongue and spitting out a mouthful of blood essence to forcefully activate the vengeful ghost with a blood curse. Under the entanglement of blood light, the vengeful ghost's soul twisted violently, emitting a shrill scream, but it remained firmly rooted to the spot, not daring to move forward even half a step.

Even when Nan Qing turned her gaze to her again, the ghost's soul trembled even more violently than when it was tormented by the blood curse, as if it was about to completely disintegrate in the next instant!

Nan Qing patted Qin Mobei's arm around her waist, signaling him to let go. Qin Mobei frowned slightly, but still obediently released her, though he channeled a wisp of dark, malevolent energy into his fingertips, ready to strike at any moment.

Then, Nan Qing slowly walked forward, step by step, toward the red-clothed ghost.

With each step she took, the red-clad ghost trembled more violently, but she dared not retreat any further and could only kneel on the ground, tightly suppressing the blood mist around her.

"Waaah..."

The vengeful ghost let out a suppressed whimper, its long, black armor digging deep into the ground, leaving dozens of deep marks on the hard rock.

The Taoist priest behind him, his eyes bloodshot, spat another mouthful of blood onto the peach wood sword and swung it wildly.

"Get up! Kill her. Kill her!!"

"I've raised you for decades, how dare you disobey me?!"

The ghost's soul was instantly torn apart by an invisible force, the gold threads on the wedding dress snapped inch by inch, revealing the soul riddled with holes beneath, and it let out a piercing shriek.

"It's so noisy."

Nan Qing's casual remark silenced Li Li, who had been howling just moments before. He bit his rotting lips tightly, and even though his soul had been torn almost transparent by the Taoist's incantation, he dared not utter another sound.