Thirty: Mutual Destruction, Part One
In a direct confrontation, Mingjin and Mengsheng are no match for Zhegui.
This isn't meant to belittle our own people. Judging from the cowardly look of the evil spirit behind us, it must have brought the strongest cultivator in the entire Yishan Mountain to protect it. Therefore, Zhegui's strength is definitely above that of Fengwu and Qianli outside.
Fuchsia seemed not to be allowed to stray too far from Gao Lang, and Mingjin's plan was to stall for time until reinforcements arrived.
However, Zhegui didn't seem to care much about the two of them. The sword in his hand was steady, accurate, and heavy. Mingjin took the spear from Zhegui with both hands and tentatively touched it. She felt as if a mountain had poured all its weight from the point of contact onto her body when the blade and the spear clashed, making it hard for her to breathe.
And she was only holding the sword in one hand.
"Farming is a treasure, and food substitutes are good."
"Were you two the ones sent to attack the main hall?"
As he spoke, Zhegui's sword was still pressed against Mingjin's hand, but the magic that had been released from Mengsheng landed on Zhegui's face, and suddenly a black dot appeared out of nowhere. Then the black dot grew larger, and the blackish-green color became more pronounced.
It seemed as if tiny flowers were blooming on Zhegui's face.
But there's nothing beautiful about it.
Originally, Zhegui's complexion was paler than that of humans and ghosts, but with this dark green color, it suddenly made people feel as if white bones were floating on duckweed.
As he raised his sword, Ming Jin was instantly pulled backward by the spear.
Immediately afterwards, several short knives flew out of Meng Sheng's hands, stabbing towards Zhe Gui from all directions.
"The setting sun shines with radiance. Its fragrance is as intense as an orchid."
Meng Sheng himself took a few steps back, quickly helped Ming Jin up, and used magic to restore her condition.
Their eyes remained fixed on the ghost, unable to discern any change in Zhegui's expression. She seemed quite interested in the things growing on her face, merely holding a sword, a few flashes of light beside her, followed by a clattering sound as the swords fell to the ground after being struck by lightning.
"I thought it was something else."
The roots behind the flower bit through the flesh on Zhegui's face, coiled around his facial bones, and gradually spread down his neck. This spell was specifically designed for ambush, and Meng Sheng realized that defeating the ghost head-on was too difficult, so he attacked from the side. The poisonous flower that grew from this wood spell was small, but its roots would gradually extend downwards along the ghost's bone-like structure, gradually paralyzing the ghost's movements.
However, she didn't care about winning the laurel wreath at all. She raised the sword in her hand, and a flash of light passed over her own face, cutting off her eyes, nose, and mouth, leaving only a pitted, bone-white area, completely unadorned.
It even cut a curved hole in its neck.
Seizing the opportunity, Meng Sheng and Ming Jin each gripped their weapons and attacked Zhe Gui from two directions.
Zhegui merely glanced at them, without even moving her feet. With a single sword strike, she severed Meng Sheng's short sword, which was flying through the air, in half. Then, gripping her sword, she turned sideways and chopped down the spearhead that Ming Jin was thrusting at her.
It sounded like trees sprouting new shoots. Mingjin looked up and saw that the holes on Zhegui's face and neck were gradually filling in, and his eyes, nose, and lips were gradually growing back.
She turned the spearhead to the side, found an opening under the tilted sword, turned her spearhead out, and then quickly thrust it at Zhe Gui from the side again, forcing Zhe Gui to catch Ming Jin's spear thrust, which was now a rapid attack, while Zhe Gui had to turn his neck to the side and hold the sword with his hand behind his back.
"There is no way for souls to escape."
The cold white light caused Qiang Shen to change color, and the light spread from the spearhead to the sword, and then to the hand of Zhe Gui holding the sword.
"Sweep away the dust in the swirling current."
On the other side, after putting away his short sword, Meng Sheng hid the original poison seed in the water and shot it at Zhe Gui as an arrow.
Ice magic slightly slowed Zhegui's movements, but because her strength far surpassed that of the four people present, no one noticed. However, Zhegui was very skilled in her movements, and this subtle change made her very uncomfortable.
Then a bolt of lightning struck down, heading straight for Meng Sheng's arrow.
The water magic was scattered and disappeared after falling to the ground. However, most of the surviving grass seeds escaped, and because the lightning magic on Zhegui's body had not yet dissipated, they actually grew faster.
“Zhegui,” Gao Lang, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up as he looked at the marks left by the lightning strike on the ground. “Don’t damage my house. Hurry up and get them out of here.”
"Over the years, it seems that the lifespan of a cultivator is the most unbearable."
Zhegui spun around on the spot, and with an arc in his arm, he flung Mingjin away with his sword. The latter was sent crashing into the wall of the main hall by the force of the impact. The wall seemed about to crumble once more.
The sword light flashed across Zhegui's face again, severing the roots that had taken hold once more, while the sword light in Zhegui's hand shone exceptionally brightly on a single point.
"There's no way to leave you with complete corpses."
Immediately following this sentence is a delayed action.
A wind blade, hidden within the light of Zhegui's sword, pierced through the back of Zhegui's head and into her eye socket.
"Who wants your self-righteous gifts?"
Several shortened wind blades hovered behind Zhegui.
"The grains are lush and the grasses are abundant. In many years, there have been bountiful harvests, a time of great joy and celebration."
With a shout of incantation from Meng Sheng behind him, vines resembling poisonous flowers, similar to those on Zhe Gui's face, suddenly sprouted from all the wooden structures of the main hall. The pollen emitted from these vines was spun into Zhe Gui's still-healing wound by a dense barrage of wind blades, and even drifted directly towards Fu Xia and Gao Lang, who were sitting in the center, due to the uncontrollable effect.
"Zhegui, what are you doing?"
Gao Lang's voice was already very hoarse, but he still made accusations against Zhe Gui.
"fall!"
Zhegui waved his hand, and instantly a row of lightning bolts shot out in an arc towards Mingjin, who was entering and exiting, and Mengsheng, who was behind him. However, due to the urgency of the situation, this lightning spell was not as powerful as usual. Mingjin used his mountain magic to block it, and then used the force of the lightning spell to retreat, creating distance between himself and Zhegui, before colliding with Mengsheng again.
But the vines didn't give Gao Lang much time, lashing out at the three of them from all the wood. Fu Xia, wielding her knife, was too busy to defend herself, while Gao Lang was completely helpless. Enraged by these petty tricks, Zhe Gui raised his sword and aimed it at a point in the hall: "Thunderfire."
Suddenly, some color appeared on the sword.
Before we could even see any scenery, the roots of the vines had already begun to rot.
“It’s better to deal with the one who’s holding us back, that way we can restrain her movements,” Meng Sheng summoned his short sword again. “But what about after that? She’s not serious at all right now.”
"We can't let that drag on die now, or Zhegui will get out," Mingjin said, caught in the middle of the battle and unaware of any movement. He seized the opportunity to drink a bottle of potion. "We'll stall for time and wear down Zhegui's cultivation. That would also clear some obstacles."
The vines were completely rotten.
Mingjin threw a porcelain bottle to Mengsheng, who smashed the bottle and drank it all in one gulp.
"Zhegui doesn't seem to like that dragging him down."
Zhegui, sword in hand, stood at the foot of the steps, a surge of anger rising within him. He turned around to look at the two men gripping their weapons.
"Let's try to distract her. Avoid serious injury, and everything else will be fine."
Ming Jin put his spear away.
"The sky is frozen and the earth is closed; the wind is fierce and the frost is flying."
As the spell fell, three sharp marks suddenly appeared in the originally white expanse. Three spears formed from ice magic were positioned where Zhe Gui would hold his sword in reverse, and the spearheads were aimed directly at Zhe Gui as they lunged forward.
“The Milky Way shines brightly in the sky.”
With the aid of wind magic, after being cut down by Zhegui, the spear shattered into many small pieces of ice, with sharp edges, which collided randomly around Zhegui, and the clanging sound echoed continuously in the room, as if it were the height of summer and ice blocks were being thrown down from the sky to tease passersby.
Even when the lightning and fire that had been struck down broke into smaller fragments, the ice turned into snow and rain, falling to the ground. The main hall was almost a sealed environment, and the moisture, when it met the cold air blown around by the wind, froze back into ice.
A layer of white mist condensed on Gao Lang's body, and Fu Xia found an umbrella to shield Gao Lang from the erosion coming from all directions.
"This is truly unheard of."
He slapped one hand on the armrest of the seat.
Holding a long spear and three more created by magic, Ming Jin, under the cover of Meng Shengmu's vine magic, was temporarily able to fight Zhe Gui to a standstill. Moreover, seemingly due to the need to protect the hall, Zhe Gui dared not use powerful spells, such as those he used when sparring with Feng Wu; otherwise, Gao Lang would have been the first to be sent flying.
Swords flashed, but due to long-term martial arts training and the limited space, Zhegui's full potential could not be fully utilized. After taking Zhegui's attack head-on, Mingjin had also become accustomed to being hit, and decisively used mountain techniques to block the parts that he could not block.
After this back and forth, Zhegui frowned.
Faced with doubt, this person may become more courageous in the face of adversity.
We have a lot of problems on our side, but the opponent is getting stronger and stronger. What's going on?
Under the dual attack of vines and ice spears, Meng Sheng seized the brief moment of distance from Zhe Gui and threw two short swords in the direction of Zhe Gui.
In the chaos, Zhegui unleashed a bolt of lightning, shattering all the vines and ice spears nearby in one fell swoop. She then used her sword to cut down the incoming short swords. However, in this white, misty environment, Meng Sheng's vision was also affected. One of the short swords, its color dimming, evaded Zhegui's attention, flew past her, and headed straight for Gao Lang's head.
But Zhegui heard the sound of something flying by and turned around to intercept it at the very end.
As it caught the sword and turned around, a short sword flew towards its eye from the direction it had been heading.
The sword in his hand was even faster than Zhegui's reaction speed. It struck the short sword, knocking it to the ground with the tip embedded in the earth.
In an instant, the entire hall fell silent.
This was a rare opportunity in Mingjin and Mengsheng's lives. A bolt of lightning pierced through the center of the hall, and the whistling wind quickly dispersed the white mist left by the ice magic, making several faces clear again.
"What are you doing!" Gao Lang was furious. "I told you to protect the palace!"
But he was clearly too weak to continue, and he started coughing right after saying those two sentences.
This time, Fuxia didn't reach it either. Because Fuxia, who was standing closest, was preparing to grab the short sword just like Zhegui, when she discovered that the short sword, which was supposed to be aimed at Gao Lang's throat, suddenly vanished and then reappeared, flying towards Zhegui.
"I had forgotten that you had this skill."
Mingjin and Mengsheng didn't know what they meant, but the atmosphere had changed, so the two quickly set off and hid on the other side of the large hole that Zhegui had dug.
“You have really disappointed me,” Gao Lang said, unable to even pat his chest with the knife stuck in his breast. “You have to deal with just these two for so long.”
Zhegui's attitude underwent a complete change. The cold, indifferent, and polite demeanor he once possessed suddenly vanished. He narrowed his eyes slightly and launched into a mocking rebuke at Gao Lang.
"It's all because you, you idiot, are dragging me down. I think your head is empty; you should be stabbed with a knife to fix it."
After saying that, Zhegui waved his hand and used magic to retrieve the sword that he had thrown away. Then he threw it at Gao Lang, and it passed by Gao Lang's face with a gust of wind, which made Fuxia next to him break out in a cold sweat and look distressed.
The short sword belonged to Meng Sheng, but she and Ming Jin were now completely ignored. The battle situation was extremely strange, and the two of them didn't know what to do, but they couldn't leave.
The wind howled in my ears.
"My lords, please don't be so angry. The situation is urgent..."
Fuchsia had never seen anything like this in all these years, so she stood there trembling, unsure of who to negotiate with.
"Using me as a spear and a shield, trying to do things with an empty head, making too much noise, you're disturbing me."
“Such rudeness,” Gao Lang uttered, “you’re utterly hopeless. You, you really are still the same as before.”
"Talking about this when you're about to die. I should just rip a hole right into your forehead and let it pierce through you. Enjoy your climate in this great hall, I'm not keeping you company."
Having said that, Zhegui sheathed her sword and, amidst Fuxia's bewilderment and Gaolang's unreadable whispers, turned and walked to the dilapidated palace wall. A chilly wind blew, signaling the arrival of a traveler from afar, but Zhegui paid no heed, letting the wind flutter its garments.
"Oh no."
Although the situation was beyond their control, once Zhegui went out, she might join the battle outside, which would drastically change the situation. So, watching Zhegui leap over the wall, Mingjin instructed Mengsheng to control the situation, and she quickly followed Zhegui out.
Chaos reigned outside.
The once well-organized Yishan Street, built against the mountain, has been almost completely destroyed. Its original self-reconstruction has declined, leaving only evil spirits and cultivators arguing among themselves on the ruins.
Mingjin assumed Zhegui would be faster than him, so he jumped outside the main hall and looked around, trying to find its trail. However, to his surprise, Zhegui didn't move much. After leaving the main hall, it turned and headed towards the main entrance. Now, it slowly walked down the steps, its back to Mingjin.
To avoid unnecessary conflict, Mingjin quietly followed and took out a magical artifact.
Zhegui walked to the middle of the open space in front of the hall, then suddenly stopped and looked around.
What do you want?
It turned around and looked at Mingjin who was following behind.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
