Pulling the flag
In a village in Quanzhou, a businessman from outside the province opened his eyes in the early morning.
He was traveling from Lingnan to Jiangnan, passing through Fujian. When he passed through Quanzhou, he happened to pass by this village in the evening and decided to stay. After a night, the originally quiet and peaceful village was completely transformed.
"Ghost! There is a ghost!" He ran out in a panic, without even caring about the coachman who was staying with him in the village. He drove the carriage away to escape.
When the coachman woke up, he saw that the villagers who were completely normal the previous night had become zombies after just one night. He fled in panic, and after searching for the carriage in vain, he was so scared that he fainted in the field.
Team A1 removed the first formation flag in the early morning, rested until noon, and then set off again.
"Hurry up," Xiao Wan'er urged, "There's already a loophole in the formation. The outsiders stranded in Quanzhou will gradually discover the clues."
The group raced at breakneck speed, the sky over Quanzhou growing increasingly gloomy. Halfway through their journey, a sudden, furious howl erupted from the clouds above. The soul-piercing sound sent the less advanced members of the team crouching on the ground, clutching their heads in agony.
Xiao Wan'er, secretly filled with resentment, pulled out a whistle, infused it with spiritual energy, and blew it. The sharp whistle was like a spring breeze in the team's ears, wiping away the shock of the screams. They recovered and continued forward.
The sky in Quanzhou seemed to have consciousness. The sky became increasingly gloomy, and the dark clouds gathered thicker and thicker, carrying with them a deathly aura and resentment that almost turned into substance.
This time, a larger crowd gathered around the battle flag. Rows of ragged peasants stood before the heavily armed soldiers, their expressions vacant. Upon seeing Team A, they charged toward them.
"Beast!" The team members' faces turned pale.
Xiao Wan'er sighed softly and took out a formation plate. The formation plate fell to the ground and turned into a huge trap, trapping the soldiers and civilians rushing towards them.
"You only have three hours, after which this formation will be destroyed." Xiao Wan'er informed Yuan Hui.
The monks had no time to insult the evil cultivators. They gathered in front of the formation flag and began to purify the resentment and death energy on it.
Xiao Wan'er, who was leading the Taoist priests on the sidelines, was in a bad mood. She could see that the evil cultivators hiding in the shadows were constantly draining their strength. In fact, they were growing increasingly exhausted from searching for and purifying the formation flags, and their available supplies were dwindling. She foresaw that the subsequent purification would become even more difficult.
"Only three hours," she estimated in her mind, looking at the battle flag. "Time is too tight."
The monks purifying the formation flag also felt the difficulty. Compared to the previous one, this formation flag was much heavier in death energy and resentment. At a normal speed, it would take more than three hours to completely purify it.
"Speed up!" Yuan Hui ordered, "Stop at any cost and finish it within three hours!"
The monks simultaneously increased their spiritual energy output. Finally, at the end of three hours, the resentment and death energy within the flags were completely exorcised, and the trapped souls dispersed. Some souls slipped into the trapping formation, and the eyesight of some within the formation regained clarity.
"Where am I?" As soon as they regained consciousness, they saw they were trapped, surrounded by a group of strangers who looked like zombies, and they were all somewhat frightened. The members of Team A1, who were guarding them, briefly explained the situation to them. They found their relatives and friends in the crowd and helped them leave.
As for the remaining ordinary people who had not regained consciousness, Xiao Wan'er took out several herbs from her personal space, mixed them into a powder, and blew it onto everyone. After smelling the powder, these people fell into a deep sleep.
The monks were exhausted, some even pale, but they had no time to rest. Xiao Wan'er once again searched for the positions of the formation flags. This time, the mental shock she received was even more violent. Even as she bled profusely, she finally figured out the locations of the other formation flags.
The specific location was transmitted to everyone's mind. She wiped her face and ordered in a deep voice: "Continue."
The team members with less consumption carry the ones who are unable to move, and everyone heads towards the next formation flag.
This time, the dark clouds were even thicker, the sun no longer able to penetrate them. A blood-red hue had appeared within the inky clouds, like an eye, turning wherever Team A1 advanced. A chilling wind blew along the road, not violently, but with a biting chill.
When Team A1 spotted the shadow of the battle flag from afar, dark clouds swirled violently in the sky, and countless black soldiers descended from the blood-red area between them. These black men, formed from the condensation of death energy, barely took on a human form, lacking any facial features beyond their blood-red eyes. As soon as they landed, they charged towards Team A1. Seeing this, Xiao Wan'er dismounted from the backs of the team members, gathered her spiritual energy, and unleashed her magic.
Thunder rolled down from the sky again, but these soldiers were much stronger than the ordinary soldiers who had become puppets.
"Be careful!" Xiao Wan'er warned, "These soldiers have the fighting power of novice monks!"
Yuan Kong gritted his teeth and rushed forward, staff in hand. The Buddha's light radiating from the staff had a powerful intimidating effect on the soldiers. Seeing this, the other monks in the team sat down and chanted Buddhist scriptures together. For a moment, the Buddha's light shone across the battlefield, and the soldiers seemed to melt.
But this time, the evil cultivators were clearly unwilling to let Team A pass. Dark clouds rolled again in the sky, and the deadly aura of the battle zone permeated every wisp of air. The figures of the soldiers, which had begun to melt, solidified again. Seeing this, the monks sped up their Buddhist chanting, and the few remaining Taoists in the team also joined the battle.
Several giant puppet beasts emerged from the flanks and charged into the ranks. These puppets were covered in lightning-inducing talismans. As they reached the soldiers, they exploded, igniting the talismans. Splinters of thunder burst through the clouds and rained down upon the soldiers. The soldiers screamed and scattered, a third of them gone in an instant, and the remaining soldiers were significantly weakened.
The Taoist priest at the back of the group sat on the ground, a look of pain on his face. This wave of self-explosion had completely destroyed everything in his hands, but fortunately the result was indeed satisfactory.
Seeing this, Xiao Wan'er suppressed the sweetness in her throat and squeezed her spiritual energy to summon the Yang Fire. This pure Yang Fire, specifically designed to counteract evil spirits, was incredibly hot, causing the team members present to sweat uncontrollably and causing them to scream in pain.
"Hey, it turns out these things can make sounds!" A young monk's exclamation attracted Yuan Hui's fierce glare. He immediately lowered his head and continued to recite the scriptures honestly. Yuan Hui seemed to have transformed into an arhat. A huge shadow emerged from his monk's staff, and he held it and smashed it at the soldiers.
Under the scorching flames of the sun and the fierce blows of the monks' staffs, the soldiers were mostly killed, with only a few still lingering. The dark clouds in the sky were also broken by the thunder, and no new soldiers could be generated. Seeing this, Yuan Hui stopped the monks' chanting. The whole team worked together to wipe out the soldiers and rushed towards the third flag without stopping.
The monks didn't dare waste any time. They gathered in a circle before the formation flag and began to purify themselves. Xiao Wan'er and the Taoist priests escorted them. More soldiers approached from afar, followed by various evil spirits. To prevent the monks from being affected, several Taoist priests had to take the initiative to attack.
"Damn it, why can't we kill all these evil spirits?" The Taoist priest on Xiao Wan'er's left grabbed a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth. He chewed them and swallowed them all. His already weak morale immediately soared.
"Hold on! That evil cultivator is getting anxious," Xiao Wan'er said as she grabbed another handful of talismans and threw them out. "If this formation flag is pulled out again, he'll only have one flag left. It's almost over. He can no longer control the living people in the formation."
Even as they cursed inwardly, the men never stopped attacking. The Taoist priests who had swallowed the pills took out all the pills and gave them to whoever was exhausted. The monks sitting around the formation flags also sensed the situation and did their utmost to speed up the purification process. Finally, when the Taoist priests were all covered in wounds, the third formation flag was purified.
The moment the battle flag was drawn, all the attacking soldiers and evil spirits vanished into thin air. The dark clouds that had been shrouding Quanzhou suddenly dissipated, and the sun finally shone upon the land once more.
"Thankfully, His Majesty has dispatched several Taoist priests over the past two years," Xiao Wan'er slumped on the ground, feeling extremely grateful. "Now, there's only one final battle flag left."
Team A1, which had been moving continuously, no longer had the strength to move on to the next destination. Everyone sat down to rest where they were. After recovering some energy, they sat cross-legged in meditation, trying to complete their rest as quickly as possible.
In Quanzhou City, officials and citizens, who had been like zombies for days, finally regained consciousness. The inn's waiter, looking at the unfamiliar check-in record, frantically called the innkeeper, successfully leaving even his own innkeeper bewildered. They approached the door of Team A1's previous guest room and, after knocking without a response, went to the door of a foreign merchant's room.
The door opened, and the haggard, slovenly merchant saw the shopkeeper and the waiter, who had returned to normal, and he knelt on the ground in excitement. "Oh my God, you're finally back to normal! I was terrified these past two days!"
After hearing his story, the shopkeeper and the waiter finally understood what had happened in the past two days. They hurriedly appeased the merchant and went to the government office, where they saw the equally frightened legal advisor and clerk.
The legal advisor was comforting the people in front of the government office, the petty clerk was suppressing his fear to maintain order, and the governor of Quanzhou was writing a memorial to the capital with trembling hands in the government office - such a horrific thing had happened under his watch, he no longer expected to be promoted, he only hoped that the empress would not punish him for it.
The more he thought about it, the more wronged he felt. He cried as he wrote, tears streaming down his face, "Why am I so miserable?"
Team A1 took a full half day to recover and head towards the last flag.
"Strange, there is only one flag left, how come there is nothing blocking the road?" Someone in the team was very surprised.
"Three-quarters of the formation has been broken. That evil cultivator can no longer set up obstacles to stop us," Xiao Wan'er replied. "But we must not let our guard down. The next person we'll face may be him."
Before the last battle flag, a black-robed monk stood alone, awaiting the enemy's arrival. He made no secret of his imposing presence; despite being in the wilderness, no living creature dared to enter within a few miles of him.
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