Ghost Soldiers
Another person on the river gasped in shock.
Chao Du sighed again: "No one expected such a large-scale appearance of puppet gu, and there's more to come..."
Suddenly, some figures appeared around them.
These figures, both men and women, were mostly severely injured, their clothes stained crimson with blood. They could barely stand, some had already collapsed to the ground, their fingers twitching and struggling, refusing to let go of their swords.
They were originally dressed in their respective sect's uniforms, but now they were soaked in blood, making it impossible to tell which sect they belonged to.
Suddenly, all of them turned their heads in unison, their eyes turning scarlet, their eyeballs darting around in their sockets out of sync, like the antennae of some kind of insect; some even fell off as they spun…
"Ah!" another Asawa exclaimed, grabbing Asawa's sleeve in fear and tension. "What's going on with them?!"
Chao Du's eyes were filled with pity: "They were infected with the Puppet Gu. Many cultivators who came to help were also infected with the Puppet Gu. Some who were lucky enough not to be infected were devastated when they saw their companions in this state."
As she spoke, even those who had been lying on the ground as if in a dreamlike state raised their heads, staring with bloodshot, darting eyes, twisting their broken limbs, and attacking the two of them in bizarre, contorted postures, either standing or crawling.
Regardless of life or death, once afflicted by the Gu, one will become the Gu master's puppet until the Gu worm in one's brain is destroyed.
Chao Du said in a low voice, "After these people were turned into puppets, they felt no pain and could only attack. Many cultivators had never seen a puppet gu before and did not know how to deal with it. They also could not find the puppet gu master hiding in the crowd. In the end, the first wave of cultivators who came to support were almost completely wiped out. At that time, Yao Yao told me to leave her and leave quickly, but Yao Yao was seriously injured and there were so many wounded. If I left, they would have no hope of survival."
Another Chao Du looked shaken and murmured, "And then you really stayed there, and you really saved them... If I hadn't retreated with Fu Buci back then... But Yao Yao was already gone when I met the Demon Serpent King... Why couldn't I save her back then?! Why was I a step later than you?! If I could have saved them, would everything have been different?!"
Chao Du looked at another version of herself who was feeling down. She could hear the other version of herself's heartbeat becoming more and more complicated, her mind becoming more and more confused, and there were even signs that her Dao heart was breaking.
"Calm down!" Chao Du patted her shoulder gently, channeling calming spiritual energy into her, and soothed her gently. "It's all in the past. You did your best back then. Look forward."
The terrifying-looking cultivator puppets had already rushed to close range. They turned to Du, their eyes filled with pity and respect, and whispered, "Gentlemen, please rest in peace. I will avenge you."
The lightning, dancing wildly like a dragon, once again washed over this blood-red world.
Those puppets controlled by Gu worms can only attack and not defend, and they are shrouded in evil and yin energy. They will dissipate in an instant when they encounter pure and yang heavenly lightning.
When the lightning subsided, the moon in the sky temporarily returned to its snow-white state, and the bright, tranquil moonlight fell on the embers on the ground, as if a peaceful snow had just fallen.
But in the blink of an eye, the snow melted away, the moon turned red, and the moon began to wax and wane again.
………………
At the same time, the person sent by the vice leader of the Immortal Alliance to consult the leader found Fu Buci.
Fu Buci summoned several sect leaders and elders from long-established sects who were experienced in dealing with heavenly lightning. They were studying the heavenly lightning that had just occurred when they heard the respectful report from the newcomers. He frowned slightly and said, "What a coincidence?"
The heavenly lightning had just dissipated on one side, and the Immortal Tower was reopening on the other. He had a gut feeling that there was some connection between the two events.
Who doesn't know that the Immortal Tower hides the most powerful divine weapons in the cultivation world?
Could that person summon such a vast thunderbolt, yet lack a suitable divine weapon?
Fu Buci pondered: Since the clues to the Immortal Tower were still unclear, it was not worth it for him to go there in person at the moment. He needed to stay in the Azure Cloud Immortal Palace and find more information about the mysterious person and this heavenly lightning... This heavenly lightning might represent the possibility of becoming an immortal, or even the existence of immortals. At the moment, nothing was more important than this.
Fu Buci ordered, "Have You Cang personally keep an eye on it. Whoever comes out of the Waiting Immortal Tower, detain them immediately!"
………………
Inside the Immortal Tower, the catastrophe that occurred in Brocade City that night was still ongoing.
Chao Du looked at her other self, and her emotions calmed down a bit, but what had just happened was really frightening. A crack in one's Dao heart was a sign of falling into demonic possession...
Suddenly, the sound of rapid hoofbeats came from the empty street, and the temperature around them plummeted as if winter had arrived.
To distract his other self, Asawa pointed to the street ahead and said, "Look over there, guess what's coming?"
Another person slowly looked up from Chaodu, then suddenly widened their eyes: "Those are... such tall people and horses, as tall as houses, yet they have no life on them at all. Could they be... the legendary ghost soldiers?!"
On the wide, open main road of the city, two groups of ghostly soldiers were walking slowly toward the two people at the city gate. Each ghostly soldier was extremely tall, and when they were riding on horseback, they were even taller than the houses next to the street.
Chao Du nodded, looking at them with a cold gaze: "The ghost soldiers borrow the road, and the living must avoid them, but they are not just borrowing the road."
They and their warhorses were clad in sturdy bronze armor, like enormous burial objects from some tomb, with two eerie green flames flickering from their eyes, exuding a sinister aura.
Even more bizarrely, each warhorse had a scarlet peony tied around its neck. These peonies were so vibrantly red that they looked as if they had just been cut from someone's chest and were soaked in someone's warm blood, making them both eerie and terrifying.
As the two groups of ghostly soldiers approached, a floating red sedan chair could be seen sandwiched between them, with a scarlet "囍" character on the curtain that looked as if it were dripping blood.
"This setup looks like... a wedding procession?!" Another Chaodu exclaimed in surprise. "I heard a rumor that ghostly soldiers appeared in Jinxiu City that night to welcome a bride. I thought the ghostly soldiers were real or just a fake wedding procession. Even if it was a wedding procession, why would they appear in Jinxiu City at this exact moment?"
Chao Du drew his sword and sneered, "Yes, what a coincidence! Who in the city has the Ghost King taken a fancy to, and why does he have to come to marry him tonight? And instead of marrying a bride, he has turned the entire Brocade City into a ghost town! By the way, look at that sedan chair."
Chao Du tapped her eyes, helping her activate her spiritual vision: "Look, the newly deceased souls around are all being sucked into the sedan chair. This isn't a wedding sedan chair at all; it looks more like a magical artifact for absorbing and refining souls!"
Another Chaodu realized, "He's using the pretext of marriage to send ghost soldiers to collect new souls... Is it to gain power and become stronger? I've heard that ghost cultivators cultivate by devouring their own kind."
"Yes," Chao Du sneered, "The Ghost King has quite the appetite, actually wanting to devour the million souls of this entire city."
Another Chao Du sighed, "But he succeeded. Since then, the previously unknown Ghost King has become much stronger and a formidable opponent of the Immortal Alliance."
"Huh? He didn't succeed on my end." Asakawa was surprised.
The two looked at each other in surprise. At this moment, two groups of ghost soldiers had arrived not far in front of them. The "general" in charge stopped his warhorse, the sedan chair was lowered, and then two ghost soldiers rode their horses and thrust their spears at the two of them!
Chao Du held his sword and swung it lightly, as if drawing an eyebrow. The sword energy easily pierced through the armor of the Yin soldiers and warhorses, as if cutting two pieces of tofu.
As the sword energy was unleashed and two ghost soldiers fell, the ghost soldiers' ranks stirred. The warhorses neighed incessantly, and some tried to turn back several times, only to be pulled back by the ghost soldiers' reins.
“They’re also afraid of your power; you’re truly their nemesis…” Another Asakawa suddenly clutched his forehead, frowned, and his voice trembled slightly. “My head hurts a little, and I feel a bit dizzy. Do you feel that way?”
"It's that sedan chair trying to suck our souls away. I'm alright." Chao Du stood with his sword across the space between the two of them and the sedan chair, forming a barrier with his sword energy. He then held one of her hands with his other hand to help stabilize her soul.
"Are you feeling better?" Asaka asked with concern.
"Much better..." The other Chao Du relaxed his brow and let out a long breath. "By the way, you just said that the Ghost King didn't succeed on your side? Why? Could it be... that you did something?"
Chao Du glanced at her and could vaguely sense that her heartbeat was somewhat chaotic. Moreover, the fact that she had almost developed a crack in her Dao Heart just now made Chao Du a little worried. Chao Du changed the subject first and said, "Let's deal with the immediate problem first. Do you want to see what's in the sedan chair?"
Another person nodded in agreement: "Yes, ah! They're charging at us! They're trying to surround us?!"
The towering ghost soldiers spurred their warhorses, surrounding the two Chaodu warriors from both sides. Then, they raised their bronze spears in unison and, amidst the thunderous sound of their hooves, thrust them at the two men in the center.
Asaka grabbed the waist of his other self, and with her gasp, lifted her into the air, then gripped the hilt of his sword and thrust it downwards.
Countless bolts of lightning bloomed from the tip of the sword like lotus flowers, enveloping the entire army of ghost soldiers.
The next instant, the ghostly soldiers let out inhuman roars and turned into wisps of bloody smoke that drifted out from their armor.
In the blink of an eye, all that remained on the ground were bronze armor and weapons, and that wedding sedan chair.
Chao Du landed smoothly with his other self, and then unleashed a sword light, slicing the bridal sedan chair in half horizontally from near the top.
The curtain of the bridal sedan chair suddenly fell, revealing the figure sitting inside. At the same time, a gray mist emerged from the sedan chair and fled in the opposite direction from Chao Du. Chao Du slashed at the gray mist with his sword, and with a scream, the thing split in two and fell to the ground.
Chao Du didn't rush to check what was fleeing. He first looked at the person sitting in the sedan chair: it was a woman with a deathly pale face, black eyes, and striking scarlet lips and cheeks, so vivid that it looked like it was painted with blood. There was a hole the size of an iron pot torn in her abdomen. Judging from the roughness of the edges, it should be made of paper, and several layers of it, with remnants of a hidden array of energy.
Chao Du laughed in exasperation: "It's amazing that the Ghost King even thought of putting up a paper bride to fool people."
Another Chao Du laughed speechlessly: "Is he really going to marry this person? By the way, the one that absorbs and refines souls is the thing inside the paper doll's stomach, the one that escaped just now?"
Asakawa nodded: "It should be. Let's go take a look."
The two went around to the back of the bridal sedan chair and saw a lifeless ghost baby lying on the ground not far away.
Chao Du's gaze was icy: "The Ghost King probably wants to gather all the souls of the dead in the city to refine a ghost infant, and then devour the ghost infant to increase his cultivation."
Another Chao Du said bitterly, "The cultivation methods of ghost cultivators are truly insidious."
Chao Du: "Yes, this is definitely not the right path to immortality."
"So, how did you solve these things back then?" Another Asahi suddenly brought the topic back, looking at Asahi with curiosity.
Chao Du didn't answer, but observed her condition first. Seeing that her emotions and state of mind were relatively stable at the moment, and being urged by her, he said helplessly, "Actually, it was also borrowed from the power of heavenly lightning. Such evil things are extremely afraid of heavenly lightning."
"You could use the power of heavenly lightning back then?" Another Chaodu asked in surprise, then shook his head and said sharply, "No, you said you didn't have that power when you were exorcising the demon serpent."
Chao Du sensed the doubt in her gaze and sighed softly, "It really was borrowed from heavenly lightning, but it's different from now. Back then, it was borrowed at the cost of one's life."
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