Chapter 539: Zhang Nanqiu’s Fall, Duan Changjing’s Fear
At that moment, Wei Tu also sensed the danger Madam Jin was facing.
Without hesitation, he used the Curse Ghost Blood Escape and rushed out. Just before Madam Jin was about to perish, he narrowly saved her life.
…
After hearing Wei Tu’s explanation, Madam Jin’s face showed deep shock. She knew well how highly the upper ranks of the Hehuan Sect valued the Joyous Nuo Mask.
It wasn’t hard to guess that Wei Tu had not obtained this treasure in any legitimate way.
Most likely, he had slain a Hehuan Sect cultivator who possessed it and then taken the treasure for himself.
“When we’re safe, I’ll teach you the Filthy Blood Coffin.”
Composing herself, Madam Jin smiled softly and made the promise.
At this point, the only thing she could use to bind Wei Tu closer, and the only treasure worthy of him, was the supreme demonic art passed down in her Jin family.
Besides, Wei Tu was now her son-in-law in name and in truth. If she didn’t pass this art to him, then to whom?
“This secret art—your master doesn’t know it either.”
She added these words.
Hearing this unexpected statement, Wei Tu was surprised, but still bowed in thanks, his face bright with joy.
He had seen clearly, during her battle against Duan Changjing and Zhang Nanqiu, just how valuable this Jin family art was.
It might not match Ancestor Chilong’s Nine Secrets of Vitality, but it was not far behind.
If he could master it, it would greatly strengthen him in future battles.
…
With that said, Wei Tu wasted no time. His light flashed, and he returned to the battlefield.
“Though I don’t know why this brat gave up refining the Golden Ghost Bone Palanquin with Wang Sutai, for safety’s sake we should break the formation within half a day and seize Madam Jin and her daughter…”
Duan Changjing’s smile faded as he looked at Zhang Nanqiu, secretly sending his thoughts.
“This one can’t be underestimated.”
Zhang Nanqiu nodded in agreement.
Though Wei Tu no longer posed as the Liu Yu Daoist, it wasn’t hard to guess. He was very likely the same mysterious cultivator who had ambushed Qi Chengchu half a year ago.
That clash had been short, but Zhang Nanqiu had already seen through Wei Tu’s cunning.
Soon the two men settled on a plan.
Duan Changjing would hold Wei Tu at bay.
Zhang Nanqiu would take the chance to break through the underground palace formation and capture Madam Jin and Wang Sutai.
After all, their true goal was not Wei Tu’s life, but capturing Madam Jin and her daughter.
But—
Just as Zhang Nanqiu was about to move, his gaze caught a few purple beads.
“Fourth-rank talisman weapons?”
His heart lurched. He immediately tried to dodge.
Even if they were only low-grade fourth-rank, his fleshly body wasn’t like a body-refiner’s.
If they struck, he’d suffer serious injuries.
And at that moment, his divine sense caught Wei Tu suddenly moving.
His speed was terrifying, leaving afterimages in the air as he charged straight at Zhang Nanqiu.
“He’s targeting me?”
In an instant, Zhang Nanqiu saw through Wei Tu’s plan: pin him down, prevent him from breaking the formation.
Because unlike him, Duan Changjing had far fewer offensive methods. He could not shatter the formation within half a day.
Wei Tu had already probed out this detail during their siege of Madam Jin.
In an overwhelming battle, intelligence meant little.
But in a clash of equals, knowing the opponent’s weaknesses was everything.
Yet even knowing Wei Tu’s aim, Zhang Nanqiu couldn’t avoid it.
Wei Tu was simply too fast!
He even sealed off Zhang Nanqiu’s escape routes with the talisman weapons.
His speed, in that instant, surpassed even most late Nascent Soul cultivators.
But as Wei Tu closed in, Zhang Nanqiu did not show fear of close combat with a body-refiner.
Instead, his face twisted into a sneer.
He flipped his palm, detonating several Soul-Capturing Talismans while forming seals with his other hand, ready to feign death again just like when facing Madam Jin’s blood needle.
Boom! Boom!
A series of explosions rocked the air.
Wei Tu’s Golden Flame Beads and the Nascent Cores sealed in Zhang Nanqiu’s Soul-Capturing Talismans exploded together.
In the next breath—
Zhang Nanqiu’s corpse plummeted from the sky.
But a hundred feet away, a three-foot-tall, yellow-skinned dwarf with a missing arm—bearing Zhang Nanqiu’s face—stared in horror.
“How can this be?”
“How did he know my true body’s hiding place?”
This was his corpse-infant body. The outer shell was a corpse-refiner’s puppet, immune to destruction. His true self was hidden inside, like a Nascent Soul within a body.
That was why he hadn’t feared Madam Jin’s desperate counterattack or Wei Tu’s sudden assault.
But to his shock, Wei Tu’s strike had gone straight for his true body, ignoring the corpse shell completely.
If not for his desperate sacrifice of an arm and a last-second blood escape, he’d already be dead.
“It’s that spider!”
Steeling his mind, Zhang Nanqiu finally noticed.
On Wei Tu’s forehead was a green-eyed spider the size of a baby’s fist.
Wei Tu’s own eyes now mirrored it—gleaming green spider eyes.
‘Could it be… this spirit spider can see through my flesh and spot my true body? Or even see my soul itself?’
A shiver ran through him as he guessed the Ghost-Eyed Demon Spider’s unique divine ability.
“Since that’s the case…”
“Today, not only Madam Jin and her daughter must stay, but this Fu Daoist too will not leave alive.”
Greed surged in Zhang Nanqiu’s heart.
If the Ghost-Eyed Demon Spider could only pierce through flesh, that was just a minor trick. But if—just as he suspected—it could pierce through to the soul, then its value was immeasurable.
At the smallest scale, it could shake the foundations of the Soul-Capturing Sect. At the largest, it could even become his weapon to slay his own master.
“Duan Changjing, you go break the formation. I’ll handle Fu Daoist.”
He sent his voice across, halting Duan Changjing, who had been ready to strike at Wei Tu.
“The Heavenly Ghost Soul Seed cannot be lost,” he reminded.
“As for Fu Daoist—he alone is mine to deal with.” Zhang Nanqiu spoke calmly.
With that, he formed a seal and split off a copy of himself. Another yellow-skinned dwarf identical to his true body appeared, encircling Wei Tu in the center of the battlefield.
Then both his true body and his clone drew out a Transformation Spirit Talisman and slapped them on.
In the next breath, his true body became a massive ghostly beast, over ten zhang tall, with a green face, tusks, two horns on its head, and blood-red bat wings at its back.
Meanwhile, his clone turned into a trident-shaped artifact, which his ghostly form gripped in reverse, radiating terrifying fluctuations.
“Transformation Spirit Talisman? One body, two Nascent Souls?”
“It can even be used like this?”
Wei Tu’s brow rose slightly. He thought to himself that Zhang Nanqiu was truly formidable. Even during his fierce clash with Madam Jin, he hadn’t revealed this trump card.
Earlier, Wei Tu regretted not killing him outright. But seeing this now, there was no regret at all.
Swoosh!
As Wei Tu studied the bloody bat ghost’s moves, Zhang Nanqiu flapped his wings. Blue flames roared to life around him, and he dived at Wei Tu with incredible speed.
But Wei Tu didn’t meet this strike head-on with his body. His eyes narrowed, and he unfurled the Soul-Refining Banner, shaking it hard.
At once, a host of wailing ghosts surged from the banner, circling Wei Tu to block the savage assault.
Among them was the Five-Element Infant, which Wei Tu had refined earlier. Acting as the banner’s main soul, with mid-Nascent Soul strength, it unleashed one intricate five-element technique after another.
With such aid, even Zhang Nanqiu’s ghost form couldn’t touch Wei Tu.
“A high-grade fourth-rank Soul-Refining Banner?”
Zhang Nanqiu’s heart clenched. He hadn’t expected Wei Tu’s methods to be even more abundant than Madam Jin’s. They seemed endless.
The Transformation Spirit Talisman could let him borrow the powers of the dead, but its flaw was that it didn’t last long.
The banner’s ghosts, though weaker than him, were excellent at obstructing and draining strength. A perfect tool for delay.
And with Wei Tu himself, a peerless opponent, watching for a chance to strike…
“At this point, I can’t afford to hold back!”
Resolute, Zhang Nanqiu let out a roar. The blue flames cloaking his ghost body flared into blood-red fire, empowering the trident in his grip.
With a few sweeping strikes, he destroyed several Nascent Soul-level ghosts, leaving only the Five-Element Infant and two other powerful shades.
“Go!”
He suddenly hurled the trident.
It streaked past the Five-Element Infant’s defenses and appeared before Wei Tu in an instant.
The trident morphed into a black-and-white ring, dropping toward Wei Tu to bind him.
Seeing this, Zhang Nanqiu’s lips curled into a confident smile.
Unlike Qi Chengchu’s Five-Element Infant, his Two-Forms Infant was stronger. It was his master Ancestor Tianxie’s greatest creation.
It wasn’t skilled in the five elements, but once it became the Two-Forms Ring, it could bind another’s Nascent Soul.
As long as Wei Tu wasn’t above late Nascent Soul, once caught, he’d be trapped.
But then, something bizarre happened.
No matter how it tried, the Two-Forms Ring couldn’t descend. It hung frozen above Wei Tu, locked in place.
“Yuan Gravity Light!”
Zhang Nanqiu’s face turned ashen as he noticed the dense gray radiance swirling around Wei Tu.
That gray light had erupted from Wei Tu’s body first, binding the ring in midair.
The Soul-Refining Banner shook once more, and in a flash, the Two-Forms Infant was sucked inside, vanishing completely.
“Pfft!”
Zhang Nanqiu’s second Nascent Soul was gone. His spirit reeled, his throat burned, and he spat a mouthful of blood.
“Who is this boy?”
“Not only dual cultivator of body and qi, but he also commands so many advanced methods?”
Terror crept into his heart. He no longer dared fight. Quickly, he began forming seals to retreat.
But just then—
A jade hook appeared behind him, turning into a shimmering violet fishing net that swept down.
Above it, a dragon-marked bowl spilled red light, sealing off hundreds of feet of space.
“He wants to trap me?”
For the first time, true fear surged in Zhang Nanqiu. This was real, mortal danger.
He tore off the Transformation Spirit Talisman, ripped away another arm, and tried to blood-escape like before.
Too late.
The violet net and the dragon bowl’s barrier dropped as his seal formed.
He crashed headlong into them. The blood escape broke, his wounds worsened.
In the next instant, Wei Tu charged from a hundred feet away, fist aimed straight at Zhang Nanqiu’s dantian.
But Zhang Nanqiu wasn’t finished yet.
The moment he saw Wei Tu rushing in, he quickly formed a seal and retreated to the other side, avoiding close combat with this body cultivator.
“Damn it! If I hadn’t wasted so much qi and secret arts dealing with Madam Jin, I wouldn’t be so helpless against this Fu Daoist…”
His face darkened as he dodged Wei Tu’s strikes, mind racing for a way to escape.
But once trapped in the net, he was already a step behind.
Before long, Wei Tu’s web of Yuan Gravity Light sealed off his path completely.
“Fu Daoist, stop!”
“I admit defeat!”
At the brink of death, Zhang Nanqiu ground his teeth and shouted.
Wei Tu didn’t hesitate. He closed the gap in a flash, drove his fist into Zhang Nanqiu’s abdomen, and ripped out the blood-soaked miniature Nascent Soul from his dantian.
Then—
Crunch! He crushed it.
In an instant, Zhang Nanqiu was dead, his body falling limp.
“If you want your Nascent Soul to self-detonate, you’ll have to get past my eyes first.”
Wei Tu sneered, his spider-pupils fading away. He turned slowly, eyes locking on Duan Changjing, who had abandoned attacking the formation and was flying toward the battlefield.
From Zhang Nanqiu’s transformation into the blood bat ghost to his death, only ten breaths had passed.
And from the moment he fell behind to the final blow, it had been no more than a breath or two.
So fast that Wei Tu killed him before Duan Changjing had time to react.
Who could have thought that Zhang Nanqiu, so dominant moments ago, would suddenly be a corpse?
“This boy… this boy…”
Duan Changjing froze in midair. Across the distance, his eyes met Wei Tu’s. His hand, gripping the hilt at his waist, trembled slightly.
The death of a fellow stirs dread in the living.
Though they hadn’t been close, Duan Changjing knew Zhang Nanqiu was his equal in strength.
They were evenly matched.
Now Wei Tu had slain Zhang Nanqiu so easily. Didn’t that mean he could kill him too?
Of course, he also knew Wei Tu’s success was due in part to Madam Jin. She had burned her cultivation and worn down both him and Zhang Nanqiu.
Wei Tu had finished off a weakened opponent, not one in his prime.
There was luck involved.
After this fight, Wei Tu’s state was no doubt weakened as well—possibly even worse off than his own.
But…
Duan Changjing didn’t want to gamble. He didn’t dare.
He wasn’t ready to die here.
And he had no confidence in either killing Wei Tu or breaking the underground palace’s formation within half a day.
“Retreat!”
Resolute, he gave Wei Tu one last glance, then fled at full speed without looking back.
Wei Tu didn’t chase. He simply watched as Duan Changjing vanished into the distance.
“Fellow Daoist Wei, didn’t I tell you? My senior brother has no guts. Once you killed Zhang Nanqiu, he wouldn’t dare touch you.”
Ancestor Chilong’s voice echoed in Wei Tu’s mind.
Back in the Myriad Yin Sect, Duan Changjing had been more favored by their master, but it was Chilong who became sect master and surpassed him in cultivation.
The reason was simple: compared to him, Duan Changjing lacked the courage to stake his life.
That might not matter in ordinary days, but in crucial moments, it determined fate.
Like now.
If Duan Changjing had dared to strike Wei Tu, he might have forced him back and saved Madam Jin and her daughter.
But instead—
At Chilong’s words, Wei Tu’s mouth bled, his body shriveled like old bark, his aura collapsing.
“You’re right,” Wei Tu said with a faint smile, tossing a handful of pills into his mouth to restore the blood and essence drained by the Nine Secrets of Life Seizing.
“This Duan Changjing really is worthless.”
His plan had always been clear: kill Zhang Nanqiu first, then deal with Duan Changjing.
Not only because Duan Changjing lacked a way to break the underground formation, but because Wei Tu had gambled on his cowardice.
Not everyone has the courage to fight to the death.
If Duan Changjing had it, he wouldn’t have hidden in the sect all these years, too afraid to confront Ancestor Chilong.
This time, Wei Tu won the gamble. Duan Changjing lost.
…
Elsewhere—
Outside the Myriad Yin Sect, Ancestor Tianxie’s face suddenly darkened.
“Zhang’er… is dead?”
He looked toward the faraway battlefield, millions of li away.
The Five-Element Infant and the Two-Forms Infant were both crafted by his hand. He had a special link to them.
Though he couldn’t sense Wei Tu’s exact location from across a kingdom, he could sense life and death.
“What? Senior Brother Zhang is dead?”
Gong Shulan, standing nearby, was stunned. Zhang Nanqiu had been the strongest under Scorpio himself—one of the top experts in the entire cultivation world of Great Cang.
To kill him… what kind of terrifying person could do that?
“It seems that Chilong… isn’t dead after all.”
Ancestor Tianxie shook his head, making his judgment.
It contradicted his earlier assumptions, but given the outcome, it was the only explanation.