The Decaying World

"But those are specters, ghosts... Master..." Wu Anning said worriedly.

"It’s fine. Whatever they are, if someone else can deal with them, why can’t we?" Lin Hui said calmly.

Wu Anning looked a little more composed, but her eyes still betrayed her concern.

"But..."

"Have the Rough Martial Artists stay. Send everyone else home," Lin Hui instructed.

’Based on the earlier conversation between those three, tonight might be my first real chance to see the deeper layers of this world. To avoid harming any innocents, it’s best to send the Elite Martial Artists home.’

"Yes..." Wu Anning nodded and quickly left to make the arrangements.

Soon, night fell.

The night watchman, beating his gong, passed by outside the walls.

Lin Hui and Xie Tie Niu stood together, guarding the body of the latter’s father, waiting for whatever change the night would bring.

This was Lin Hui’s first true contact with a mystical power other than a Mutant Body, right from the very beginning of an incident.

「Meanwhile, in a simple, deserted courtyard less than a hundred meters from the sword dojo.」

Brother Hao, Zhu Xiang, and Dai Yunhua had long since completed their preparations.

Several police officers guarded the courtyard gate to prevent any disturbances inside.

Zhu Xiang stood before an altar table covered with a dark red silk cloth. Holding a Wooden Sword, he chanted an incantation while performing a set of Swordsmanship, moving like a shaman in a ritual dance.

The Swordsmanship was languid, lacking any speed or power, yet it possessed a strange, ritualistic quality.

As time passed, Zhu Xiang stopped. He took some hair, fingernails, and blood from Xie Tie Niu’s father out of a small cloth pouch and mixed them into a small bowl of black mud on the altar.

After stirring it evenly, he lit the black mud with a candle flame, watching as it burned and emitted black smoke.

Immediately after, he took out a talisman with white characters on a black background and lit it with the same flame.

"Watch out! It’s coming!"

he suddenly shouted.

Just then, the sound of the night watchman passed by outside. It was exactly midnight.

Brother Hao and Dai Yunhua quickly retreated to the wall, each clutching a yellow talisman, and stared nervously toward the altar.

WHOOSH...

Gusts of cold, sinister wind began to blow. The doors and windows of the dilapidated courtyard started swinging open and shut, rattling loudly.

Leaves fluttered down and branches swayed. The moonlight was slowly obscured by a black cloud, plunging the courtyard into darkness.

WHOOSH.

The next instant, a grayish-white shadow suddenly burst in from the gate and shot toward Zhu Xiang at the altar.

"It’s here!" Zhu Xiang, holding the Wooden Sword, grabbed the small bowl of black mud with his other hand and hurled its contents at the entity.

SPLAT.

The flaming black mud struck the gray shadow, instantly triggering a piercing shriek. At the same time, countless purple tentacles flashed and vanished around the gray shadow; it seemed to have been forcibly torn from that network of purple tentacles by the mud.

"Now! Everyone, move!!" Zhu Xiang roared.

Hearing the command, Dai Yunhua and Brother Hao immediately threw their talismans at the gray shadow.

The next moment, the two talismans burst into flame without a source and flew automatically onto the gray shadow.

"I beseech the presence of the Netherworld General on duty!" Zhu Xiang shouted.

Following his cry, a blurry, purplish-black humanoid figure materialized before him.

The figure wore a full suit of black armor and held a black halberd, its eyes glowing with a piercing red light.

As soon as it stabilized, it lunged toward the gray shadow.

The two clashed. One wielded its weapon with wide, powerful swings, while the other pounced and bit like a wild beast. After a few rounds of intense fighting, the Netherworld General sliced the gray shadow in two with its halberd. It gave a cold snort, glanced back at Zhu Xiang, and then slowly dissipated.

"Good! The specter hasn’t disappeared yet. Move, according to the plan!"

Zhu Xiang shouted.

Brother Hao immediately understood. He threw open the courtyard gate, allowing the specter, now split in two, to escape.

Drawn by the blood connection, the specter headed unerringly straight for the Pine Wind Sword Dojo.

The three of them followed close behind.

But as soon as they stepped outside, Zhu Xiang’s face changed drastically at the sight before him.

"Oh no!! A living corpse came with it!"

On the street, a grotesque figure, dark red all over as if its skin had been flayed, was sprinting toward them from a distance with incredible speed.

Due to a miscalculation, all the countermeasures they had prepared were for the specter. They never expected the living corpse, which should have appeared the next day, to show up at the same time.

The living corpse immediately charged, its immense, superhuman strength sending Zhu Xiang flying. It then swatted aside a charging Dai Yunhua.

Finally, it charged through the bullets from Brother Hao’s gun and threw a punch at his head.

Brother Hao, terrified, stumbled backward and fell to the ground, which was the only reason his head wasn’t pulped. Still, he was drenched in a cold sweat, momentarily paralyzed with fear.

Fortunately, its target wasn’t him. Seeing him motionless, it turned and charged toward the Pine Wind Sword Dojo.

"Stop it!" Zhu Xiang cried, his heart racing with panic.

But at that moment, no one could stop the living corpse. They could only watch helplessly as it dropped to all fours like a cheetah and sped toward the dojo’s main gate in a bizarre posture.

Just then.

BOOM!!

With a deafening crash,

The dojo’s main gate was smashed to pieces from the inside, splinters flying everywhere.

A burly figure let out a low growl and roared as it charged at the living corpse.

CRASH!!!

The two slammed into each other, then were simultaneously thrown back by the tremendous force of the impact.

"It’s Wu Anning!!"

Dai Yunhua recognized the memorable little girl at a glance.

Yes, compared to their ages, Wu Anning could indeed only be considered a little girl.

But right now, this "little girl" in their eyes was roaring furiously, gripping her sword with both hands, and savagely pouncing on the living corpse.

BAM! BAM! BAM!!

After three thunderous blows, the living corpse raised its arms to block, but it was smashed so hard its legs sank deep into the muddy ground, trapping it. Wu Anning immediately followed up with a horizontal slash.

SWISH!

The silver gleam of her sword reflected the faint moonlight as it struck heavily against the living corpse’s waist.

SQUELCH.

The living corpse’s upper body flew off. Severed in two, it began to crawl frantically toward its other half.

Wu Anning advanced and began hacking wildly at the upper torso.

She wielded the heavy sword, as thick as a grown man’s arm, like a sledgehammer. Each strike made the ground tremble slightly.

The trio and the young police officer watched, their scalps tingling. They stood frozen, unsure how to react.

After a few breaths, Wu Anning stopped. She looked at the living corpse, now reduced to a pile of gore, and wiped the nervous sweat from her forehead.

"That scared me to death..."

Zhu Xiang stared at the twitching pile of flesh that was once the living corpse, his eyelids twitching. He didn’t know how to describe what he was seeing.

’Normally, a living corpse has at least three times the strength of an ordinary person. But this Wu Anning actually met it head-on and smashed it to a pulp. Her strength is simply...’

’Is this the source of the Pine Wind Sword Dojo’s confidence...?’

Nearby, Brother Hao, his mouth dry, scrambled up from the ground. He gripped his gun tightly but felt not the slightest bit of security.

"So? What do we do now?"

He suddenly realized something.

"Right, what about the specter!?"

Only then did everyone else realize that the severely wounded specter from before was now nowhere to be seen.

*

*

*

「Several kilometers from the sword dojo, in a gloomy bamboo forest.」

Purple tentacles flashed through the air. The next moment, a white-haired, stoic Daoist figure broke free from the purple network and landed gently.

The old Daoist’s eyes glowed red. He reached out and made a soft grasping motion.

Instantly, two streams of grayish-white smoke shot over from the distance. The smoke shrank in his palm, converging and condensing into a blurry humanoid shape—the very specter that had just attacked Brother Hao’s group.

"Tian Long the Daoist, you have broken the rules of the Netherworld. The Netherworld Generals will not spare you. Why not return with me? The Celestial Court is in chaos and the Netherworld is fractured. We rule our own territory, free and unfettered. Isn’t that a hundred times better than you fleeing alone?"

In the distance, a black sedan chair floated alone in mid-air. It had no bearers, just hovering in the darkness, a voice emanating from within.

"Many have broken the rules, not just me," the old Daoist’s voice was halting, dry and hoarse.

"Naive. You are completely different from those common folk. The blood characters you created allow you to absorb the substance of the Netherworld to rapidly strengthen yourself. This violates the rules of circulation between the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Man. Without protection, it won’t be long before the powers above dispatch Divine Generals to capture you," the person in the sedan chair sneered. "You’re only at the Human Immortal level of power now. What will you use to fight a Divine General?"

"It’s still better than being used by the likes of you," the Tian Long Daoist said coldly.

"Ridiculous. We break the rules, and you are just like us. How can you claim to be superior? Besides, the world is no longer the world it was thousands of years ago. Everything has long since mutated. We are merely seeking self-preservation," the person in the sedan chair continued.

"No matter what, I, Tian Long, will never become a demon!" the Tian Long Daoist stated icily.

"Stubbornly obtuse!" the person in the sedan chair said coldly. "If that’s your choice, then you can fend for yourself until your doom."

The sedan chair quickly faded and disappeared.

Leaving the Tian Long Daoist to look down at the specter in his hand.

’To think... it was countered again... It seems I’ll have to find a new place...’

He turned, about to leave.

Suddenly, his vision blurred.

More than ten meters in front of him, a grayish-white figure had appeared without a sound.

It was a burly, long-haired man, over two meters tall.

Under the moonlight, the man carried a slender, silver Longsword. His black hair was unbound, its ends drifting slightly to the left in the wind.

Despite his burly frame, the man’s aura at this moment had a strange, exquisite quality—as coolly beautiful as moonlight.

"I’m very curious." The man looked up, revealing a pair of deep eyes that held countless silver starlights.

"What are demons? And what are the Netherworld and the Celestial Court?"

"Who are you?" the Tian Long Daoist asked in a strained voice.

"When I ask a question, I don’t like it when people don’t answer." The man raised his sword and gave it a light shake. A subtle layer of wind radiated from the blade.

Tian Long fell silent, then opened his mouth.

THWIP.

The next instant, his tongue shot out of his mouth like a bullet, trailing a thin black line as it aimed for the center of the man’s brow.

But in the next moment, the tongue was silently severed. Excruciating pain shot through him.

Before the Tian Long Daoist could even process what had happened, his vision blurred again. The swordsman had vanished from in front of him.

The next second, he appeared at his side.

"When you’re slow enough, even a sneak attack looks like a joke."

The man’s voice came from right beside his ear.

SHLICK! SHLICK! SHLICK! SHLICK!!

Suddenly, dark red blossoms of blood erupted from Tian Long’s arms and legs.

His eyes flew wide. He wanted to resist, but his limbs were already powerless. He could only watch as his body fell limply to the ground.

Just as he was about to hit the ground, a large hand grabbed his white hair, lifted his body, and vanished abruptly into the bamboo forest.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!