Chapter 29: Ten Breaths

“Tu Lian!”

A roar burst from Sun Buping as he shot forward.

Luo Zhao’s face changed drastically.

“Daoist Sun, come back!”

He had no idea what was happening, how this man, usually so quiet and reserved, had suddenly gone mad.

Even if Sun Buping was at Perfect Qi Refinement, trying to clash head-on with a mid-Building Foundation corpse puppet was nothing but a fool’s errand.

Without him, the few of them, already at a disadvantage, would have even less chance against these Building Foundation corpse puppets.

But Sun Buping wasn’t listening.

A short blade had appeared in his hand at some point.

His Perfect Qi Refinement spiritual power exploded outward, stomping a deep crater into the muddy ground beneath him.

The short blade flashed with a dark green light as the first strike slashed toward Tu Lian’s neck.

Clang!

The blade struck the corpse puppet’s flesh, sending a shower of sparks flying.

Sun Buping’s wrist went numb from the impact.

Tu Lian merely tilted its head.

The short blade left only a shallow white mark on its neck.

Sun Buping pressed in close, his shoulder slamming into Tu Lian’s chest.

He reversed his grip on the blade and drove the second strike straight at the corpse puppet’s eye socket.

Tu Lian raised its hand, blocking the blade, and swung a palm strike at Sun Buping’s waist.

The blade tip sank half an inch into its palm before getting caught on the talisman nails beneath the flesh.

Sun Buping rolled aside to dodge, veins bulging on his arm as the short blade scraped across the corpse puppet’s hand, throwing off sparks like iron striking stone.

“Look at me! Do you know who I am!”

Tu Lian’s murky eyes stirred slightly.

The next instant, its other hand swept across.

The movement wasn’t fast, but it kicked up a gust of wind.

Sun Buping only had time to twist his body, and the blow landed squarely on his shoulder.

Boom!

Bones cracked with a dull thud.

He was sent flying by that single palm strike, slamming into the wooden post by the medicine shed.

The post, as thick as a bowl, snapped clean in half.

A corner of the shed roof collapsed, burying him under a shower of hay and dust.

It took a long moment before Sun Buping crawled out from the scattered pile of wood.

His right arm hung limp at his side.

He spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes still locked onto Tu Lian.

Mid-Building Foundation.

Just one palm strike.

And his entire body, at Perfect Qi Refinement, had already lost strength on one side.

Tu Lian, however, hadn’t even moved from where it stood.

The intense pain made his vision go dark.

But that pain actually snapped him back to clarity for half a breath, pulling him from the overwhelming tide of hatred.

Sun Buping gritted his teeth and forcibly propped his broken right arm back against his side.

He knew he couldn’t win.

Let alone kill Tu Lian, he couldn’t even get close right now.

But he had searched for so many years, not to bow his head and retreat before his enemy.

Sun Buping stared at Tu Lian’s murky eyes and suddenly bared his teeth in a grin.

“Sun Family Village.”

His mouth was full of blood, and his smile was uglier than crying.

“Do you remember?”

Tu Lian showed no reaction.

Sun Buping shuffled forward a step, his voice hoarse.

“You held my father’s head down and chopped through his neck, cut by cut.”

A sound rumbled from Tu Lian’s throat, like iron scraping against stone.

“Sun… family?”

The short blade dragged a trail of blood across the ground as he walked step by step toward Tu Lian.

“You said my mother was fertile, that she’d sell for a good price.”

Tu Lian stared at him, slow and dull.

In its murky eyes, a cruel smile slowly began to form.

“The brat behind the water vat.”

It had finally remembered.

“So… you’re still alive.”

At that, Sun Buping’s footsteps stopped.

Tu Lian let out two dry laughs.

“That night, I killed cleanly.”

“Over a hundred from the Sun family, I counted them all myself.”

“How did I miss… you?”

The expression on Sun Buping’s face completely changed.

He lunged forward, throwing all caution to the wind.

Tu Lian slammed a fist down.

Sun Buping didn’t dodge.

He took the punch head-on.

A dull thud echoed from his chest.

His whole body sank, but in that instant of closeness, he pressed a yellow talisman between the talisman nails on Tu Lian’s chest.

“Explode!”

Flames erupted against the corpse puppet’s chest.

Tu Lian was blasted back half a step.

Sun Buping was also thrown back by the shockwave, his chest robes torn to shreds, blood dripping from his chin onto the muddy ground.

This time, a crack finally split open across Tu Lian’s chest.

But no blood came from the wound.

Only a dense web of black threads and talisman nails, trembling constantly within the bone crevices.

The torn flesh quickly pulled itself back together.

Tu Lian glanced down at itself.

“Qi Refinement.”

It raised its head, and a mocking expression actually appeared on its stiff, dead face.

“You. Are too weak.”

“Enough talk! Die!”

On the other side, three early-Building Foundation corpse puppets had already surrounded Luo Zhao and Liu Manqing.

Luo Zhao retreated several steps, his back to the carriage.

Liu Manqing grabbed his sleeve and said in a low voice, “Don’t get close to the carriage! The formation is underneath!”

Luo Zhao finally snapped back to attention and hastily dodged to the side.

The next instant, a corpse puppet slammed into the carriage shaft.

With a thunderous crash, half the carriage frame shattered into pieces, spiritual herbs and wood splinters flying everywhere.

Luo Zhao was splattered with mud, and the talismans in his hand nearly slipped away.

“Damn it!”

He hurled a fire talisman.

Flames rolled toward the leading corpse puppet.

Liu Manqing seized the moment to lash out with her soft sword.

The blade wrapped around the corpse puppet’s knee, and she pulled with her spiritual power, trying to trip it.

But the corpse puppet’s knee only hesitated for a moment.

Then it stamped down.

The soft sword was pressed into the mud, the blade bending almost to the breaking point.

Liu Manqing’s wrist went numb, and she was dragged forward half a step.

Seeing this, Luo Zhao hurled another lightning talisman.

Blue-white lightning exploded against the corpse puppet’s face.

The thing’s head was knocked askew, the coarse cloth on its face burned to ash, revealing the gray-white skin covered in talisman nails.

It didn’t fall.

It didn’t even stop for long.

The other two corpse puppets had already circled around from both sides.

They weren’t fast.

But every step they took made the mud sink with a dull thud.

Luo Zhao and Liu Manqing were forced to retreat toward the medicine shed.

Behind them was a wooden rack stacked with medicine baskets, to the left was the shattered carriage, and to the right was the blood-refining formation still glowing beneath the vehicle.

The space to retreat was shrinking fast.

“Bastards!”

Luo Zhao yanked out several talismans at once, not even bothering to tell them apart, and hurled them all out.

Firelight, lightning, and binding spirit-gold threads exploded simultaneously beneath the medicine shed.

The bursting flames licked up the corpse puppet’s lower body, blue-white lightning struck its shoulder and back, and several golden threads wrapped around its limbs.

The area beneath the shed lit up in a blinding glare, spiritual herbs scattered everywhere from the shockwave.

Luo Zhao didn’t even have time to see which talisman worked before he dragged Liu Manqing back.

But the corpse puppet kept moving forward.

The fire burned away the coarse cloth on its body, the lightning charred half of its gray-white face, and the binding golden threads were pulled taut as it dragged them step by step.

The next moment, the threads snapped.

The corpse puppet walked out from the fire and lightning, its steps not even slightly slowed.

The talisman paper burned to ash, coating Luo Zhao’s sleeves.

His sleeves were soon empty.

Liu Manqing’s soft sword had been chipped as well.

She took a palm strike to the shoulder and crashed into a stack of medicine baskets.

The baskets toppled, spilling half-dried spiritual herbs all over her.

Luo Zhao tried to reach her, but a corpse puppet had already raised its hand to grab him.

He gritted his teeth, pulled out his last jade talisman, and crushed it with all his might.

A pale yellow barrier expanded, blocking the corpse puppet’s hand outside.

Thud!

The corpse puppet slammed its palm down.

The barrier shook violently, and a fine crack split across the jade talisman.

Luo Zhao’s face went pale.

This jade talisman was a life-saving treasure given by an elder of his family, said to be able to withstand a single strike from a Building Foundation cultivator.

But this corpse puppet in front of him wasn’t even channeling spiritual power.

It had just casually slapped down, and the barrier had nearly shattered.

No pain, and its flesh was tempered harder than a demon beast’s.

How were they supposed to fight this!

Liu Manqing climbed up from the collapsed baskets, blood smeared at the corner of her lips.

She looked at the three corpse puppets, then at the blood-refining formation beneath the carriage.

They couldn’t drag this out any longer.

If they kept stalling, everyone would be ground down to death right here.

“Daoist Luo.”

She pulled a small bronze bell from her sleeve.

The bell was ancient, with several cracks along its edges, clearly not something to be used lightly.

“Hold them off for ten breaths.”

Luo Zhao saw the bronze bell and felt a thread of hope.

“What is that?”

“My protective artifact. A top-grade magic treasure.”

Liu Manqing took a ragged breath.

“Once I activate it, it can shield us for a while. With this much commotion, if any cultivators are nearby, they’ll notice. Then we’ll have our chance.”

Every cultivator had some life-saving trick up their sleeve.

There was nothing strange about that.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through Luo Zhao’s mind, the words he’d said earlier about the feng shui of the Qingwu Medicine Garden.

The terrain here concealed the wind on three sides, and the water vapor never dispersed.

If even the medicinal qi could be suppressed within the fields, could demonic qi really dissipate outward?

And with four Building Foundation corpse puppets, including a mid-stage one…

Who could they even wait for?

Thud!

The corpse puppet slammed another palm strike against the barrier, and the jade talisman shattered into powder.

Luo Zhao snapped back to attention and hastily retreated.

“Fine!”

He gritted his teeth, pulling out his last two talismans from his waist.

“Ten breaths!”

Liu Manqing closed her eyes, pouring her spiritual power desperately into the bronze bell.

Luo Zhao hurled a lightning talisman at the corpse puppet on the left and a fire talisman at the one on the right.

Fire and lightning exploded at the same time.

The two corpse puppets halted for a moment.

But the one in the middle charged straight through the shockwave.

“You mother—!”

Luo Zhao’s eyes were bloodshot.

“You still won’t back off?!”

He spun around, grabbing a nearby carriage shaft, and swung it with spiritual power into the corpse puppet’s shoulder.

The shaft snapped on impact.

The corpse puppet swung its arm and sent him flying.

Luo Zhao tumbled a dozen meters across the ground, covered in bloody scrapes.

When he got up, he was a complete mess.

“One breath…”

Liu Manqing counted quietly.

The bronze bell finally began to emit a faint glow.

The corpse puppet closed in again.

Luo Zhao bit his fingertip and wiped it across the jade token at his waist.

A wisp of spiritual light flew out from the token, condensing into a green magic sword in his palm.

“I don’t believe this!”

He gripped the hilt and charged forward, steeling himself.

“Two breaths!”

Luo Zhao blocked another palm strike.

He was sent staggering back three steps, his tiger’s mouth split open.

“Three breaths!”

Another corpse puppet rammed in from the side.

Luo Zhao couldn’t dodge in time.

His shoulder twisted, and half his body went numb.

“Four breaths…”

Liu Manqing’s voice was already strained.

The faint glow from the bronze bell finally spread outward, condensing into a shallow light barrier in front of her.

But the barrier wasn’t even fully formed.

Luo Zhao saw all three corpse puppets turn toward him at once.

In that instant, his mind went completely blank.

His artifacts and talismans were all used up.

He couldn’t hold them off.

He really couldn’t hold them off.

Luo Zhao’s throat tightened, a ringing in his ears.

He suddenly remembered how his elder brother had smiled before he left, glad that he was finally willing to do something useful.

His mother had stuffed several life-saving talismans into his spirit storage bag, telling him to keep himself alive if he ever ran into danger.

But now… none of it was left.

Three corpse puppets stood right in front of him, faces twisted and vicious.

In that moment, he could even smell the cold sweat on his own body.

He was going to die here.

Liu Manqing shouted, “Daoist Luo!”

Luo Zhao glanced at her.

And saw the light barrier that still wasn’t fully opened.

He knew that if he could just hold out a few more breaths, maybe he could make it inside.

But those few breaths would cost him his life.

The corpse puppet’s palm was already in front of his face.

Luo Zhao suddenly rolled to the side, tumbling toward the open path outside the medicine shed.

Liu Manqing’s face changed.

“Luo Zhao!”

He didn’t look back.

He scrambled to his feet and staggered outward, not even caring that his outer robe was torn by wooden splinters.

“I’ll go find help! Hold on!”

He shouted.

His voice was shaking.

He didn’t know if he was saying it for Liu Manqing’s sake, or for his own.

With the outer cover gone, the bronze bell’s light barrier was struck by a corpse puppet’s palm before it could fully close.

Clang.

The bell let out a faint ring.

Liu Manqing let out a muffled groan, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth as she hurriedly contracted the barrier.

She had been fast.

But the corpse puppet on the left was faster.

It slipped through the gap Luo Zhao had left open, its gray-white hand passing through the still-unsealed barrier.

Five fingers pressed together like an iron spike, stabbing straight at Liu Manqing.

She only had time to dodge half an inch.

Pfft.

The gray-white hand punched through her chest.

She froze in place, as if she still didn’t understand what had happened.

The bronze bell slipped from her fingers and rolled into the blood-soaked mud.

It let out one soft, final chime.