hotmtlnovel Chapter 85: 85: Subduing Demons and Evil Spirits
Chapter 85: 85: Subduing Demons and Evil Spirits
zhang family.
the sky was bright and clear, yet gusts of chilly wind swept through relentlessly.
clang, clang, clang!
head constable yuan heng knocked on the door knocker several times, but there was silence within the courtyard.
"constable yuan, should we wait for the city patrol camp to arrive?" the speaking constable felt a chill down his spine.
this was already the third case in the city. a few days ago, the entire family of master li had hung themselves, except the newly taken concubine who was nowhere to be seen. no matter how the coroner examined the bodies, they concluded it was suicide.
the day before yesterday, in the south city, a large fat pig went mad, charging and ramming, biting and injuring more than a dozen people.
just this morning, someone heard screams of agony coming from the zhang family courtyard, prompting the neighbors to rush to the government office to report the incident.
"if we wait any longer, everyone in this family will be dead!"
yuan heng had a significant background and had received much news from his clan.
in just the span of half a month, xuzhou had become chaotic, with strange cases occurring frequently and entire families being wiped out. domestic animals, usually docile, suddenly became incredibly strong and wildly attacked their masters.
the imperial court's army had not yet arrived, and to stabilize the public sentiment, local authorities attributed all the cases to the evil deeds of demonic creatures from the martial world.
having said that, yuan heng churned his inner qi and blasted the gate open with a palm strike.
the standalone courtyard was not large, allowing one to take it all in at a glance.
it was deadly silent, icy cold, as if it had been uninhabited for a long time, completely lifeless!
yuan heng rested his hand on his waist blade. the message from his clan had informed him that a martial artist's inner qi was quite lethal to demons and evil spirits.
the constables hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and followed him inside.
"no one is in the side room."
"all the chickens in the cage are dead."
only the main room remained with its doors tightly shut. yuan heng was not a rash man; he looked for a pole in the courtyard and, from a distance, poked the room's door open.
as sunlight poured into the main room, what caught everyone's eyes were three cocoon-like entities, pale as snow.
the cocoons, three to four feet long, wrapped the corpses within, leaving only dry, withered heads exposed outside. each head had a fist-sized hole atop it, as if some demonic creature had sucked the people dry through their skulls.
the horrific scene terrified the constables, making them retreat hastily.
"this is... a spider's web!"
yuan heng's eyes drooped as he tried to step into the room, but before his foot touched the ground,
a mound suddenly rose from the floor, and a shadow burst forth, lunging straight for yuan heng's face.
"i've been waiting for you!"
a flash of blade light whizzed by, and with a piercing scream, the shadow fell to the ground, revealing its true form.
at the end of the year.
the imperial court dispatched an army of five hundred thousand to station in xuzhou, suppress the rebels, and clear out the monsters and demons.
...
one year later.
in the courtyard.
zhou yi dismantled the formation to avoid attracting the attention of the imperial court.
the concentration of spiritual energy within heng city was now sufficient for those in the qi refinement realm to stay without worrying about mana dissipation.
fifty thousand elite soldiers were stationed in the city, patrolling day and night, ready to besiege any monster or demon they found. they evacuated the civilians first, then drenched the area with oil and set it aflame, turning the nests of the ghouls to ashes.
few monsters could withstand the fierce fire, and even if they barely survived, there were martial arts experts in the military ready to cut them down.
as long as the people did not venture far from towns into the deep mountains and forests to seek death, their lives were generally safe.
the scattered villages throughout xuzhou's corners, either moved into the city or left to fate, could not be cared for by the imperial court's army.
"in just one year, the imperial court stabilized the situation in xuzhou. i underestimated the adaptive capabilities of mortals."
zhou yi secluded himself in heng city to cultivate, observing the soldiers exterminating monsters and demons several times from a distance. only once did he encounter a hundred-year-old corpse and suffered slight injuries; the rest were effortlessly killed.
that century-old corpse was already buried in land replete with yin sha and emerged as an iron corpse after being nourished by spiritual energy, its strength comparable to the mid-stage of qi refinement.
vajra indestructibility, with immense strength, it tore through the military formation, causing a bloodbath. just as zhou yi was about to take action to vanquish the demon, an expert in the military activated a thunder talisman that blasted the old corpse to ashes.
"a superior grade thunder talisman, i wonder if they have recruited a loose cultivator or established contact with the dan ding sect."
zhou yi did not investigate further, instead, he created a small medicinal garden in the courtyard and focused on farming and cultivation.
the garden's dimensions were modest, spanning only about three meters, within which he planted about a dozen spirit ginseng plants, the youngest being decades old, and the oldest having already reached over three hundred years.
after a year of experimentation, zhou yi gained a deeper understanding of the jade dew art.
"the so-called transformation of lifespan at eleven turns is only applicable to spirit medicines younger than a hundred years; beyond that, the conversion rate decreases significantly."
zhou yi was originally keen on cultivating millennia-old spiritual medicine for personal use, but the results were disappointing. in one year, he only cultivated a three-hundred-year-old spirit ginseng.
"this matter affects me only for the duration of the qi refinement realm; at foundation establishment, golden core, spending a few hundred years of lifespan to perform the jade dew art—even if the conversion is low, i can still achieve growth of a few years."
"secondly, the limit is also on the amount of mana. the more lifespan infused into creation dew, the more mana it consumes."
through repeated experiments, zhou yi found that spirit ginseng absorbed more than just lifespan, but also used mana as a substitute for the growth of spiritual energy, becoming part of the medicine's age.
"however, these limitations are not an issue for me. even if i only cast the spell once a day, it's only a matter of waiting a few more years. as long as the medicine's age continues to increase, even at a hundred-to-one or thousand-to-one conversion rate, i can accept it!"
thinking so, zhou yi pulled out a hundred-year-old spirit ginseng from the garden, sliced it thinly, threaded it, and grilled it over fire.
the adaptability of humans is truly remarkable. in just one year, zhou yi had figured out seven to eight ways to consume spirit ginseng, such as the currently grilling cumin-seasoned ginseng slices.
"alchemy must be made a priority now. no matter how many different ways i come up with, who could handle eating radishes for decades!"