Ye Chen frowned. This pair of green light beams were filled with viciousness and cruelty, they seemed extremely evil; besides, these green light beams also contained a special kind of power that could paralyse people, which made Ye Chen feel powerless. However, after all, he was someone that comprehended the sword intent, which was capable of resisting and eliminating all kinds of evils. He just snorted coldly and instantly cut off the connection between the green light and himself.
Boom!
The coffin lid suddenly flew into the air as a human silhouette stood up from the it.
“Cut!”
Ye Chen immediately made his move.
Clang!
Sparks flew out when he attacked the human-shaped creature’s body, a fierce move launched by Ye Chen couldn’t even hurt it a little bit.
The human-shaped creature then let out a shrill and resonant howl, it leapt into the air and swiftly darted towards Ye Chen; it simultaneously straightened its arms to resemble a pair of sharp blades and they swished in Ye Chen’s direction.
This room was dark and didn’t have any source of light. However, with Ye Chen’s powerful soul force, he could still grasp the body shape and the appearance of this human-shaped creature. He wouldn’t have been startled if he hadn’t done so, because he found that this thing was in no way close to a human being. Clearly, it was a dark coloured zombie, with a dry and wrinkled body, it had a metal-like lustre, and a pair of green, shining eyes, which didn’t contain even the slightest trace of human emotions. All that remained in that pair of eyes was evilness, cruelty, creepiness and the desire for fresh blood, you could find all kinds of evilness in those eyes.
The zombie seemed to be a bit inflexible, but it still moved swiftly. Ye Chen leaned his body to the side and he instantly moved more than ten meters back.
In the next moment, the thick and solid walls were pierced and torn apart by that pair of blade-like arms of the zombie. After that, the zombie turned its head around, and fixed its green glimmering eyes on Ye Chen’s face.
Ye Chen didn’t hesitate at all as he swung his sword down twice in a row. Two fierce streams of sword Qi burst out simultaneously, they darted towards the pair of eyes of the zombie. Ever since Ye Chen comprehended the true sword intent, both the speed and effectiveness of his moves had largely improved, they were no worse than moves launched by an Early Clasping Yuan Realm martial artist.
The zombie was not an easy opponent either, it reacted to the attack within a moment. It bent its head backwards and dodged the sword Qi on the left; the Sword Qi on the right also missed its target and only managed to hit its cheek.
There were a few sparks as the sword Qi made contact with its face. But, the attack only left a faint mark on its cheek.
“What kind of zombie is this? Even sword Qi wasn’t able to harm it!” Ye Chen clearly saw that when the sword Qi hit its face, a layer of green light emerged on its skin and neutralized most of that sword Qi.
The zombie seemed to be enraged by Ye Chen’s attack. Without hesitation, it widely opened its horribly smelling mouth and spurted out a sphere of green light towards Ye Chen.
The broken wall was instantly corroded by the green light sphere, this also made Ye Chen feel extremely sick.
Ye Chen was forced out of the room due to that, he got back into the ancient luxurious hall. As he turned his head around, he found that both Lin Yue and Yin Wuqing had also stepped out, and their opponents were also zombies.
“What awful luck, these things are martial zombies.” said Lin Yue. His sleeves were ripped apart, it seemed like he had a fierce fight back in that room. Earlier, when he walked into the room, he didn’t see anything there, so he directly opened the coffin; however, a zombie darted out from the coffin and nearly pierced its arms into Lin Yue’s chest. If Lin Yue hadn’t activated a defensive martial skill before he entered the room, he would have long been ripped to pieces.
“Martial zombies?” asked Ye Chen.
Yun Wuqing said, “Under certain circumstances, a martial artist’s Zhen Qi might not disperse even after they die, and would mix together with the Qi that only belongs to dead creatures. If these two kinds of Qi mix together, they can preserve the body from decaying. At this stage, if a living martial artist appears around this dead martial artist, the abundant vitality and Zhen Qi of the living martial artist can activate this dead martial artist’s body, and would allow it to mutate into a martial zombie, whose only instinct is to slaughter and devour. Martial zombies are incomparably strong, their bodies are even more solid than the demonic beasts of the same level. If I am not wrong, these three used to be Early Clasping Yuan Realm martial artists, which means that they’re now fifth-grade martial zombies. But they have just completed their mutation, and can’t activate their corpse Qi yet.”
Lin Yue nodded and said, “Exactly. It’s said that the Ghost Artist, one of the one hundred and eight great ghost warriors of the Nine Evil Cult, was a martial zombie himself. But, he was different from ordinary martial zombies for some particular reason, and he somehow gained his intelligence back. He is even more sinister than human beings, and the frightening thing is that he is able to turn living martial artists into martial zombies, he calls those zombies ‘Armoured Corpses’. Ranking them from low grade to high, they’re Iron Armoured Corpses, Bronze Armoured Corpses, Silver Armoured Corpses, Gold Armoured Corpses, and may even go higher.”
“The Ghost Artist is a zombie?” This was the first time Ye Chen heard about this. He had heard about the Bronze Armoured Corpses once, when he was completing the mission for the Ling Family. He had encountered a group of Ghost Guards under the Ghost Artist’s command, one of them threatened to turn Ye Chen into a Bronze Armoured Corpse. That must be martial zombies they were talking about.
“They’re coming out, be careful! Don’t let them scratch you, or you’ll be poisoned!”
As he was speaking, Lin Yue’s clothes started to flutter even though there was no wind. He abruptly launched a heavy punch, sending out a stream of power that swiftly condensed into a gigantic cauldron, which swooshed towards one martial zombie.
Clang!
The room-sized caldron, condensed from Zhen Qi was immeasurably heavy, it directly forced the zombie down into the ground, making it unable to crawl back out; the zombie could only let out waves of shrill howls.
“[Earth Devil Shattering Hack]!”
Yin Wuqing had been perfectly controlling his Zhen Qi all this time. A stream of Zhen Qi formed a sharp-edged, faint, purple-colored light loop on the edge of his hands; he moved extremely fast and fiercely hacked at the neck of another martial zombie.
This move was extremely shocking, it directly sent the zombie flying in the air and it then loudly thudded against the ground. A large wound appeared on its neck, but not a single drop of blood was present.
The last zombie howled out as it leapt high, it darted towards Ye Chen who gripped his sword and had been standing still all along.
“I have been expecting you!”
“[Unlimited Fierce Clouds]!”
Ye Chen raised the sword high, he then injected a stream of Zhen Qi into the sword, this stirred the air surrounding the sword and even formed a swiftly spinning whirlpool.
“Hack!”
He launched the move. A gigantic stream of sword Qi as sharp as a huge blade that even seemed to slice the air into two was sent out. It was accurately aimed at the zombie’s neck, the sword Qi roared towards the zombie.
Puff!
Pieces of muscle that were as solid as iron flew out from its body. Ye Chen’s sword Qi left a bone-deep wound on the zombie’s chest and sent its heavy body flying. The zombie then smashed against a stone pillar, the pillar collapsed immediately and the zombie fell down, it was then suppressed by a giant piece of stone.
The gigantic cauldron condensed from Lin Yue’s Zhen Qi began swaying, Lin Yue gave a bitter smile and said, “This won’t work, although these three zombies can’t yet activate their corpse Qi, they each possess fifth-grade defensive power and strength, we can’t possibly take them out within a short period of time, we can only barely suppress them.”
“Martial zombies are more powerful than you think, one of the seventh-grade martial zombies raised by our Brute Devil Martial School had once killed an early Astral Reaching Realm martial artist.” said Yin Wuqing in his typical frosty tone.
Almost everyone in the martial world had heard that the Brute Devil Martial School had been raising martial zombies. Therefore, Yin Wuqing could directly tell Ye Chen and Lin Yue this horrible story. After all, the Brute Devil Martial School was one of the most powerful few among all the rank 7 institutions, it is even stronger than the Evil Blood Martial School. Regular rank 7 institutions can’t even be compared to the Brute Devil Martial School.
Looking at the martial zombie that was crawling out of the pile of stones, Ye Chen felt helpless for the very first time. He thought about using the [Heart Refining], however, he eventually decided not to. This was not a life and death moment yet, so he did not need to expose his saved secret skill; besides, he was sure that both Lin Yue and Yin Wuqing had their own hidden skills, they just didn’t use those skills because they wanted to keep some moves to themselves unless definitely required.
Not only that, Ye Chen was not certain that [Heart Refining] could guarantee the martial zombie’s death, it could at most allow him to seriously injure it; if he had to use [Heart Refining] more than once continuously, too much power would be consumed. Therefore, he felt that it was not a wise choice to use [Heart Refining].
“Die!”
Ling Yue couldn’t suppress the zombie any longer, so he instantly used one of his secret skills and detonated the cauldron.
Waves of explosive power shook the entire hall, a few fist sized rocks even fell down from the roof, and quite a few crystal lights dimmed down.
That martial zombie that had just struggled back up from the ground was once again sent flying backwards, it fell down beside the dead body of a disciple.
However, the thing that shocked all three of them was what happened in the next moment. The martial zombie ripped off one of the dead body’s arms and thrust it into its mouth, it then began wolfing it down, it even let out a series of sounds of bones cracking. Blood splashed everywhere and the bone cracking noises resounded throughout the entire hall.
The other two zombies were also attracted by the scent of blood, they each grabbed a dead body and began chewing.
Yin Wuqing’s expression suddenly changed as he yelled, “Don’t let them devour too much blood and flesh. Once they get enough energy, they would become real fifth-grade martial zombies and activate their corpse Qi, it would vastly improve their power!”
“Kill!!”
Yin Wuqing darted towards the few zombies as he yelled out. Countless bean sized, faint black scales emerged from his white and tender skin. They made him look way more creepy and horrible than those zombies. At that moment, he indeed looked like a devil.
Boom!
The zombie near him was directly sent up, and was then struck by four punches and five kicks while it was still in the air. It let out high-pitched, resonant wails as it flew.
“[Double Cauldrons Challenge]!”
Hearing Yin Wuqing’s words, Lin Yue realised how serious the situation was, therefore, he instantly increased his Zhen Qi usage. Streams of yellow-colored Zhen Qi rose straight into the air. Lin Yue clenched his fists and quickly swung both of his arms inwards.
Boom! Boom!
Two room sized, gigantic cauldrons surrounded a zombie that had been wolfing down a dead body, and then suddenly bumped against each other. Shocking waves spread out immediately, they swept across the surrounding area and tore all the dead bodies to pieces.
By now, it had swallowed quite a lot of the dead body’s flesh and blood, thick green streams of air started to spurt out from that martial zombie’s body and wrapped around its entire body. Nevertheless, the pair of gigantic cauldrons were extremely powerful. Fierce, huge streams of Zhen Qi released by the pair of cauldrons madly shook and clashed against each other, ceaselessly crushing the martial zombie’s body.
“In that case, we can only crush these zombies’ defensive power bit by bit.”
Except for the Heart Refining, Ye Chen had another skill that he rarely used. This skill was not as destructive as the ‘Clouds Have No Limitation’ yet. After practicing for a long-time, Ye Chen found a new way of using it. Now, he wanted to try it out on this zombie.
As he briefly pondered, the fierce sword Qi released from Ye Chen’s body started to grow stronger. It also contained a part of the sword intent in it.
Taking a step forward, it seemed as if Ye Chen was slowly raising his arms, yet, he swiftly launched a move.
“Highly Condensed Sword Qi!”
Bang!
Not only did a tremendously thick stream of sword Qi strike the zombie into the air, it also pressed it against the wall and disabled it from moving anymore; moreover, the sword Qi showed no signs of dissipating even after that. Instead, it began coiling around the zombie’s body, over and over again.
“What sword skill is this?!”
Watching the sword Qi continuously crushing the zombie’s defensive power, Lin Yue couldn’t help but widely open his eyes as he gasped in shock.
Yin Wuqing also gave Ye Chen a glance. Previously, he indeed admitted that Ye Chen was powerful and a martial artist with potential, and did not want to get into a conflict with Ye Chen. But now, he sincerely didn’t want Ye Chen to become his enemy. Earlier, he thought that Ye Chen had already shown all of his abilities, he never expected that Ye Chen also had some secret moves saved, just like Lin Yue and himself; besides, who could tell for sure if Ye Chen had other more powerful skills or not?
‘This man should never be despised!’ this was how Yin Wuqing thought about Ye Chen.
The martial zombie struggled as hard as it could, however, the sword Qi was as heavy and powerful as a mountain, it firmly pressed the zombie against the wall just like a piece of meat on the chopping board, it even lost the power to resist.
Edited by: Jaggerjakk