36: Chapter 36 Counterattack

That was a black lotus.

It rotated slowly deep within Wang Shouren's pupils, its petals unfolding one by one, pitch-black as ink without a shred of luster, yet more heart-palpitating than any light.

A faint, extremely deep and dim glimmer lit up at the center of the lotus; that light seemed to be breathing, brightening and dimming, inhaling and exhaling.

"Playing with Soul power against me?" Wang Shouren's lips curved upward. "You've finished laughing, now it's my turn to laugh."

Elder Yin's smile froze on his face.

He tried to pull back his hand, but found that his five fingers seemed to be welded onto Wang Shouren's neck.

A power he had never felt before was surging countercurrent along his Meridians.

"What is going on?" Elder Yin's expression was ugly, yet no matter how much strength he used, he could not budge a single fraction.

"What is this thing?"

"It is not spiritual power, nor magical power; what on earth is this damn thing!"

The black Qi crawled all the way up Elder Yin's arm, and wherever it passed, his Meridians stiffened inch by inch; the spiritual power in his Dantian seemed to be frozen, unable to mobilize even a shred.

Suddenly seeming to recall something, fear finally appeared on his face.

That face, which had witnessed countless instances of life and death, had twisted in just a moment into a shape he didn't even recognize himself.

"You... You... This is..."

He failed to finish.

That power had already climbed up his neck and drilled into his Sea of Consciousness.

Then he saw a lotus hanging right at the center of his Sea of Consciousness, rotating slowly, its petals opening and closing as if it were eating.

The suction force erupted abruptly!

Elder Yin let out a miserable scream unlike that of a human.

His Divine Soul was being dragged out inch by inch from his Physical Body by an irresistible giant force; for every inch pulled out, that excruciating pain deepened by a fraction.

He wanted to struggle, but his limbs were completely out of control.

Ning Xishan widened his eyes, looking at this scene before him in disbelief.

Elder Yin's body was shriveling at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His already lean and thin body at this moment resembled more of a withered skeleton drained of moisture; his skin clung tightly to the bones, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, and his cheeks caved in into two dark holes.

His miserable screams grew weaker and weaker, changing from a hoarse wail into a muffled moan, then from a moan into a dying breath sound, and finally stopped abruptly.

His body fell backward facing the sky, smashing onto the gravel ground and stirring up a patch of dust.

Within those deeply sunken eye sockets, his pupils had completely scattered, leaving only two hollow pitches of darkness.

Wang Shouren slowly raised his head, the mark between his eyebrows finally coming back to life again after being struck by lightning.

He looked at Ning Xishan, the corners of his mouth slowly curving into an arc.

"You... You are also..." Ning Xishan's teeth were chattering, his voice trembling so much that words and sentences could hardly be distinguished.

He staggered backward, his back hitting a mountain rock with no further way out. "You are not a human! You are a Zhe Cultivator! You are an evil Cultivator! No wonder you aren't afraid of Elder Yin's Soul-Devouring Claw... The evil technique you cultivate is also—no, this is even more—than an evil technique—"

"You guessed right." Wang Shouren walked closer step by step, every step unhurried as if measuring the distance between the prey and the hunter.

Lightning re-condensed between the five fingers of his right hand, purple electric arcs illuminating half of his face, the expression on that face terrifyingly calm. "Yet you no longer have the chance to speak it out."

A flash of desperate madness flickered in Ning Xishan's eyes; he abruptly pulled out the short dagger at his waist, pouring his whole body's spiritual power into it recklessly. Toxic light flourished greatly on the dagger, and it flew out fiercely to stab towards Wang Shouren's heart.

This stab exhausted his lifelong cultivation, as fast as a poisonous snake spitting its tongue, and as vicious as a trapped beast's struggle.

After all, he was a Qi Refining tier five Cultivator; a desperate strike still had a point or two of momentum.

Wang Shouren raised his hand.

The lightning light between his five fingers surged explosively at that instant, and a purple thunder pillar as thick as a bowl burst forth from his palm, colliding head-on against Ning Xishan's dagger.

The lightning swallowed the toxic light, swallowed the dagger, swallowed the hand holding the dagger, and furthermore swallowed Ning Xishan the entire person.

Ning Xishan's miserable scream sounded for only half a breath before being swallowed by the lightning.

Purple electricity roamed and entwined around his entire body, emitting crackling popping sounds. His body twitched violently a few times within the electric arcs, and then with a thump he knelt onto the ground, his whole body charred black and steaming wisps of blue smoke.

Those wide-open eyes still retained the fear and disbelief before death, his lips slightly parted as if wanting to say something, yet no longer able to emit any sound.

Wang Shouren withdrew his hand, walked to Elder Yin's corpse, bent down to pull off his Storage Pouch, and then walked in front of Ning Xishan, likewise taking away his Storage Pouch.

Placing the two Storage Pouches side by side on a flat mountain rock, his Divine Sense probed inside.

A moment later, he slightly frowned.

The Spirit Stones in the two people's Storage Pouches added up to no more than a mere few hundred pieces; the Medicinal Pills and Magical Artifacts were also all ordinary goods, and whatever was truly valuable was probably tossed away and exhausted at the auction.

The only thing of value was that qijia wolf puppet; the mysterious copper armor plates gleamed with a faint cold light under the sunlight, completely undamaged.

He resealed the wolf Puppet, stored it into his own Storage Pouch, and his gaze fell once more upon those few Jade Slips scattered among the pile of Spirit Stones.

He applied the Jade Slips one by one against his glabella, sweeping across with his Divine Sense.

Most of them were some superficial Cultivation Technique incantations and the Ning Family's account transactions, holding nothing particularly special.

Suddenly, his fingers stopped on one of the Jade Slips.

This Jade Slip was slightly thicker than the others, yellowish throughout its body, and its corners had already been polished round and smooth, obviously having some age.

He applied the Jade Slip against his glabella, and the moment his Divine Sense probed in, his pupils slightly shrank.

What was recorded in the Jade Slip was not a Cultivation Technique, but a set of Puppet refining methods.

The opening detailed the refining steps of several low-tier Puppets such as Puppet birds, Puppet dogs, and mining Puppets; from material selection to array carving, from assembly to debugging, every step was equipped with detailed illustrations and annotations.

It was just that the content stopped abruptly here; regarding the part about combat Puppets, only a few brief generalizations were left at the end, vague and ambiguous. Obviously, the subsequent content was either artificially deleted or this Jade Slip itself was an incomplete copy.

Wang Shouren slowly put down the Jade Slip, his gaze falling upon that spirit-sealing wooden box, and his heart instantly enlightened.

The Ning Family had practiced Artifact Refining for generations; the ordinary Magical Artifacts of the Three Counties could no longer satisfy their appetite.

With this basic Puppet refining method, as long as they acquired another real Dahuang City combat Puppet as a comparison to patch up the link of the combat Puppet's core Formation, the Ning Family could transform from an Artifact Refining family into a Puppet family.

By that time, even if the Wang Family had a Foundation Establishment expert presiding, it would still be difficult to contend against the Ning Family.

No wonder Ning Xishan would rather pawn the Magical Artifacts in the shop than fail to secure this wolf Puppet.

It was just a pity that he bet wrong.

Wang Shouren tucked the Jade Slip into his bosom, lightly tapped his fingertips twice on the box lid, and a very faint arc floated up at the corners of his mouth.

This Puppet refining method plus the qijia wolf puppet, matched with the Wang Family's newly acquired Lesser Five Elements Combined Attack Array.

Once those selected Body Cultivator disciples in the clan practiced it to proficiency and equipped themselves with Puppet beasts, no one would ever be able to shake the Wang Family's status in this Three Counties region by the slightest bit.

He carefully cleaned up the scene, and two bolts of thunder fire fell down, turning the two corpses into a small pile of charred black ashes that scattered completely at a blow of the mountain wind.

Elder Yin and Ning Xishan's Storage Pouches were casually destroyed by him.

As for those two living people? The Loose Cultivators of Wanbao Pavilion had witnessed with their own eyes that the Ning Family Young Lord left with his attendants after successfully bidding for the Puppet; who would ever link them to the Wang Family.

Having finished all this, he readjusted his bamboo hat once more, a cyan light flashed beneath his feet, and he sprinted rapidly toward the direction of Lotus Pier.