131: Chapter 131 Intercepting

A pungent, foul stench intertwined with the thick scent of blood, making the air here incredibly viscous.

On the towering black rock wall, the massive body of the Golden-Backed Gu King was pinned firmly in mid-air by twenty-four scarlet Formation Flags.

Its compound eyes had been completely pulverized, and brain matter mixed with dark golden bodily fluids dripped continuously down the rock.

The six pairs of blade-wings that once made countless poisonous creatures tremble were now hanging limply.

Its life force was completely extinguished.

Below the rock wall.

Wei Lingfeng leaned on a broken sword covered in notches, dragging his left leg, which was bent at an eerie angle, moving step by agonizing step.

With every step, he left a stark, bloody footprint upon the bleached bones.

Pain.

The excruciating pain of shattered bones, combined with the tearing sensation of withered Meridians after his Dantian foundation collapsed, was relentlessly ravaging his sanity every moment.

His aura at this moment had weakened to the extreme.

The pressure that originally belonged to the Foundation Establishment Initial Stage was gone, his cultivation Realm was stuck firmly at the Qi Refining Stage Great Perfection, and it was even continuing to drop due to blood loss.

Yet, on his face, covered in blood and filth, not a trace of despair could be seen.

Only extreme fanaticism and greed.

"Good death... such a good death!"

A hoarse laugh escaped Wei Lingfeng's throat.

He arrived at the foot of the rock wall and tilted his head up.

Deep within a massive crack in the Gu King's abdominal shell, a fist-sized glob of viscous liquid, crystalline and clear like jade, was emitting an astonishingly potent vital life force.

The gu king marrow.

It condensed the Origin of the thousands of poisonous insects this peerless ferocious beast had devoured throughout its life.

"As long as I swallow it..."

A terrifying gleam erupted in Wei Lingfeng's eyes, "My fallen cultivation Realm can be instantly reshaped! My shattered Meridians can be healed! It can even allow me to forge the legendary flawless Dao foundation!"

He had won.

Xu Yin was dead, and the Gu King was dead. He, Wei Lingfeng, was the final winner of this Myriad Insect Tomb.

Wei Lingfeng tremblingly dropped the broken sword in his hand.

He reached out his right hand, stained with mud and blood, grabbing with extreme desire toward the gu king marrow that was within reach.

Ten inches. Five inches. Three inches.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the emerald viscous liquid.

An extremely faint, yet hair-raising chill pierced down from above his head without any warning!

No sound of wind. No fluctuation of magical power.

Even a trace of Killing Intent was perfectly concealed beneath the skin and flesh.

Wei Lingfeng was, after all, a Prodigy of the Qianji Pavilion; even with his Dao foundation destroyed, the intuition honed on the edge of life and death remained extremely sharp.

"Who?!"

He roared, and his right hand reaching for the gu king marrow snapped back as if electrocuted.

At the same time, he forcibly squeezed out the last bit of Spiritual Qi remaining in his Dantian and rolled backward in a wretched state.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Wei Lingfeng had just rolled two zhang away.

The spot where he had originally been standing was smashed by twelve heavy, black silhouettes!

The hard, bone-covered ground instantly collapsed.

The immense impact kicked up a sky full of bone dust, like a white sandstorm.

If Wei Lingfeng had been half a breath slower in retreating, these twelve heavy, iron-like black silhouettes would have been enough to smash his already broken Physical Body into a pulp of flesh and mud.

"Who is it?! Xu Yin's remnants? Or some monster that didn't die in this Myriad Insect Tomb?"

Wei Lingfeng knelt on one knee, gritting his teeth hard, and used his left hand to pick up the broken sword from the mud again.

He stared intensely at the cloud of bone dust ahead.

The bone dust gradually dissipated.

There was no magical light, no towering Demonic Qi.

Twelve burly figures, like twelve emotionless killing machines, stood silently in front of the Gu King's remains, completely cutting Wei Lingfeng off from the gu king marrow.

Wei Lingfeng's gaze fell upon these twelve figures.

Only one look.

His pupils, which had been bloodshot from rage, instantly contracted violently, shrinking into two tiny pinpricks!

"This... how is this possible..."

Wei Lingfeng's hand holding the sword began to tremble violently and uncontrollably for the first time.

What did he see?

Tattered cyan robes.

Familiar features and faces.

Even the Qianji Pavilion slave brand on the cheek of the person on the left, which he had personally branded himself, was clearly visible!

These were his personal guards!

They were the batch of Iron Corpse Puppets he had carefully cultivated at Qingmu Cliff and traded to "Alias" when he was undergoing Foundation Establishment at Baiyin Mountain!

They should have been torn to pieces by Xu Yin's blood magic long ago!

Even if one were to take a step back and assume they had remained intact.

Yet, these twelve Puppets before him, although covered in terrifying broken bones and knife wounds, had dark green fascia growing from those wounds like the roots of an old tree!

What made his scalp tingle even more was that in the eye sockets of these twelve Puppets, there were no whites or pupils, only two eerie, ghostly green lights emitting a cold Death Qi!

There was no breath of the living, no Spiritual Qi of a Cultivator.

There wasn't even the foul corpse aura typical of the corpse-refining Sects in the Cultivation World.

"These Iron Corpse Puppets... are they stronger than before?!"

Wei Lingfeng felt an utterly absurd chill instantly freeze the blood in his entire body.

Was it him?

How could he have such heaven-defying means to refine Iron Corpse Puppets into monsters that possessed no Spiritual Qi fluctuations yet emitted such an extremely dangerous aura in such a short time?!

"Fellow Daoist Wei, I trust you have been well."

A cold, hoarse voice slowly drifted out from behind the twelve Iron Corpse Puppets.

The Iron Corpse Puppets silently parted to the sides.

A figure dressed in gray stepped out, walking step by step over the bones covering the ground.

Ordinary features, a weak aura.

Qi Refining Level 7.

Wei Lingfeng's mind went completely blank for a brief moment.

"Chen... Alias?!"

He exclaimed in shock, his voice cracking from extreme astonishment, "How could it be you?! Weren't you trapped and killed by Xu Yin's Spirit-Devouring Flying Ants and blood corpses?!"

In his calculations, this Loose Cultivator he had used to open the Myriad Insect Tomb should have died in the first wave of the insect tide long ago.

Even if one were to take a step back, the world-destroying Foundation Establishment pressure from Xu Yin just now was something even he, Wei Lingfeng, had to temporarily avoid; how could an ant at Qi Refining Level 7 possibly survive? And appear in this most core desperate zone without a scratch?!

"Thanks to Fellow Daoist Wei, Chen did indeed suffer quite a bit in the insect swarm."

Gu Shen stood in the center of the Iron Corpse Puppets, looking down at Wei Lingfeng who was slumped on the ground.

His face was extremely pale, a mark left by the backlash of Divine Sense. But his right hand, gripping the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade, was as steady as a mountain.

"To thank Fellow Daoist Wei for using a borrowed knife to kill, Chen specifically collected your old subordinates, stitched them back together, and brought them to see you one last time."

"You..."

Wei Lingfeng's chest heaved violently, and he spat out another mouthful of blood.

Extreme shock and anger finally caused cracks to appear in his already near-collapsing sanity.

"A mere Loose Cultivator at Qi Refining Level 7! You dare to intercept me, Wei?"

"Just with these few tattered corpses?!"

Wei Lingfeng roared.

His pride as a former Foundation Establishment Cultivator made it absolutely impossible for him to accept being trampled underfoot by a pawn he had used on a whim.

He forcibly squeezed out the last bit of potential from his Meridians.

On the broken sword, a three-foot-long, blinding cyan sword light suddenly erupted!

"Die!"

He exerted force with his single leg, like a trapped beast driven to the edge, and charged ferociously at Gu Shen, sword and body together!

Even as a spent force, this sword strike was enough to kill an ordinary Qi Refining 9th Layer!

Gu Shen stood where he was, not even blinking an eye.

What he wanted was this most desperate counterattack from Wei Lingfeng, born from the collapse of his perception and loss of emotional control.

He raised his left hand slightly.

His ten fingers suddenly splayed open.

Chi! Chi! Chi!

Between his finger bones, three Soul-Pulling Threads tightened instantly, in a way that was absolutely imperceptible to the naked eye.

"Kill."

Gu Shen spat out the word with extreme coldness.

Boom!

The twelve Iron Corpse Puppets, which had long been ready, saw the ghostly green light in their eye sockets flare up suddenly.

They did not draw any Magical Artifacts.

Instead, they extended their thick arms, which had been forcibly stitched together by the mutated wood marrow, in an extremely savage and brutal manner, surrounding Wei Lingfeng and meeting his fierce sword strike head-on!