Chapter 231 Heavenly Thunder Talisman

Scarface took the inspection bureau token from Chen Mo and frowned as he glanced at it under the courtyard light.

"The inspection bureau of Jinshi? How did they end up in Ganzhou?"

Chen Mo didn't answer, but first squatted down to check the breathing of the first mate and the others.

Thankfully, they're all alive.

They were simply bewitched and couldn't wake up for a while.

"The Wang family arrested the people on my boat, there's nothing I can do." He pointed to the three unconscious men on the ground and shrugged helplessly.

If he could, he wouldn't want to come.

Scarface tossed the token back to him, his gaze sweeping over Master Long and his two companions. "Take your men and get out of here."

Master Long had been waiting for these words. With a wave of his hand, two of his men each carried an unconscious crew member, while Master Long himself slung the first mate over his shoulder. The three of them followed Chen Mo toward the courtyard gate.

The spirits and monsters in the courtyard were being held back by the people from the Bureau of Suppressing Evil, so no one had time to pay attention to them.

A few ignorant brats tried to pounce, but were scattered by several bursts of Yin energy that Chen Mo casually flicked out.

The little demon screamed and turned into black smoke, and the rest dared not approach again.

After showing their tokens to the members of the Zhenyi Division who were blocking the gate, the group successfully left the Wang family residence.

Chen Mo led them to the alley entrance before stopping. "Take them back to the ship first."

"Go to Master Li and get a calming talisman. Once you pour a bowl of talisman water over yourself, the bewitching will be broken."

Master Long was taken aback: "Master Chen, aren't you coming with us?"

"I have something to do."

Chen Mo glanced back in the direction of the Wang family's residence and told him, "If I'm not back by dawn, you take Master Li and the others and leave first. Don't wait for me."

"OK."

Without asking any further questions, Lord Long hoisted the first mate back onto his shoulder and called to his two men, "Let's go back to the dock."

The group walked south along the alley, their footsteps gradually fading into the night.

Chen Mo stood at the alley entrance, watching their figures disappear around the corner before turning back.

......

In the Wang family courtyard, the curtains in the inner hall moved erratically without any wind, and a strong, pungent stench wafted out from inside.

Scarface instinctively turned to the side, holding the copper coin sword horizontally in front of him.

The curtain was violently lifted off the ground.

Shredded cloth flew everywhere, and a visible black fumes, emitting a pungent stench, billowed from inside the door frame.

Wang Shouren strode out, followed by seven or eight men dressed as servants.

However, those people walked with stiff postures, like puppets being led by strings.

Their faces were uniformly covered in pale powder, the corners of their mouths were drawn up in an eerie arc, and their eyes remained motionless.

The last one to emerge was the old lady holding the black cat.

Scarface's gaze swept over the old woman, finally settling on the black cat in her arms, and his hand gripping the hilt of the copper coin sword suddenly tightened.

"You cat-faced witch, how dare you show your face in Ganzhou?"

Cat-faced witch is a prominent figure in the unorthodox sects of western Hunan.

Ten years ago, he roamed three provinces with his cat sacrifice, raising cat ghosts to harm people and seize their property. He was wanted by the Zhenyi Division for eight years but was never caught.

She suddenly disappeared five years ago, and everyone thought she was dead. No one expected her to appear at the Wang family's house tonight.

The old woman grinned, revealing a few yellowish-black remnants of roots.

"Oh, so someone in the Zhenyi Division still remembers this old woman. I haven't been out for ten years. I thought you'd forgotten about me."

As she spoke, she walked forward, and the black cat in her arms meowed, its voice high-pitched, like a baby's cry.

"The Wang family actually dared to collude with a wanted criminal; do they want their entire family executed?"

The scarred man's tone was icy. He brandished his copper coin sword, the tip pointing at Wang Shouren. "Everyone, form a formation. Prioritize killing these two."

"You've ruined my plans, none of you are leaving tonight."

Wang Shouren raised his right hand with a cold smile, spread his five fingers, and pointed towards the courtyard.

The eight servants behind him stepped forward in unison.

As soon as the first step was taken, everyone in the courtyard smelled a strange odor—the musty smell of pulp mixed with the stench of rotting flesh, an indescribably pungent odor.

Chen Mo, hiding in the shadows, scanned the servants with his divine sense and understood what was going on.

It turned out to be half paper and half corpse.

Old Wang, having learned some evil magic from who-knows-where, incorporated the art of raising corpses into his paper-making craft.

These servants were originally living people who had been killed. Their corpses were specially treated, covered with paper talismans and filled with corpse poison. They retained the lightness and agility of paper figures, while also possessing the immense strength and toxicity of zombies.

It does involve some shortcuts, but it's not suitable for me.

.....

"Scatter! Don't let them touch you!" Scarface shouted sternly.

Before he finished speaking, the few half-paper corpses had already rushed into the courtyard and were fighting with the members of the Zhenyi Division.

Its speed is illogical; its paper-thin body is almost weightless, and it can cover a distance of several meters in a single stride.

Scarface dodged a paper corpse's attack by sidestepping it, and swept his copper coin sword horizontally, the blade slicing across the creature's waist and abdomen.

"Sizzle."

The copper coin sword sliced ​​through the paper and cut through the rotting flesh, spurting out a stream of black blood.

As the blood dripped onto the ground, white smoke immediately rose from the blue bricks, which were corroded into pits.

The half-paper corpse was cut in half at the waist, its upper body fell to the ground, but it was still crawling forward.

What gushed out from the cut was not intestines or internal organs, but clumps of pulp soaked in blood.

The pulp writhed like a living thing, still trying to reconnect the broken pieces of the body.

"What the hell is this thing?!"

A tall member of the Zhenyi Division smashed the head of a half-paper corpse, sending paper scraps and bone fragments flying.

But the monster, though headless, was still waving its arms, and suddenly ten pitch-black fingers pierced towards his chest.

The fingernails, imbued with a heavy aura of yin energy, easily broke through the barrier of qi and blood. Five rips were made in his clothes on his chest, the skin and flesh were torn open, and blood flowed freely.

Worse still, the edges of the wound quickly turned black, and a putrid smell emanated from it.

"Corpse poison!" The others' expressions changed drastically, and they grabbed the injured team member and dragged him backward.

Scarface gritted his teeth, pulled out a stack of talismans from his waist, and threw them out without caring how many there were.

The talisman exploded in the air, turning into balls of flame that landed on the half-paper corpses.

Paper ignites when exposed to fire.

The talisman fire landed on them, the paper crackling as it burned, while the rotting flesh beneath sizzled in the flames, emitting thick, black smoke that smelled foul.

Several paper corpses engulfed in flames were still moving, rushing straight towards the people from the Zhenyi Division.

"Boss, we can't burn them to death!"

Scarface's heart sank. His gaze swept over Wang Shouren, who was standing at the entrance of the inner hall. He saw that the other man's fingers trembled slightly. The three paper corpses that were most severely burned by the talisman fire suddenly stopped and trembled violently, revealing the charred and rotten flesh inside.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone in the courtyard, the rotting flesh began to swell.

Fist-sized lumps emerged from the surface of the corpse, bursting open to release yellowish-green pus.

The pus kept flowing, and in the blink of an eye, it extinguished the talisman fire.

"The other party has actually mastered the art of raising corpses to this level..."

Scarface gripped the sword hilt tightly, veins bulging on his forehead, and suddenly thrust it towards Wang Shouren.

To catch the thief, first catch the king. Once the master is dealt with, the paper corpses will be easier to handle.

"Young man, I'm still here."

Upon seeing this, the old hag holding the black cat smiled sinisterly and gently patted the black cat in her arms with her withered right hand.

"Baby, eat him."

"aim......"

The black cat launched itself out, its body swelling in mid-air to become a giant beast the size of a calf.

The fur tore apart inch by inch upon landing. Between the muscle lines, mouths full of sharp teeth are constantly opening and closing.

This is the very ghost that the Cat-Faced Witch has carefully cultivated—the Skinning Cat Demon.

As Scarface approached, it opened its mouth wide, and a stream of black gas spewed out from deep within its throat, shooting straight toward Scarface's face.

Scarface spun around swiftly, barely avoiding the black aura.

But the cat demon gave him no chance to breathe, pushing off the ground with its four paws and launching its entire body forward.

Between the cracked muscle lines on its body, mouths full of sharp teeth opened simultaneously, continuously spitting out streams of grayish-white liquid.

The slurry was as thick as phlegm, stretching into viscous threads in mid-air, emitting a foul stench of rotting flesh mixed with stomach acid.

The smell was so strong it was almost visible to the naked eye, and several nearby members of the Zhenyi Division immediately covered their mouths and noses and began to gag.

The slurry fell to the ground, but instead of flowing, it writhed violently like a living thing.

In the blink of an eye, they condensed into fist-sized fleshy sacs.

The surface of the sac was covered with bluish-purple blood vessels, and you could vaguely see something writhing inside, as if it was about to burst out at any moment.

As one of the Zhenyi Division members dodged, the sole of his boot crushed a fleshy sac.

"Pfft."

The sac wall ruptured, and a large clump of wet, dark brown hair gushed out.

Inside the hair were tiny, milky-white worms the size of fingernails, which instantly crawled all over the team member's leg.

"what!"

The moment his scream rang out, the flesh worms seeped into his pores at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The team member's skin had no wounds on the surface, but it looked like something was frantically gnawing at it from beneath the skin, with worm-like bulges moving under the skin.

In just three breaths.

His entire leg began to rot from the inside out, and his skin became as transparent as rice paper soaked in water.

Through that translucent membrane, you can clearly see the muscles inside, being gnawed into bits and pieces by countless tiny creatures.

Pink buds sprouted from the shinbone, breaking through the skin and exposing themselves to the air.

The tip of the granulation tissue split open rapidly, revealing a ring of fine milk teeth.

The shape was clearly that of mouths the size of a baby's fist.

"What...what the hell is this?!"

The team members beside him retreated in terror, watching helplessly as their companion's body turned into a rotting corpse covered in fleshy growths within three breaths.

The scarred face made my scalp tingle.

He finally recognized the origin of this evil creature: the Hundred-Mouth Plague from the ancient Gu arts of western Hunan, a forbidden technique that had been lost for a hundred years.

Legend has it that thirty-seven people who raise Gu poison need to be alive to refine their resentment and flesh into a furnace, which is then fed to the natal ghost to cultivate this plague sac within the ghost.

Each fleshy sac is a nest of Gu worms. Those who are infected grow mouths all over their bodies and are devoured alive by their own new mouths. After death, their souls are trapped in those mouths and can never be reincarnated.

"The old woman's cat was raised by eating thirty-seven Gu poison masters."

The cat-faced hag grinned, revealing her yellowish-black dregs. "Little brats from the Suppression Bureau, what are you going to use to block this?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the fleshy sacs on the ground trembled all at once, causing the blue bricks of the entire courtyard to shake slightly.

With each pulsation, distorted human faces appear on the surface of the sac.

"Everyone, listen up! Form ranks and retreat to defend! Retreat behind me!"

The remaining members of the Zhenyi Division scrambled to retreat behind him, forming a circular formation back to back.

Everyone was injured, most of their magical artifacts were destroyed, and their breathing was heavy and disordered.

The cat demon didn't give chase. Instead, it squatted in the middle of the yard, its mouth opening and closing, making "smacking" sounds.

The cat-faced witch squatted on the stone block, a smug smile on her lips. Just as she was about to say something, she saw the scarred man reach into his robes with his left hand and pull out a talisman that shimmered with a dark purple light.

Her smile froze.

"Heavenly Thunder Talisman!"

"Baby, come back!"

The skinned cat demon hissed from all its mouths at the same time, and tried to launch itself back by pushing off the ground with its four paws.

But it was too late.

Scarface bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the talisman.

The Heavenly Thunder Talisman ignites upon contact with blood, unleashing a burst of purple light that transforms into a bolt of lightning as thick as a water bucket, crashing down from the heavens.

Lightning illuminated the entire alley, casting a ghastly white glow over the Wang family courtyard.

"Boom!"

A deafening clap of thunder boomed, and the paper corpses in the courtyard were the first to be struck, their bodies as fragile as paper before the overwhelming power of the thunder.

It carbonized instantly, and the rotting flesh inside was evaporated by the high temperature of the thunder, producing a large amount of black smoke.

One by one, the paper corpses exploded in the lightning, and paper scraps and pieces of flesh scattered like raindrops.

Wang Shouren was closest to the center of the lightning strike. Although he retreated in time, he was still hit by the aftershocks of the lightning.

As for the fleshy sacs scattered on the ground, they began to tremble violently the moment the lightning struck.

Wherever the lightning struck, the purplish-blue sac walls shattered, and the dark brown hair and milky white worms inside were swallowed up by the lightning before they could struggle, turning into ashes along with those eerie human faces.

Although the Hundred Mouth Plague's poison is vicious, it is ultimately futile against the supremely yang and powerful force of heavenly thunder.

The lightning dissipated.

The yard was a complete mess.

A three-foot-deep scorch mark was carved into the ground, the blue bricks shattered, and gravel was scattered. The air was filled with the smell of burnt wood and the stench of rotting flesh.

The cat-faced witch was lying in the corner of the yard, her whole body emitting black smoke.

At the last moment, she summoned the cat demon to shield her from most of the lightning strikes. Even so, the right side of her body was still struck by the lightning arc, her arm was charred black like a withered branch, and the skin on half of her face was torn open, revealing the charred fascia underneath.

The black cat was in an even worse situation.

The skinned cat demon had shrunk back to the size of an ordinary cat. Its mouths opened and closed, but could no longer make a sound, clearly indicating that it was no longer able to fight.

"Good...good Heavenly Thunder Talisman."

The cat-faced witch struggled to her feet, her charred right hand trembling as she reached out to the cat demon, pulling the dying beast into her arms.

She raised her head, her resentful gaze sweeping over the remaining members of the Zhenyi Division in the room.

Having a scarred face isn't easy either.

For someone of his cultivation level to forcibly activate a talisman of the Heavenly Thunder Talisman would come at a huge cost.

He knelt on the ground, his face ashen, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and his hand holding the sword trembling slightly.

"Take her down."

Although the remaining members of the Zhenyi Division were all injured, seeing that the old hag was seriously injured and the cat demon was half dead, their morale soared, and they immediately spread out in a fan shape to surround the old hag.

The cat-faced witch looked around and knew that her chances of survival were slim.

The residual power of the Heavenly Thunder Talisman destroyed most of her foundation in Gu magic, emptied the plague sac of the Hundred-Mouth Plague, and crippled the cat demon. If the fight continued, she would have to die here today.

"This old woman will remember you."

She suddenly reached out and grabbed Wang Shouren by the back of the neck, who was slumped at the door, and lifted the half-dead Wang Laoda up like a chick.

Wang Shouren was charred black all over, his consciousness was blurred, and he was uttering incoherent groans.

"Ghost..."

"waste."

The cat-faced witch sneered, and with a sudden burst of strength from her withered arm, she hurled Wang Shouren at the surrounding members of the Zhenyi Division.

The body, weighing over 100 pounds, arced through the air and crashed straight into the direction of the scarred man.

Scarface instinctively dodged to the side, and the crowd that had been surrounding him paused for a few seconds.

Just this one moment.

The cat-faced witch bit her tongue, spitting out a mouthful of blood mist, and her body suddenly sank into the ground.

"Stop her!"

Scarface shouted angrily and threw out his copper coin sword.

The copper coin sword spun past, but only managed to graz the witch's ankle, leaving behind a spray of black blood and half a foot.

"ah.!"

The old hag let out a scream and disappeared completely into the ground in the blink of an eye, along with the black cat in her arms.

Only a palm-sized bloody handprint remained on the ground, fading at a visible speed.

Scarface staggered over, crouched down, and reached out to touch the ground, his fingertips only touching the cold tiles.

escaped.

Using the Blood Escape Technique from the Xiangxi Secret Arts came at a considerable price, but ultimately, they managed to escape.

"Boss, Wang Shouren is still breathing."

The voices of my teammates came from behind me.

Scarface stood up and turned to look at Wang Shouren, who had been caught.

Old Wang lay sprawled on the ground, his body charred black, barely breathing, but he was indeed still alive.

"Tie him up and take him back for questioning."

After Scarface finished speaking, he suddenly coughed violently, bent over and held his knees, and a trace of black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

The backlash from using the Heavenly Thunder Talisman began to take effect; the qi and blood within his body were attacking his meridians, causing him to break out in a cold sweat from the pain.

"Boss!"

"Don't worry, you won't die."