Chapter 162 - 154: Killing Zheng Hu and the Zheng Family’s Secrets
Chapter 162: Chapter 154: Killing Zheng Hu and the Zheng Family’s Secrets
That one light, airy sentence was like a spark dropped into boiling oil!
"AHHH!! Die! Just fucking die!!!"
Zheng Hu went completely mad. All reason, all caution, the Zheng Family Ancestor’s strict orders, every plan for the future—all of it was incinerated by his towering rage at the sight of his beloved son’s head exploding before his very eyes.
His eyes were blood-red as he let out a beastly roar that sounded nothing like a human. His Magical Power erupted from his entire body! A Flying Sword, glinting with a biting cold light, instantly transformed into a blinding streak. With a ZING, he pushed its speed to the absolute limit. Like a flash of lightning, it shot straight for the vital point of Lu Zhao’s throat!
In that moment, he wanted no strategy! No escape route! He only wanted to tear the man before him limb from limb and grind his bones to ash!
However, this was precisely the situation Lu Zhao had so painstakingly engineered, step by step! What he wanted was for Zheng Hu’s Heart Spirit to completely collapse and his Spiritual Soul to be violently shaken, preparing him for the Soul Search to come. The higher the Cultivation, the more difficult the Soul Search!
Faced with this hate-filled strike, one that concentrated the lifelong power of a Qi Cultivation Eighth Layer Cultivator, Lu Zhao neither dodged nor evaded. Instead, the corner of his mouth curled into a smirk.
His thoughts raced. Three cyan-black shadows, shrouded in a thick aura of death, shot out like vipers that had been lying in wait!
ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!
Three thunderous, muffled roars exploded almost simultaneously! Three Strong Iron Ape Corpse Puppets, each nearly ten feet tall with bulging muscles under their cyan-black skin, instantly appeared in front of Lu Zhao, tightly surrounding the berserk Zheng Hu!
Eerie green Ghost Fire flickered in their hollow eye sockets. Waves of Corpse Evil Qi, so tangible it felt solid, spread out with icy malevolence, turning the mountain breeze into a bone-chilling current!
Zheng Hu’s furious strike was as fast as lightning, on the verge of piercing Lu Zhao’s throat! But the Iron Ape Corpse Puppet at the very front swung its millstone-sized fist at a speed that surpassed the limits of sight. Wielding gigantic force, it viciously smashed into the flat of the Flying Sword!
CLANG!
An ear-splitting, valley-shakingly loud Clashing of Gold and Iron erupted!
The brilliantly glowing Flying Sword let out a mournful cry as its Spirit Light instantly dimmed and extinguished. Like a kite with a snapped string, it was sent flying by the irresistible force! With a THUD, it buried itself deep into the trunk of a thick, old locust tree several dozen yards away!
Zheng Hu’s Heart Spirit was closely linked to his Flying Sword. From the heavy blow, a sweet taste suddenly filled his throat, and he violently spat out a large mouthful of blood! PFFT! He stared at the three cyan-black Giant Ape Corpse Puppets that now surrounded him, emanating an aura of terrifying power. For the first time, utter disbelief and horror filled his eyes.
"Three... Zombies comparable to the Qi Cultivation Peak?!" Zheng Hu’s voice was hoarse, filled with indescribable terror. "You... Are you a Demon from the Southwestern Countries?! When... When did my Zheng Family ever offend a Demonic Cultivator like you?!"
His answer was a torrential storm of lethal attacks from the three Strong Iron Ape Corpse Puppets! Millstone-sized iron fists and cattail-fan-like giant palms, wrapped in the cold, fetid wind of Corpse Evil, rained down on Zheng Hu from three different, treacherous angles! The dense Corpse Evil Qi wove together like an invisible cage, eroding his Protective Spiritual Light.
Although Zheng Hu was a Qi Cultivation Eighth Layer Cultivator, under the siege of three Tier One High-Grade Corpse Puppets—which were fearless, felt no pain, possessed immense strength, had astonishing Defense, and coordinated flawlessly—he was completely overwhelmed and in a wretched state.
He hastily summoned a Tier One Middle-Grade Defense Shield, but after taking more than a dozen heavy punches, each powerful enough to shatter mountains, its Spirit Light completely collapsed like a snuffed-out candle. The tenacious shield’s surface dented and deformed. With a mournful cry, it lost most of its spirituality and was easily torn apart by the Corpse Puppets’ poison-laced claws, which then reached for Zheng Hu!
RIP! RIP! RIP!
The cringe-inducing sounds of cracking bones and the horrific noise of flesh being ripped apart by brute force echoed across the mountaintop, mixed with Zheng Hu’s pained grunts. He used all his strength to cast Magic and use his Body Technique to dodge, but while the Corpse Puppets seemed clumsy, they were actually swift and coordinated seamlessly. Their massive figures crisscrossed, completely sealing off all his escape routes!
「Fifteen minutes later.」
Like a tattered sack that had been utterly savaged, Zheng Hu was once again struck in the chest by an iron fist. Amid the CRACK of breaking ribs, he sprayed a torrent of blood. His entire body was thrown high into the air before crashing down onto the rubble-strewn ground with a BOOM. He tumbled a few times before coming to a stop.
Zheng Hu was bathed in blood, his robes stained a dark brown. He had multiple wounds so deep that bone was visible, a mangled mess of flesh and blood. An unknown number of his ribs were broken, his internal organs were severely damaged, and his aura was incredibly faint. Dark red blood, mixed with chunks of his organs, continuously poured from his mouth. His eyes were unfocused and vacant; his life was hanging by a thread.
"Gasp... Wheeze..." He struggled to breathe, each inhale accompanied by the gurgling of blood foam. His gaze, filled with both extreme venom and utter confusion, was fixed on the slowly approaching Lu Zhao. "Three... Tier One High-Grade Zombies... Demon... The Zheng Family... has always... stayed away from the Demon Dao... We never offended... you... Why..."
Lu Zhao walked up to him with a blank expression and looked down at his dying enemy. There was no joy of victory in his eyes, nor any trace of pity—only a dead silence like Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice. He slowly knelt and placed his hand on top of Zheng Hu’s head.
"Blood Soul-Searching Skill!"
His voice, as cold as the winds of the Nine Netherworld, was like a final death sentence.
A terrifying, bloody, and sinister power instantly and violently surged into Zheng Hu’s completely unguarded Sea of Consciousness! Zheng Hu’s eyes bulged, shot through with blood! His body convulsed violently like a fish out of water! A shriek so piercing it sounded inhuman tore from his throat! Blood gushed from all seven of his orifices as if he were being torn apart from the inside by an invisible force.
The remaining fragments of his consciousness and his yet-to-dissipate memories were like objects violently swept up by an invisible gale, torn to shreds, and then forcibly poured into Lu Zhao’s Sea of Consciousness!
’The backlash from this Soul Searching Technique is as vicious as they say... Forcibly using it on a high-level Cultivator, even with his Heart Spirit wide open and my own Divine Sense being strong, is no easy task...’ This ferocious impact on his Spiritual Soul made even the prepared Lu Zhao grunt. His face paled slightly as sharp, stabbing pains, like steel needles piercing his mind, radiated through his Sea of Consciousness. A chill went through him. He endured the discomfort in his Spiritual Soul and the flood of memories, quickly sifting through them to capture key information from Zheng Hu’s mind.
A torrent of mixed information, charged with intense emotions, washed over him: power struggles within the Zheng Family, unfair resource distribution, personnel transfers, weak points in the Mountain Protection Array... Suddenly, a memory, tinged with strong emotions of despair, madness, and grim determination, froze in Lu Zhao’s mind’s eye like a blood-stained frame.
It was a secret chamber deep within the Zheng Family’s Spirit Mountain, one rich with Spiritual Qi. In the memory, the Zheng Family Ancestor was withered and gaunt. His once-mighty Foundation Establishment aura had weakened to that of a candle flickering in the wind, but his eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, remained as sharp and grim as a hawk’s. They were fixed on the few Core Elders before him. His hoarse, dry voice carried an unquestionable authority and a hint of... desperate madness:
"...The Lin Family... That old bastard... The Tier Two Lifespan Extension Pill in his hands is my... my only hope of extending my life! I must get it! I must get it at any cost! Otherwise... otherwise, once I pass away, the Zheng Family... will be instantly annihilated, with no one left alive! The Huang and Lin Families, and those... those jackals eyeing us like tigers... they will absolutely not let us go! They won’t... give the Zheng Family any breathing room!"
"For this ambush... I will strike personally! With my full power! Success means a longer life; failure... means death!" A bloody glint flashed in the Elder Ancestor’s eyes, his killing intent palpable. "You all... must stabilize the family... and lock down all information! Create the illusion that I can still hold on! As long as... we can stall until I seize the Lifespan Extension Pill and finish Refining the Pill... with my remaining Lifespan, as long as I don’t have to fight... I can live for at least another ten years... More importantly... with those ten years, we can stall until Fan’Er successfully achieves Foundation Establishment!"
"With Fan’Er’s Cultivation and his talent, in seven or eight years... he can reach the Qi Cultivation Peak. And with that batch... of High-Tier Spirit Water we acquired, it’s enough to trade for a... As long as Fan’Er succeeds in his Foundation Establishment... my Zheng Family will still have a foothold... in this Northern Plains County! We’ll still have... hope!"
After seeing this, the memory from Zheng Hu’s mind came to an abrupt end, like a reflection in water shattered by a heavy object.
Lu Zhao slowly withdrew his hand from Zheng Hu’s head. Zheng Hu’s head slumped powerlessly to the side, his pupils dilated, a look of endless venom and confusion frozen on his face. His breathing had completely stopped.
Lu Zhao stood up, rubbing his temples, which were throbbing from the Soul Search. A cold, knowing smile touched his lips.
’So that’s how it is... No wonder the Zheng Family Ancestor would risk ambushing the Lin Family’s Elder Ancestor, even knowing his own life was at its end,’ he muttered to himself, his eyes filled with the cold calculations of one who had seen the truth. ’But he’s not risking his life to snatch the Lin Family Ancestor’s Tier Two Lifespan Extension Pill just to cling to life. He’s doing it to prolong his life... to forcibly squeeze out ten more years! He’s stalling! Stalling until his precious grandson, the Zheng Family’s genius Cultivator with the High-Grade Water Spirit Root, Zheng Fan... successfully achieves Foundation Establishment!’
Lu Zhao’s gaze seemed to pierce through space, through layers of mountains, locking onto the location of the Zheng Family’s Tier Two Spirit Vein. The corner of his mouth curved into a cruel, cold arc.
"Old ghost of the Zheng Family... you want to stall for time? To stall long enough for the Zheng Family to produce a Foundation Establishment Cultivator?"
"Heh... I will not let you have your wish!"
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze seeming to penetrate the Void, landing on the figure of a young man in seclusion deep within the Spirit Mountain.
’Once I make my move and capture that Zheng Fan... the Zheng Family’s only hope for a Foundation Establishment...’
Lu Zhao’s voice dropped, as if stating an inevitable fact:
"At that time... you old ghost, barely hanging on in your Tier Two Spirit Vein, will you still be able to sit still? Will you still be able to hide in that tortoise shell of yours?"
"As long as you dare to come out..."
Lu Zhao’s voice suddenly turned sharp, like the whisper of death itself:
"...don’t even think... about going back!"