Counter-Attack Backlash

The blade gleamed like snow, murderous aura billowing. The cold metal reflected the flickering candles in the hall, dazzling the eyes. Dozens of fully armed prefectural soldiers, like an iron bucket, tightly surrounded Pei Ji and Jiang Ying in the center, leaving no gap. The sharp blade tips pointed outward, forming an impenetrable wall of death.

Jiang Ying was forced to stand behind Pei Ji's tall figure, still clutching tightly in her hand the letters that were enough to condemn Madame Jiang to death. The edges of the paper were already soaked through by the cold sweat in her palm. Although she could not see anything, her exceptionally sharp hearing allowed her to clearly capture every subtle sound around her.

The teeth-grinding friction of blades slowly being drawn from their sheaths, the heavy breathing of the soldiers made thicker by tension and excitement, and even the suppressed, gleeful panting of Old Master Jiang from afar... These sounds intertwined, forming a huge, suffocating net.

She was not afraid of those fierce soldiers. Twelve years of inhuman torture in the side courtyard had long numbed and hardened her heart. She was only worried about the man standing in front of her—or rather, this ghost.

His power had not fully recovered yet. In the desolate mountains earlier, dealing with those lonely ghosts had already exhausted a great deal of his energy, even weakening him to the point where he needed to suck her blood to maintain his form. And now, he had to face dozens of well-trained soldiers, and even unknown masters of the mystical arts.

"General..." she called out softly, her voice as thin as a silk thread amidst the clatter of weapons, a hint of concern she herself did not detect in her tone. She extended her pale hand, instinctively wanting to grab the hem of his clothes.

"Shut up. Stand still and don't move." Pei Ji's voice was cold, as if tempered in eternal ice, directly cutting off her words. But there was also in his tone an inexplicably reassuring, unquestionable steadiness.

He did not look back, only slightly turning sideways, completely shielding Jiang Ying in his shadow. Then, instead of retreating, he advanced toward the fierce soldiers charging at him.

There were no flashy, complicated moves like those of martial artists, nor the dazzling light effects of mystical cultivators. Every move Pei Ji made carried the simplicity, directness, and lethality honed through battlefield slaughter.

His figure moved like a ghost, weaving effortlessly through the impenetrable forest of blades, as if those deadly knives had eyes and deliberately avoided him. With every seemingly casual raise of his hand, a dense, almost tangible black Yin energy burst forth from his palm. Those Yin energies, like living, venomous black mambas, accurately struck the soldiers' vital death acupoints on their chests or their vulnerable joints.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Accompanied by a series of dull thuds of flesh impacts, the dozen or so soldiers at the front, who hadn't even seen Pei Ji's movements clearly, let out distorted screams. Like torn hemp bags flung by a tremendous force, they flew backward, heavily crashing onto the hard blue-brick floor and carved pillars, unable to get up again.

Even more eerie was that the soldiers struck by the Yin energy immediately had their faces covered with a black, nauseating death aura. They did not bleed, but their bodies stiffened at a visible rate, turning as cold as ice blocks just pulled from an ice cellar.

Li Yunxuan, standing behind the soldiers, finally saw his originally handsome and confident expression change. Although he was the son of the Provincial Governor, born with a silver spoon, he was no ignorant playboy. He had trained in advanced martial arts under famous masters since childhood. He could naturally tell that the strength displayed by this man in black was not something a human could possess! This was absolutely not some ordinary martial arts master, but a true demon that sucked human essence!

"Crossbowmen! Prepare!" Li Yunxuan made a prompt decision, shouting loudly, immediately changing the close-combat tactics. This monster was too strong in melee; only ranged weapons could suppress him.

The soldiers in the rear reacted quickly, retreating in unison with disciplined coordination. Dozens of gleaming crossbows were instantly drawn, their cold arrows all firmly aimed at Pei Ji standing in the center of the hall, and Jiang Ying behind him.

"Loose arrows!"

"Swish, swish, swish, swish!"

The dense rain of arrows, like black locusts, carrying sharp, piercing whistles, poured down toward Pei Ji and Jiang Ying from all directions.

Hearing the dense sound like rain beating on banana leaves, Jiang Ying instinctively shrank her body and closed her eyes tight. She could even feel the cold air currents the arrows cut through as they flew. She awaited the sharp pain of blades piercing flesh.

However, the expected pain did not come.

A moment before the arrow rain descended, Pei Ji suddenly turned around, his wide black sleeve sweeping, pulling her firmly into his embrace. At the same time, a burst of Yin energy even denser and more狂暴 than any before, like a volcanic eruption, gushed out from his body and rapidly凝结 around them, forming a semicircular shield like坚不可摧的 black glass.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The dense rain of fine steel arrows crazily struck the black shield, producing sharp metallic clashes, sparks flying everywhere. But those sharp arrowheads, enough to pierce heavy armor, shattered and curled upon contact with the shield, as if hitting the hardest diamond, falling powerlessly to the ground around them, piling up into a small mountain of arrows.

Li Yunxuan's eyes widened in shock, his hand holding the sword hilt trembling slightly. What kind of monster was this?! Even the military's specially made armor-piercing crossbows could not harm him in the slightest!

"Is this all you've got?" Pei Ji looked through the semi-transparent black shield at the horrified Li Yunxuan outside, his dark green eyes filled with undisguised mockery and contempt. "It seems the people of this era are getting worse with each generation, weaker and weaker. Not even fit to scratch an itch for this General."

His eyes sharpened, and he suddenly waved his hand.

"Break!"

The black shield protecting them instantly exploded outward like a detonated powder keg.

A powerful shockwave carrying a destructive aura, mixed with countless broken sharp arrows on the ground, swept out in all directions like a violent storm, with the force of toppling mountains and overturning seas.

"Ah——"

The surrounding soldiers had no time to dodge and were struck down by arrows one after another. Severed limbs and broken arms splattered everywhere along with warm blood. Ghastly wails joined into one continuous sound. The entire hall instantly turned into a hell on earth.

Li Yunxuan reacted extremely quickly. He let out a roar, whirling his treasured sword into an impenetrable barrier, barely blocking a few broken arrows heading straight for his face. But he still underestimated the power of that shockwave, staggering back five or six steps, and spitting out a large mouthful of blood, staining the silver armor on his chest.

"You... what kind of demon are you?!" Li Yunxuan pointed at Pei Ji, both shocked and enraged, his hand holding the sword trembling uncontrollably.

"Demon?" Pei Ji sneered as if hearing a ridiculous joke. He walked out step by step from amidst the corpses and blood, like the arrival of the Grim Reaper. "When this General was killing men on the battlefield, your grandfather's grandfather was still nursing in his mother's belly!"

He said no more, his figure instantly disappearing from the spot, transforming into a black lightning bolt barely visible to the naked eye, appearing directly before Li Yunxuan.

Li Yunxuan was greatly startled, his pupils contracting sharply. The instinct to survive made him raise his treasured sword and stab forward with all his might.

But before his sword could even touch the fluttering hem of Pei Ji's robe, Pei Ji extended two pale, slender fingers and casually caught the sharp blade.

"Too slow. And completely lacking in strength."

Pei Ji commented flatly, as if instructing a child just learning to walk. Then his two fingers exerted a slight pressure.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound of breaking. That treasured sword, forged from refined steel a hundred times and sharp enough to cleave iron, was snapped in two by his bare hands!

Then, before Li Yunxuan could react, Pei Ji casually raised his leg and kicked him hard in the chest.

"Puh——"

Li Yunxuan didn't even have time to scream. Like a kite with a broken string, he violently spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, flying backward. He crashed through a heavy rosewood screen and two octagonal tables in succession, finally slamming heavily into the wall, sliding down into the rubble, his fate unknown.

"Brother Li! Yunxuan!"

Jiang Mingzhu, who had been hiding behind and trembling all along, let out a piercing shriek at this sight, desperately rushing toward the unknown fate of the man in the rubble. If Li Yunxuan died, her dream of marrying into a wealthy family would be completely shattered! How could she still be the lofty young mistress of the Provincial Governor?!

With the collapse of their backbone Li Yunxuan, the remaining soldiers completely lost their last fighting spirit. Looking at Pei Ji, who was like a demon god, they finally broke down. Throwing away their armor and weapons, they scrambled and crawled out of the hall, wishing they could grow two more legs.

The Jiang family hall, originally full of joyful guests, had now become a gruesome hell on earth. Broken walls, rivers of blood.

Old Master Jiang and Madame Jiang huddled together in a corner under the altar table, tightly embracing each other, watching this scene, too terrified to even realize they had lost control of their bladders and bowels. Their bodies shook like sieves. They could never have imagined that the blind concubine-born daughter they regarded as a thorn in their flesh, even thrown away like trash to marry a dead man, would bring back such an invincible scourge.

Pei Ji paid no attention to the two trembling ants in the corner. He turned around and walked toward Jiang Ying, who had been standing quietly in place.

He had forcibly activated the unstable power within him to intimidate everyone in a short time. Now, his face was even paler than before in the cave, even showing an eerie transparency. The edges of his originally solid form had begun to show signs of blurring, like smoke.

"Let's go." He walked to her side and said only one word. His voice was somewhat hoarse and tired, but still cold.

Jiang Ying did not ask where. She sensed his weakness. Without any hesitation, she reached out her hand, accurately fumbling for his cold one, and firmly grasped it back. It was an almost instinctive dependence, like a drowning person grasping at the only light in the darkness.

Just as the two took a step forward, preparing to leave this Jiang mansion filled with blood and sin—

A extremely dangerous, vast aura carrying a destructive force suddenly descended from the sky like Mount Tai pressing down, firmly locking onto them.

"Bold demon! Where do you think you're going!"

Accompanied by a roar like a great bell striking, shaking the soul, a blinding golden pillar of light, almost tearing the night apart, descended from the sky with the majestic might of heaven, fiercely striking at where Pei Ji stood.

Pei Ji's expression changed dramatically, his eyes instantly becoming incomparably sharp. He violently pushed Jiang Ying beside him more than ten meters away, then raised both hands upward, letting out a roar not human. He madly squeezed every last bit of Yin energy remaining in his body, condensing it into a black tornado, surging upward to desperately block that destructive golden light.

"Boom——Rumble!!!"

A sound a hundred times louder than any previous explosion detonated in the Jiang family courtyard.

The entire Jiang mansion violently trembled and shook under this terrifying collision of forces, as if a massive earthquake had struck. Countless tiles fell rustling from the roof, and huge cracks appeared in the walls.

Jiang Ying was violently pushed back by the狂暴 airwave, rolling continuously across the ground several times before heavily crashing into a pillar and stopping. She felt as if her internal organs had been shattered. A sweetness rose in her throat, and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

She struggled to sit up. Although darkness still lay before her eyes, she could clearly sense that the dense smell of blood and Yin energy in the air had been swept away, replaced by an extremely pure, overbearing, even burning masculine Yang aura.

This aura was completely opposite to the cold Yin energy on Pei Ji, inherently mutually exclusive,水火不容.

The smoke and dust gradually dissipated.

In midair, there now stood an old Daoist with white hair and beard, with the bearing of an immortal. He wore a purple Daoist robe symbolizing the highest status in the mystical arts, holding a thousand-year-old Lightning-Struck Wood Whisk radiating a dazzling golden light, like a celestial descending from the Ninth Heaven, looking down upon the ants of the mortal world."Purple-Robed Celestial Master?" Pei Ji knelt on one knee on the ground that had been blasted into a large crater, one hand firmly supporting him. He gasped heavily, and black blood carrying a putrid aura kept seeping from the corners of his mouth. He lifted his head, his dark green eyes filled with unprecedented solemnity and a hint of hidden madness.

In the Mystic Gate, only those whose cultivation had reached the pinnacle—capable of summoning the power of heaven and earth—were qualified to wear that purple robe. A thousand years ago, during that brutal sealing war that nearly exhausted the Mystic Gate's fortunes, three entire Purple-Robed Celestial Masters had participated.

"I have been wandering the world as a mendicant priest. When I arrived in Qingzhou, I sensed an intensely powerful, sky-piercing demonic aura here, so I came specially to investigate." The Purple-Robed Celestial Master looked down at the gravely wounded Pei Ji, his eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation, carrying only the cold ruthlessness of one who eliminates demons and upholds the Dao. "I never expected to find a thousand-year ghost king who narrowly escaped an Ancient Seal. And on top of that, you dare to commit mass slaughter in the mortal world, creating such boundless bloodshed!"

"Stop pretending to meddle with your hypocritical concern!" Pei Ji cursed through gritted teeth. He slowly rose to his feet, his body swaying precariously. If he were even at half his full strength, this old Daoist wouldn't stand a chance—he could crush his primordial spirit with a single move. But now, his power had been greatly diminished. Earlier, he had forcibly taken that blow head-on to protect Jiang Ying, which had already damaged his very core, and his spectral body was nearly on the verge of collapsing.

"Demon, since you didn't linger in your seal to eke out a miserable existence and instead dared to escape and wreak havoc in the mortal world, then I, your humble Daoist, shall act on behalf of heaven today and use this Nine Heavens Profound Lightning to make you utterly vanish—soul destroyed, never to be reborn!"

The Purple-Robed Celestial Master wasted no more words. He flicked his golden, shimmering fly whisk, stepped into the air, and began chanting under his breath. His voice resembled Buddhist hymns yet carried a chilling murderous intent.

In an instant, the once clear, star-and-moon-lit sky became shrouded in dark clouds, and a fierce gale arose. Deafening thunder rolled wildly within the clouds, as if heaven itself were enraged. Golden runes formed from pure thunderous power materialized and intertwined in the air, rapidly coalescing into a colossal killing array that enveloped the entire Jiang family mansion.

The moment the array took shape, the air became thick with a terrifying pressure that seemed capable of annihilating everything.

"The Nine Heavens Profound Lightning Array?!" Seeing the golden net above him, Pei Ji's expression changed completely. This old goat actually planned to use such a suicidal forbidden technique right from the start!

This array was immensely powerful—not only would it reduce all specters within to ashes, but any living humans inside would also suffer, ground to dust by the thunderous force.

"Old man, have you lost your mind?! There are still so many mortals here!" Pei Ji pointed at the terrified servants and members of the Jiang family who had been scared out of their wits, roaring up at the Purple-Robed Celestial Master suspended in mid-air. Though he was bloodthirsty, it was only toward his enemies.

"Subduing demons and vanquishing evil is the duty of us cultivators. For the sake of all living beings under heaven, some necessary sacrifices are inevitable. If it means eliminating you—this calamitous demon who has plagued the world for a thousand years—what does sacrificing a few ordinary mortals matter? Their deaths are worth it," the Purple-Robed Celestial Master said coldly, his eyes betraying no reverence for life whatsoever, as if he were stating something perfectly reasonable.

"Hahaha! What a fine show of righteous 'acting on heaven's behalf'! You hypocrites—the same a thousand years ago, and a thousand years later, you still wear this nauseating mask!" Pei Ji laughed in extreme fury, his laughter filled with bitterness and scorn.

He no longer paid any attention to the lofty Celestial Master. Abruptly, he turned his head and looked toward Jiang Ying, who had just struggled to her feet in the distance.

"Blind girl, listen," his voice was no longer cold, but carried an unprecedented urgency. The sound did not travel through the air; it transmitted directly into Jiang Ying's mind through the blood pact of their ghost marriage.

"This old goat is insane. Once this array is fully activated, not even an ant in this courtyard will survive. I'll forcefully tear open an opening at the cost of my life. You run—immediately. Don't care about direction. Get as far away as you can, and never look back!"

Jiang Ying's entire body trembled, as if struck by lightning.

Run? Where could she run to?

She gave a bitter smile. That invisible red thread was like a red-hot iron chain, cruelly cinched around her wrist.

"If I run, what about you?" Instead of fleeing, she shouted loudly in his direction. There was even a hint of a sob in her voice that she herself hadn't noticed.

"Me?" Pei Ji was momentarily taken aback, as if he hadn't expected her to care whether he lived or died at a time like this. Then his voice took on a madness bordering on absolute desperation. "Since I've broken out, I'm not about to be shut back in like a useless piece of trash! Even if I'm destined to die today, I'm dragging this hypocritical old goat down to hell with me—to be my burial companion!"

The moment he finished speaking, the killing array that had been brewing in the sky was finally activated. The first bolt of golden profound lightning, thick as a water barrel and filled with annihilating power, struck down with earth-shattering force, aimed directly at Pei Ji!

"BOOM!"

The profound lightning struck Pei Ji with unerring accuracy. Blinding golden light instantly engulfed his dark silhouette.

Pei Ji let out an agonized roar that didn't sound human. Under the assault of the supreme yang-charged profound lightning, his yin energy dissipated like snow under a scorching sun. His newly solidified body grew increasingly translucent, as if it might scatter in the wind at any moment. But he did not fall; his legs were rooted firmly into the ground as he withstood this fatal blow.

"Ahhh—!"

At the same time, Jiang Ying in the distance also let out a blood-curdling scream, curling up in agony on the ground.

The blood pact had backlashed.

With Pei Ji suffering such a mortal wound, the pain of his soul being torn apart and burned in purgatory was transmitted—without reservation and even magnified several times—through that invisible red thread into Jiang Ying's body.

She felt as if her soul were being ripped in two by a pair of invisible giant hands. The pain was so excruciating that she kept writhing on the ground, vomiting large mouthfuls of blood, her vision swimming in a desperate crimson.

"Blind girl! Get out of here! Do you want to die?!" Pei Ji turned his head with difficulty amidst the lightning, looking at Jiang Ying as she struggled in pain, blood oozing from her seven orifices. A flicker of deep panic and heartache—something even he himself hadn't noticed—passed through his eyes.

She must not die!

He clenched his teeth abruptly and let out a sky-shaking roar. He madly burned the last traces of his fundamental soul energy, gathering all the remaining power within him into a thick, massive black pillar of light. With a tragic, unyielding momentum, it shot straight into the sky and slammed fiercely into the edge of the golden killing array, which was about to release a second bolt of profound lightning!

"CRACK!"

Amidst a grating, teeth-chilling sound of fracturing, the seemingly indestructible Nine Heavens Profound Lightning Array was actually torn open by his desperate, suicidal strike—a tiny fissure barely wide enough for a single person to slip through.

"GO!!"

With the last shred of his strength, Pei Ji bellowed with earth-shattering force, and then his figure was completely swallowed by the overwhelming golden radiance and thunder.

Jiang Ying, enduring the excruciating pain of her soul being torn, dug her fingers into the dirt and struggled to her feet. She couldn't see where the fissure was; she could only rely on instinct, staggering toward the opening that represented a chance at life.

But that invisible red thread on her wrist was like a red-hot iron chain, viciously tugging at her. With every step she took, the pain of the backlash intensified.

"Ten zhang..."

She knew in her heart that Pei Ji's fate was currently unknown. If she escaped beyond this ten-zhang distance while Pei Ji was still alive, the distance backlash of the blood pact would instantly shred her soul and kill her outright.

Run, or not run?

It was a dilemma poised on the razor's edge between life and death.