The murky well water surged like an oceanic tsunami, and the female corpse stood on the crest of the waves, her face icy as she gazed at the colossal tree-man before her.
Gu Huai Xionsha sneered at the female corpse. "You fled in disarray when I beat you during the day, yet you dare to come back at night. You're truly bold."
The female corpse gave a contemptuous smile, her eyes fixed on Gu Huai Xionsha. She remained silent. This old fellow was still showing off even when his own lair was about to be destroyed.
The two formidable beings locked eyes, neither making the first move.
The female corpse wished for nothing more than to stall for time, while Gu Huai Xionsha feared a trap and dared not act rashly. Thus, the two terrifying figures stared at each other.
Meanwhile, Fang Ming listened to the commotion to the east. Judging by the sounds, the female corpse should have already attacked, but why hadn't a fight broken out yet?
He wouldn't dare to act until they started fighting.
"Let's check the diary to see what's happening," Fang Ming said, pulling out the diary from his cloth bag.
"After the female corpse and Gu Huai Xionsha began their battle, I took the opportunity to use the resentment staff to detonate the煞种 left by the female corpse. However, the explosion was sensed by Gu Huai Xionsha, who rushed back to protect the tomb. But he was entangled by the female corpse and couldn't break free. I thought everything was going smoothly, but then a quasi-Xionsha suddenly appeared, and I started fighting it."
Fang Ming's expression flickered. The diary didn't record the outcome of his fight with the quasi-Xionsha. This meant either the time had exceeded the one-hour record in the diary, or… he would die.
"I completely forgot about this," Fang Ming grumbled with a wry smile. "How could such a powerful Gu Huai Xionsha not have any underlings?"
A quasi-Xionsha, a foe of that strength—Fang Ming had only seen one so far: the hundred-meter煞种 formed by the plaza sacrifice. How could his meager strength possibly contend with such an opponent? By talking?
What should he do? Fang Ming was in turmoil. Should he abandon the female corpse and flee, or risk it all? He could gamble that the female corpse would quickly defeat Gu Huai Xionsha, who was deprived of its resentment replenishment, and then come to his rescue.
"Boom!" Suddenly, an explosion sounded in the distance!
The female corpse and Gu Huai Xionsha had begun their engagement!
Fang Ming glanced towards the battlefield, gritted his teeth, and made up his mind: "Damn it, I'll go for it."
At worst, he would die. If he ran away alone, not only would he offend the female corpse, potentially facing a double pursuit from both her and Gu Huai Xionsha in the future, but even if he escaped safely and the female corpse died at the hands of Gu Huai Xionsha, what then? How would he leave Bai Mu Village?
"But I should still be careful," Fang Ming thought. He cautiously entered the graveyard and soon saw several corpse煞种 standing there in a daze. The resentment within them was so abundant that it even seeped out as wisps of white mist from their skin.
Fang Ming approached one of the corpses. Its appearance was somewhat horrifying; its skin was bleached white from being soaked in well water, a rotten odor wafted from it, and its features bled, flowing slowly down its cheeks.
If this sight had suddenly appeared before his past self, it probably would have scared the wits out of him.
"I'm sorry," Fang Ming said, raising his resentment staff and piercing it deeply into the corpse.
Instantly, the resentment within the corpse was ignited, and its body began to swell at a visible rate. Seeing this, Fang Ming hastily tried to retreat, but it exploded too quickly for him to dodge.
"Boom!"
A wave of resentment erupted, and the runes covering an area of tens of meters around the ground crackled and then disintegrated into specks of starlight.
Yet, although Fang Ming was directly hit by the energy wave, he found himself unharmed.
"So the explosion only affects the runes?" Fang Ming marveled, thinking the female corpse indeed had some tricks up her sleeve.
He cast a wary glance around and then ran towards the second corpse.
"Boom!" "Boom!"…
One corpse after another was detonated. The runes on the surface of the graveyard were destroyed at a visible pace. The rich resentment buried underground began to seep out through the ground. It was so dense that it even spawned some weak煞种 on the spot!
…
Gu Huai Xionsha slammed the female corpse away with a punch and was about to press his advantage when he suddenly sensed something, exclaiming in shock, "You actually found my resentment pool!"
"Hehehe," the female corpse said, slowly getting up from the ground, her flesh and blood rapidly regenerating. She cackled, "Old man, you didn't expect this, did you? Once your resentment pool is completely destroyed, let's see how you'll fight me."
Gu Huai Xionsha's eyes widened. "You abominable creature! Don't think you've won!"
Saying this, it turned to flee towards the ancestral hall. But the female corpse would not let it. She controlled numerous corpses to cling to the tree-man, tearing and hindering it, while desperately using the well water to entangle its body and impede its movements.
The tree-man struggled to break free, but the female corpse was now fighting with her life on the line. The water it broke free from immediately re-entangled it. Moreover, the female corpse continued to launch water attacks at the tree-man, damaging its limbs.
"You are truly dead!" Gu Huai Xionsha, unable to escape, was enraged. The resentment pool could not afford to have any problems; it was its accumulation of a thousand years. How could it let others destroy it? Once it lost the resentment pool, its future strength would not only stagnate but also be eroded by time!
Suddenly, the tree-man lost its vitality and crashed to the ground. The female corpse sneered. It seemed the old locust tree was truly desperate, even willing to abandon its roots to stop Fang Ming.
This colossal tree-man was actually the root system of the old locust tree. The destruction of the tree-man was a grievous blow to the old locust tree, comparable to losing its head. However, the tree could recover after some nurturing, but if the resentment pool were destroyed, that would ruin its future!
"Trying to leave? Not so easy!" the female corpse was also ruthless. Seeing the tree-man fall, she immediately commanded the endless well water to seep underground, carpet-searching for the old locust tree's whereabouts.
Finally, a rapidly moving tree root was discovered by the female corpse. She sneered and directly ordered nearby well water to transform into several ferocious water pythons, encircling the root, and then pounced upon it, biting and coiling furiously.
Seeing that the situation was dire, Gu Huai Xionsha had no choice but to return its consciousness to the tree-man. The colossal tree-man stood up again, shaking off the corpses that were gnawing at it. Its eyes were filled with rage as it glared ferociously at the sneering female corpse in the sky.
"You can't escape! The resentment pool will be broken today! And you will die today!" the female corpse mocked. "All I need to do now is stall until Fang Ming destroys your resentment pool. With your strength, how can you possibly be my match?"
"Fang Ming?" Gu Huai Xionsha suddenly burst into laughter. "So you sent that outsider to destroy my resentment pool."
"What are you laughing at?" the female corpse frowned, her heart sinking. Although she didn't know what had gone wrong, it seemed she had caused trouble.
Gu Huai Xionsha was no longer in a hurry. It calmly pulled off a corpse clinging to it and said, "I thought you sent some Xionsha to destroy my resentment pool. I didn't expect it to be just a human. Although I don't know how you managed to give that outsider Xionsha-level power to break the runes, since it's just a mere human, I have ten thousand ways to deal with him!"
"Damn it! I let it slip!" the female corpse also realized. She had inadvertently exposed Fang Ming, who was destroying the resentment pool. Now, all she could do was pray that Fang Ming could successfully destroy it. If Fang Ming knew that the dim-witted female corpse had set him up, he would probably be cursing.
Meanwhile.
Fang Ming was methodically detonating the corpse煞种, dismantling the runes bit by bit. In just over ten minutes, he had dismantled one-tenth of the graveyard's runes. At this pace, it would take about another hour to reach the standard for destroying the resentment pool.
"Boom!" Another rune was destroyed.
Fang Ming also cautiously observed his surroundings. As the destruction continued and approached the time predicted in the diary, as expected, the quasi-Xionsha would likely arrive soon.
Indeed, just as Fang Ming was preparing to head to his next destination, a heavy pressure emanated from one direction.
Fang Ming's expression darkened. He adopted an offensive stance, calmly staring in that direction.
"Thump, thump, thump…" Heavy footsteps grew closer, and a colossal figure gradually emerged from the darkness.
Nearly ten meters tall, with four slender necks constantly twisting, each of its four faces shifted through different expressions, ferocious and cruel. Its grayish-white skin was covered in patches of dark green scales, and its flesh was withered, like a walking corpse.
Fang Ming stared in disbelief at the monster before him. Its face…
"Uncle An…"
Fang Ming murmured. He never expected that the one who came to stop him would be Uncle An, the man who had helped him survive in Bai Mu Village and even saved his life.
"Destroying."
"Graveyard."
"Die."
"Die!"
Uncle An's four heads spoke one after another, their tones ferocious and bloodthirsty, completely unlike the kind old man Fang Ming remembered. Even the monster he first saw when Uncle An transformed was only cold and emotionless, not bloodthirsty like a true monster.
Fang Ming took a deep breath. This was no time for nostalgia. Uncle An had been transformed in this way, likely due to some modification by Gu Huai Xionsha. The original Uncle An was dead!
"I'm sorry, Uncle An," Fang Ming leaped up, his right arm transformed into a tentacle and swung out. Even if the real Uncle An were here to stop him, he would now be an enemy!
"Gak, gak," Uncle An let out a strange cry, and one of its necks moved like a blur, meeting Fang Ming's attack.
"Bang!"
The two collided, and Fang Ming was sent flying backward. Fortunately, his powerful physique gave him excellent balance, and he slid a few steps on the ground to dissipate the impact, but his internal blood and qi churned.
Looking at Uncle An, the scale blade that struck its head left no mark. In this exchange, Uncle An had clearly won!
Fang Ming cautiously watched Uncle An's movements, realizing that his current strength was nowhere near enough to clash head-on with this quasi-Xionsha. If he continued to fight it directly, he was doomed!
"Gaa, gaa," another of Uncle An's heads shrieked and attacked Fang Ming. Seeing this, Fang Ming quickly dodged. The distance between them gave him time to react and evade Uncle An's attack.
But Uncle An had four heads!
The first head missed its attack, and the remaining three attacked simultaneously, sealing Fang Ming's escape routes.
"This is bad!" Fang Ming was horrified. He could only brace himself and charge forward. He had nowhere to retreat!