19 Battle at the lake

"I think it's working," Chen Anyue gasped, eyeing the glowing light. Yuan Xuelan remained steady with his incantation. Both spells were designed for a similar purpose, coaxing souls out of decaying bodies. While normally performed only when a corpse has been subdued to a great extent, Yuan Xuelan thought it was worth a try.

After all, Bai Qiaoyin's corruption and power came from the souls of the villagers that were forcefully sacrificed to her. Those souls did not belong to her. And thus, it should theoretically be much easier to separate them from her.

But it didn't seem like enough. Although the souls trembled and responded to the call, glowing wildly within that rotten chest, they remain caged, unable to leave the goddess's mangled body.

"Liu Sumeng!" Yuan Xuelan yelled, between his incantations, "You're going to have to try to cut her open. The souls are ready to break free!"

"...Got it." It was easier said than done because Bai Qiaoyin did not slow nor weaken in the slightest. In fact, her growls increased in ferocity and her blows seemed to be stronger, fiercer. Black nails grappled at Liu Sumeng's robes, pulling him towards the edge of the pier until his heels teetered on the ledge. Her jaws snapped at him, teeth tainted yellow and brown and the scent of decay splashed in his face.

Quickly, he wedged Mingshui into that ugly maw, steel holding back rotted teeth from taking a chunk of his flesh. He boldly grabbed a crinkly wrist and pulled her back, using as much force as he could to drag her backward and onto shore before she could use her inhuman strength to toss him into the water.

Brutish strength, luckily, did not come with intelligence. Like a mindless rabid dog, she allowed herself to be dragged away from the water, only caring about clawing and biting at the being in front of her.

Liu Sumeng ripped himself away from her hold, circling around to gain some distance and control. His concentration narrowed upon that the pulsing glow. They circled each other. Her form was crouched, claws tense and outstretched like a beast while Liu Sumeng maintained a calm countenance, steady and focused. An opportunity to strike came when the goddess flinched and cried, affected by the spell and tunes that called to the foreign souls bubbling within her. Liu Sumeng lunged forth, but too slow! She recovered from her predicament and caught the cultivator's upper arm, nails digging straight into flesh and muscle. But Liu Sumeng gritted his teeth and did not back away from the pain, and instead took another step forward, allowing gritty nails to scrape as deep as bone.

His determination prevailed, sword point reaching her chest, a single slash carved away at the mangled flesh there. But before he could rip a hole through her, black hair was curling and reaching around his limbs and Liu Sumeng knew that he would have to rip himself free from her grasps if he didn't want to die from strangulation. The two wrestled and tumbled until finally, Liu Sumeng was able to wrench himself away. His breath was heavier, sweat beading at his brow but still, he held his stance steady.

The tainted goddess growled at him, baring her teeth with drool slobbering over gray cracked lips. For a moment, nothing changed. But when she took a step to strike, her moments suddenly halted and her body convulsed. Light poured out from the slit on her chest.

An ear-piercing cry echoed and a small trickle of light escaped from the cut, rushing back into the depth of the lake.

"That was...!" Chen Anyue called, eyes widened as she watched the battle.

"Yeah," Yuan Xuelan affirmed. With renewed determination, they concentrated even more on their spells, now knowing their plan was able to take into effect.

But it wasn't enough, because soon the wound closed and no more light escaped. Recovered, the goddess lunged at Liu Sumeng again, but now he knew what to do. The sky was darkening, awash in a soft deepening blue as the moon crawled to her lofty place above.

When they clashed, Liu Sumeng noticed she was neither as strong nor as fast, her grip and push, struggling against his. He danced around her, aiming at her chest again slicing and cutting to free more of the light that bubbled within.

All the while, the lake began to ripple once more. "A-Zhang, what's that?" Chen Anyue questioned with a worried tone. But she maintained her concentration and continued to play that soothing melody without error.

Yuan Xuelan bit his lips. He had an idea about what was going to crawl out of that lake, but they didn't have time to deal with that, not when Liu Sumeng was still dueling that savage corpse of a tainted goddess.

Before long, mangled hands, ghastly and gray visages with tangled hair and wrinkly skin began surfacing from the lake. At first, there were only two, and then three more appeared until a dozen bodies were slowly groaning and crawling out dark waters. The souls, having escaped their prison, returned to their original bodies. Resentful and angry, they stumbled towards Yuan Xuelan and Chen Anyue.

Yuan Xuelan, still focused on his incantation, took out two more talismans and shot them towards two of the corpses crawling their way, their bodies igniting into a pillar of fire. They groaned, screeched and struggled, but still inched forwards even as flesh was scorched and charred.

"A-Zhang, we can't continue like this…" Chen Anyue furrowed her brows.

"I know!" He grit his teeth. They couldn't continue with their soul invoking spells while having to fight off these corpses at the same time. But just as Yuen Xuelan was about to drop his spell in favor of engaging with the corpses stumbling towards them, three arrows shot through the air, each lodging into an eye socket of an advancing foe.

"Please leave this to me!" Feng Yu called, notching more arrows into his bowstring. His precision was to be envied, never was a shot even a sliver off its mark. But an arrow through the skull was still not enough to stop what was already dead. Though it did slow them down, making muscles twitch more erratically, their steps became even slower.

And when they got too close, with their creaking bones and rigid joints, Feng Yu wasn't afraid to use his hands and feet. He kicked them with all his strength, and bones cracked from the force. He grabbed a dagger from his robes and sliced away at outreached fingers, buying them the time they needed.

Liu Sumeng was able to gain more ground by targeting the goddess's chest. With each slice decorating that area, more souls slipped out, rushing back into the depth of the lake. Each time, she stumbled and weakened, her movements slowed and became more clumsy. But Liu Sumeng also felt his muscles tire and strength weaken, his left arm had already been drenched red, the wound ugly and deep. But he persisted, determined to not falter, hiding away signs of weakness and continued to clash with her, the steel of his sword against her tainted nails and teeth.

If she were more intelligent, perhaps it would have been an impossible feat, but luckily her strengths were in her brute power and speed as well as stamina. Corrupted with resentful energy, she was no more than a rabid beast and did not understand that she was supposed to protect her weakness, leaving it open for Liu Sumeng to strike at again and again.

With the souls flowing out of her body, more corpses rose from the lake, too many for the simple mortal, Feng Yu to fend off. But Yuan Xuelan saw that the goddess was weakening and that the Ivory Sword Saint had the situation more or less under control, even if his arm was a damn bloodied mess. So he paused his incantation, unleashing a flood of talismans that bloomed into flames upon the encroaching corpses before drawing his sword. He cut and slashed away at whatever evil that dared come too close to his Shijie.

The four of them fought, blades slicing and hacking, arrows flying and the low strum and pipa's soft melody could be heard among the chaos.

Eventually, the chaos stilled. Yuan Xuelan dislodged his sword from a twitching corpse beneath his feet, his blade now coated with a layer of tar-like blood. The last tunes plucked from a pipa's string, Chen Anyue looked around, "Is it over…?"

Liu Sumeng liked to think that it was. Although he stood there, by the goddess's fallen form, countenance still and calm, he was exhausted and drained and a step away from swaying and collapsing. His thoughts were dark and gloomy because he couldn't remember being this weak. After riding to war at the side of crazed emperor, cutting and killing in the name of vengeance, Liu Sumeng recalled a body that wouldn't stumble nor stagger even with limbs hacked away and organs ripped asunder. Instead, he'd steadily march forward, sword in hand until his very last breath and strand of life widdled away.

He shook a shaky breath and surveyed their surroundings, corpses broken, their blood, bones and flesh scattered all around, the grass was stained red and black.