Chapter 715: City Wall

Chapter 715: City Wall

A woman’s corpse cut in half was laid over a well with putrid water. Her body was twitching and her eyeball was dangling out of her eye socket.

The twitching stopped abruptly. The rats that were nibbling on her corpse sensed something and stopped, then burrowed out of her body and scattered.

Li Huowang soon walked past the corpse as they continued forward.

He frowned and looked around the destroyed village. Everything lay in ruins, devoid of any survivors. The ground had been razed, and death permeated the entire village.

Li Huowang remembered this place. He had stayed here for the night when he first escaped Zephyr Temple. It had once been a lively place, but now there wasn’t a single person alive.

Everyone had been butchered.

The place was already close to the front lines. To the people of Si Qi, the army and the Dharma Sect were one and the same.

By assessing the freshness of the corpses, Li Huowang determined that the village had been destroyed recently.

“Suisui, rest a bit for now. We’ll be arriving soon,” Li Huowang suggested, settling down on the bench and munching on his rations.

With sadness in her eyes, Li Sui looked at the lifeless bodies. “Dad, so many people died.”

She now understood the meaning of death.

“Right. As the saying goes, it’s better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos.”

Li Huowang felt nothing in his heart when he looked at the old monk’s illusion trying to appease the souls of the dead. The monk had tried this with every corpse along the way, so Li Huowang had grown used to it.

Li Huowang was actually focused on himself right now. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened.

What’s going on? How did I conjure up another Suisui?

While he was happy his cultivation had advanced, he was now feeling uneasy.

When he reached the city wall, he placed his palm on it rather than climbing it. He closed his eyes and pushed forward, letting his body sink into the wall.

When he reached the other side, he placed his palm on the wall again and felt its solid surface. His cultivation had finally paid off!

“Time to go!” A tentacle sprouted out of Li Huowang and hooked itself onto the roof. Li Sui pulled Li Huowang onto the top of the roof.

Li Huowang steadied himself before realizing the City God Temple had been replaced with a massive stone statue depicting some unknown deity.

The black statue was making a Vajra Seal with its left hand and holding onto a vase with its right hand. Even though the statue’s face depicted it as merciful, Li Huowang felt that the statue was perversely twisted.

No matter what it was, he was certain that the statue was not god Yu’er. God Yu’er dwelled in the darkness and couldn’t be portrayed with just clay and stones.

Did god Yu’er gain a new body to trick even more people? It seemed plausible to Li Huowang. He doubted anyone would join if they saw the true form of god Yu’er.

Li Huowang ran on the roof, quickly pinpointing the area where the leaders of the Dharma Sect in the area were most likely hiding in. Only the county’s magistrate's office could have stone lions placed in front of the door.

Suddenly, a spear pierced through the roof tile that Li Huowang was standing on and stabbed into his feet. An ambush? I’ve been spotted!

Li Huowang tried to escape, but the spear was faster. The roof collapsed from the attack, and Li Huowang fell down into a dark house.

Before long, he saw the person who attacked him. It was a man standing on stilts while holding onto two spears.

The man chuckled at Li Huowang and said, “You think you can launch a surprise attack at our base camp with your lousy footing? My spears are coated in—”

Li Huowang stabbed his purple-tassel sword into the man’s throat without waiting for the man to finish his sentence.

“Who cares what you’ve coated your spears in? I just need to kill you.”

Li Huowang understood his powers well. He wouldn’t be in danger if he didn’t hear what the spears were coated in. He twisted his sword and cut off the man’s head, then jumped out of the house before the man’s lifeless body even hit the ground.