Chapter 246 - Dance of the Dead

Only now did everyone see the tiny skeleton standing behind the Qi Practitioner. The white bone sword in its hand had pierced the Qi Practitioner’s chest.

However, no one noticed when it had appeared there. It seemed no different from something dead, giving off no aura at all. Even zombies would possess corpse qi.

“W- what kind of daemon is this?”

The scattered white bones melted into fluid and flowed towards the sword. The bone sword was an extremely ordinary short sword, without anything special, just tougher and heavier than usual. It was not even worthy of being called a sword embryo of the Buddha Slaying sword.

Xiao An scanned past everyone with the roaring flames in her eye sockets.

Everyone shivered inside after she glanced past them. They actually found her to be even more terrifying than the daemons that they had faced.

The corner of Li Qingshan’s lips curled up. He yelled out, “Run, everyone!” He grabbed Yu Zijian and rushed towards the cave.

Everyone was on edge already, so now that they suddenly saw such a strange monster, they had no interest in fighting at all. With Li Qingshan’s yell, they immediately scattered and scrambled for the cave.

The first senior brother was furious. He pointed at Li Qingshan. “Kill him.”

Several dozen zombies surged over. Their long nails were like a wave of spears as they stabbed towards Li Qingshan.

Li Qingshan suddenly halted. There was a gust of wind behind him, and the Iron Plate corpses extended their sharp claws towards his back.

However, he had been anticipating this. Without even looking back, he forcefully twisted his body and penetrated the group of corpses, ramming into a zombie. In Li Qingshan’s hands, just a single body slam was like a battering ram. There was the cracking of bones, and the zombie was sent flying, colliding against the zombies behind it and fracturing their bones too. They were incapacitated, allowing him to clear a path.

He took a step forward, and just when he was about to escape the encirclement, two metal claws directly reached towards Li Qingshan’s face.

He had stopped taking these regular zombies seriously a long time ago. The only ones that could threaten him to some degree were the dozen or so Iron Plate corpses. As long as he paused even for a moment, the Iron Plate corpses would surge over. While there was not a lot of danger, they were still troublesome.

He came to a halt and twisted his body again, smashing his way through the zombie horde like a tiger. He purposefully chose to run into regular zombies and managed to collapse the horde in just a few moves. Iron Plate zombies were extremely powerful, but their reaction speeds were slow, so they failed to even touch a hair on him.

Li Qingshan leapt up and charged towards the cave.

Two independent cultivators had already reached the cave before him. A figure suddenly descended from above and blocked their path. Before they could even react, a pair of sharp claws emerged from their backs, dripping with blood.

“A Steel Plate corpse!” Everyone shivered inside. This figure was the shining Steel Plate corpse that originally stood beside the first senior brother.

The first senior brother said frigidly, “I’ll kill whoever runs!”

The Steel Plate corpse was like a supervisor, blocking everyone’s escape path. It looked at Li Qingshan with its bloodthirsty eyes.

Li Qingshan swung out with the Whale’s Ingestion of Water, the crystal blade cleaving down viciously.

The Steel Plate corpse brought its hands together, actually catching the ice blade and swinging it away.

Li Qingshan was thrown into the air. He did a flip and landed on the ground gently. He was surprised, not because of the Steel Plate corpse’s strength, but because it was different from regular zombies that only knew how to use brute strength.

The Iron Plate corpses surged in from all directions once again. Their viscous faces and stinging smell of corpses made Yu Zijian’s heart thump nervously, but when she saw how Li Qingshan remained composed, she even began to smile in a self-deprecating manner.

The first senior brother’s confidence was not groundless. It was already rather tough for Xiao An to face a ninth layer Qi Practitioner by herself, and if other Qi Practitioners were thrown into the mix, it would only be even more difficult for her to triumph. Unfortunately, they just happened to be disciples of the Burial Mound mountain.

Jade-green vines grew from below Xiao An’s feet and tried to wrap around her, but they missed.

The two Skull Prayer Beads rose up in the air and expanded into two huge skulls. Their jaws chattered rapidly; it was like extremely strange laughter. Afterwards, they surged over like two meteors.

Boom! The two collisions merged into a single sound. Even the entire cavern shook slightly.

The skulls rolled along the ground, rampaging through the crowd and creating a series of chaotic cries and howls. Apart from one unlucky person, who was smashed to death by a skull, the others were mostly uninjured.

As for Xiao An, she turned into a white blur and passed through the crowd, arriving before the Steel Plate corpse.

A sneer appeared on the first senior brother’s emotionless face. This skeleton monster sure was reckless. In this cavern, the strongest was not even him, but the Steel Plate corpse that he controlled. Even against eighth or ninth layer Qi Practitioners, the Steel Plate corpse had the ability to rip them to pieces. If the blackwater daemon had not been lurking in the water, he would have never suffered such a great loss.

If the skeleton monster used its startling speed to rush around the cave like Niu Juxia and kill the weaker Qi Practitioners, it would cause him some trouble, but it was just looking to die now.

The Steel Plate corpse swung its claw, and the whistling of ripping air filled the cavern. It was so powerful that even Li Qingshan frowned. If he wanted to face this Steel Plate zombie, he would have to transform. This first senior brother truly lived up to his reputation as one of the greatest disciples of the three mountains. Every single first senior brother possessed startling techniques. Unfortunately, he had run into Xiao An.

Xiao An did not move at all. She stared straight into the Steel Plate zombie’s eyes, and her eye sockets emitted two thin strands of flames.

The Steel Plate corpse’s body was impenetrable. Even regular techniques were unable to harm it, so why would it care about two thin strands of flames?

With a thump, Xiao An was smashed into pieces. The shiny bones scattered everywhere.

All the Qi Practitioners let out a sigh of relief, while their gazes towards the first senior brother were filled with awe. They thought, The corpse refining arts of the Burial Mound mountain really are impressive. It looks like I can’t disobey this person today.

The first senior brother felt complacent inside. He was just about to say something.

The skull flew up from the ground, and afterwards, the scattered bones all began to assemble themselves. The vertebrae, ribs, and legs bones creaked and crackled as they produced a humanoid figure once again.

Li Qingshan’s anxious heart eased up as well. The only way to kill her was to reduce her to ashes. There was not even a single crack on her bones right now. She had purposefully disassembled herself in order to avoid taking too much damage.

“Everyone, attack together!” The first senior brother’s face grew even colder. He had never heard about a monster like this before. Killing it would not be easy. At the same time, he controlled the Steel Plate corpse, but the Steel Plate corpse remained in the same position as before, like it had frozen. It did not move at all. Only after a while did it straighten up.

However, the first senior brother had been overcome by shock and fright. His complexion grew paler and paler, and he actually began to perspire. His connection with the Steel Plate corpse had already been severed. The movements of the Steel Plate corpse earlier were not due to him.

“First senior brother, what’s wrong?” The disciples of the Burial Mound mountain had never seen their composed first senior brother exhibit an emotion like that.

Most of the disciples of the Burial Mound mountain had hearts of steel and were extremely cold, while the first senior brother was even more so than the rest of them. Even when a mountain collapsed before him, he had never demonstrated such shock and fright. However, the Steel Plate corpse was equivalent to his second life. Who knew how much time, energy, and effort he had channeled into it. All of his strength, status, and authority depended on it, so now that it had suddenly vanished, even he experienced internal turmoil.

The Steel Plate corpse extended an arm and twisted its head, like it was adapting to its current situation. In the end, it turned towards the first senior brother. Red light poured out from its eyes like balls of fire were burning inside.

The first senior brother’s heart sank completely. He stammered, but his voice was inaudibly gentle.

“What did you say, first senior brother?” asked a disciple beside him.

“Run!”

The Steel Plate corpse lunged over, while the first senior brother bounded up like a zombie. The disciple who had asked the question was still perplexed. Why did his first senior brother call the Steel Plate corpse over?

The Steel Plate corpse grabbed his shoulders with its claws and pulled hard, ripping him into two. The squirting blood and slippery innards scattered on the ground.

Now, the two giant skulls from the Skull Prayer Beads rolled in front of the zombies around Li Qingshan. They opened their mouths and sprayed out fire. The fire seemed to be self-conscious, flowing into the eyes, noses, mouths, and ears of the zombies. Just like the Steel Plate corpse earlier, all of them halted before turning around together like a well-trained army, lunging towards the Qi Practitioners.

The powerful weapons of the Burial Mound mountain immediately became the nightmare of all Qi Practitioners, while the dozen or so indestructible Iron Plate corpses became the nightmare of nightmares.

There were flashes of light from techniques, but they failed to stop the advance of the zombies. Cries and howls rose and fell like waves. The dark cavern immediately turned into a living hell, while the zombies were the devils of hell.

“What’s going on? Are the disciples of the Burial Mound mountain trying to silence us?”

“No, I don’t know… Argh!” Before a disciple could even finish talking, he was knocked over by the Iron Plate corpse that originally belonged to him, and his heart was wrenched out.

The disciples of the Burial Mound mountain all relied on controlling zombies for battle, but now that they had lost their zombies, they were like toothless, clawless tigers. Their battle prowess was even worse than the other Qi Practitioners. Some even continued to try to control their zombies in a daze, but they were all ripped apart.

No one suspected that the disciples of the Burial Mound mountain were behind this anymore, as the first senior brother was currently being chased around by his renowned Steel Plate corpse, fleeing for his life desperately.

A few zombies pushed a middle-aged man down to the ground. The man felt his arm ache, and it had already been bitten by a zombie. He knew that he was going to die, but the zombies suddenly scattered and lunged towards the other Qi Practitioners.

The pain from his wound vanished as well. He checked it in surprise, and his arm had already turned into a ball of fire. The fire rapidly consumed his entire body, burning up all of his flesh and blood. In the blink of an eye, all that was left was a set of white bones, while the blood-red flames returned to the mouth of the skull.

The zombies would bite the Qi Practitioners and inject them with the blood-red flames in their body. That was something even more terrifying than corpse poison.

A golden streak of light passed through the heads of over a dozen zombies with a swish before returning to an eighth layer Qi Practitioner from the Pheasant’s Grace mountain. It was a Golden Pheasant’s plume. He still managed to remain composed.

The disciples of the three mountains knew about each other’s moves very well. They knew they could kill the zombies like this. Just when he was catching his breath, over a dozen zombies stiffened and lunged towards him, swallowing him in a small pile of corpses.