Chapter 87: Not Me, but Us

The dark, baleful force clinging to Wang Sheng had grown so saturated with blood and malice that ordinary exorcism charms no longer had any effect on him.

“You only amount to this much?”

Wang Sheng gave me a cold laugh and, cradling Song Zhao, came toward me step by step.

With an air of arrogant superiority, he said, “Don’t resist. I can make your death a little easier.”

I tugged at my hair and tilted my head, watching Wang Sheng draw nearer and nearer.

“I really don’t know where you get your confidence.”

I raised the anti-assault baton in my hand and pointed it at him. “The soul-transference curse on Qin Ru’s daughter—that was your doing too, wasn’t it?”

“So what if it was? What, you want revenge?” Wang Sheng admitted without the slightest pretense.

I let out a sigh and took a step forward. “Revenge is too strong a word. They’re my clients. I take payment and do the job. Even if they’re dead, I still have to keep my word and give them an account of it.”

“So today, you’ll stay here...”

The words had barely fallen when my expression changed. The Corpse Dog Man was formidable, yes, but he was far from invincible.

In my eyes, he was nothing more than a monster given motion by some crude underground rite.

And if it was a spell from such a craft, then there was no method I could not break.

I flipped the switch, and the crackle of current hissed endlessly.

I lashed out at Wang Sheng with the baton, but when he saw the fierce electricity at its tip, he instinctively dodged.

As expected, whether human or something foul and uncanny, all had a natural fear of thunder and lightning, of pure yang fire.

But I had already calculated that Wang Sheng would evade; my target was never him.

I turned the baton sharply and thrust straight toward Song Zhao in his arms.

Even Wang Fa, the Corpse Dog King, could not hide his surprise at what I was doing.

Just as Song Zhao was about to be struck, Wang Fa grabbed the baton’s tip.

That was exactly what I wanted.

I pressed the switch all the way down, and a violent surge of electricity instantly charred Wang Sheng’s entire left palm black.

I yanked the anti-assault baton back, changed the angle, and thrust again at Song Zhao in his arms.

His left hand could no longer muster the slightest strength, and his right arm was occupied holding Song Zhao.

The room was too small, and I was too fast; he had no room to escape.

With no other choice, Wang Sheng could only pull Song Zhao tightly against him and take my baton blow on his own back.

Under the impact of the tremendous current, smoke began to rise from Wang Sheng’s back, and the whole room filled with the stench of scorched flesh.

His corpse body started to tremble under the fierce shock. Just as I marveled that the baton worked far better than I had expected, there came a click—no power.

The thing only needed a brief press to deal with ordinary people. I had been using it as though it were a high-voltage weapon, and the fact it had lasted this long already spoke well of its quality.

Wang Sheng snapped his head around, and I did not hesitate either, bringing the baton down hard on his skull.

With a dull thud, Wang Sheng took the blow squarely, then lashed out with a kick that drove straight into my stomach.

I was sent flying and crashed onto the bed.

The Corpse Dog Man was indeed fierce. There was a steel plate inside that baton, and I had used all my strength, yet he had suffered almost nothing.

I should have brought two more of these things.

I had not known I would be facing a Corpse Dog Man; I had thought he was merely human.

I stood on the bed, clutching my stomach with one hand and gasping through clenched teeth.

That kick had made my organs tremble violently.

Wang Sheng glared up at me in fury. He raised his left hand, spat a mouthful of dark, baleful energy onto it, and the charred flesh began to recover slowly. He clenched and flexed that hand a few times, as though it were already nearly healed.

With the baton now dead, it seemed to be of little use. I casually tossed it aside, drew a deep breath, and leapt from the bed to the floor.

Fixing Wang Sheng with a hard stare, I bit open my finger and, with my blood, drew the Thirty-Six Heavenly Dipper Thunder Spell into my palm.

When the talisman was finished, I brought my hands together and pressed the thunder spell onto the back of my hand.

I met Wang’s gaze and said, “If I can’t beat the death out of you with electricity, then let’s see whether heavenly thunder will take your life...”

Wang Sheng cast off his contempt, put Song Zhao aside on his own, and brought both fists together with a heavy crack. “You’re far craftier than Jiang Shan...”

The corner of my mouth lifted. Without another word, I shot forward.

“Break!”

The instant I reached him, I dropped low and drove a palm strike upward, straight at Wang Sheng’s chin.

His reaction was swift as well; he leaned back just enough to evade my strike, while thrusting a foot at me with the tip of his shoe.

I had already tasted that force once, and I had no desire to try it again.

I slammed my elbow backward into the top of his foot, dispersing his momentum, then sprang up at once and struck his chest with a palm!

“Heavenly Dipper Pure Yang Drought Thunder, dark malice retreats without a place to hide. With the threefold intent of the Nine-Star Dipper, I break all evil with my yang blood. Quick, quick, as the law commands! Break the evil!”

Thunder rose, and the Corpse Dog flew.

With a deafening boom, Wang Sheng was blasted backward by my palm strike. His body smashed through the door and rolled outside, turning twice before he steadied himself.

On the front of his chest, his clothing now bore a palm-shaped hole, and through it showed ghastly white flesh and bone.

I kicked the remaining doorboards to splinters and strode out toward Wang Sheng.

“To others, the Corpse Dog Man may indeed be terrifying. But to me, you’re nothing but a joke.”

I pointed at Wang Fa and said, “Especially you. Not only are you a joke, but I also think you’re pitiful beyond words. Used by others for decades, you should have been a hero. Instead, you fell into the abyss because of a grudge that never should have existed.”

Wang Fa lowered his head to glance at the palm-shaped wound on his chest, then fixed me with a sinister stare. “So Song Baoguo told you everything...”

“Never should have existed? If Song Baoguo hadn’t falsified the intelligence back then, none of us would have died! Even if we had died, we would have died honorably on the battlefield!”

“Do you even know how much we hate him?”

Wang Fa licked around his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Killing him outright would not have been enough to ease our hatred! So long as we exist, we will make sure that every generation of the Song family has our servants!”

The moment he finished speaking, Wang Fa tore open the shirt on his body.

In an instant, countless human faces of all different expressions were revealed.

Every one of those faces struggled frantically, trying to force its way out through the skin on his body.