Chapter 43: Chapter Forty-Three: Killing to Silence

Gu Zhao did not carry out a massacre at the Golden Wind Hall.

Ren Tian and Hong Xin, the two leaders who came from Changping Prefecture and the local branch temple's Divine General, had already been killed by him; the rest were merely ordinary people and small underlings, and killing them would be useless.

Although the Golden Wind Cult is an evil cult, the ordinary followers at the bottom are not necessarily all bad people; cultivating the Dao and the heart, indiscriminately killing the innocent is not what the Daoists do, and he himself would have mental burdens, with his divine soul tainted by evil.

So he merely used a single Wind and Thunder Talisman to stir the Golden Wind Hall into a chaotic mess of feathers and chaos, then calmly jumped over the wall and left.

Painter Lu sat comfortably in his painting studio, shaking his head and admiring his own work.

"What a pity for Brother Zhang," Painter Lu said, looking at the green-robed scholar in the painting, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Indeed, it is a pity; whether it is Hong You or Tian Feng, he is doomed," another voice suddenly sounded in the quiet room, "a group of men and women with no artistic pursuit."

"If it were Hong You, he would at least die without pain," Painter Lu sighed leisurely, then couldn't help but shiver, "If it were Tian Feng..."

"Shameless! Vulgar!" another voice sounded somewhat irritable, as if thinking of something, and said in a sharp, high-pitched tone, "Such a handsome young man is about to be defiled by that crude brute!"

"Exactly, unlike us, who only capture his appearance and image in a painting, and lock his divine soul within it; he will forever remain so graceful and elegant, never tainted by the mortal world," Painter Lu sighed.

"This transcendent state beyond the mortal world, those brutes and wanton women who only have carnal desires can never understand!" another voice sneered.

"I hope the opponents the Golden Wind Cult encounters this time are more formidable; best if they wipe out the Golden Wind Cult entirely," a curve formed at the corner of Painter Lu's mouth.

"The opponents the Golden Wind Cult faces this time are likely not weak; I heard the incense statue of the Golden Wind God King was stolen, and the Black Absolute Dharma Protector has gone missing," another voice said, "I wonder how many Dharma Protectors will come this time."

"What Dharma Protector is Ren Tianhe?" a voice suddenly asked.

"Ren Tianhe is the Tian Feng Dharma..." Painter Lu instinctively finished the sentence, then suddenly woke up and whirled around.

"Creak—"

The door to the painting studio was pushed open, and the handsome youth who had been led away by Hong Xin appeared at the doorway, a smile on his lips, curiously looking around the interior of the studio, "Who was the one speaking just now? Why can I hear a voice but see no person?"

Painter Lu looked at Gu Zhao with eyes full of disbelief, "How did you come back?"

"He escaped from Ren Tianhe's hands!" another voice shrieked.

This time, Gu Zhao saw clearly that the voice was coming from the bamboo basket placed by Painter Lu in the corner of the room.

Painter Lu was startled, finally reacting; his palm flipped, and the nearby table flew up out of thin air, hurled toward Gu Zhao to block the line of sight between the two.

Gu Zhao raised his palm and chopped, splitting the table in half, then saw Painter Lu hold the scroll in his hands before his chest, draw with his right hand in the air, and point at Gu Zhao, "Young Master Lan, please make your move!"

In the next instant, a semi-transparent figure of a man in green robes walked out from the painting.

This man was exactly the same as the one in the painting before, wearing a green robe, elegant and handsome, but his eyes had changed from the sorrow in the painting to full of ferocity, with not a shred of intelligence; the paper umbrella in his hand closed and transformed into a sword, bringing with it waves of chilling wind sword qi, stabbing straight at Gu Zhao.

Gu Zhao ignored him completely, merely forming the Heavenly Thunder Seal and pinching the Thunder Hand Seal, "Thunder and lightning pursue each other, heaven and earth as eyes. From all eight directions, right..."

Just as the umbrella sword in the green-robed man's hand was about to stab within three feet of Gu Zhao, a powerful qi containing the light of the sun, moon, and heavens suddenly rose from Gu Zhao, then transformed into a torrent, surging violently toward the green-robed man.

"Boom!"

The green-robed man, along with his umbrella, was blasted backward at high speed, his body becoming even more transparent.

On the other side, Gu Zhao had already raised his palm and aimed it at Painter Lu, who had picked up the bamboo basket.

"Boom!"

Painter Lu had just pulled a scroll out of the bamboo basket, not yet opened, when he was struck by a palm thunderbolt and reduced to dust; a wisp of divine soul within the scroll also dissipated.

Moreover, the scroll could not withstand the power of the palm thunderbolt at all; purple lightning spread onto Painter Lu's body, the Lei Ting entering his body, only to strike him until his whole body smoked, his meridians inside were torn apart, and his sea of consciousness also suffered severe damage.

"Ah!"

Painter Lu let out a wretched cry and reached out to grab another scroll from the bamboo basket.

In the next instant, a Bai Guang rose from that scroll, instantly enveloping Painter Lu; the injuries on his body actually healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, mending his torn meridians and damaged sea of consciousness.

"It's a Great Dharma Master! Run quickly!"

A voice sounded from the scroll; Painter Lu tried to escape, but a point of fire suddenly flew from behind and landed on his body, instantly transforming into a net of fire that enveloped him, the scroll, and everything else.

"Ahhh!" Painter Lu and the scroll screamed together.

"Dharma Master, spare my life! Dharma Master, spare my life!" Painter Lu curled up on the ground, rolling incessantly and begging for mercy.

Waves of Bai Guang spread from the scroll, emitting waves of demonic qi, trying to tear apart the fire net.

Gu Zhao formed the sword finger with his right hand, inputting his magic power from within his body across the distance; the Fire Shield Method continued unabated, compressing the Bai Guang of the scroll layer by layer, until it finally spread to the edges of the scroll, where a wisp of light smoke rose from the corners.

"Ya ya ya... Stop burning, stop burning, I'm going to die!" the scroll shouted loudly.

"What kind of thing are you?" Gu Zhao asked curiously.

It was clearly a scroll; if a ghost was possessing it, why would there be demonic qi?

"I am a painting demon! I am a painting demon!" the scroll shrieked, "Dharma Master, spare my life, stop burning; if you burn my true form, I will die too!"

"So you really are a demon? Tell me your origins clearly, or I will burn you to death," Gu Zhao kept his sword finger unmoving, the flames of the Fire Shield Method continuing unabated.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Painter Lu nodded repeatedly.

It turned out that the true form of this painting demon was a male scroll that had gained sentience; proud of its own handsome and elegant appearance, after forming a pact with Painter Lu, they could cooperate with each other: Painter Lu would paint, and the painting demon would cast spells, locking the divine souls of other handsome men onto the paintings.

In this way, not only could the true form of the painting demon absorb the elegant temperament of those men, but it could also absorb the divine soul power of those men to assist the one human and one demon in cultivation, while refining them into painting souls to serve as combat weapons.

"I damn..." Gu Zhao was speechless; generally, when speaking of book worms and painting demons, they are literary scholars and elegant gentlemen, so how is this painting demon so sinister?

"Dharma Master, spare my life; I can make you even more elegant and handsome, extraordinary in your handsomeness!" while begging for mercy, the painting demon also tempted Gu Zhao, "At that time, with just one look from you, you could make those women infatuated."

Gu Zhao's eyes lit up, "Really?"

"Really!" Seeing hope, Painter Lu also nodded repeatedly, "At that time, whatever you want to do, you can do!"

Gu Zhao nodded, then his expression suddenly changed, "So your meaning is that I cannot attract girls just by relying on this face of mine, is that it?"

"Daring to insult me, the crime deserves execution!"

"Ah?"

"No..."

"Boom!"