Chapter 210: Corpse Demon Jinlong Temple

“Drink! All of you drink!” Several drunken tomb raiders sat inside the Great Hero Hall, each surrounded by beautiful women clad in thin gauze.

As Chu Danqing and Zhong Ting entered, the men immediately noticed them.

Their drunkenness vanished instantly; their expressions sharpened with alertness.

“Night cats crossing Old Crow Ridge—may I ask which shadow banner you tread?” The leader of the tomb raiders rose and spoke first.

Of those who come to Cangmang Ancient Ridge, nine out of ten are here for tombs, so asking in underworld slang identifies their faction.

If they were fellow Jinmo sect members, cooperation might be possible.

“Kui Star kicks the Dipper, claims the Ao head alone,” Zhong Ting bowed and replied with eight characters.

He wasn’t a tomb raider; he had no need to reply in underworld code.

Upon hearing this, the tomb raiders’ expressions shifted from alert to wary.

They had heard of Kui Star kicks the Dipper—but never seen it.

“So you’re not from the trade. My apologies,” the leader returned a polite bow and continued: “We’re not the masters here. You two may go your way.”

Chu Danqing didn’t care about these tomb raiders—they were nothing but trash Big Bao could crush with one claw.

The problem was: where did these women come from?

From their pale skin, it was obvious they weren’t ordinary girls.

The outer edges of Cangmang Ancient Ridge had villages, but their people lived by sunrise labor and sunset rest.

How could they afford such flawless skin?

Besides, who in their right mind would go out wearing such sheer, transparent gauze?

Zhong Ting also sensed something odd. Beautiful as they were, these women didn’t belong here at all.

“Gentlemen, who are these women?” Zhong Ting asked.

“Oh, they’re noble ladies come to pay respects to the Buddha—luckily, we ran into them,” the leader said carelessly. “Let us have some fun.”

At these words, Chu Danqing knew these men had been bewitched.

Zhong Ting felt the same. With the skill these tomb raiders showed to escape the Corpse Centipede, how could they lack basic caution?

It was highly likely their minds had been clouded after entering the temple gates.

Seeing this, Chu Danqing signaled Big Bao to strike immediately.

Zhong Ting opened his mouth to speak—but Big Bao acted first.

Big Bao surged forward, snapping the neck of the nearest tomb raider in one motion.

“Big Bao, I told you to kill these women!” Chu Danqing rubbed his forehead, exasperated. “Never mind—they’re no good either. Kill them all.”

These men were indeed bewitched into such absurd behavior—but they’d only been ensnared because they’d already entertained such thoughts and deeds.

Chu Danqing and Zhong Ting held no such thoughts; they entered untouched.

This triggered chaos. The women panicked and fled toward the temple’s rear, moving so swiftly the tomb raiders couldn’t react.

“Filthy bastards! Who gave you the guts to defy me?!” The leader slammed his table and leapt up, drawing his blade to charge Big Bao.

He’d barely rushed forward when Big Bao tore him apart with one claw.

Under normal mental conditions, panic would set in at this stage.

But these tomb raiders showed no fear—they surged forward like corpses unafraid of death.

Under Big Bao’s claws, one by one, they all died clean.

“Little Chu, blood, stinks,” Big Bao said, voice tinged with annoyance after finishing.

The blood oozing from the dead tomb raiders turned thick and black, emitting a powerful stench.

“Not the temple’s fault— theirs,” Zhong Ting scanned the corpses, his expression grim. “Same origin as those warlord soldiers.”

This meant the tomb raiders emerged from the same place as the earlier soldiers—possibly even belonged to the same faction.

“The Jinmo talismans bought them one more day. Even if they escaped the Corpse Centipede and Jinlong Temple, they wouldn’t live till tomorrow,” Zhong Ting said, examining a corpse closely.

“Still, there’s a chance—if you escape Cangmang Ancient Ridge before midnight, you won’t die.”

“Too bad—they ran the wrong way.”

The Corpse Centipede’s pursuit had disoriented them.

They’d already reached the outer edge of Cangmang Ancient Ridge—yet ended up going deeper.

“What’s going on with Jinlong Temple?” Chu Danqing asked.

“The old monk thanks you heroes for your intervention, sparing our temple this calamity!” A senior monk in a bright red kasaya rushed up from behind.

He was emaciated—skin stretched over bone, a walking skeleton, deeply unsettling.

Before he could approach, Zhong Ting moved first, kicking hard at the monk’s waist.

Kui Star kicks the Dipper excels in three areas.

First: kicking techniques. Second: fighting large monstrous entities. Third: stomping on heads.

“Claims the Ao head alone” means crushing your skull—the larger the target, the greater the damage.

One kick shattered the monk’s waist; his upper body flew outward from the force.

When he hit the ground, the cross-section revealed dried flesh, and his bones teemed with wriggling maggots.

“Corpse Demon,” Zhong Ting said at once.

“What’s that?” Chu Danqing hadn’t heard the term—but he understood the trial world’s general nature.

Most monsters were made from human corpses; a “corpse” prefix made sense.

“The old monk, the old monk…” The monk wobbled, propping himself up with his arms, his eyeballs entirely white.

【Hidden Quest: Purify the Corpse Demon of Jinlong Temple】

【Trial Difficulty: C-Rank (Adventure)】

【Trial Reward: Paradise Points ×2000, Attribute Points +2】

【Trial Failure: Paradise Points -4000】

The Paradise quest refreshed; Chu Danqing accepted it on instinct.

C-Rank wasn’t hard—just slightly stronger than the Corpse Centipede.

“Where one land becomes a demon realm, it is a Corpse Demon.”

“The monk isn’t the mastermind—he’s merely bait for the Corpse Demon here, just like those women.”

“Just puppets,” Zhong Ting said, retreating swiftly. “Withdraw from Jinlong Temple first.”

Chu Danqing understood at once: the quest’s “Corpse Demon of Jinlong Temple” referred to the temple itself—not “Jinlong Temple, Corpse Demon” as two separate entities.

Just as they retreated into the temple grounds, they saw a black gauze veil enveloping the entire Jinlong Temple.

On its surface, vein-like black networks pulsed, oozing a putrid stench.

It was preparing to trap them inside like fish in a barrel.

“The demon realm is complete. This is bad,” Zhong Ting’s face darkened.

His Kui Star kicks the Dipper had reached mastery—he could still hold an edge against the Corpse Centipede—but facing a Corpse Demon? He was powerless.

Especially trapped inside the demon realm.

From the black veins, sheets of human skin extruded.

They recognized these skins—they were the same beautiful women the tomb raiders had been clinging to.

Now stretched flat, they revealed no beauty—only revulsion.

The skin sheets spiraled through the air, descending toward them.

Behind them, the Great Hero Hall erupted with violent movement.

A Buddha statue, built from the desiccated corpses of monks, crawled forward on all fours.

But due to its massive size, it seemed less like it crawled out—and more like it was squeezed out by the hall itself.

“Master, Master—if only you’d glanced at Jinlong Temple when you passed it, I wouldn’t be caught unprepared,” Zhong Ting muttered bitterly.

This time, he feared he’d die here.

His master had sensed something wrong with Jinlong Temple and knew of its existence—but never entered.

“Actually, it’s manageable. Which one are you taking?” Chu Danqing asked.

Zhong Ting pointed without hesitation at the monk corpse behind them.

Chu Danqing was surprised—he’d expected Zhong Ting to choose the skin-women.

Instead, he picked the one that looked more like the boss.

“Fine. I’ll handle the rest,” Chu Danqing said, preparing to send Big Bao in.

C-Rank was nothing—Big Bao alone was enough. Yue Lan’s shadow would guard him; the Emperor’s Son and Ghost Mother remained as trump cards.

As for the Beast-Mask Warriors, they’d serve as transport for now.

“Big Bai, keep an eye on our bloodlines,” Chu Danqing said, pulling out his blood-siphoning gear.

He was stacking more blood-sacrifice blade attack percentage onto Big Bao.

He wanted to hone Big Bao—but not suppress his power.

He wanted him to adapt to the boost; sudden doubling of attack power would shock his system.

Chu Danqing planned to make the blood-sacrifice blade’s attack boost permanent—now was the perfect time to adapt, saving future adjustment.

On the other side, Chu Danqing saw Zhong Ting crouch down and unlatch his iron shoes.

Inside the iron shoes were cloth slippers—nothing special, just ordinary ones.

Freed from the iron shoes’ weight, Zhong Ting became a blur, leaping instantly onto the monk corpse’s head with a single step.

“Claims the Ao head alone!”

Landing atop the corpse’s head, he raised his right foot and drove it down with full force into the skull, formed from countless dried monk corpses.

With one kick, the entire skull shattered instantly, spilling in a clatter across the ground.

Zhong Ting spun around, using the monk’s desiccated corpse as a foothold, and landed again atop the corpse.

Chu Danqing, witnessing this, was also startled.

“Triple specialized assault?” With his knowledge base and a superficial grasp of feng shui, Chu Danqing discerned the pattern.

Specialized damage against malevolent entities, against large bodies, against the skull.

Only after these three forms of specialized damage stacked did the kick shatter the monk’s skull.

But unfortunately, the monk’s corpse was merely a puppet controlled by the corpse demon; though the strike had worked, the desiccated body slowly rose again.

It swayed unsteadily as it climbed back onto the corpse.

“The rest is up to you, Chu young master,” Zhong Ting said, landing smoothly, with no choice but to rely on Chu Danqing.

(End of chapter)