Chapter 156: The Demon Mother Sect

Drip—

Thick blood dripped onto the cold, hard stone slab.

Sheying Guisou felt pain in both eyes; the intense agony surged like a tide over his whole body, twisting his features.

The vitality of an Organ Refining Realm cultivator far surpasses that of an ordinary person.

Yet now he loathed this powerful vitality, which kept him hovering between life and death, tormenting him endlessly.

"Ah!"

In the night, Sheying Guisou let out a miserable scream.

That pain, deep into his bones and soul, drove him to complete collapse.

Just moments ago he had been cursing and swearing he would teach a lesson to the inn guests who had disturbed his beautiful dream; now they all fell silent like cicadas in winter.

It felt as if even his spine dragon had been seized, and cold sweat poured forth.

"What a vicious boy!"

That was the unanimous thought of all the onlookers in the inn.

"Kill me—if you have the guts, kill me!"

Sheying Guisou's voice was shrill, like that of a madman.

Having his spine dragon gripped hurt terribly!

Thus he now only wished for death, begging the boy before him to give him a quick end.

"Who sent you?"

Qin Shuo forced down the piercing pain from his five viscera and six bowels, then asked coldly.

Using Shrink Ground into an Inch twice in a row placed an enormous strain on his body.

Especially his five viscera and six bowels, unrefined by true essence, could not withstand such violent eruption.

"Ha, ha, ha…"

Sheying Guisou spat blood; his eyes beneath the ghostly mask were fierce and vicious.

"You want to know? Ha, ha, old me, I won't tell you! Ha, ha, hiss…"

The laughter jolted his spine nerves; the deep bone‑marrow pain almost made him faint on the spot.

"Bang!"

With a casual pinch he crushed Sheying Guisou's spine dragon and flung it onto the long street like a lump of mud.

Qin Shuo's expression remained cold: "If you don't want to talk, then don't."

His spine shattered, and his five viscera and six bowels were shaken into a pulp by that blow.

Even with the tenacious vitality of an Organ Refining Realm cultivator, he was still a mortal flesh‑and‑body, and death was inescapable.

The brawl at the inn ultimately alerted the soldiers patrolling inside the city.

Unlike the garrison armies of other prefectures and counties, the Yun Prefecture City troops belong to no sect; they answer directly to the imperial court.

This Yunzhou Army is commanded by General Hong Sixiang, who has long been stationed in Yunzhou.

With this army present, no matter how the Yunzhou martial sects fight among themselves, they can never stir up any major trouble.

The patrol was led by a young officer whose strength was only at the Meridian Opening stage, yet his tone was extremely stern.

However, upon learning that Qin Shuo was a Yun Dragon Colonel of the Demon Suppression Office, the patrol leader named Xie Gui did a complete about‑face in attitude.

He bluntly said, "Even members of the Demon Suppression Office dare to attack him; if he dies, it's a pointless death."

Then he ordered a few subordinates to drag away the ghost‑masked old man's corpse and clean the street.

Only then did Pang Tong, who was on duty at the Demon Suppression Office, arrive with his men.

When he saw the emaciated old man on the ground, barely recognizable as human, Pang Tong's expression changed.

"Sheying Guisou! Is it really him?"

It was obvious that this gaunt, firewood‑thin old man was no small name.

When Pang Tong spoke his name, Qin Shuo could clearly feel that both the jianghu heroes on the inn's second floor and the patrol soldiers before him froze, obviously shocked.

"General Pang, do you know this fellow?" Qin Shuo wondered.

"Of course. This man is a famed figure of the Demon Mother Sect; his martial arts are sinister and unparalleled, surpassing even Situ Long of Mulin Prefecture by a third."

Pang Tong suppressed his inner shock and tried to speak calmly: "However, what makes him most dreaded is not his martial arts, but his mysterious, unfathomable movement technique and breath‑concealment art."

"Before joining the Demon Mother Sect, he had already used that unfathomable breath‑concealment technique to successfully assassinate a martial arts master who had half‑stepped into the Grandmaster realm, after which the Divine Capture Office pursued him."

"Yet he comes and goes without trace; his breath‑concealment art is unrivaled under heaven, and even the Divine Capture Office can do nothing against him."

"I never expected to fall into your hands today."

Saying this, Pang Tong's eyes suddenly grew strange.

This Qin Colonel before him seems to be a natural nemesis of these law‑breakers.

That Situ Long had dominated Mulin Prefecture for decades, earning the title 'Unrivaled in Horizontal Practice,' and even the Divine Capture Office could do nothing against him.

As a result, upon encountering Qin Shuo in a ruined temple on a wild mountain, he was beaten to death with three punches.

And the same goes for Sheying Guisou right now!

He too is a Yunzhou wanted criminal who has repeatedly escaped from the Divine Capture Office's grasp.

But after meeting Qin Shuo, he was simply had his spine crushed, collapsing like a lump of mud—his death was abrupt and hasty.

It is shocking, yet also feels bizarre and dreamlike.

With Pang Tong's involvement, the remaining matters became much simpler.

The officer surnamed Xie even didn't have Qin Shuo return to give a statement; he directly took the patrol soldiers and Sheying Guisou's corpse away.

After the patrol unit left, personnel from the Martial Suppression Hall and the Divine Capture Office also arrived one after another.

Baili Jingtao had in fact already arrived.

Because he had been secretly watching Qin Shuo tonight, he saw the entire fight from beginning to end.

That's exactly why he waited for the Divine Constabulary to arrive before leisurely showing up late.

The hall master is right; this youth hides too many secrets.

If we don't find out his background and act rashly, we'll likely end up like that Snake‑Eagle Ghost Elder, not even knowing how we died.

Unlike Bai Li Jingtao's melon‑eating attitude, the Divine Constabulary's Song Changfeng looked rather grim.

There's nothing else; they constantly tell people how cunning these vicious bandits are and how hard they are to catch.

As a result, Situ Long was killed with three punches to the back on the wilderness hill.

The Snake‑Eagle Ghost Elder was even more easily grabbed by the spine, his ghostly movement technique seeming to have failed.

If he hadn't already learned this youth's origins and background from intelligence,

they would have thought this was the son of the martial saint clan from Dao City, who had come specially to Yunzhou to amuse themselves at their expense.

Back at the inn, Qin Shuo had completely lost any desire to sleep.

He circulated his qi and blood to nourish his wounded organs while reviewing tonight's attack by the ghost elder.

First, the recently cultivated Divine Foot Technique, combined with the power of the Four Symbols and Gong Wu's fist, proved far more powerful than he imagined.

But the consumption is equally huge, and the physical burden is extremely heavy.

With his current true essence reserves, two uses of Shrink Ground to Inch are almost his limit.

Moreover, the distance of this second teleportation is obviously much shorter than the first, yet the consumption is not any less.

This shows that his true essence accumulation is still too thin.

Next is the origin of the Snake‑Eagle Ghost Elder.

According to Pang Tong, the other party is a famous assassin of the Demon Mother Sect, holding a high rank, second only to the three Dharma Kings.

To have him come and assassinate me, the hidden mastermind must be either one of the three Dharma Kings or that Demon Mother Sect leader whose nature—human or ghost—is unknown.

But whoever it is, this shows that he has already been targeted by the Demon Mother Sect.

Moreover, the other party is likely hiding somewhere in Yunzhou City in secret, perhaps even present tonight, but he simply didn't notice.

Besides that, the Snake‑Eagle Ghost Elder's words also revealed a lot of information.

The hidden high‑rank members of the Demon Mother Sect in the shadows probably still don't know about the existence of the Spirit‑Linking Mystic Jade.

The other party likely inferred, from the three Demon Kings' pursuit of me, that the Howling Moon Demon King left an important relic in my possession, and therefore chose to attack me.

Yet they dared to launch an assassination based solely on that speculation.

If the other party isn't a lunatic, then they must know the importance of this item.

Moreover, they probably already deduced that this item is related to the Realm‑Pacifying Divine Weapons; otherwise they wouldn't be so reckless.

But who exactly is the other party?

Being able to know so accurately my inn's location and room number shows that the other party has been keeping track of my movements.

However, after entering the city, he went straight to the inn without noticing any suspicious person.

And his choice of inn was random, after all there are several similar inns on this street.

Yet the other party still pinpointed his location precisely.

This shows that the other party's influence in Yunzhou City is probably greater than he imagined.

It must be that their true identity is some important figure in the inner city.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to dispatch the Snake‑Eagle Ghost Elder to assassinate him less than two hours after he checked into the inn.

Such a precise and swift deployment must be supported by an extremely terrifying intelligence network.

And an intelligence network covering nearly half the outer city, apart from the court's Three Offices, could probably only be established by the prefectural government and the four great clans of the inner city.

"Alas! The information is still too little; we can't infer much."

Qin Shuo rubbed his forehead, feeling a slight headache.

All this shows that spears are easy to dodge, but hidden arrows are hard to guard against!

This feeling of constantly being spied on and schemed against in the dark makes him extremely annoyed.

But for now, he really can't figure out any clues, so he simply stops thinking, sinks his mind into the Taotie Cauldron, and continues refining the Yuan‑Ci Earth Pearl.