Chapter 433: Saint Fire Cult Leader

Zhang Yuan was just thinking when suddenly a streak of sword light swept across, aiming straight for his neck.

He could not afford to be shocked; instinctively, he leaned backward, dodging the Sword Qi.

As that fiery red sword light, carrying intense heat, brushed past his face, it scorched the fine hairs on his cheeks.

"Dutian Liehuo Sword, he is the brick-burning Works Official of Liuli Jingtu, Huogong Toutuo!"

Realizing instantly that he was exposed and having no desire to fight, he slapped his leg, revealing two Thousand-Mile Divine Travel Armored Horse Talismans, uttered the sound "Zhuo," and the Qingfeng Curse was cast instantly.

His body immediately became as light as a falling feather, and he leaped up in one motion; with the help of the Wind Curse, he was over ten zhang away.

Such lightness skill, though not "flight," was perfect for maneuvering in this environment, and furthermore, he knew that if it came to the speed of flying swords, his "Thousand Feather Sword" might not necessarily be faster than the Dutian Liehuo Sword.

He only needed to find a place to burrow into the ground and escape.

But Huogong Toutuo's martial arts were also quite formidable, and moreover, after Xu Jia added the Register method for him, he gained ten days of progress for every day of cultivation, and he frequently entered the Dharma Realm to slaughter monsters, so his insight, Divine Ability, and Daoism were all above his own.

Seeing Huogong Toutuo chasing closer and closer, he was not anxious; suddenly, he turned his head and shot out several flying needles. These needles were as thin as ox hair, refined from the whiskers of a hundred-year-old spirit cat; once they entered a human body, they would automatically curl up, making life worse than death.

Those flying needles were sudden and completely unavoidable; however, a small Light Appearance appeared around Huogong Toutuo, illuminating the nearly transparent flying needles, and Huogong Toutuo simply used fire to burn them, rendering the needles useless.

Yet, in this split second of reaction time, Zhang Yuan had already traveled dozens of zhang away and burrowed into the yellow sand, using the "Earth Escape" technique.

Huogong Toutuo sneered and dove into the yellow sand; it was the Sand Escape. Immediately, on the surface of the Da Mo Gobi, a bulge could be seen moving rapidly, like a large fish in a sea of sand.

This Sand Escape technique could reach 1,200 li every two hours; converted, it could run 300 kilometers in one hour. Although not as fast as a flying sword, a flying sword breaks through air, while the Sand Escape breaks through matter—it is substantial.

That Zhang Yuan's Earth Escape technique could only travel 1,000 li every two hours, slower than Huogong Toutuo, and he was soon caught up to.

One could not open their eyes in the mud and sand, relying entirely on spiritual sense to perceive geomagnetism to distinguish direction, and occasionally having to dodge tree roots and huge rocks.

That Zhang Yuan also sensed Huogong Toutuo following him closely like a debt collector behind him.

"This won't do, I must lead him to the Thirty-Fifth Bandit and let the Thirty-Fifth Bandit kill him."

The Thirty-Fifth Bandit, whose real name was unknown, had the Jianghu nickname "Xuelang Zhenren."

He possessed the skill of "Yushou Tiaoqin," cultivated in a Wolf Valley in the Da Mo Gobi, and had raised a Langwang. This Langwang could command packs of wolves; besides wolves, he also trained eagles and had a large bird that could carry a person, capable of grabbing him and flying.

The powerful ones among the wolf pack had been implanted with "Talisman" by him. The Talisman grew as the wolf pack killed, capable of transforming them into "Blood Wolf Dao Soldiers." A single Blood Wolf Dao Soldier was only at the peak of Postnatal, but they had the "wolf pack effect"—once they exceeded ten, each had the power of the early stage of Innate, and exceeding a hundred, they had the power of the middle stage of Innate.

Coupled with the command of the Langwang, which had the strength of the late stage of Innate True Qi, basically wherever he went, ordinary Qi Refiners could do nothing to him; only an Earth Immortal True Person who had refined a Golden Core could exterminate him.

Whenever the Forty-Seven Bandits gathered to commit robbery, their respective subordinates would ride Blood Wolf mounts to act, transforming into Da Mo wolf cavalry.

The First Bandit once said that Zhang Yuan needed to coordinate with Xuelang Zhenren.

But before he reached the Wolf Valley, Huogong Toutuo had already caught up, and another sword, wrapped in flames, nailed his path ahead of time.

He had no choice but to break out of the ground and then throw the two mysterious iron beads in his hand.

"Behold my Kunlun Mountain Thunderbolt Divine Thunder!"

Huogong Toutuo was startled and dodged away, only to see that the mysterious iron balls did not explode, but merely emitted billowing thick smoke.

"My signal smoke has been lit; the Great Bandit will arrive immediately. If you don't leave quickly, you won't be able to leave at all."

"Leave? You overestimate yourself too much." Huogong Toutuo's flying sword struck directly, the Sword Formula used being far more brilliant than before.

Zhang Yuan hurriedly used the "Thousand Feather Sword" to block. The Thousand Feather Sword was refined by collecting three thousand feathers of a wild goose; the steel used to refine the sword was light steel, and when the sword was drawn, there seemed to be the sound of wild geese calling. The sword was light, fast, and sharp.

The Sword Formula he practiced was also of the "Fast Sword" style, and combined with his movement technique, he was not an unknown figure in the Da Mo. Even He Yu Langjun, who followed the same "Crane Sword" style, could not take him down within three hundred rounds.

Huogong Toutuo was actually no more powerful than He Yu Langjun, but he had the advantage of being guided by an expert like Xu Jia, and having obtained the Register method, his mind was much more agile.

The two exchanged seventy or eighty sword moves, and Zhang Yuan began to use repetitive patterns, which allowed Huogong Toutuo to spot some flaws.

With just this one flaw, Huogong Toutuo's sword sliced off the finger he used to wield the sword, and because the Fierce Fire Sword was entirely made of fierce fire, the wound was already cauterized the moment it was severed; not even blood flowed, and the pain was felt only after the fact.

Unable to use his sword finger, relying only on his own mental power, he had even more flaws. After barely parrying seventeen or eighteen moves, he had his throat slit by a sword.

Huogong Toutuo used Dharma Power to wipe over him, and before his Soul dissipated, he began to refine the Dharma, spitting out True Fire to begin the refinement, while simultaneously striking restrictions with both hands and chanting Buddhist True Word Mantra in his mouth.

After the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the hair on this corpse fell off, turning into a bald head; the moisture in the body was baked dry, and the skin gradually became oily and yellow, like a dried corpse from the Da Mo.

"Decree!"

After dripping a drop of blood onto the center of the dried corpse's brow, the corpse immediately curled up, its entire body presenting a strange curl, self-wrapping, self-compressing, gradually becoming smaller and smaller, until the body disappeared, compressed into the skull, and the skull also shrank to the size of a baby's fist—it was exactly a "Diamond Great Strength Prayer Bead."

It was also the "Golden Bean" of "Scattering Beans to Form Soldiers." After refining, Huogong Toutuo flicked it out, and the bead completed its decompression in the air, landing to become a Buddhist dried corpse, with an aura about eighty percent of what it had in life.

At this time, Xuelang Zhenren of the Wolf Valley had already monitored this place through an eagle; not long after the signal smoke rose, he had sensed it from fifty li away.

Only when he escaped to this place, Zhang Yuan was already dead. He saw Huogong Toutuo refining the corpse with Dharma and originally wanted to launch a sneak attack halfway, but the wolf pack had not yet arrived and could not form the Blood Wolf Great Array, so he waited for a moment.

It was just that when the wolf pack arrived, Huogong Toutuo's Diamond Great Strength Protector was also refined.

"Awoo!"

The Langwang howled at the moon.

"You've come just in time."

Huogong Toutuo said: "My Diamond Great Strength Protector is just in need of drinking blood to become stronger!"

No matter how powerful this thing was described to be, it was actually just a secret technique of "refining zombies" that had been improved.

Being a zombie by nature, it could become stronger through blood-sucking and ritual refinement.

He was not afraid of it being damaged, and ordered this Diamond Protector to rush straight toward the wolf pack.

He himself also wielded the Dutian Liehuo Sword, venting his murderous intent to relieve the depressive Qi from burning bricks and tiles every day in the Liuli Fudi.

"How bold!"

After killing several wolves, Xuelang Zhenren could not sit still; he jumped out to personally organize the Blood Wolf Dao Soldier Great Array. He sat on the Langwang, his aura fierce and evil.

"Where did you bald donkey come from? How dare you kill someone from our Forty-Seven Bandits?"

Huogong Toutuo did not reply, his eyes merely shining: "Another piece of material for the Diamond Great Strength Protector!"

"Blood Wolf Great Array!"

The wolf pack surrounded him; their originally normal eyes suddenly turned blood-red, and then their figures began to swell, blood threads seeped out from their skin, staining their fur, and they became Blood Wolves.

Even a blood mist faintly formed, and a stench of foul Qi surrounded Huogong Toutuo.

"Blood Tooth!"

The fangs in the mouths of the Blood Wolves fell out, and they had actually been refined into Magic Tool wolf fangs, shooting toward Huogong Toutuo.

"Fire come! Fire come! Fire come!"

With the Diamond Protector acting as a front line to block most of the damage, Huogong Toutuo brought out a small banner; this banner was the Dutian Liehuo Qi he had refined, and although it could not match one percent of the original, it still possessed the ability to control fire.

He had seen the wolf pack and knew that beasts could not change their nature; even if they overcame their fear of flames, their fur still feared fire.

Then, one after another, fire crows flew out from the banner, immediately crashing into the wolf pack in a suicidal manner.

Xuelang Zhenren brought out a tooth plaque to block a few of the fire crows, but more crows appeared, and the power of their explosions could not be underestimated. The tooth plaque was even blasted until it fell to the ground.

Xuelang Zhenren had no choice but to draw his bow and shoot out wolf-fang arrows one by one; this bow was a Magic Tool. He was not skilled with flying swords, only "flying arrows." His arrows could turn corners, double back, and track enemies; unless one was an Earth Immortal, it was very difficult to withstand the powerful shots of Xuelang Zhenren.

Huogong Toutuo paid no mind to anything else, only letting the Diamond Protector refined by Zhang Yuan block the incoming arrows; he did not care even when it was stuck like a hedgehog, as he was getting closer and closer to Xuelang Zhenren.

"Sand Escape!"

Huogong Toutuo said this, but he did not enter the sand.

While Xuelang Zhenren was confused, a fire flying sword pierced out from the sand below, broke through the Langwang's belly, and also drilled into his body; with a stir, he died and his Dao dissipated.

"Fool, you don't know that escape techniques start by escaping into objects first, and only at the end do you escape into people."

Taking advantage while it was fresh, Huogong Toutuo quickly refined Xuelang Zhenren into a Mighty Diamond Protector as well, and ordered the two Protectors to refine the flesh and blood of the lead wolf.

Only the eagle flying in the sky saw that its master was dead, so it headed toward the lair of the First Great Bandit.

The First Great Bandit was actually not a person from the Central Plains, nor was he from the Western Regions; he was a Persian, but he had learned the cultivation arts of the Central Plains and was the leader of the Persian Sacred Fire Sect. He intended to establish a Sacred Fire Dao Kingdom, but there were experts in his native Persia who drove him out, which was why he traveled east and founded another "Sacred Fire Sect" near Kunlun Mountain.

This sect was then spread to the Eastern Lands by merchants from the Western Regions, and by this time it had already evolved into the "Manichaeism."

He gathered these great bandits in the Western Regions for no other reason than to use them as a dirty glove for the Sacred Fire Sect. He wanted to strengthen the sect, and as the leader, he would have the virtue of founding a sect, allowing him to be with the Sacred Fire in the future, obtain Quanshen, and become a True God.

(End of chapter)