Chapter 730

Lu San's Nuo dance is ancient and desolate.

Every step he takes feels as if he is treading upon the nodes of time.

Every beat of his chest feels as if he is drumming on an ancient war drum.

Those paper coins have all turned into flying ash, but the Nuo dance must still proceed to the end.

The reason is simple: this is not merely a dance, but a primitive ritual to communicate with the netherworld and channel away the baleful energy of the earth's veins, using the momentum of the dance to expel formless delusions.

Once interrupted, Lu San would suffer a backlash.

Boom!

Finally, following Lu San's last strike to his chest, his entire body came to an abrupt halt.

His complexion was slightly pale, and his body swayed.

Here in the Jiumen Jiumen Jiumen Yin Xu, performing techniques solely with his Yin soul body was clearly not easy.

Wu Ba, who was behind him, hurriedly stepped forward to support him.

As for Lin Yu, Kuai Dayou, and Kong Shangzhao, they felt a sense of relief in their hearts; that final, lingering stickiness that had bound their spirits had completely vanished.

"Brother Lu... what a formidable Nuo technique!"

Fatty Lin gave an awkward smile and hurriedly stepped forward to flatter him.

He knew that this time, he had stirred up quite a bit of trouble.

Lu San did not pay any attention to Fatty Lin. Once his breathing had steadied, his gaze swept like a hawk toward the hall of the Jiaozi Office, which was now revealing its true appearance.

"It's not just paper charms possessing bodies..."

He formed a hand seal, his ears twitched slightly, and he said in a deep voice, "This place itself is a trap, a formation barrier hidden extremely deep."

With the concealing formation broken, he could also hear more anomalies.

Wu Ba did not say a word and strode forward.

His palm, broad as a cattail fan, brushed over a thick corridor pillar, and then he suddenly exerted force and struck it!

Boom!

A dull, loud sound echoed, but the wooden pillar did not budge in the slightest.

However, the lacquer on the surface fell off in rustles, revealing the dark red, decayed wood beneath.

"What is this?" Lu San frowned.

Fatty Lin, who was behind him, was also full of confusion and shook his head, saying, "I've never seen it before. This place is different from the outside world, and I don't know where that monster found it."

Not only that, but as everyone examined it closely, they discovered even more anomalies.

In the gaps between the seemingly ordinary blue bricks on the ground, they were stuffed with brick mortar mixed with cinnabar and some kind of black, heavy powder; although it had long since dried, it faintly exuded a baleful Yin energy.

In the corners, several inconspicuous broken porcelain shards were not scattered randomly.

The angles at which they were placed secretly matched the Nine Palaces directions, and even the roof beams looked like coffin lids.

"This formation... is not simple!"

Kuai Dayou was, after all, a famous craftsman of the Mystic Sect and was most sensitive to these materials and mechanisms. He leaned in to identify them carefully, "Using the chaotic Qi of the Ghost Market itself as cover to hide the real trap beneath a layer of illusion—those magical artifacts from the Imperial Clan Court would only see the Ghost Market and would never be able to detect this place."

As he spoke, he shook his head with some reluctance, "I, damn it, have really never seen this before."

"If Brother Lu hadn't broken the paper charms, I'm afraid these formations would also be hard to detect."

Kong Shangzhao swallowed hard, "This was set up specifically waiting for someone to investigate the clues of the Nuo God Tomb... It's Zhao Qingxu!"

"Let's go."

Lu San interrupted their shock and suspicion, his gaze cast toward that tightly closed, inconspicuous carved wooden door at the back of the Jiaozi Office hall.

The place on the lintel where a plaque should have been hanging was completely empty.

Only on the beast-faced door knockers on both sides of the door panels remained faint, charred marks.

"The clue should be behind the door, and I reckon this is also the ultimate purpose of this formation—to hide the scene from back then." He took a deep breath, his True Qi circulating through his body, "Everyone, be careful!"

Wu Ba walked at the very front and pushed open the heavy wooden door with one shove.

The moment the door opened, a massive wave of sound instantly rushed toward them!

The light and shadows before everyone's eyes twisted and reshaped violently.

In an instant, they felt as if they were being swept away by a torrent of time and space, crashing abruptly from the deathly silent Jiaozi Office into a battlefield where heaven and earth were overturning.

They saw an ancient and dilapidated temple standing on the bank of the Huitong River.

The surrounding ground was full of corpses, including both soldiers, martial artists, and Daoist priests.

On the distant opposite riverbank stood a high altar.

A wild wind howled, thick fog surged, and one could only faintly see many human figures.

Some of them were treading the Yu Step, some were holding magical artifacts, and at the highest point, there was even a purple-robed phantom holding a magical sword, shouting toward the sky: "Eastern Qi aligns with the liver, Southern Qi aligns with the heart. Western Qi aligns with the lungs, Northern Qi aligns with the kidneys. Heavenly thunder rumbles, the four gates are clear. Thunder Duke and Lightning Mother, Wind Earl and Rain Master. Hear the call and arrive immediately, do not delay for long..."

This was an orthodox Daoist Thunder Technique; it must be a major sect of the Mystic Sect to be able to use it.

Everyone knew clearly that this was the key scene from the Daxiang years of the previous dynasty, where experts of the Mystic Sect joined forces to suppress the "Head of the Xiao-Sheng" in the Nuo God Tomb.

The Qi of the earth's veins had rioted, and thus it was branded within the Jiumen Jiumen Jiumen Yin Xu.

Boom!

A bolt of thunder crashed down, shaking the firmament.

Lu San was still fine, as he had already experienced it at Lake Liangzi.

But Fatty Lin and the others were already dumbfounded.

The one who lost his composure the most was Wu Ba.

He was born with a fear of thunder and was so frightened that his whole body shuddered.

But the most shocking scene was still in the center of the temple.

They saw a huge, incomparably ferocious and terrifying stone-carved beast-headed coffin that had already been forcibly "pulled" out from the foundation.

Inside the stone coffin must be the "Head of the Xiao-Sheng."

And on top of the beast coffin, a huge wooden stake was embedded.

That wooden stake was charred black all over but faintly revealed a golden glow, exuding an aura of ancient desolation.

After being struck by the heavenly thunder, it actually emitted a red glow, looking like a red-hot iron rod.

"That is... the wood of Mount Taodou!"

Lin Yu exclaimed in shock, his eyes fixed firmly on that divine wood.

Boom-crack!

As if in response to his words, the heavenly thunder struck again.

In an instant, the entire sky of the Jiumen Jiumen Yin Xu was illuminated by the pale, blinding electric light.

A thick, white-hot bolt of thunder, like a mountain ridge, carrying the supreme power to destroy all evil, pierced straight down from the nine heavens, accurately striking the huge beast coffin pinned down by the wood of Mount Taodou.

The moment the thunder exploded, the blinding white light swallowed everything in sight.

Lu San and the others had to squint their eyes, and they even faintly felt a burning pain in their spirits.

One must know, this was merely an impression from back then.

As the thunder light dissipated, the huge beast head, along with the temple ruins, completely collapsed and was buried.

"Ah..."

Fatty Lin's face was full of disappointment, "Could it be... that it has already been destroyed?"

No sooner had his voice fallen than an unexpected change occurred.

"Swish, swish, swish—!"

Piercing sounds of breaking through the air, like a swarm of poisonous bees, broke the deathly silence after the thunder strike.

Countless arrows flashing with cold light shot out violently from the thick fog on the opposite bank of the Huitong River.

The target was precisely the Daoist priests of the Mystic Sect who had just exhausted their strength on the altar.

"Enemy attack! Protect..."

Before the purple-robed Daoist could finish his roar, a heavy arrow as thick as a child's arm pierced his shoulder blade with a "thud," dragging him to stumble backward and fall from the high altar.

More arrows turned into life-taking locusts, shrouding the entire altar.

On the river beach, it instantly turned into a slaughterhouse.

The Daoists who had just used their flesh and blood as a guide, uniting their hearts and minds with heaven and earth to summon the divine thunder, had now become the most vulnerable prey.

The rain of arrows was dense, blocking out the light, piercing through Daoist robes, tearing flesh and blood, and the dull thuds of them nailing into the ground intertwined with the screams of the dying.