Chapter 793

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately grew alert.

The Ghost Opera Troupe was an old adversary, and they had gathered ample intelligence on it.

This organization had risen from the ashes; originally merely brutal and ruthless, it had been eradicated by the Xuanmen world, but upon rebuilding, it had been utterly transformed.

With support from the Jianmu Organization and the imperial court tightening control over cultivators, many evil cultivators and demonic beings flocked to join, causing the Ghost Opera Troupe to rapidly expand.

Aside from the most mysterious “Master,” information on the others had already been uncovered.

The “Ghost Opera Troupe” had split into countless small teams, mostly consisting of five members in the “Sheng, Dan, Jing, Mo, Chou” roles, a mix of dragons and snakes with wildly uneven strength.

These two before them were core members.

The “Ghost Mask Rakshasa”’s real name was Liu Hongyu, heir to a puppet-making clan; her ancestor Liu Guchan had been executed for “mocking the ruler through opera” after secretly embedding political satire into his puppet show, “Mokuren Rescues His Mother,” performed at the Wang Fu.

At just twelve years old, Liu Hongyu witnessed her kin skinned alive and hung on stage as human shadow puppets “as a warning to others,” her hatred driving her mad; she fused her family’s legacy, the “Puppet Illusion Opera Manuscript,” with vengeful spirits, creating a demonic art.

With half her face scarred by a branding iron, she wore a Rakshasa mask year-round, obsessed with opera to an extreme, often slaughtering entire villages to turn them into shadow puppets for her performances.

In the Jiangnan region, she had become a monstrous legend.

As for the Blood-Hand Scholar, his name was Huang Jiuming; in life, he had been the top scholar of the Ying Tianfu , but after exposing eunuch factions in his imperial examination essay, he was disqualified and burned himself alive in the imperial examination hall out of bitter resentment.

His vengeful qi fused with a precious inkstone, transforming it into a demonic artifact.

After the inkstone was purchased, it continuously tormented its owners until it finally possessed them, learned the Ghost Sect’s secret methods, and specialized in killing those with official titles, peeling off their tongue coatings to paste on fans, calling it “collecting all the brocade tongues of the world.”

In short, they were both infamous demons of the Jianghu.

With these two demons appearing together, how could anyone not be on guard?

“Watch out—they’re targeting us!”

Wang Daoxuan, a seasoned veteran, quickly deduced the truth; he gritted his teeth: “Li Yan just left, and they show up? They’re trying to take us as hostages!”

Saying this, his face darkened: “No—they must have a Daxian here too!”

At these words, everyone’s hearts turned icy.

This scheme in Jinling appeared to have started small, but in truth, Jianmu had been planning it for years; like a whirlpool, it had grown ever larger, engulfing all of southern Shenzhou.

One misstep, and it could become a cataclysmic disaster.

Jianmu had spent years preparing and held the initiative, but the imperial court and the orthodox Xuanmen sects had now reacted, with masters converging toward this region.

Though these demons seemed formidable, the court could command the orthodox sects guarding the Dantian and Fudi of Jiangnan to mobilize their forces—overwhelming, mountain-shaking power.

Even with the Yangzhou Ding, Jianmu could never overthrow the court and orthodox sects; their victory lies only in plunging Jiangnan into chaos.

The Twelve Yuan Chen, after all, was merely a newly formed small team; though they had gained considerable fame, their only foothold in Jinling rested on one thing:

Li Yan’s identity as a Living Yin-Cha!

Their sudden attack was almost certainly because of this.

“Hehe~”

From the thick fog, the Ghost Mask Rakshasa let out a light laugh, flicked her water sleeves, and appeared like a ghostly shadow atop the opposite wall: “You’re clever indeed—but alas, fine moments and beautiful scenes are doomed by fate~”

Accompanied by a mournful, haunting operatic cry, she whipped her pale sleeves, sending forth a dense hail of silver threads—not toward them, but extending beyond the wall into the fog.

Papatapata~

Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed from every direction in the darkness.

Dozens of black shadows emerged from the walls, moving stiffly yet swiftly, like puppet strings pulled, leaping into the courtyard.

Through the dim light, they could see these were corpses, highly decayed and reeking of putrid stench.

Some wore tattered farmer’s short robes; others still bore fragments of soldier’s armor; some were nothing but bare bones draped in rotting flesh, copper talismans hammered into their foreheads.

“Watch out—it’s the Ghost Mask Rakshasa’s ‘Thread-Puppet Opera’!”

Lin Fatty’s face turned grim as he urgently warned everyone.

The Ghost Mask Rakshasa’s technique was infamous in Jiangnan’s Xuanmen circles; the animated corpses she controlled weren’t ordinary demons that could be repelled by talismans—they had to be shattered completely.

In folk tales, ghostly opera performed at midnight in deep mountains was a forbidden legend.

At the same time, the Ghost Mask Rakshasa’s mournful singing rose again:

“I thought fine moments and beautiful scenes were meant to last,

But who knew my Thread-Puppet Opera leads straight to the Ghost Gate?

Bone bells shatter the night, Rakshasa holds the lantern curtain,

On this three-foot phantom stage, all things fall under puppet strings…”

“Damn you, stop your ghostly wailing!”

Sha Lifei swung his rifle around and fired instantly.

Boom!

With a thunderous blast, smoke scattered; half the opposite wall collapsed—but the Ghost Mask Rakshasa, though clearly struck, dissolved into mist just as before.

The collapsed wall only allowed more puppets to pour in.

“Stop wasting effort!”

Lu San’s face darkened as he grabbed Sha Lifei’s arm: “The entire garrison is trapped in an illusion array—it’s the Underworld Opera Stage. Your spiritual senses are disrupted; you can’t find her true form.”

“Hold the formation! Protect the Daoist’s altar!”

Sha Lifei gritted his teeth and stopped firing randomly.

At this moment, he too felt helpless.

The power of firearms was undeniable; his rifle sniping and Wu Ba’s Tiger Squat Cannon were the team’s most devastating long-range weapons, responsible for countless enemy deaths.

But in this situation, they were utterly useless.

If you can’t even hit the enemy, what good is raw power?

Like Wu Ba’s Tiger Squat Cannon—it could obliterate a Commandant like Si Qianmen in one shot—but without finding the array’s core, the illusion couldn’t be broken, and innocent civilians outside would suffer.

As Lu San said, defense was all they could do now.

With a plan in place, everyone stopped acting rashly; they took positions inside and out, guarding Wang Daoxuan’s altar at the center to prevent the puppet corpses from destroying it.

Meanwhile, Wang Daoxuan fully activated the Five Directions Luo Feng Flags.

Five black ritual banners flapped wildly, summoning a howling wind that enveloped them.

The power of this Great Luo artifact immediately manifested.

The Ghost Mask Rakshasa’s eerie singing, which normally had the power to snatch souls and shatter minds, now scattered like leaves in the gale, unable to affect them.

Boom!

Wu Ba swung his fists, smashing the charging corpse puppets with brute force; others slashed with swords and blades, holding their line firmly.

But the Ghost Mask Rakshasa’s puppets seemed endless, pouring in without pause.

“Damn it, how the hell did they get them in?!”

Sha Lifei, unwilling to waste ammunition, kept his rifle aimed around him.

He muttered the complaint, but he knew perfectly well:

In this Jinling city, no one knew who among the officials, clerks, or even tonight’s host, the Prince of Jinling, was a Jianmu mole—corrupted bureaucrats, blinded commoners, all could be traitors.

The Great Xuan Dynasty was mighty, suppressing the entire Jianghu and Xuanmen world into silence.

But after a century of growth, its internal rot was deep and widespread.

Corrupt officials, powerful clans fighting for profit—how much resentment had they accumulated?

Jianmu struck precisely at this weakness, which is why they’d held the upper hand all along.

Though they protected themselves, those outside had suffered terribly.

Inside the Commandant’s office, soldiers and clerks bewitched by the illusion array had no defense; they were overrun and torn apart by the charging corpse puppets, blood and flesh flying.

When the puppets withdrew, the dead soldiers and clerks staggered to their feet, stiff and twisting, joining the puppet ranks.

Outside the altar, Kuai Dayou swung his two steel cones relentlessly.

Though a craftsman, he came from a legitimate Xuanmen lineage with ancient roots—how could he lack protective arts?

Beyond his craft’s techniques, he was skilled in Bagua and Xingyi; though not matching the monstrous martial talents of others, he could still hold his ground in the Beijing-Tianjin region.

The few puppets that charged him were easily torn apart.

But unlike the others, every time he shattered a puppet, he stared intently.

His family’s art also specialized in puppet-making—but for performances and labor, not the demonic horrors before him.

What puzzled him was how they were controlled.

The strings manipulating the puppets weren’t above their heads.

Finally, Kuai Dayou noticed something strange.

As he tore apart a puppet, a white shadow flickered beneath its feet—he said nothing, swung his blade hard, and dirt sprayed everywhere.