Volume 9, Chapter 597 – Beloved Crown Princess, How Are You This Strong

“What a colossal nerve, daring to sabotage our grand design. I swear I’ll kill you today!”

“You can dodge the monk, but not the temple. Today is the end of your Crown Prince’s Mausoleum!”

“What damned Crown Prince’s Mausoleum? It’s just a kennel for beaten curs. Today I’ll rip it out by the roots.”

A few malevolent entities finally reacted; enraged, they surged in pursuit.

Chief Steward Zhong’s weathered face twisted with fury as well. He bore an imperial decree, if the mission failed, he was dead for certain.

“Even if I die, I’ll drag you down with me!”

He spat curses and moved to give chase, only to be halted by Thousand Shadows’ call.

“Ch–Chief Steward Zhong… save me!”

Thousand Shadows coughed up fresh blood, pleading as he swallowed hard.

“Brother Thousand Shadows, you think too highly of this humble eunuch. Your heart is shattered, no immortal could save you, much less me. Better I go slay that zombie and avenge you; that’s something real.”

Pity flickered across Chief Steward Zhong’s face.

“N–not… asking… you to save my life… save my soul… my soul.”

Gasping in a lungful of air, Thousand Shadows forced the words out through pain: “We martial folk are… are strong in body, but our souls… are terribly fragile. Luckily this is a mass burial ground… huuuh… the yin miasma is thick. After I die my soul won’t scatter at once. P–please… guard me.”

“……”

Chief Steward Zhong hesitated, he had no taste for thankless toil.

“Ch–Chief Steward… killing him… it only vents your anger; it does nothing else. Our mission failed. If we return, we die.”

Thousand Shadows raced the clock as he explained: “You’re a clever man, you wouldn’t walk back to your own execution, would you? Once you leave the palace, you’ll need silver. If you preserve my soul, I’ll hand you my life’s savings as payment.”

At that, Chief Steward Zhong finally wavered. Beheading or not aside, if saving this man’s soul could be traded for a windfall, only a fool would waste time killing a zombie for spite.

“Fine! For the sake of our working together, I’ll save you. Remember what you’ve promised.”

Decision made, he acted at once. Before entering the burial ground he had dosed himself with Cat’s Tears, so he could see souls.

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Hearing that, Thousand Shadows’ last defenses melted. His head lolled to the side, and he breathed his last.

Elsewhere, Jiang Feng was fleeing for dear life toward the edge of the mass burial ground, snatching a moment to pull out the Thousand-Mile Communication Tube to contact Qi Huang.

Qi Huang had just reached the center of the grounds. Ahead, yin miasma billowed like smoke, blotting out the sky; her divine sense could barely probe any distance. She was hesitating over whether to go in for a look when the tube inside her spatial ring chimed.

‘Who would be contacting me at a time like this?’

Annoyed, Qi Huang still swept it with her divine sense. It turned out to be the tube that connected to Jiang Feng.

“Isn’t that scoundrel helping those malevolent spirits? What could he want now?”

Puzzled, she hurriedly took it out and answered.

“Beloved, my identity as Crown Prince has been ex… exposed. I have to run right now. If… if I die today, please don’t forget our… our deal. Help me find the Jiang clan’s surviving line.”

Jiang Feng’s voice came through in fits and starts.

“Exposed? What in the world happened?”

Qi Huang hadn’t expected him to be so unreliable and snapped, agitated.

“Awooo…! Trying to run? Today you die!”

Right then a thunderous wolf-howl rolled over, followed by a woman’s furious curse, and then nothing more from his side.

In real time, that howl rippled outward in waves like a tide, triggering terrifying fluctuations. The weaker malevolent entities were killed on the spot.

Qi Huang felt the battering against her divine-sense barrier and shivered. Without that protection, her frail mortal body would have popped like a balloon.

No time to dwell. She streaked toward the howl at top speed. As she left the center, her divine sense reached farther and farther, and soon the scene ahead came into focus.

Jiang Feng was tumbling and scrambling for his life, and right behind him pounded a giant white wolf.

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The wolf had two pairs of ears; its body was as large as a house, yet its lines were long and sleek. If one ignored the filth matting its white coat, and the pair of vertical pupils blazing with rancor and wildness, there was even a certain grace about it.

Its power was shocking. Its foreclaws had been shorn off by some means, yet as it bounded they regrew at a speed visible to the naked eye. Those razor claws bit into the earth; with each push it vaulted hundreds of feet, a lightning bolt racing over the ground, and in a blink it was upon Jiang Feng.

“Die!”

The white wolf spoke in a woman’s voice. One massive forepaw slashed at Jiang Feng from midair; her black, honed talons, each nearly a foot long, tore through the air with overwhelming force, and in a blink were at his back.

Jiang Feng blanched. His toenails burst longer as he drove them into the ground with everything he had, using the drag to throw himself backward, trying to evade the blow by going fully prone.

The wolf’s swipe did miss; her hulking body sailed over his head. But then, the foot-long belly fur under it suddenly shed away, shooting downward like a storm of needles.

Thinking fast, Jiang Feng smashed his right fist into the ground with all his strength.

BOOM…

With a muffled-thunder crash, the earth sank into a crater under his blow. Dirt and stone blasted upward like loosed arrows, meeting the rain of wolf fur.

Unfortunately, common soil and stone couldn’t compare in hardness to the quills shed by a golden zombie wolf.

The steel-needle hairs punched through layer after layer of debris and drove straight for Jiang Feng below.

Instinctively he shielded his head, but in an instant the dense volley of quills riddled his body like a beehive. If he hadn’t been a zombie, even non-vital hits would have killed him from sheer agony.

He had no time to check his wounds, he rolled to get up and keep running.

By then Bai Yun had landed and steadied herself. She wheeled toward him and loosed another long howl.

“Awooo!”

With the deafening cry came a gale that blasted into Jiang Feng.

The embedded quills all caught the wind, and his body floated upward, borne aloft.

“How is that possible?”

Horrified, he looked down. Barbs had sprouted along the quills at some point, hooking deep into his flesh.

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He wasn’t a cultivator and couldn’t muster divine sense, only brute force. Struggle as he might, it did nothing. From afar he looked like a helpless grub writhing in midair, wretched beyond words.

“A mere mid-stage golden zombie dares play tricks before me? You’re tired of living.”

Bai Yun gaped her bloody jaws and padded closer. “You ruined my hard work. Today I’ll help the present imperial clan wipe out the last of your kind!”

With that she crouched and sprang, maw yawning to bite down. Her fangs flashed with a metallic sheen, four curved blades.

‘This is the end for me!’

Jiang Feng shut his eyes in despair.

BOOM!

At that knife-edge instant, a terrifying divine sense crashed down from the heavens. Space itself seemed to warp as Bai Yun’s massive form was crushed and slammed into the earth, kicking up a geyser of dust.

“Hm?”

Jiang Feng cracked an eye in confusion. A slim figure in green drifted down, wreathed in a storm of divine sense, pinning the white wolf to the ground so she couldn’t budge.

“Beloved Crown Princess?”

Delight lit Jiang Feng’s face. The newcomer was Qi Huang.

“To give up this easily, and you still talk of revenge? I thought better of you.”

A faint curl of contempt touched Qi Huang’s pretty face.

“Uh…”

Jiang Feng’s smile froze, his expression uglier than when he’d faced death a heartbeat before.

“Who… are… you…”

Bai Yun’s strained voice rasped from the pit.

“You can still talk?”

Qi Huang’s gaze tightened. To be safe she had poured out ninety percent of her divine sense; by that, the white wolf’s strength had to be at golden-zombie peak, the equivalent of a cultivator at the peak of the Divine Realm. Zombies’ bodies resisted divine suppression far better than mortals’, which was the only reason the beast could still force out words.

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“I asked, who are you?”

Rancor swelled in Bai Yun’s eyes. As the yin energy flooded her, muscle piled thicker on her limbs; she trembled to her feet.

Qi Huang bit down, drove her divine sense harder, and crushed the giant wolf flat again. Then she summoned her sword and dove in. Strike while the foe is down, kill while it’s sick.

Swish, swish, swish…

Her blade traced blue afterimages, scoring wound after wound across the wolf. Not one cut could finish it, though the beast’s body was too fearsome. Even her Cicada Wing Sword, sharp enough to shear iron like mud, couldn’t pierce to the vitals.

“Insect, you’re scratching an itch for me? Awoo…”

Baiyun threw back her head and howled, staggering upright once more.

“Unbelievable!”

Qi Huang dared not dally. The hair streaming down her back suddenly surged, a black waterfall lancing toward Baiyun’s massive frame.

Shlick! Shlick! Shlick!

This time, Baiyun’s body yielded like tofu, punched through again and again.

“Awoo…”

Her whole form shuddered as a wail of agony tore free.

“My beloved, how did you get this strong?”

Jiang Feng stared, dumbfounded.

Without pride or panic, Qi Huang pressed the advantage, guiding her tresses to slice and carve through the wolf’s flesh.

“Awoo…”

Pain flared to the marrow; Bai Yun’s cries rolled out in waves, echoing across the burial ground, to the coffin at its center.

In the next breath, the yin leaking from the coffin seam ceased. A crushing pressure billowed out, blotting the sky. Then a woman’s voice rang to the clouds: “Who dares lay a hand on my Bai Yun!”