Exchanging Death for Injury

"I want you dead!"

A dense, fierce killing aura erupted from Shi Shou's body. His frame rapidly withered, his skin turning a sickly, bluish-gray husk as two long fangs extended from his mouth.

His appearance was not much different from Song Wen's own corpse-transformation, save for the vastly thicker killing aura radiating from him.

Shi Shou stomped fiercely. The rocks beneath his feet exploded, and he shot toward Song Wen like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.

Before he even arrived, his hand curled into a claw, its dark, glistening nails like sharpened iron blades.

Facing this ferocious assault, Song Wen's expression remained perfectly composed.

The failure of his earlier sneak attack with the Cold Moon Blade was slightly disappointing, but only slightly.

Slapping his Corpse Nurturing Bag, Song Wen summoned his Pseudo-Tier 2 Puppet Corpse.

This puppet possessed the potential to be refined into a true Tier 2 Puppet Corpse, but having reached Foundation Establishment only days ago, Song Wen had not yet gathered the necessary spiritual materials.

The Pseudo-Tier 2 Puppet Corpse hurled itself at Shi Shou's own Puppet Corpse. Song Wen did not expect it to defeat its foe; he only needed it to buy him a sliver of time.

Just as Shi Shou's razor-sharp claws were about to close around his throat, a massive phantom of a green bronze bell flared to life around Song Wen, shrouding him completely.

Simultaneously, the Cold Moon Blade swept in from behind, plunging straight toward Shi Shou's heart.

Song Wen triggered his corpse-transformation. Dark palms radiating a chilling light tore mercilessly toward the crown of Shi Shou's head.

It was a ruthless exchange-injury for injury.

A disdainful sneer touched the corner of Shi Shou's mouth. How dared a junior who had just stepped into Foundation Establishment try to trade blows with a veteran who had held the realm for twenty years?

Though both were technically at the early Foundation Establishment stage, the gap in their foundations was massive.

In that split second, Shi Shou's fury over the ruined Formation melted away. He suddenly realized that with a Foundation Establishment cultivator like Song Wen here, he had no need to harvest the essence blood of those nine Qi Refining ants.

Song Wen alone was worth more than all of them combined!

Only one thought remained in his mind: capture Song Wen, drain his essence blood, and smelt his spiritual power to break straight through to the mid Foundation Establishment stage.

Shi Shou's claws struck the green bronze bell, sending a shower of sparks into the air with an ear-piercing screech.

Four deep gouges were carved into the phantom bell, yet it did not shatter.

With his breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, the defensive might of the Myriad Poisons Chaos Body had also risen with the tide, actually allowing him to withstand Shi Shou's full-powered strike.

At the exact same moment, Song Wen's hand, wreathed in corpse aura and Geng Metal Qi, reached the left side of Shi Shou's face.

Netherworld Claw!

Shi Shou jerked his head to the left, viciously ramming his skull directly into Song Wen's incoming hand.

"Bang!"

Song Wen's fingers trembled, a sharp pain shooting through his fingertips.

The strike failed to crush Shi Shou's hardened skull, managing only to tear away a large chunk of flesh from his cheek.

The flesh tore like ancient tree bark, tough and entirely devoid of blood.

The left side of Shi Shou's face was stripped bare, revealing darkened bone. Without a single drop of blood weeping from the wound, his visage was eerie and utterly terrifying.

In that same breath, the Cold Moon Blade finally struck.

Yet, a small shield abruptly materialized behind Shi Shou, intercepting the blade perfectly.

Shi Shou had not been idle during this exchange.

He lashed out with two more vicious claw strikes against the bronze bell.

The green light flickered violently before exploding into scattered motes of spiritual light.

The bronze bell was broken!

A savage grin stretched across Shi Shou's gruesome, half-skeletal face. He looked like an evil spirit crawling out from the abyss.

"Die!"

His talons plunged straight for Song Wen's throat.

Song Wen did not attempt to dodge. Instead, his own claw shot toward Shi Shou's left eye.

Exultation flared in Shi Shou's eyes. His claws easily pierced the fragile cartilage of the throat. Spiritual power erupted from his fingertips, instantly obliterating half of his opponent's neck.

Without support, the head lolled over, left hanging from the torso by a mere thread of torn flesh.

But his joy was momentary. In the next breath, his eyes widened in sheer disbelief. The figure whose throat he had just crushed was not Song Wen at all. It was just an ordinary Puppet Corpse.

Shi Shou's heart seized.

Where was Ji Yin? Where did he go?

Why had he struck down a Puppet Corpse?

Could this be the legendary Puppet Substitution Technique?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, Shi Shou suddenly felt something crawling across his left eye.

It was from the exchange a moment prior. While Shi Shou had crushed the decoy's throat, Song Wen's hand had brushed his eye.

Shi Shou had leaned his head back just in time to avoid having his eye gouged out, but the back of Song Wen's hand had still scraped across it.

Before he could discern what was writhing over his left eye, he felt a sudden displacement of air behind him.

It was Ji Yin!

He struck from behind, wielding the Cold Moon Blade in his left hand and forming a claw with his right, aiming a brutal, simultaneous strike at both of Shi Shou's kidneys.

Shi Shou's expression warped in horror. He desperately commanded his small shield to defend his back, at the same time twisting his body to slam a furious palm down upon the shadow's head.

"Pfft!"

The small shield successfully parried the right claw, but failed to intercept the Cold Moon Blade in the left!

The Cold Moon Blade sank deep into Shi Shou's left flank. Boundless spiritual power, rushing like a raging flood, surged off the blade and tore madly into his body.

Shi Shou's left side blew apart, leaving a gaping hole where his internal organs were clearly visible.

Within an instant, his left kidney was shredded into pulp by the encroaching spiritual power, causing a massive hemorrhage of essence Qi.

"Bang!"

Shi Shou's desperate palm strike finally landed. The skull of the figure behind him detonated like a melon, shattering into pieces.

But what left Shi Shou trembling with rage and an overwhelming sense of helplessness was...

It was another Puppet Corpse. A miserable, fourth-layer Qi Refining Puppet Corpse!

With a flicker of movement, Song Wen's unharmed figure materialized a hundred meters away.

Shi Shou glared at him with burning hatred. One hand pressed against the gruesome crater in his left side, while the other quickly flicked two healing Pills into his mouth.

"Ji Yin, I underestimated you."

"In a mere six years, not only did you successfully reach Foundation Establishment, but you also refined such a bizarre Puppet Substitution Technique."

"I am rather curious. Where exactly did you learn this Puppet Substitution Technique, and how did you manage to refine as many as two?"

Song Wen exhaled heavily, expelling a breath of turbid air. Though the clash had lasted only a handful of breaths, it had drained a massive amount of his spiritual power and mental energy.

Knowing perfectly well that the old man was speaking to stall for time, Song Wen did not rush to press the attack. A cold, knowing smile touched his lips.

Two proxies for the Puppet Substitution Technique? The greatest hurdle in refining substitution proxies was carving off pieces of one's soul to extract a soul guide. Repeatedly tearing away soul guides would inevitably cause irreversible soul damage.

For Song Wen, however, this wasn't a problem at all. Through repeated experimentation, he had determined that the cost of stripping away a single soul guide could be completely mended by devouring two or three souls of cultivators at the same realm.

Because of this, he could refine them in staggering quantities.

With his notoriously cautious nature, how could he settle for carrying only one or two? Over the past few years, he had refined more than ten.

"Elder Shi, you are still trying to buy time to heal your wounds," Song Wen said softly, "but haven't you noticed something crawling inside your head?"

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