Chapter 54: With Enough Force, Even a Brick Can Fly

Although she had never actually fought using a human body, the humanitarian conferring ritual itself bestowed a certain degree of basic common knowledge (Note 1), so Liu Yunxi was far from having raw strength without knowing how to use it.

Wrapped in the extended sleeve of her outfit, her left hand—clutching the Golden Body Incantation jade talisman—blocked the incoming sharp claws. Accompanied by the sound of clashing metal, Liu Yunxi’s body retreated to dissipate the force, while her right hand whipped back like a nimble snake tail!

Infused with evil-banishing mana, the long staff swept a silver arc through the air, striking the zombie’s swinging arm with precision. The sound was like water poured onto a red-hot iron plate, accompanied by a rising plume of black smoke. The unsharpened iron rod forcefully scorched a charred mark down to the bone on the zombie’s bluish-purple arm. Yet, this was not enough to counter the zombie’s immense strength; caught in the recoil, Liu Yunxi inevitably lost her balance slightly.

Seeming to seize this opportunity, the female ghost attached to the zombie violently lunged forward with the upper half of her body, her scarlet eyes leaving two bloody light trails in the air. At that very moment, however, a cyan-white thunderbolt suddenly erupted!

Crack!

An arrow-like flash of lightning pierced out from behind Liu Yunxi. Although much of its power had dissipated by the time it reached the female ghost, the exploding thunder light successfully interrupted the ghost’s incantation.

"Ah..."

A sharp scream tore from the female ghost’s throat. Amidst the high-frequency sonic vibrations, the glass windows in the room shattered one after another. Feng Xue felt a wave of dizziness in his head; without a single redundant thought, he poured all his mana toward his soles.

The activated Speed-Enhancing Incantation burst into effect, two clusters of wind-attribute mana wrapping around Feng Xue’s legs. With just a slight step, he leaped out as if treading on a spring. Having never experienced such excessive force before, Feng Xue nearly found himself doing the splits for a split second.

Fortunately, his strengthened soul ultimately reinforced his reaction speed. Before losing his balance completely, his left leg—also enveloped in wind-attribute mana—took a forceful step forward. Although he felt another wave of imbalance as if launched by a spring, this time he was somewhat prepared.

Feng Xue’s body thus bounced back and forth like a rubber ball within the somewhat narrow living room, momentarily making it impossible for Liu Yunxi to even maintain the Golden Body Incantation on her left hand.

Fortunately, Liu Yunxi had never expected this "debtor," who had only started practicing magic a few days ago, to be of any real use. Transforming her silver-shining staff from a strike into a stab, she thrust it directly toward the female ghost, who appeared to have been numbed by the electricity.

"Humph!" Whether it was born of nascent spiritual intelligence or simply a natural bodily sound produced by the corpse, the zombie took the initiative to spin and leap up. Accompanied by a pungent, acrid stench and spreading black smoke, the silvery staff unceremoniously pierced straight into the zombie’s back.

However, for a zombie, this level of damage—even infused with evil-banishing mana—was far from fatal. As it descended with gravity, it twisted its body once more, leveraging the rotational momentum to unleash a ferocious burst of force!

Snap!

Under the conflicting forces of a transformed monster’s physique and a zombie’s physique, the spirit-infused iron rod was the first to give way. Although Liu Yunxi felt a slight stinging sensation in her arm, she decisively took another step forward, driving the broken stub of the iron rod toward the zombie’s skull.

Liu Yunxi had previously heard stories from Grandma Fox Fairy about human Taoists battling zombies, but at the moment, there was no sticky rice, her mysterious cultivator companion was a rookie, and trying to set it on fire meant risking giving the opponent "flame enchantment" if it failed to burn them to death instantly. The only viable strategy now was to destroy its head!

Though she didn't quite understand why a corpse's weakness would be its head, Liu Yunxi firmly believed that Grandma Fox Fairy could not be wrong. Holding her breath, she fiercely thrust toward that shriveled, bumpy skull.

Although the zombie was blind and could not sense a breath-holding enemy, the female ghost hovering above its head clearly captured everything. Too preoccupied to continue attacking that flea-like, scurrying "panacea human," she used their possessed connection to forcibly issue an evasion command to the zombie.

By this time, Feng Xue had finally adapted to the speed of the Speed-Enhancing Incantation. Seeing that Liu Yunxi was in a bad situation, he shook the jade talisman in his hand, unleashing yet another bolt of lightning.

He had not yet begun developing a magical artifact interconnection system, nor had he researched the ritual scripts for mana shaping. The lightning bolts he threw would scatter after flying five or six meters. However, Feng Xue possessed an abundance of mana; as the saying goes, brute force overcomes all obstacles. Driven by such unsparing input, even though ninety-nine percent of it dissipated along the flight path, a considerable amount of lightning still reached the zombie’s side.

"Damn it!" Liu Yunxi’s sure-kill thrust missed its mark. Just as the zombie’s sharp claws counterattacked, a surge of intensely masculine thunder energy erupted from behind her, causing her long hair to stand on end.

Thunder magic not only possessed a specialized advantage against ghosts and evil spirits, but it was also devastatingly lethal to monsters cultivating Yin energy. With a teammate attacking from behind, the zombie's frontal thrust suddenly looked quite tame.

Liu Yunxi sighed inwardly, vowing to give this debtor some combat training later. Yet, her body shifted half a step, and the maid outfit on her body rapidly proliferated, making her actively crash into the slashing claws.

With a muffled groan, Liu Yunxi was sent flying by the zombie’s immense strength. Even with the protection of her natal snake-skin armor, her internal organs were rattled by the force. Yet, instead of showing any frustration over the mishap, she broke into a smile.

"You've fallen for it, zombie! This is my escape route!" Seizing the moment, Feng Xue altered his voice and provided a sound effect for Liu Yunxi. At the exact second Liu Yunxi felt an urge to retort, a continuous pillar of lightning pouring from Feng Xue's hand finally blasted squarely into the zombie.

"Aaaaaaaaaagh—!"

The heart-rending scream threatened to pierce Feng Xue’s eardrums. The pungent, acrid stench mixed with the heavy ozone smell generated by the massive electrical discharge was utterly nauseating.

Too lazy to check whether this strike had dealt enough damage, Feng Xue—whose mana was now bottoming out—pounced with his legs, rocketing over to Liu Yunxi’s side just as she rolled to a stop. He reached out, scooped up the newly tumbled snake spirit, injected his remaining mana into the jade talisman embedded in his shoes, and bolted straight out the window of the Western-style small building.

The scene of refining vital energy to nourish the enemy was still fresh in his memory; Feng Xue naturally wouldn't repeat the same mistake.

As for escaping, not quite, because he could already sense it...

Mo Ying was back!

...

"Right over here, hurry up!"

Mo Ying floated in the air, with three or four mystic cultivators hurrying along behind her. Thanks to the county magistrate's attentiveness, who had specially arranged for Dao-initiated mystic cultivators to take turns on night patrol, Mo Ying's cries along the way immediately drew attention. After a brief exchange, the cultivators struck the bronze gongs they had prepared in advance and rushed over with their gear. Only—

"Such powerful thunder magic!" Gazing from hundreds of meters away at the blazing aura of thunder magic they could already sense, the cultivators stared at the young man rushing out of the building. For a moment, they were speechless, wondering whether they should step forward to assist, given that—

"Did you really call us here to help, rather than inviting an audience to witness your heroic demon-slaying posture, young hero?"