Chapter 247: A Free Ride

"I haven’t seen this young man. But, the secret of this Immortal’s cave dwelling... I must have it!" Grand Magus Bantu’s eyes blazed with heat.

His aura suddenly surged, and his eyes turned blood-red. Gray fur began to sprout along his neck and arms with his vicious nature laid bare.

Li Yanchu had only been making things up to fish for information, and seeing this old dog so shameless, actually wanting to take advantage of him for nothing, he felt his patience vanish.

He drew out an ancient seal with archaic aura from his robes, its radiance bright as the sun. The seal swelled in the wind, and in an instant came crashing down toward Bantu!

The sheer force of that domineering pressure made Bantu’s expression shift.

"Evil heretic! Today I’ll hunt you down!" Li Yanchu’s voice boomed like thunder.

The moment his words fell, a surge of divine fire burst forth, like a blazing flame to burn the heavens sweeping over and engulfing Grand Magus Bantu.

"

Aaaah

!" From Bantu’s body came two utterly different screams: one a hoarse, aged human cry, the other twisted and inhuman.

The divine fire of the Heaven-Illuminating Seal was boundlessly tyrannical, so much so that it burned Bantu to ashes in an instant. This old fiend knew far too many shamanic arts, and one slip could have turned the fight against Li Yanchu. So he had shown no mercy, killing him outright with the divine fire of the Heaven-Illuminating Seal.

This had consumed one-third of his spiritual power, but compared to before, he now wielded the seal with much greater ease.

He didn’t take the jujubes he had obtained in the Blissful Land of Mount Jinting to recover, but instead continued working and burning the bone altar to ash, and cleaning up every trace before returning to Han Fortress.

A quick glance told him his merit now exceeded one hundred thousand. It was now ninety-two thousand three hundred, to be exact. This was largely due to the slaughter in the Blissful Land earlier, where he had killed demons and destroyed corpses.

By the time he left Mount Jinting’s Blissful Land after killing that great demon, his merit had reached one hundred seventy-three thousand.

Tonight’s destruction of Grand Magus Bantu and his shamanic followers had earned him quite a lot more. Bantu alone was worth eight thousand merit points, a sign of his deep cultivation. The many spirit entities bound to him had also contributed merit.

Now, with nearly two hundred thousand merit points, Li Yanchu was truly wealthy in spiritual capital, and this was the confidence behind his daring to venture beyond the Pass.

By habit, he scoured the battlefield. To be precise, he looted the place. He found the group’s weapons to be all evil artifacts and yin tools, and their power were enhanced by slaughtering living beings.

To Li Yanchu, they were of little use, so he temporarily stored them in his Universe Pouch, intending to destroy them all upon his return.

With overwhelming strength, he had destroyed the bone altar Bantu had painstakingly arranged, turning the Grand Magus’s schemes to dust. This was a classic example of brute force crushing a hundred clever plans.

𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Li Yanchu took a step forward, and misty clouds rose beneath his feet, lifting him into the air.

His gaze climbed higher and higher, his view expanding until the boundless land stretched beneath him.

He didn’t fly too high. Instead he activated his Qi Sight, scanning for any lingering traces of evil aura nearby. A Dao cultivator’s five senses were keen, so even without the Qi Sight, one could detect the presence of demons. Sometimes demons, forced into the open by upright qi, would reveal themselves.

It was a common trick among monks and Daoists, though if mishandled, it could attract terrifying beings, turning the act into a death wish. Only those with great skill and strength would dare to use it freely.

Li Yanchu flew onward. His cloud-riding wasn’t particularly fast, but it was convenient.

As his cultivation improved in the future, his speed would become faster and faster, but for now, it wasn’t anything astonishing.

All along the way, he used his Qi Sight to scan the surroundings, but found no new clues.

Before long, he returned to Han Fortress.

When he got back to the courtyard where their group was staying and pushed open the door to his room...

"Eh?" Li Yanchu let out a soft sound of surprise.

The room was completely empty, and there was not a single person inside. His brows knitted.

In just this short time, the entire caravan had mysteriously disappeared?! No... that wasn’t right.

His eyes narrowed in thought. The flayed woman from before her killing method was to slit open bellies, not to make people vanish.

"Could there be another evil spirit hiding in Han Fortress? Or perhaps it wasn’t a demon at all, but a human that lured them away?"

Li Yanchu’s frown deepened, his thoughts spinning rapidly.

He had left a magical artifact from Mount Jinting with them, a treasure capable of holding off even a demon strong enough to destroy a Daoist temple. The caravan members should have been safe.

As he speculated, he began inspecting the traces inside the room.

Suddenly, from outside came hurried footsteps. It was quick, yet light, and it was the stride of a healthy, vigorous man. It was Liu Fang.

"Daoist Master Li, you’re back! Everyone’s over at the Han family’s main courtyard, waiting for you to take charge."

Seeing Li Yanchu, Liu Fang’s face lit up with relief.

Li Yanchu frowned. "Didn’t I tell you that no matter what sound you hear, don’t go outside?"

Liu Fang replied, "At first we followed your instructions, of course, but later the Han family’s guards came specifically to invite you."

The Han family was powerful, and this fortress was like the main service station for travelers heading beyond the Great Wall. They couldn’t afford to offend them!

From another angle, the fact that Han Fortress had stood strong for so many years in this frontier meant their connections to various factions were probably far from simple.

Li Yanchu asked, "Weren’t you afraid it could be a spirit taking the form of someone you knew?"

Liu Fang froze, then a chill ran through him. "Is it really that sinister?"

Li Yanchu neither confirmed nor denied.

Sometimes fate was fixed by the heavens, and it was not something human effort could change. They were all chance acquaintances; he couldn’t be overly eager to save everyone.

The two walked side by side toward one of Han Fortress’s more prestigious courtyards, a sign of the fortress’s respect for Meng Hai’s caravan tonight.

When Li Yanchu entered, he saw Meng Hai, Master Qi, Duan Dali, Liu Lin, and the others. He smiled and greeted them.

Their faces lit up, as he was completely unharmed.

"Looks like it’s been taken care of. Otherwise, Daoist Master Li wouldn’t look so relaxed." Liu Lin thought the same as leader Meng Hai, and both finally were able to breathe easy.

A plump, middle-aged man stood there respectfully. "Daoist Master Li, you’ve returned!" he said with a warm and welcoming tone.

Who’s this man?

Li Yanchu gave him a slight nod.

Before the middle-aged man could even ask, Li Yanchu cut straight to the point, "Too many things have happened tonight. If you’ve got something to say, just say it."

The middle-aged man’s expression turned grave. "My young lady has been possessed, most likely entangled by something unclean. I must ask you to help save her!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he took a stack of silver certificates[1] from his robe. They were silver certificates from Baoxing Bank in Tongzhou, worth five thousand taels.

"Regardless of whether you succeed, these five thousand taels are yours. After that, there’s another ten thousand taels waiting."

Even beyond the Great Wall, silver certificates circulated freely as they were easy to carry and convenient to exchange.

1. A silver certificate is a certificate of ownership that silver owners hold instead of storing the actual silver. ☜