Chapter 493: Under the Bright Sky, Corpses Walk the Earth! A Flying Jiangshi! Five-Lightning True Law!

Just then, Li Yanchu took out the Eight Trigrams Mirror. Its divine light flickered, radiating a profound, mysterious aura. Earlier, he had used it to monitor the entirety of Wei City.

Scanning all of Dongyang County was hardly a challenge. However, Dongyang had many villages scattered under its jurisdiction, and the search would take some effort.

“Try to sense where something feels wrong,” he said to Lady Yun.

Lady Yun, her hair in a coiled bun and dressed in her simple blue skirt, nodded gently, her expression serious.

Li Yanchu held her by the waist, and the two of them swept back and forth across the skies above Dongyang, expanding their detection range.

“I found it,” Lady Yun suddenly said.

“Oh? Where?” Li Yanchu looked at her in mild surprise.

She pointed southeast and gave a rough direction.

Li Yanchu immediately took her in his arms and used the Cloud-Riding Immortal Art, flying toward that location. He glanced at the Eight Trigrams Mirror, enhanced at the cost of one hundred thousand merit points, and suddenly found it far less impressive.

“You’re way worse than Lady Yun,” he muttered at it.

In response, the mirror flashed a brilliant burst of light, clearly expressing its displeasure.

It’s not that I’m weak, this woman is just insanely strong.

And in truth, it wasn’t wrong. She was a spirit born of grass and wood and was nourished by the qi of heaven and earth, after all, so every flower and blade of grass could serve as Lady Yun’s eyes. This was why her ability to sense things was so exceptional.

Under Lady Yun’s guidance, Li Yanchu soon arrived at a village. The moment they stepped inside, an overwhelming stench of blood and resentment hit them.

There were broken limbs everywhere, and bodies of the old, the young, men, women, and children were strewn across the ground...

Several grotesque, vicious corpses were gnawing on human remains. A pregnant woman lay disemboweled, her unborn child torn out. Its tiny head was bitten off by one of the walking corpses.

The entire village had been reduced to a wasteland of carnage.

“Bastards!” Li Yanchu’s expression instantly darkened.

One glance was enough to tell that someone was raising corpses.

Boom!

He drove his fist into the ground, and the sheer force of his blood-qi and fist intent erupted outward, blasting the nearby corpses to pieces.

“Find the source of these corpses!” His voice was cold.

With the combined probing of the Eight Trigrams Mirror, Lady Yun, and his own Qi Sight, he moved on to the next village.

It was just as horrifying, like a living hell. But this time, the situation was even worse: the freshly dead were already beginning to writhe and rise. In broad daylight, living corpses roamed the streets, and the sight was truly nightmarish. Not a single living human remained in the entire village.

Clang!

A clear, dragon-like ringing resounded as Li Yanchu drew the Jiaoslayer.

Suddenly, a domineering wave of blade-qi swept out, reducing the corpses to nothingness, dispersing them into the air. They posed no obstacle at all.

Then, he went on to two more massacred villages. The situation was growing increasingly severe; the corpses had evolved into iron

jiangshi

, which were resilient and immune to blades. One tier above them would be bronze jiangshi.

The entire region was shrouded in an invisible force that distorted spiritual senses, so a lesser cultivator would have been completely lost.

In the fourth village, Li Yanchu finally encountered bronze jiangshi, creatures of immense strength, frightening speed, and nearly impossible to kill.

Two corpses in the village stood out immediately, as both wore the clothing of Buddhist disciples. One had his lower body bitten clean off by some monstrous thing; the other had only half a torso and half a skull remaining, the mangled flesh revealing a horrific death.

“This wasn’t done by jiangshi. This was that demon’s handiwork!” Li Yanchu’s brows drew tight with anger, his killing intent mounting with every breath.

But, a deeper unease continued to grow within him. The wandering swordsman who brought the message had said three villages were slaughtered. Yet Li Yanchu had already found four, with every villager dead without exception.

This meant the perpetrator was still striking swiftly... relentlessly.

And these evolved iron and bronze corpses were extremely powerful evil spirits, yet that demon hadn’t taken any of them away.

“Damn it... Is this pure slaughter? Or is he preparing something...?” His expression grew darker and darker.

Just then, the Eight Trigrams Mirror pulsed, as it had detected an exceptionally dense wave of corpse-qi. Sensing this, Li Yanchu sped toward it.

When he arrived, the entire village was eerily quiet. There were no figures around; only blood splattered everywhere and torn flesh scattered across the ground. Compared to the earlier villages crawling with walking corpses, this silence was even more horrifying; it was cold, oppressive, sending a chill straight up one’s spine.

A normal cultivator would be creeping forward cautiously... or retreating to get reinforcements. But Li Yanchu was consumed by fury. He wanted only one thing: to find whoever had massacred these villages and kill him.

Lady Yun stayed close, sensing the killing intent rolling off him. By now, her face had gone pale. Kind-hearted by nature, she could barely handle the hellish scenes they’d been witnessing.

The moment Li Yanchu stepped into the village, he could feel a sinister gaze watching him from somewhere unseen. But whenever he looked directly toward it, he found nothing.

“Five-Lightning Pure Yang, True Law of Heaven and Earth! How dare some filthy wretch spy on me from the shadows! GET OUT!” His shout boomed like thunder across a clear sky.

A surge of pure yang lightning-force exploded around him, and he stood like a thunder god walking the earth.

Boom!!

A house burst apart, and a black shape shot out like lightning, fleeing sideways.

“It’s a flying jiangshi.” Li Yanchu’s eyes chilled. “He actually raised a flying jiangshi...!?”

He was genuinely surprised. Raising something this advanced wasn't the issue, abandoning it here was. Either the mastermind was utterly fearless, or he had taken something far more important with him and didn't care about this one at all.

And the speed at which these corpses were evolving... was far too fast.

“What exactly is that demon planning?”

Li Yanchu took a single step and instantly appeared behind the fleeing shadow. The creature’s form was now clear: long, tangled hair, a corpse-blue face, fangs protruding, eyes filled with a chilling, venomous malice. It wasn’t like ordinary jiangshi, this one showed hatred, intent, and awareness.

This flying jiangshi was no ordinary undead, and most monks and Daoists wouldn’t stand a chance against it. Encountering one would almost certainly mean total annihilation.

Boom!

Immediately, Li Yanchu swung the Jiaoslayer. A single slash, imbued with the blade’s domineering, mysterious resonance, cleaved the flying jiangshi in two. One strike, and it was completely destroyed.

A flying jiangshi already raised... Could this demon be trying to cultivate something like a Hanba[1]?

Li Yanchu’s brows drew tightly together. He focused the Eight Trigrams Mirror, carefully tracing the aura of the village-massacring demon.

Whether using Spirit Eyes, Qi Sight, or Lady Yun’s senses, all provided excellent detection. Even if some strange barrier was at work, it couldn’t fully block them.

Soon, he pinpointed a tremendously powerful, bizarre force, which was the unmistakable presence of the demon behind the village slaughter.

1. Hanba is a monster in Chinese mythology that causes droughts, also known as the Drought Ghost or Drought Mother. It originates from Nüba, the daughter of the Yellow Emperor. After helping the Yellow Emperor fight Chi You, she was unable to return to heaven, and her body transformed, leaving wherever she went barren and waterless. Later legends merged her with the imagery of zombies, giving her a variable appearance as a demon associated with drought and scorching heat. Here is a

picture

for your reference. ☜