A Pawn's Passage

Qi Xuansu did not waste any time. He jumped up and climbed onto the beam. Then he stood still behind the shadow of a pillar, holding his breath and concentrating. With Zhang Yuelu attracting attention from the front, even a person with a higher cultivation level found it hard to notice his presence.

It was always best for one of them to remain in the dark when encountering opponents.

Zhang Yuelu was still sitting on the tiger-skin throne. Below her on the altar table were the corpses of two Ancient Immortal believers, surrounded by the corpses of those bandits who failed to escape.

After a while, three people walked into the ancient temple. The leader was a woman with oil paint on her face. In this cold winter, her feet were bare, and she was wearing prayer beads on her wrists and ankles, like the other two dead female believers earlier. Behind her were two middle-aged men who were not noteworthy in terms of dressing.

The woman looked at Zhang Yuelu and asked straight to the point, ”Who are you?”

Zhang Yuelu asked back, ”Who are you?”

The two women’s eyes met.

The woman with a face full of oil paint muttered a strange syllable. At the same time, Zhang Yuelu snorted lightly. Two invisible sound waves collided in the air, causing invisible ripples to spread in all directions.

Zhang Yuelu narrowed her eyes and finally stood up from the tiger-skin throne. “It turns out that you’re a rare Shaman.”

The woman whose face was covered with oil paint had a solemn expression as she uttered, ”Banished Immortal.”

The expressions of the two middle-aged men behind her changed suddenly, presumably because they understood what a Banished Immortal was.

Zhang Yuelu did not show her insignia and declared, “If you surrender now, I can have mercy on you, but I will leave it to Beichen Hall regarding your penance. Of course, you can also fight back, but I will kill you on the spot.”

”Daoist dogs!” One of the middle-aged men shouted.

Qi Xuansu, who was standing on the beam, was slightly startled. He did not expect that the Ancient Immortal believers had such an “affectionate” name for people from the Daoist Order.

Zhang Yuelu did not get angry. She just sneered, ”How stubborn.”

With a coo, the female Shaman’s two strings of prayer beads on her wrist shone brightly.

Zhang Yuelu did not dare to let her guard down, so she activated her Five Elements Qi Shield.

Shamans were one of the lineages of the Five Immortals. In addition to their own level of cultivation, their strength was dependent on incense power. If the incense power was insufficient, Shamans would be at the bottom of the Five Lineages. But if the incense power was sufficient, they were not inferior to the Banished Immortals of the same cultivation level.

The next moment, Zhang Yuelu left the tiger-skin throne and came to the Shaman. She stretched her hand out from her sleeve and pointed one finger.

Qi Xuansu had long discovered that Zhang Yuelu had strange moves. He could hardly see any big movements. Her legs did not bend, and her body did not sway. Even her clothes did not budge. However, it seemed like she shrank the ground beneath her feet because she moved around at such speed and ease.

The Shaman was prepared, pointing her index finger as well.

As soon as their fingertips touched, the Shaman grunted slightly and drifted back more than three meters. Zhang Yuelu also shook her head and praised. “You have a strong divine power, equivalent to my true essence. It’s a pity that it’s not used in the right way.”

The Five Immortals Lineage cultivated different types of energy.

The Qi Refiner cultivated their innate qi, the Diviners cultivated their Thoughts, and the Martial Arts Practitioners cultivated their blood qi. Meanwhile, the Shamans condensed their divine power from incense power.

In the early stages, the Banished Immortals, like the Qi Refiners and Rogue Cultivators, cultivated their breath and innate qi. However, at the Guizhen stage, Banished Immortals could condense their innate qi into a pure, true essence that could not be restrained by others. Thus, at the Heavenly Being stage, the Banished Immortals were far superior to the Qi Refiners.

At this time, Zhang Yuelu had already condensed part of her qi into true essence. Her pointed finger did not seem like much from an outsider’s perspective, but she had gathered half of the essence in her body at her fingertip. However, she never expected the Shaman to have such strong divine power. No wonder they said that Shamans could fight against the Banished Immortals with enough incense power.

Even so, the Shaman suffered a small loss. Zhang Yuelu’s body merely swayed upon contact, but the Shaman retreated by more than three meters. Both women were in the Guizhen stage, but the Shaman was ultimately inferior to Zhang Yuelu. The Shaman might end up dead if she really wanted to fight to the end.

Therefore, the Shaman did not intend to compete with Zhang Yuelu with her cultivation. She conjured a mechanical crossbow out of thin air. However, this crossbow was very strange, with nine bolts drawn simultaneously. In an instant, the nine crossbow bolts formed a fan shape and shot out at Zhang Yuelu.

Zhang Yuelu avoided eight crossbow bolts and reached out to grab the last one that she could not dodge. At the same time, her Six Void Tribulations penetrated the bolts, neutralizing the divine power contained in them. The crossbow bolts did not explode and were no different from ordinary ones.

However, the other eight crossbow arrows exploded and turned into black water, with a strange stench that filled the air. It smelled like rotting corpses and dead fish. Some water droplets splashed on the walls and floor, and in a matter of seconds, the surfaces corroded. If this black water landed on a human, a little drop was enough to rot one’s flesh to the bone.

The Daoist Order vigorously developed firearms to become invincible, but this ancient method could not be underestimated.

There was a hint of fear on Zhang Yuelu’s face. She was not afraid of getting hurt. But if such corrosive water fell on her face, the consequences would be unbearable. Thinking of this, Zhang Yuelu no longer held back and waved her sleeves. Countless white paper cranes flew out like snowflakes.

The Amorphous Paper did not take a form and could be transformed into anything. It was not just a weapon. It could be anything that the controller visualizes. In other words, if Zhang Yuelu could visualize the structure of a handgun and concentrate on it, she could even manifest a handgun with Amorphous Paper. Thus, conjuring paper cranes was a piece of cake.

These paper cranes densely filled the space between Zhang Yuelu and the Shaman. Even if Shaman fired the crossbow, it would only hit the paper cranes.

In the blink of an eye, the surging paper cranes completely engulfed the Shaman and attacked the two middle-aged men at the same time.

The two accompanying middle-aged men became vigilant. They shouted and spread out their palms. A strong wind blew away the paper cranes, but the cranes did not fall to the ground. It flew along the wind and entered through any gaps, as if they had intelligence.

The two men were shocked and repeatedly blocked the paper crane from getting close. However, they could not hold on for long. Wherever the paper crane touched, it left a cut on their bodies. Blood gushed out, and they grunted in pain.

At this moment, the Shaman, who was bombarded by the paper cranes, shouted. The cranes around her trembled and turned into countless paper scraps, finally falling to the ground and merging into a piece of white paper.

The Shaman’s body was revealed through her tattered clothes. Her skin was not at all damaged. It was even emitting a faint golden light. Zhang Yuelu caught the Amorphous Paper in its original form and praised her. “The Shaman’s Golden Body Realm allows one’s body to be indestructible and possess endless divine power. You’re truly powerful.”

Before she finished speaking, the Amorphous Paper in her hand turned into a longbow.

Zhang Yuelu raised her long bow and shot out nine paper arrows in unison. Then she shot out nine more arrows at close range. The attack was dense, so there was no way for the Shaman to avoid the arrows. Zhang Yuelu also hid the Phoenix Eye Bullet in the paper arrows, which were difficult to distinguish.

The Shaman did not plan to dodge this. The beads on her wrists and ankles lit up, and her whole body was glowing in a golden light. Her hands moved forward flatly, building an invisible barrier.

The rain of arrows fell on the invisible wall and created explosions. Flames spread through the temple.

The two middle-aged men were overwhelmed with having to fend off the remaining paper cranes and dodge Zhang Yuelu’s paper arrows and flames.

At this moment, Qi Xuansu held his breath, slid down the pillar quietly, snuck up to the back of a middle-aged man, and aimed the Divine Dragon Pistol at the back of the man’s head.

For Qi Xuansu, the world was not a good place. He was just a struggling pawn, constantly covered in dirt. So he had no interest in being righteous.

As Madam Qi said, one should always choose to ambush instead of attacking head-on. This was the art of war.

Qi Xuansu pressed down the hammer with his thumb, hooked his finger on the trigger, and pulled it lightly.

A ball of smoke and fire exploded from the gun.

One had to predict the projectile’s trajectory in advance to dodge it. Otherwise, it would be too late.

This middle-aged man, whose cultivation was even higher than that of Qi Xuansu, had a deep, bloody hole in the back of his head. He fell to the ground and died on the spot.

In fact, Xiantian Beings would not die so easily under firearms. Unfortunately, Qi Xuansu used the Divine Dragon Pistol that only fourth-rank Jijiu Daoist masters and above owned. He also used special projectiles engraved with armor-breaking talismans. The key was his sneak attack from behind. That was how the middle-aged man died.

The other middle-aged man was frightened and furious. He ignored the wounds he sustained from the paper cranes and charged at Qi Xuansu.

Qi Xuansu did not have time to reload the bullets, so he put away the Divine Dragon Pistol and rushed outside the ancient temple.

The middle-aged man’s eyes were red as he chased after Qi Xuansu.

After leaving the temple, Qi Xuansu turned around abruptly. A cold light flashed in his sleeves as he ran toward the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man frowned and raised his left hand with his five fingers cupped. When he looked closely, he saw that it was a metal spike.

It turned out that Qi Xuansu could not afford a flying sword, so he bought some spikes and used the Sword Controlling Technique to propel them. Although he could not make the spikes change direction because he did not practice the high-attainment Sword Steering Technique, where everything could be turned into a sword, he could still inject sword qi into the spikes to increase their lethality.

The middle-aged man shouted. “It turns out that you’re only at the Kunlun stage. No wonder you chose a sneak attack. If you’re so capable, fight me head-on!”

“You’re powerful enough to neutralize my sword qi with just a raise of your hand, so you’re probably at the Yuxu stage. But will you be able to catch four spikes at once?” Qi Xuansu reached out and took the spikes from his satchel.

With a whoosh and a wave of his hand, four spikes shot out at the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man snorted and stretched out his hands to catch the spikes. At the same time, he used his divine power to completely dissolve the sword qi in them. Then he used his divine power to crush the spikes in his palm, turning them into a ball of scrap metal.