The Unruly Immortals

"Heave!" With his upper body bare, Gao Zhijian wielded the Giant Halberd at the head of the village, a one-man barrier no army could breach.

Thick veins bulged over his body as the rising blood qi enveloped him like smoke and mist.

His enemies were a group of men and women, old and young, with black cloth draped over their shoulders—if solely judged by their appearances, they would seem like ordinary villagers.

But at this moment, they were incredibly frenzied, clutching various farming tools and charging toward Gao Zhijian without any regard for their lives.

"Don't fear the big guy! Charge!! Alive, we are the people of God Yu'er, and dead, we become the ghosts of God Yu'er! Even after death, we can be reincarnated and become the Emperor!!"

Accompanied by the flash of cold steel, three people in front of Gao Zhijian were instantly cut in half at the waist, their viscera and blood splattering onto the white wall beside them.

Gradually, however, there were simply too many of them, and Gao Zhijian began to struggle to cope.

Moreover, they had launched a sudden night attack, so hastily that Gao Zhijian had not even had time to put on Peng Longteng's Body Armor.

"Swoosh," a sharp stone flew from a distance, striking Gao Zhijian's forehead and leaving a trail of blood.

"Aaargh!" Gao Zhijian arched his back and slightly crouched, gripping the Giant Halberd in both hands and with a burst of strength, flung it toward the direction the stone had come from.

The thousand-pound Giant Halberd, whirling with a whooshing sound, cut through the crowd like a scythe through straw, flesh and bones blossoming in the air like freshly cut flowers.

Gao Zhijian strode through the blood and flesh to chase after the blood-drenched Giant Halberd.

These people seemed mad, utterly undaunted by the Military's Evil Qi; their eyes burned with frenzy as they crazily struck at Gao Zhijian with the weapons in their hands.

In the midst of the chaos, a white-haired needle flew by, embedding itself in the face of a man holding a hoe.

Amid his panic, his facial features melted away like liquid, sliding into his clothing from his skin, instantly leaving him deaf and blind.

"Imbecile! Hold on! We're coming to help!" Doggie's voice caused the Dharma Sect disciples to turn their heads toward the dirt road of Niuxin Village.

When they saw a mismatched crowd charging towards them, they burst into laughter.

Seeing the bodies on the ground, Chun Xiaoman's anger flared uncontrollably, and she immediately took out the Taoist Bell Li Huowang had given her and started shaking it violently.

She bit into the mud from the ground and loudly commanded the two wandering spirits in the air, "冄朄㬎黹虘!"

The overlapping wandering spirits in the sky nodded slightly and dove like phantoms into the crowd of Dharma Sect disciples. Anyone they passed through instantly stiffened and fell to the ground, immobile.

Yet that wasn't enough. Chun Xiaoman tucked the Taoist Bell at her waist and ripped off her upper clothing to reveal yellow Joss Paper underneath, then quickly pulled out a Serrated Shortsword, tapping her brow while chanting.

"Disciple opens his eyes to the blue sky. All my masters surround me! My body turns to copper skin and iron bones, my head wears twelve Iron Helmets. My body dons twelve layers of Iron Armor. Three layers wrapped in copper, three layers wrapped in iron..."

Behind her, including Scholar Lv's five, began performing the same action. The Serrated Shortsword broke their scalps, blood running down their brows and filling their faces before finally dripping from their chins to the ground.

"Turn knives to goose feathers, Iron Rulers to Lamp Grass, wrap-around stones to water bubbles! All my masters, Wu Sheng the Mother! Please support your disciple in a quick divination!"

As the last incantation was completed, Chun Xiaoman, Scholar Lv, and the others immediately stared with bulging eyes that no longer blinked, raising the serrated shortswords in their hands and charging toward the disorganized crowd in front of them.

"Clang clang clang!!" When they saw scythes and pitchforks stabbing into them only to emit a crisp sound without causing harm, Scholar Lv and Chun Xiaoman's confidence soared, as they lifted their blades to slash at their opponents.

Their swords could pierce through the bodies of others, yet the weapons of their adversaries couldn't touch them; this was a one-sided massacre.

With the addition of these people with divine strikes, Gao Zhijian's situation was greatly alleviated, as a few of them began to dominate the large group from the Dharma Sect.

Under their lead, the people of Niuxin Village gradually mustered their courage and picked up various weapons to fight back.

For a moment, the entrance of Niuxin Village turned into a battlefield.

As the followers of the Dharma Sect began to fall in greater numbers, a wizened old crone wearing tattered kasaya, small as a dwarf, suddenly emerged from Gao Zhijian's shadow and plunged a black jade dagger fiercely into his side.

Gao Zhijian, enduring the pain, looked down and saw the crone's face, covered by a piece of black cloth with the character for "witch" written on it in purple.

A creepy, aged voice emanated from beneath the cloth, "Hehehe, burn joss paper, offer gold and silver, pour out liquor and grain, light the incense, today the year ends, and tomorrow a new spring begins ah...."

A nosy puppy who had been peering around pulled out a rotten wood ruyi from his embrace and flung it mightily at the old woman.

But she, small and quick, promptly plucked her weapon out of his hand and disappeared into the chaos of the surrounding battlefield.

"Ding...ding...be careful!! There's...there's..."

Before Gao Zhijian could finish his warning, the old woman's silhouette appeared once again, this time behind a young girl who had used divine strikes. With her black jade dagger, she forcefully sliced across the girl's neck.

The body that was supposed to be impervious to swords and spears split open, and as the girl looked on in disbelief, she collapsed to the ground, clutching her bleeding neck and gasping for air.

"Hahaha!! With the arrival of God Yu'er, all is well! Gold bricks three feet high line the ground; precious treasures hang from the money tree!"

"Nan'er!" Chun Xiaoman cried out the girl's name in agonizing heartbreak, but in that moment, she suddenly felt a chill at the back of her neck, someone was behind her!

Just as Chun Xiaoman was about to meet the same fate, an elderly man in midair swiftly descended, driving back the elusive old crone.

But this merely forced her to retreat, and in an instant, the situation reversed. Faced with the unpredictable old crone, Chun Xiaoman and her group instinctively backed up against each other, no longer daring to act as recklessly as before.

"This won't do! If it continues like this, Niuxin Village will be doomed. No matter the cost, I must slay that old woman!"

Resolved, Chun Xiaoman once again shook the Taoist Bell. Following the instructions from her senior brother Li, she shook her head vigorously a few times, and in an instant, one elderly man in the sky became ten. "Zhuān zhǔn fù jiàn zhē!"

At Chun Xiaoman's command, a chilling wind gusted through Niuxin Village, and the elder men, soaring and sinking to the earth, began their search for the hidden old crone.

The price of three years of Chun Xiaoman's yangshou was not spent in vain. Faced with the persistent hunting and blocking of the elder men, the old woman was quickly forced out from among the people.

Just as the old crone was about to escape into a dark shadow nearby, Doggie raised the rotten wood ruyi yet again and flung it with force. A gentle flick from the Xinsu tongue on the ruyi filled her head with confusion in an instant.

The giant halberd, with its whistling sound, descended from the sky and crushed the old woman's body with its immense weight, turning her mortal flesh into mush.