mijobooks Chapter 37: Battle of Wits from Afar
Chapter 37: Battle of Wits from Afar
"Hold."
Without hesitation, Li Xuan bit the tip of his left middle finger, and the moment the blood gushed out, he pressed it against the chest of the remains. Using his fingertip as a pen and his blood as ink, he quickly drew an exorcism talisman on her skin.
The exorcism talisman drawn with spiritual blood is at least ten times more effective than the previous one, but each stroke must be infused with magical power.
His magical power surged outwards like a floodgate being opened, and the spiritual energy in his dantian quickly dwindled.
However, the effect of the ghost-suppressing talisman was immediate. The moment the talisman's light shone, the tremors of the soul-locking needle were forcibly suppressed, the slime on the wall stopped seeping out, and all the spider eggs that were hatching solidified into grayish-white hard lumps.
He temporarily sealed her away, forcibly suppressing the backlash of the Soul-Locking Needle, and buying her a brief window of clarity.
At this moment, Emily's resentment was also largely dispelled.
"I...I'm not in pain anymore..."
The remains' voice suddenly returned to normal. She couldn't make any expressions on her face, but for the first time, a hint of humanity appeared in her eerie green eyes.
"Thank you."
These three words came from her own mouth, not from the floor or the walls.
"Let's get down to business. How much longer can you hold out?"
Li Xuan's lips were a little pale, clearly indicating that he had just exerted a lot of energy.
"I don't know, but it won't be too long..."
"Then you focus on dealing with the restrictions, I'll handle the rest."
Li Xuan tore off the collar of his sweat-dampened Taoist robe and stabbed Emily with the peach wood sword.
The sword glowed red as it pierced Emily's body, making a hissing sound and sending wisps of white smoke rising. Emily's resentment was rapidly diminishing.
"what!"
Emily let out a scream and looked at Li Xuan in confusion.
"I'm helping you get out of this mess. You don't want to go on like this, do you?" Li Xuan explained.
Emily, forcing back the pain, nodded and said, "Then hurry up, I can't hold it in any longer..."
She endured the pain, forcing herself not to lose control.
The girl, who was bullied in life, was imprisoned here after death and transformed into an evil spirit machine that sows seeds.
This would be a devastating blow to anyone.
The moment the peach wood sword pierced Emily's body, a man in a secret underground room in Los Angeles suddenly opened his eyes.
"Who's touching my spider?!"
The man was furious. He went to the glass tank and looked at the little spider inside.
He pricked his index finger with a needle and dripped a drop of blood onto the spider.
The spider hissed and spat out a ball of silk.
The spider silk continued to combine, and soon it transformed into a small image of Li Xuan, even perfectly replicating his Daoist robe.
"Damn Taoist priest."
The man's face instantly darkened; he could tell at a glance that this was a Taoist priest, a uniquely Chinese type.
Clearly, the recent events at Archer Girls' School prompted the school administration to intervene.
And they did indeed find someone capable.
The man calmly walked to the shrine in the corner.
Unlike ordinary shrines, this one does not enshrine a deity, but rather a woman's hand.
The hand has its five fingers spread out, palm facing up, and the back of the hand is covered with fine runes.
She was also wearing a silver ring on the ring finger of this hand, with Emily's name engraved on the inside of the ring.
"I spent over a decade cultivating this perfect spider queen, and I can't let you ruin my plans."
Immediately afterwards, the man took the dried hand from the shrine, held it in his palm, and poured his magic into it.
His hand clenched into a fist, and across half of Los Angeles, his magic flowed into Emily's body through that hand.
Meanwhile, in the Archer Girls' School's storeroom, Emily suddenly began to tremble violently.
"ah!!!"
She threw her head back and let out a heart-wrenching scream, then sprang up from the bottom of the pit, her arms bent backward and her back hunched over like a zombie.
The resentment that had just been dispelled by the exorcism talisman was gathering again from all directions.
The solidified spider eggs began to gestate again, and the cracks in the wall started to seep slime once more.
Emily oscillated violently between fear and resentment, exclaiming in terror, "He's... he's controlling me..."
"As expected, someone was manipulating things! Luckily, I used up a lot of my resentment beforehand, otherwise I'd be in deep trouble now!"
Li Xuan cursed loudly, pressing down hard on the peach wood sword embedded in Emily's body with one hand. The red light on the sword was visibly weakening.
With his other hand, he pulled out a second exorcism talisman from his pocket and stuck it on Emily's forehead. The talisman spontaneously combusted before it even touched her skin.
Her resentment was too strong; ordinary exorcism talismans could no longer get close to her.
"Oh shit."
Li Xuan bit his right index finger, drew a blood talisman on his left palm, and then slapped Emily's back.
The moment the blood talisman touched her skin, Emily let out a roar that sounded inhuman. A huge black spider phantom appeared on her back; it was the backlash from the Soul-Locking Needle, fighting against the exorcism talisman.
"How fierce."
Li Xuan gritted his teeth and squeezed out two words.
He truly hadn't expected that person to be so strong, capable of fighting from a distance.
Emily turned her head sharply, her eyes filled with nothing but deep hatred and fear.
Tears were streaming from one of her eyes, and blood was flowing from the other.
"Kill me."
She bit her lip and, with her last shred of reason, uttered those two words.
Without hesitation, Li Xuan clenched his left fist and punched her shoulder.
The fist didn't feel like flesh when it landed; it was as hard as hitting a rock, and his arm went numb from the impact.
Her body was being taken over; every inch of her skin was rapidly keratinizing, growing a grayish-white hard shell.
"We'll have to resort to drastic measures."
Li Xuan gritted his teeth and pulled the peach wood sword out of Emily's body. The sword was so stained with black blood that the original wood grain was no longer visible.
Instead of stabbing her again, he took out a bottle of black dog blood from his pocket and smashed it on the ground with all his might.
Glass shattered, and dog blood splattered everywhere.
He dipped his fingertip in dog blood and quickly drew seven dots on his left arm.
The Big Dipper has seven stars, one of which is the pivot of the heavens. The seven stars are connected in a line, stretching from the wrist all the way to the shoulder.
The Big Dipper is the key to death, the South Dipper is the key to life.
Having the Seven Stars on your arm means using your own body as a grand formation to borrow the power of the Big Dipper.
The power of the Seven Stars has always been a powerful weapon for vanquishing evil.
However, using oneself as a vessel comes at a price; this arm will be devoured by the power of the Seven Stars, and will be in pain for at least ten days to half a month afterward.
But at this moment, Li Xuan clearly couldn't care less about anything else.
After the seven stars were drawn, the points marked by them emitted streaks of starlight.
When he borrowed the power of the Seven Stars, his arm felt as if it had been driven into his body by seven steel nails.
Li Xuan groaned in pain, but his hands didn't stop. He grabbed Emily's neck with his left hand and lifted her up from the ground.
Streams of starlight flowed continuously from Li Xuan's palm into Emily's seven orifices, and the Soul-Locking Needles were also expelled by the power of the Seven Stars, gradually being expelled from Emily's body and falling to the ground.