The Valley of Resentful Souls
Before the party of six, a darkness without end yawned open. The moment they stepped inside, a landscape utterly unlike anything they had seen unfolded around them. It was an underground gorge with no sky at all.
Sheer cliffs soared dizzyingly up into the darkness of the ceiling, while patches of moss clinging to the walls gave off a faint bluish glow that dimly lit their surroundings. Across the floor lay weapons that had not rotted even after centuries, scattered like broken bones, and the stench of age-old rust and damp earth stung their nostrils. It was a strange space where reality and illusion blurred into one.
Zhuge Hui, whose knowledge ran deeper than any of theirs, murmured in a heavy voice.
"Don't tell me... this is the legendary Valley of Resentful Souls..."
Before his words had even faded, a scraping sound rose from beneath the earth. Skreeeak—the jet-black soil of the floor split apart, and a single hand, withered to bare bone, burst through the surface. Then another, and another—hundreds of hands, a grotesque mix of bone and clinging flesh, punched up through the ground all at once.
Rumble-crack! The earth heaved, and over three hundred armored jiangshi revealed themselves in unison. Inside their empty helmets, a baleful red light flickered in their eye sockets.
The party's faces hardened at the sight. These soldier jiangshi radiated an oppressive weight unlike the lesser jiangshi they had faced before. Armed and arrayed in ranks, they moved with the organized discipline of living soldiers. At their center stood a commander jiangshi, monstrous in build and sheathed from head to toe in black iron armor, and every time it so much as twitched a finger, the surrounding formations shifted in flawless unison.
"Damn it... those things will be more trouble than living soldiers." Paeng Man-gyeong clicked his tongue and readjusted his grip on his broadsword.
Zhuge Hui tore through the situation in a flash and shouted, "The gorge is too narrow—a frontal clash favors them! Brother Paeng, Brother Hwangbo, take the vanguard and blunt their momentum!"
"Kahaha! Gladly! I'll send those walking corpses back down into their graves!" As Paeng Man-gyeong readied his charge with a wild laugh, Hwangbo Pung clenched his fists and planted himself like a boulder.
Zhuge Hui's orders kept coming. "Young Hero Han, Branch Master Pung—take both flanks and keep our formation from collapsing!"
Han Jo's Black Dragon Chain uncoiled like a serpent, and Pung So-cheong's Moon Shadow Daggers gleamed with a chill like moonlight.
While everyone else steeled themselves for a battle on a knife's edge, Ouyang Qiangang was looking elsewhere. His gaze was fixed not on the battlefield but on the commander jiangshi at the rear, the one pulling every string.
Akasha, that big one in the back. He's my target.
A powerful command wavelength is being emitted from the target. It is exerting complete control over the other jiangshi's behavioral patterns. That individual is presumed to be the jiangshi's "head."
Its head, huh... I wonder what happens if I cut it off? A playful undertone had crept into Akasha's voice.
If you're curious, Doctor, why not find out for yourself?
That's exactly what I intend to do. Ouyang Qiangang's eyes sharpened like blades.
"Uwahahaha! Break!" Along with Paeng Man-gyeong's mad laughter, his golden blade qi swept through the jiangshi ranks like a roaring tiger.
But the soldier jiangshi's response was of an entirely different order from the lesser ones before them. KRA-KOOM! The creatures at the front formed a shield wall in unison and took his blade head-on. With a boom like a giant bell being struck, Paeng Man-gyeong grimaced despite himself at the shock that left his whole arm throbbing.
"Huh?"
Seizing that instant's opening, dozens of spears and swords rose like a forest of steel and crashed down upon the party. SHRIEEEK! Zhuge Hui's face went rigid.
These things are an army moving under a single will! They could wipe out any mid-sized sect in a single day.
The fight dissolved into a chaotic melee in an instant. Hwangbo Pung's Heavenly King Fist slammed into a jiangshi's breastplate, but the creature shed the impact with its shield while simultaneously driving a sword toward his flank.
"Careful! These things are no joke!" As Hwangbo Pung shouted through gritted teeth, an even fiercer fist qi blazed over his knuckles like molten lava. Pung So-cheong's twin daggers soared in like two streams of moonlight, going for their throats, but the jiangshi turned them aside with mechanically precise shieldwork.
Han Jo fared no better. The Black Dragon Chain writhed like a black dragon trying to snare their feet, but the soldier jiangshi slipped past it like shadows without breaking formation.
At that moment, Zhuge Hui's sharp cry split the chaotic battlefield. "Brother Paeng! The three spearmen on the left! They're the waist of the formation!"
"Kahahahaha! Should've said so sooner!" As if he had been waiting for exactly that, Paeng Man-gyeong erupted in wild laughter and kicked off the ground. Above his broadsword, the phantom of a colossal tiger coalesced.
"Fierce Tiger Emerges from the Mountain!"
KRA-BOOM! CRACK-CRACK! The falling blade, quick as lightning, tore through the first spearman's armor like paper and crushed his bones to powder. The follow-up came at once—Mountain-Sundering Sea-Split! A horizontal slash that seemed to cleave mountains and part oceans bisected the second spearman at the waist.
"Gate-Breaking Shatter!" BAM-BAM-BAM! CRUMBLE! The last spearman desperately raised his shield, but Paeng Man-gyeong's broadsword smashed the man's upper body to fragments along with it.
"Wahahahaha! Now that's refreshing!" Gripping his broadsword in one hand, Paeng Man-gyeong blazed with boiling fighting spirit and hurled himself at the next enemies.
Once Zhuge Hui deciphered the soldier jiangshi's formations, the stalemated battle began to tilt, little by little. Even so, it was not enough to bring down their defensive line—a wall of living steel—in a single stroke.
By the time some fifty jiangshi had been scattered into bone shards and the party's breathing turned ragged, Zhuge Hui, who had been reading the battlefield with a hawk's eye, roared at the top of his lungs. "Now! Five paces ahead, center!"
"Take this!" Hwangbo Pung drove forward with thunderous steps and unleashed his Heavenly King Fist. BAM! BAM! BAM! His immense fist qi crushed the shield wall, and through the gap Paeng Man-gyeong's broadsword swept across in a crescent of death. CLANG! CRUNCH!
In that instant, a single path opened through the forest of steel. A path of death, leading straight to the commander jiangshi. Only one man saw it: Ouyang Qiangang.
The moment Phantom Shadowless Steps unfolded, his figure vanished from the ground. It was a movement no human footwork could explain. As though he had cast off gravity's shackles entirely, he crossed the open air, his feet brushing over the jiangshi's heads and shoulders. He was a single black meteor streaking across the night sky.
Shhhiiiii! The gorge's cold air split against his robes with a shriek. By the time the soldier jiangshi tilted their heads back to search the sky, the black meteor had already flashed past overhead. Before they could count to two, Ouyang Qiangang had arrived directly above the commander jiangshi's skull.
Baleful red light flared from its hollow sockets as the commander heaved up its greatsword. But before the blade could drag the yin energy from its bones, a blue star fell from the heavens. Ouyang Qiangang's right hand traced the trajectory of the Gale Lightning Palm and dropped onto its head like a colossal hammer.
KWAA-BOOM! For a heartbeat, silence—as if sound itself had died. Then the commander jiangshi's head burst apart, black fragments scattering to every quarter.
The instant that thunderclap finished echoing through the gorge, the hundreds of soldier jiangshi filling the battlefield collapsed all at once, like puppets with their strings cut. Krik... thud. A chilling silence settled back over the hellish gorge.
The six of them looked at one another. Hwangbo Pung spoke first. "Is it over?"
Paeng Man-gyeong rested his broadsword against his shoulder and laughed heartily. "Kahaha! To think the martial arts of the Great Hero Hahu, the Divine Doctor himself, were this extraordinary. No one out there would believe me if I told them."
Han Jo and Pung So-cheong stared at Ouyang Qiangang without a word, awe plain in their eyes. Zhuge Hui studied him with an odd look and said, "It is not over yet."
Ouyang Qiangang nodded and picked up the thread. "It isn't over until it's over." His gaze was already fixed beyond the gorge.
Past the Valley of Resentful Souls, another underground cavern opened before the party. It was twice the size of the first, its ceiling rising well over a hundred feet and its walls stretching hundreds of yards around. As with the places before it, a faint light seeped from stone and stone above.
What seized their attention was the enormous red pond at its center, bubbling and seething. It looked like dark blood on the boil. A thick, sweet stench wafted off its surface, and crimson steam rose from it in heavy, drifting clouds.
Around the pond, some twenty jiangshi drifted in slow, ghostlike circles. They numbered less than a tenth of the soldier jiangshi from the valley, yet their aura of danger was beyond all comparison. Their appearance alone was enough to turn the stomach. Not just their naked skin—every strand of hair, every pupil, down to the last detail was stained blood-red. They looked like demons birthed from a sea of blood.
Paeng Man-gyeong wrinkled his brow. "Damn plague... this place is a hell dropped straight into the world of the living."
Then Pung So-cheong, her face drained white, murmured in a trembling voice. "Those are... Blood Jiangshi..."
Zhuge Hui answered with a grave expression. "The very demons said to have massacred thousands during the Righteous-Demon War. Just three of them together are said to rival a Peak master..."
The tense Han Jo unconsciously tightened his grip on the Black Dragon Chain. Tension was written just as plainly across Paeng Man-gyeong's face. A nightmare he had only ever heard of in legends had unfolded before his very eyes.
Zhuge Hui shouted, "Careful! That mist rising from the pond is Blood Poison Qi! Breathe it in too long and your mind will cloud over and the hallucinations will begin. In the worst case, you will lose consciousness entirely!"
Sure enough, the air near the pond hung thick as honey, and a strange bewitchment lurked within its sweetness. "Keep your breathing to the barest minimum. Lose your mind, and every one of us becomes the Blood Jiangshi's next meal." Tension rang clear in Zhuge Hui's voice as he kept shouting.
The Blood Jiangshi moved. At first they crawled forward like grubs; the next instant, their bodies became crimson lightning. Blood-red afterimages crossed and recrossed the air as they charged the party at a terrifying speed.
The party did not hesitate either. Paeng Man-gyeong led the charge with his broadsword flashing, Hwangbo Pung pounding along at his side with fists clenched iron-tight. Paeng Man-gyeong's blade met the Blood Jiangshi's claws, each longer than half a foot, in midair.
KRA-KOOM! Sparks burst with the explosive impact. The Blood Jiangshi's shoulder caved in more than half a foot deep, dark blood fountaining upward.
"Wahahahaha! So Blood Jiangshi can be cut after all!" But the very moment Paeng Man-gyeong's triumphant laughter burst forth, the crimson energy filling the cavern surged in like a wave and wrapped itself around the wound. Then, shockingly, red flesh writhed up from the raw cross-section of the sunken shoulder and, in the blink of an eye, made itself whole again. The Blood Jiangshi rolled its healed shoulder and let out a sound that could only be mockery.
Grrrr—
"Damn it!" A coarse curse slipped from the usually earnest Hwangbo Pung.
Zhuge Hui, grasping the situation at once, pressed on quickly. "The Blood Jiangshi never leave the blood pond's vicinity—which means they have not reached completion yet. Somewhere in that pond lies a true core, the closest thing they have to a heart. Unless we destroy it, those things will never die!"
Ouyang Qiangang shouted, "Leave the true core to me." Then he hurriedly spoke to Akasha. You heard that? Scan that pond. All we need is the point where the qi is most densely condensed.
Understood, Doctor. The pond's energy is far too chaotic for precise pinpointing. I will need more time.
All the while, the Blood Jiangshi's attacks kept coming like a turning wheel. Paeng Man-gyeong and Hwangbo Pung stepped forward and threw up a defensive line. This time, defense had to take precedence over attack.
BAM! BAM! CLANG! Paeng Man-gyeong's broadsword turned aside claws and fangs alike, while Hwangbo Pung's fists drove back everything that charged the line. Han Jo and Pung So-cheong supported them from both flanks—the Black Dragon Chain lashing at the Blood Jiangshi's legs to hamper their blinding speed, Pung So-cheong's twin daggers darting at their rear in sudden strikes to ease the pressure on the line.
But with every passing moment, the situation grew worse.