Chapter Fifty-Five: The Demon Monk of Skeletal Flame

Qin Feng’s gaze sharpened as well.

At that same instant, the great bronze bells in the four corners of the hall began to toll with a strange resonance, their booming clangs echoing endlessly. Everyone looked over in alarm—no one was striking the bells, yet the enormous wooden mallets swung by themselves in midair, relentlessly pounding the bells. The uncanny scene unsettled everyone’s hearts.

The waves of sound spread outward, disturbing the skeletal remains scattered across the floor. Skulls and bones began to slowly shift, drawn by the vibrations. Their movements were deliberate, all converging toward a single point, gathering and piling up.

Under the crowd’s horrified gaze, the myriad fragments of bone accumulated, finally taking the form of a monstrous skeletal monk wreathed in blazing ghostfire, towering several stories high. It wore a vast robe of flames, resembling a giant bone demon, gripping an enormous blade of bone in its hand. In the cavernous sockets of its skull, crimson ghostfire flickered incessantly.

“What the hell is that thing!” Qin Hu blurted out. He seemed to realize his earlier blunder, his face flushed with embarrassment, but his mouth didn’t stop grumbling and cursing.

The others all looked grim. From the aura it exuded, this monstrous figure was at least at the sixth tier of the Human Gang Realm, and its power was still steadily climbing.

Qin Feng gave a cold laugh, his eyes sweeping toward the sacrificial altar where the skulls had been heaped. Upon the broad surface of the altar, a pitch-black hole had been revealed.

Not only did Qin Feng see it, but several others present caught sight of it as well.

Zhan Bai, the temporary leader of the group, had been quietly forming hand seals, watching the skeletal monk intently as it gathered itself. At the instant the monstrous form was about to fully coalesce, Zhan Bai sprang into action.

“Tu Zheng, Qin Hu—on my command, everyone attack!” he shouted. With a sudden change of hand seals, the flying sword behind him, known as “Cloud Slayer,” shot from its scabbard. A streak of light split the air, spiraling skyward before transforming into a silver flood dragon, which roared down upon the skeletal monk’s chest.

“A supreme mystical weapon!” someone exclaimed. The crowd was stirred; only such a weapon could manifest such an illusion.

Tu Zheng attacked alongside Zhan Bai, though his assault was not as overwhelming. Years of partnership had bred tacit understanding between them. As Zhan Bai’s sword flashed, Tu Zheng hammered both arms to the ground. His hands transformed into enormous clumps of earth, fusing with the floor. Instantly, the ground became a vast morass, spreading rapidly to engulf the skeletal monk’s legs, trapping its lower body in thick, sucking mud.

Qin Hu, eager to atone for his earlier mistake, acted as soon as Zhan Bai attacked. A resounding dragon’s roar split the air, and a spectral dragon soul appeared behind him. Without pause, he swung his great saber, cleaving it toward the monster’s chest.

“A dragon soul?” Qin Feng observed from the rear, his expression cold as he probed Qin Hu’s bloodline with his spiritual sense. The corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. Quite a convincing imitation. If he hadn’t already known Qin Hu was an imposter, he might have been fooled. Clearly, this Qin Hu had studied the Qin clan’s bloodline, but it was only a hollow shell, lacking true substance. It might deceive Zhan Bai and the others, but not Qin Feng.

The real Qin Hu would have wielded a genuine yellow-grade dragon soul. With its blessing, his saber would have matched Zhan Bai’s sword in might. But as it stood, this blow was a far cry from the true power.

That dragon soul was nothing more than an illusion, conjured by the impostor through some special means. Illusions were illusions; they could never be real.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Qin Feng glanced over the remaining group. The only one whose expression changed was Shi Yuan. She, too, seemed to have noticed something and was deep in thought. When she caught Qin Feng’s gaze, she offered him a meaningful smile. The girl was beginning to suspect.

So far, Qin Feng judged that Shi Yuan was likely genuine. Of the remaining three women, all looked wary and defensive—but Qin Feng knew that one among them was a hidden enemy.

A thunderous crash rang out. With Tu Zheng’s support, the combined attacks of Zhan Bai and Qin Hu struck the monster’s vital point, shattering its skeletal frame in an instant. Bone fragments and shards flew everywhere, but, eerily, before they even hit the ground, the bones reversed course, swirling back together in midair and reassembling. This time, the reconstruction happened even faster than before—and the monster’s aura grew all the more fearsome.

“Stop attacking! It’s absorbing the power of our blows!” Zhan Bai barked, his brow furrowing.

“What now, Zhan Bai? Do we retreat or head for the hole?” someone called.

The skeletal monk continued to reconstitute itself. With no other choice, Tu Zheng redoubled his efforts, conjuring the quagmire to trap the monster’s lower half and using the mud to block and slow the flying shards, impeding their reassembly.

Zhan Bai’s brows knitted in deep thought, weighing the risks and gains. “Decide quickly—I can’t hold it much longer!” Tu Zheng shouted.

“Let’s go in! We can’t just leave like this!” Qin Hu urged from the side.

Zhan Bai scanned the group; seeing no objections to Qin Hu’s suggestion, he nodded decisively and shouted, “In!”

He led the way, transforming into a streak of white light and plunging into the black hole atop the altar. The others—Hu the cultivator, Daoist Sun, Hua Ruyan, Fang Xinyi, Qin Hu, Shi Yuan, Qin Feng, and the rest—hurried after, one after another.

“Burial in mire—seal!” Tu Zheng bellowed as the last person entered the hole. The quagmire instantly solidified, trapping the skeletal monk halfway in the earth. It howled in rage, swinging its massive bone blade and gouging deep furrows in the floor.

Tu Zheng wiped the sweat from his brow, then his form suddenly exploded into a torrent of mud and water, vanishing into the ground. He reappeared at the entrance to the hole, glancing back at the monster, which had already wrenched itself from the mire and was closing in rapidly, its enormous bone blade whirling overhead. A black blade-light swept toward Tu Zheng, who shuddered in terror and leapt into the hole.

The huge bone blade arrived in an instant, but just as it was about to strike the altar, it halted abruptly, suspended above it and shrouded in a halo of red bloodlight, unable to descend. The colossal skeletal monk threw back its head and let out a roar of utter frustration. With a thunderous crash, its frame exploded apart, skulls flying everywhere. In the darkness of the hall, the severed heads floated like ghostly red lanterns, slowly piling up. In moments, a mountain of skulls had re-formed, sealing the black hole on the altar completely.

The vast hall lapsed once more into darkness and stillness.