Chapter Eighteen: Contest of Spells (An Extra Chapter for @Jian Kejian)

As the child’s song echoed through the night, the water wraith corpse that had been walking away from us with its back turned suddenly stopped. It slowly turned around, now facing us directly.

A sudden, chilling gust of wind swept through, blowing aside the water wraith’s hair and revealing its true face.

It was a face so swollen and bloated by water that all features were lost—just a pallid, formless mass of flesh. Where there should have been eyes, nose, and mouth, there were only gaping black holes, tangled with strands of waterweed, from which oozed a constant stream of foul, black, putrescent liquid.

Fu Yang cried out, “Damn, that’s ugly!”

Just then, the water wraith corpse suddenly picked up speed. What had been sluggish now shot toward us like an arrow released from the string.

Fu Yang panicked, “Did I just piss her off by calling her ugly?”

“Get a grip, man! It’s the song—that song is controlling this damned thing and sending it after us!”

Before the words had even faded, Fu Yang felt a wave of putrid wind hit his face. The water wraith corpse had already lunged up to the front of the invisibility talisman array, its pallid arm reaching out to grab him!

Its fingernails were black and gleaming, each at least half a foot long and as sharp as daggers.

He turned pale with fright. “Ah Huang, can’t this thing of yours block ghost attacks?”

“It only hides us and muffles sound!”

A peachwood short sword flashed in from behind, intercepting just as the wraith’s hand closed in on Fu Yang.

With a sickening squelch, Ah Huang sliced straight through the ghost’s wrist, severing its hand. The dismembered limb fell into the grass, rotting away in an instant to a pile of putrid flesh, while black, reeking liquid oozed from the stump.

“Fu Yang, watch out! That blood is poison!”

Fu Yang reeled back, doubling over and scrambling away, but black corpse fluid still splattered across the back of his hand.

A hissing, sizzling sound like boiling oil on flesh filled the air. In horror, Fu Yang watched as the poison ate a coin-sized hole into his skin, sending waves of agony through his body.

The pain was unspeakable.

Ah Huang, seeing that Fu Yang hadn’t dodged in time and had been splashed by the corpse poison, was alarmed and tried to help, but the wraith had ensnared him, leaving him unable to break free.

“Xiao Yangzi, there’s glutinous rice in the bag—quick, smear some on your hand! This thing isn’t a zombie, but it’s just as troublesome.”

Meanwhile, clumps of wet, black hair writhed like venomous snakes, undulating and lashing out at Ah Huang. He could only fend them off in a flurry, his peachwood sword moving so fast it formed a seamless barrier, barely keeping the hair from entangling and strangling him.

Fu Yang tried to get the glutinous rice, but a thick lock of the wraith’s hair coiled around his ankle and yanked.

He fell flat on his face, dizzy from the blow. He scrambled to the bag, reaching for the rice—only to realize the wound on his hand had vanished, as if he had never been poisoned at all.

He was still staring in confusion when Ah Huang’s angry shout rang out behind him: “By the authority of the Three Pure Ones, grant me power! True Flame—Ignite!”

Turning around, Fu Yang was stunned by what he saw.

Ah Huang blew a torrent of fire from his mouth onto his peachwood sword, and in an instant, the blade was engulfed in roaring flames, transforming into a blazing “sword of fire” radiating searing heat, dazzling, and fierce.

“Holy shit, that’s awesome…”

Fu Yang gaped in awe. For the first time, he truly felt that knowing ghost-hunting spells was not only cool—it was manly.

Every man harbors a martial hero’s dream deep inside, no matter how adult worries may bury it. And what could be cooler than martial arts? Magic, of course.

Until now, Fu Yang had never seen such a blood-stirring display. Ah Huang had just shown him—a sword blazing with real fire.

The water wraith, seemingly terrified, broke off the fight and tried to retreat, its hair recoiling as it turned to flee. But Ah Huang showed no mercy.

He swung the “fire sword,” missing the wraith but striking a tree as thick as a man’s thigh.

With a thunderous crack, the tree burst in two at the trunk and crashed to the ground, leaves fluttering down and adding a Hollywood blockbuster flair to Ah Huang’s silhouette.

“Unbelievable! It even explodes and blasts stuff?” Fu Yang’s jaw dropped so wide an egg could have fit in his mouth. Deep inside, a fierce curiosity and excitement for magic kindled.

Ah Huang darted forward, moving so swiftly that Fu Yang’s eyes saw three or four afterimages of him encircling the wraith. Then, with a sweeping stroke of the flaming sword, he sent the ghost’s head flying, cleaving it in two in midair, where it exploded into ashes.

Headless, the water wraith corpse withered and decayed at an unnatural speed, shrinking to a fist-sized, stinking lump, which Ah Huang crushed with a stomp.

The water wraith corpse was utterly destroyed!

Before Fu Yang could even cheer, Ah Huang spun around and shouted, “Get over here! Run!”

Run? We just won—why run?

Just then, a clear, childish voice rang out. “Why are you running, big brother? Come play with me.”

Only then did Fu Yang remember that aside from the water wraith, there was also a child ghost.

Ah Huang returned, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Fu Yang, the heat from his flaming sword oddly comforting.

Across the grass, about a dozen meters away, stood a little boy in a blue silk tunic, smiling mischievously and bouncing something in his hand as if it were a ball.

When Fu Yang got a good look, he shuddered despite bracing himself.

The boy was not bouncing a ball, but a human head—rotted so badly it was barely recognizable.

“Damn, this little bastard is a freak!”

“Fu Yang, are you blind? That’s no brat—it’s a Ghost Lord! Do you know what that means? It’s a whole rank above a Ghost General. When one of those appears, it brings carnage and death. Even my master would rather avoid dealing with one.”

Ghost Lord?

Fu Yang gulped. “So, basically this thing is two whole levels above the water wraith you just killed—a super ghost?”

Ah Huang nodded miserably. “Exactly! I suddenly regret all this. If I’d known it would be this much trouble, I’d have risked losing all my power and breaking my cultivation rather than get involved. I’m still a virgin—if I die now…”

“Stop! If you’re a virgin, I’ll drink the whole lake dry. Enough nonsense—think about how we’re going to survive. Are you sure we can’t take this brat?”

“Almost impossible. But I want to try…”

“By the authority of the Three Pure Ones, grant me power! Dao Flame—Strike!”

Ah Huang shouted, and his peachwood fire sword grew three feet longer, turning from a short blade to a massive sword. Bracing himself, he hurled it with all his might straight at the blue-clad little boy before them.

(New book, begging for support—your encouragement is my motivation!)