"Alright. You pin it down, I’ll attack."

Leng Qianhu hadn’t even finished speaking before he shot forward. The two longswords at his side, radiating a monstrous aura, sliced directly through the giant wolf’s neck. The massive wolf head was severed, falling into the lava and kicking up a wave of heat.

But its body didn’t fall. Instead, it let out a strange "YAH... YAH..." cry, which was rather unsettling. And from the neck stump, where flames now surged, another head grew—only this time, it was the head of a tiger.

Thick smoke and dust billowed from the churning lava, threatening to shroud the entire area.

"Yu Lian!"

"Understood!"

Yu Lian rose into the air. The Water Spirit True Essence in her Qi Sea began to circulate, converting the Spiritual Qi in a large swath of the sky into Water Spirit energy and manifesting it as a torrential downpour.

The rising smoke was mostly doused, and the flames spreading to the forest around the village were largely extinguished. Leng Qianhu erupted with relentless killing intent, his two longswords a blur of motion that whistled through the air. In an instant, the massive monster’s body was sliced into countless small pieces.

The monster fragments that fell into the lava kicked up more waves of heat. Then, the pieces began to twist and deform, reforming into individual entities. Some mimicked human forms, some mimicked animals, and others were just nauseatingly malformed shapes. All they wanted to do was escape.

From the air, Yu Lian immediately accelerated the circulation of her True Essence, raising a wall of water around the village. Coordinating with the seven longswords Wang Ping controlled and a dense web of tree roots, she drove the fleeing fire monsters back into the village.

Leng Qianhu returned to Wang Ping’s side. He gestured toward the bound, dismembered pieces of the young girl’s body. "This monster really is an artificial fire spirit, identical to the false spirits created by ’The First Day’ as recorded in the archives. Unconscious, twisted, unkillable... but they’re afraid of this girl."

Wang Ping nodded. He had also read the files on ’The First Day.’ The false spirits they created only had the strength of a novice, but they possessed a truly nasty characteristic: they were unkillable. Even a Great Realm Cultivator could only trap one and wait for its energy to be exhausted.

"Do you know how to use the controller for this weapon?"

Wang Ping looked at the dismembered pieces of the girl’s body, each bound separately.

Both men fell silent at the question. After a moment, Leng Qianhu asked, "When will the reinforcements you called for arrive?"

"At least another fifteen minutes..."

"Can you hold on?"

"That won’t be a problem."

Well, that was the initial outcome of their discussion.

「Fifteen minutes passed in a flash...」

Xuanhe Daoist and a burly man landed beside Wang Ping. Wang Ping recognized the other man—it was Yang Jingwu, one of the two Artifact Cultivators.

"What’s the situation here?" Xuanhe Daoist was the first to speak.

Leng Feng explained the situation in the most concise terms. Afterward, Yang Jingwu remarked, "I’ve always heard about the false spirits of ’The First Day,’ but this is my first time seeing one. It’s incredible. How do they do it?"

No one answered his question. It was a secret of ’The First Day,’ or perhaps a secret known only to the upper echelons of the True Yang Sect.

Daoist Xuanhe flew a circle around the lava pool in the center of the forest, then returned to Wang Ping’s side. "Fellow Daoist Changqing, you rest for a bit. I’ll take over. Leng Qianhu and Fellow Daoist Yang, please stand guard!"

With that, he formed a hand seal for a Magic Formula, activated the Earth Vein within his body, and issued a decree toward the center of the village: "Suppress!"

’It’s the Mountain Suppressing Technique I’m familiar with!’

BOOM!

A dull rumble came from the ground. The terrain around Xia Bian Village suddenly sank, forming a deep pit in the blink of an eye and burying the surging lava and all the distorted fire spirit monsters within it.

Wang Ping immediately retracted his Magic Formulas and stopped channeling the True Essence in his Qi Sea. In the sky, Yu Lian flipped over and dumped all the water she had gathered from the surrounding area into the deep pit.

SIZZLE! White steam instantly enveloped the pit, and from within, those strange cries echoed once more.

"Its power has weakened considerably. It should dissipate completely by dawn." After saying this, Wang Ping sat cross-legged atop a tree and entered a meditative state to recover. Yu Lian also descended, shrinking back to a foot in length and coiling around his wrist, closing her eyes to sleep.

Xuanhe Daoist tossed a small Gathering Spirit Array out from his storage bag. In the center of the Array, he placed a specially refined Earth Vein Command Flag. The Array connected with his Mountain Suppressing Technique, forming a stable Sealing Technique over the deep pit.

Sensing the sudden surge in Spiritual Qi, Wang Ping opened his eyes and watched Xuanhe Daoist set up the Spirit Gathering Array. ’When this is over,’ he thought, ’I’ll have to buy a Spirit Gathering Array from the Daoist Scripture Hall, and get a Sealing Array too, just in case.’

Time passed slowly...

The fiery glow from within the pit gradually weakened. By dawn, it had faded completely. The girl, bound by Leng Qianhu’s special ropes, also stopped struggling.

However, to be safe, the four of them waited until noon.

Once Xuanhe Daoist put away the Spirit Gathering Array and withdrew his suppressive Mountain Suppressing Technique, Yang Jingwu immediately leaped over, carrying a giant cauldron, to check the situation.

Xuanhe Daoist, meanwhile, turned to Wang Ping, who had just awoken from his meditative state. He pointed at the dismembered corpse of the girl and said, "There’s something good in there. A true fire-spirit-attribute Demon Soldier, and it even has a sealing effect. As is custom, this item..."

He looked toward Leng Qianhu.

"This item should belong to Daoist Changqing."

Leng Qianhu tactfully stated his position. As he spoke, he formed a hand seal for a Magic Formula and released the ropes from the girl’s corpse.

Wang Ping extended a hand and made a slight gesture. A vine shot out and penetrated the corpse. It was only then that Wang Ping noticed mysterious, circular Array Runes carved into the flesh beneath the girl’s torn skin.

Before long, Wang Ping sensed a strong Fire Spirit Aura through the vine. He pulled it out and saw a blood-red Treasure Pearl, completely untainted by the corpse’s aura of blood.

The vine presented it to Wang Ping. He gently probed its interior with his Wood Spirit Qi and, finding nothing dangerous, picked it up to observe it closely.

"This thing is priceless, equivalent to an entire Fire Spirit Vein!"

Xuanhe Daoist first offered this reminder, then looked out at the devastated Xia Bian Village and sighed. "Now we have to clean up this mess... The Daoist Scripture Hall will create a list of any valuable items excavated from underground. You’ll be able to take a portion of them according to your contributions."

...

「Changwen Prefecture City.」

At this moment, reconstruction sites could be seen everywhere. A thick plume of smoke rose to the north—the result of cremating bodies. Bai Zhuo’s attack on Changwen Prefecture had resulted in thousands of deaths!

And Wang Ping was currently writing up the case file. Once this step was complete, he could submit his report and be on his way.

KNOCK KNOCK.

The sudden knocking interrupted him.

It was Ah Jiu.

"Daoist, there’s a letter for you."

Wang Ping took the letter, puzzled. It was from Feng Miao of White Crane Mountain.

He opened it and read the contents, which surprised him. In the letter, Feng Miao reminded him to report every single detail of his experience, and moreover, to avoid any conclusive language in his case file.

After reading the letter, Wang Ping fell into deep thought. He then destroyed the half-written case file and began to carefully recall the entire sequence of events, from the moment he received the case to the present.