Chapter 62 Resisting the Foreign Entity

The chilling moon vanished instantly as roiling masses of pitch-black vapor drifted across the sky, swallowing the glow of the stars and the moonlight.

Inside the Reunion Inn, Li Yi had just seen off the final wave of patrons. Supporting his head with one hand, he tilted it to the side and dozed off.

"Wuwah—it's burning hot!"

He jerked upright as if struck by a bolt of lightning, leaping three feet into the air and nearly smashing a hole through the ceiling panels right above his head.

The ghost-god copper coin on his wrist was radiating a scorching red light. Pulsing like a piece of glowing-hot iron, it vibrated ceaselessly, scraping against the skin of his wrist.

"Still dragging your feet? Get over here immediately. To the southwest of Zhuxi City, a horde of crazed heretics has broken through a secret realm and flooded out.

Old Qi has already cast a barrier, so the people in the city will be safe for now—they'll only suffer a few nightmares."

Li Yi’s finger, pressing against the copper coin, trembled slightly. He raised his gaze to the sky outside the window, which was as dark as aged ink, while tendrils of an alluring fragrance drifted through the air.

In a realm invisible to the naked eye, a strange, cube-like construct was shrouded within the black fog.

"Leader, is everything truly alright?" Li Yi suppressed a terrifying premonition stirring in his heart, the warmth fading entirely from his eyes.

A brief silence hung on the other end before a sigh finally broke through. "I knew it, you rascal are too sharp—not nearly as gullible as Old Qi made you out to be.

Trust me on this: the probability of harm coming to the citizens of Zhuxi City right now is less than ten percent.

Hurry up and get over here. The number of heretics in the southwest sector is massive; under no circumstances can we let them breach the city-protecting barrier."

Li Yi glanced briefly at the lamplight glowing in the narrow alleyway and smiled. "Brother Zhang, whenever you lie to me, you always resort to an imperious tone.

Don't waste any more time. I am not going to run off alone. Tell me where you all are."

The sound of metallic clashing echoed from the receiver, followed by Zhang Qi's panting voice. "Fine, on top of the central hotel in the city center.

Be careful on your way over. If you happen to run into any stray heretics who slipped through, don't act rashly; rendezvous with us first."

A muffled grunt came from the other side, and the speaker's cadence grew noticeably faster.

The copper coin on Li Yi's wrist spun, casting erratic rays of light whose erratic flickering made the heretics' positions seem to shift unpredictably from left to right.

A cold expression settled over Li Yi's face as he pressed his finger firmly against the coin.

Such a phenomenon could mean only two things: either there were numerous scattered heretics nearby, or something possessed the ability to distort space.

Through the window, illuminated by a solitary flicker of lamplight in the dark night, a dark shadow lingered near a lamp, holding something in its hands, moving them up and down, occasionally pausing to scratch its head.

Li Yi's eyes grew slightly damp and hot, refusing to look away as a choked vibration rolled from the depths of his throat, "Mother—"

Heretics had slipped through into every corner of the city, and the city center was the very portal through which they poured.

Only by going there could he save the majority of people.

Yet... yet his feet refused to budge.

"Leader, there might be heretics in the vicinity of our little inn," Li Yi activated the ghost-god copper coin once more, striving to keep his tone level.

Zhang Qi drew in a deep breath and cautioned him, "If their numbers are overwhelming, do not hesitate—prioritize your own survival above all else.

I have already reported this to the headquarters of the Qingchuan Immortal Alliance; they will arrive in the time it takes to burn a single stick of incense.

You brat better not try to be a hero this time like you always do."

A nameless fury flared up within Li Yi, though he quickly recognized the unnatural distortion of his emotions and slashed downward at his own left hand with a sword.

"I won't," Li Yi murmured with a smile.

Squeak, squeak, squeak—

The wailing, ghost-like cries of rats echoed from the mouth of the alley. Pairs of blood-red eyes peered through the darkness, resembling countless glowing red persimmons the size of fists.

A cluster of figures lunged from the dark, their claws scraping harshly against the flagstones as half-man, half-rat monstrosities revealed themselves.

Their gray fur resembled withered grass, and their human-like, blood-drenched claws dripped with gore. Their human faces were smeared with scraps of flesh, and transparent, jelly-like brains clung to the tips of their lolling tongues.

With every twitch of their tongues, an overwhelming stench of blood diffused through the air.

Li Yi wrinkled his nose, retrieved a Spirit-Cleansing Pill from the storage space within the ghost-god copper coin, and swallowed it with a heavy heart.

This was a massive financial loss; he would definitely demand reimbursement for the pill from the leader when he got back.

His right hand gripped his sword tightly as his eyes locked onto the front, his body shifting forward inch by inch.

Upon spotting the human before them, the human-faced rats flashed bloodthirsty, excited grins. They rubbed their hands together in front of their chests, thick drool mixed with flecks of flesh dripping down in globs.

Noticing Li Yi watching them, they ground their fingernails together with a sharp *clack*, gathering a pitch-deadly, necrotic aura at their fingertips that rapidly spread across their entire bodies.

Li Yi cursed under his breath. "What terrible luck. I should have taken a page out of Mo Wei's book and consulted diviners more often—casting a tortoise shell reading whenever trouble might arise."

As the human-faced rats closed the distance, he swiftly swept out his left hand, flicking a talisman high into the air. Golden spiritual light burst outward from the talisman as its starting point, forming a barrier that precisely enclosed all of the human-faced rats along with Li Yi himself.

Li Yi swiftly whipped out a handful of explosive talismans with his left hand, scattering them outward with a pang of heartache, while the sharp sword in his right hand followed instantly in their wake.

As the blade swept through the air, overlapping crescent-shaped sword qi burst forth, kicking up the gravel in the alley and continuously flying toward the human-faced rats.

The blinding light of the explosive talismans disoriented them, momentarily robbing them of their sense of direction, allowing the full force of the sword qi to crash directly into their flesh.

The black vapor clinging to their fur grew denser, colliding with the sword qi to produce black-and-white sparks that flew from their coats. Tufts of gray fur were sheared off, drawing agonizing, shrill screeches from the human-faced rats.

Heretics of this breed, known as human-faced rats, were barely distinguishable from ordinary rodents in their larval stage. As they consumed more human flesh and rotting corpses, however, human-like faces and hands gradually sprouted from their bodies.

They grew at an astonishing rate; a single adult rat possessed strength roughly equivalent to the fifth stage of Qi Condensation—not particularly formidable to cultivators on an individual level.

The truly disgusting part, however, lay in their thick pelts, which ordinary blades could not pierce, and their piercing cries, which drained the spiritual resilience and sanity of anyone who heard them. Furthermore, their hands and claws harbored the source of a virulent plague, capable of infecting any ordinary human scratched by them.

The human-faced rats wounded by Li Yi shrieked frantically. Led by a few fierce specimens, the rest of the horde joined in a chorus of howling.

Fist-sized sonic shockwaves bloomed, overlapping by the hundreds to form a gigantic, spectral horn from which a bizarre, eerie tune was blown, causing the barrier to tremble violently.

Li Yi pressed his fingers against several spiritual meridians on his chest, forcibly sealing his own sense of hearing.

The sound paused for barely a second before piercing straight through his skin to assault his divine consciousness. Blood welled from his ears, and the figures of the human-faced rats gradually blurred out of his vision.

The bone-chilling shrieks grew muffled once again, burrowing into his ears from all directions.

After all the trouble he had gone through to join the Zhuxi Qingyun Defense Corps, he was actually going to end up perishing at the hands of these beasts.

And he, a prodigy of his generation—how utterly humiliating just to think about it.

He clenched his fists tightly, closed his eyes, and brandished talismans in one hand while swinging his sword wildly with the other, unleashing a barrage of attacks in every direction.

Sword radiance flew horizontally, the bizarre volume of the screeching dulled, and the sound of coughing up blood echoed from ahead.

"I, your young master, am a goddamn genius! A few dead rats wailing like ghosts dare to come and test my sword!"

With a resounding roar toward the heavens, Li Yi stomped his foot down, sending gravel flying from his heel. A slash of sword light cleaved through the black mist, tearing a gaping fissure right down the center of the sonic horn.

Cold light flashed in the eyes of the human-faced rats as they bared their fangs in unison, warning Li Yi not to take another step closer.

To be contaminated by their saliva meant contracting a strange, incurable disease, even for a cultivator.