Chapter Ninety-Three: Maneuvering

Chapter Ninety-Three: Maneuvering

No one knew when the two of them had somehow ended up on the roof of the third floor, with one foot already hanging over empty air. If they took even the smallest step forward, both would be smashed to pieces in a fall.

"Damn it all! So damn sinister! That old bastard!" The fat man exploded in anger, cursing at the top of his lungs, while Song Nianqiang, by contrast, stood beside him thinking carefully. That ghost had somehow lured him and the fat man to the roof without a sound. If the fat man had not reminded him that the building had only three floors, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

"Looks like the spirits we ran into this time are no ordinary ones. But their level is relatively low; they are no match for us at all. That is why they came up with such a scheme." After some thought, Song Nianqiang said to the fat man, "So what do we do now? We have already missed the best chance. Trying to catch them all in one net is impossible now. We can only kill them one by one."

The fat man looked rather frustrated. If this school of ghosts was not dealt with properly, his five hundred thousand would be as good as gone.

"Don't worry. Haven't we still got an ace up our sleeve?" Song Nianqiang's gaze suddenly sharpened. It seemed that tonight they would have no choice but to slaughter their way through.

By then it was already past one in the morning, with less than an hour left before the ghosts' mass eruption. But that was enough for Song Nianqiang and the fat man. They came to the viewing platform and carefully searched it from end to end. After confirming that no ghosts were hiding there, they made a simple arrangement.

Song Nianqiang drew a formation from the Maoshan Taoist Arts at the entrance to the path leading up to the viewing platform: the Seven-Star Eight-Trigram Formation. This formation borrowed the power of the stars in the heavens. Though the moon was veiled and dim tonight, it was still enough to exterminate these lesser ghosts.

Then the fat man arranged a lotus throne of talismans at the entrance to the viewing platform. This lotus throne was also deadly to ghosts. Of course, the things the two of them set up were not without ways to be broken. The simplest method was to send in a mass of ghosts and smash through the formation by brute force.

By the time they finished all this, it was one forty-eight. The fat man took out the talisman containing the female ghost, and instantly a chilling aura spread from it. This was the female ghost's unique scent. The moment that freezing energy was released, waves of howling began to rise. With only ten minutes left before two o'clock, those ghosts had actually moved ahead of schedule.

The ground was swarming with them, packed tight, numbering well over several thousand. The two ghost factions, which had originally been at odds and could not stand one another, had unexpectedly reached a consensus. At the rear of the ghost army were the two obsessed spirits. Within a radius of more than six feet around them, there was not a single ghost, making it easy for Song Nianqiang to tell at a glance who ruled here.

A tide of lesser ghosts surged at once into the formation Song Nianqiang had set up. The silver light of the formation blazed fiercely, and those ghosts were purified into wisps of green smoke before they even got close. But there were simply too many of them. They did not care whether they were being blasted to oblivion. All they knew was to charge relentlessly toward the viewing platform where Song Nianqiang stood.

"It seems you're very important to those two ghosts. For your sake, they actually came to an agreement, and they do not care at all about their own losses. They are just throwing themselves at us in waves." Seeing the ghosts charge forward without fear of death, Song Nianqiang sighed inwardly and said to the female ghost, "Heh. I was merely their scapegoat. What right would I have to make them go this far?" She gave a self-mocking laugh, her eyes dim and desolate, as though she carried some indescribable misery. But Song Nianqiang did not see it that way. If you were merely a tool for them to vent their rage on, would they really go this mad? Clearly impossible. There must be some hidden reason, though at the moment Song Nianqiang did not yet know what it was.

Watching those lesser ghosts throw themselves against the formation he had drawn without the slightest hesitation, Song Nianqiang narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming even more certain of his suspicion. And after only a little more than ten minutes, the silver glow of the formation was already on the verge of being swallowed by the horde, but those ghosts still could not break through it all at once.

The fat man held the talisman in one hand. In the other, without anyone noticing when, there appeared a Blazing Sun Talisman. Smiling with obvious delight, he brought the two talismans together. Instantly, the female ghost's screams rang out, and every ghost within Huaxia Vocational High School could hear them clearly. Behind them, the two obsessed spirits commanding the ghostly forces let out furious roars, and the ghosts that had already been charging toward the viewing platform became even more reckless.

The silver light grew weaker and weaker, until at last it gradually faded. By then, the ghosts seemed to have been injected with madness, and they suddenly smashed through the formation Song Nianqiang had drawn.

"Dammit! Qiangzi, they've actually broken through your formation so fast. Are these really just ordinary ghosts?" The fat man watched as the number of ghosts had been cut nearly in half, yet they were still charging like lunatics. Song Nianqiang felt some worry and said to the fat man beside him, "Fatty, I'll hold them off. Draw another formation!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Song Nianqiang formed a hand seal and rushed forward. The corridor was wide enough for four people to walk abreast, so it was still somewhat difficult for him to block all those ghosts alone. The fat man behind him had to hurry.

After holding them off for a while, the fat man still had not finished. By then Song Nianqiang had already been forced back a step. Seeing that the basic hand seals were not doing much good, he simply unleashed Samadhi True Fire.

No one could tell what three colors the flames were, only that they surged upward and formed a wall of fire before him.

"Aaahhhhhhh! Aaaahhhhhhh! Aaaahhhhhhh!"

The screams rose one after another. Creating such a massive wall of fire was extremely draining for Song Nianqiang; his face had already gone pale, but the fat man behind him had also reached a critical moment. Song Nianqiang had to hold on.

With Samadhi True Fire blocking them, the lesser ghosts still charged forward without fear of death, but the moment they touched the flames released by Song Nianqiang, they vanished without a trace, as though a scrap of paper had fallen into molten lava and disappeared instantly.

Just as the spiritual power in Song Nianqiang's body was about to run dry, the fat man behind him suddenly reached out, grabbed him, and dragged him backward. The pull caused the circulation of energy in Song Nianqiang's body to stall at once. The wall of fire formed by Samadhi True Fire vanished, and the ghosts surged in like a locust tide.

Fortunately, the fat man had dragged Song Nianqiang to the other side of the formation in time. Otherwise, Song Nianqiang would certainly have been surrounded by those lesser ghosts, and in his present condition, they would surely have drained the yang energy from his body.

The formation the fat man had drawn this time was far more formidable. Yellow light burst forth violently from it, like an endless meat grinder shredding every ghost to pieces. What was more, the ghosts crushed by the formation even fed power back into it. Only, the lesser ghosts were too weak, and the formation consumed more than it gained. Otherwise, it would truly have become a perpetual machine.

But judging by the situation now, this formation would probably not dissipate for quite some time. And for the ghosts to attempt a single, all-out charge through it was impossible. This was not like the formation Song Nianqiang had drawn, which required the strength of starlight. The formation drawn by the fat man needed nothing at all. All it required was for the ghosts to throw themselves at it.

By then Song Nianqiang had expended too much spiritual power and was already sitting cross-legged on the floor, quietly recovering. The fat man put away the talisman and stood guard beside him, just in case.

Among the two obsessed spirits behind the lesser ghosts, one discovered that the female ghost had disappeared. Suddenly going mad, it roared wildly from the rear of the ghost crowd, frightening the lesser ghosts so badly that they all threw themselves toward the formation the fat man had drawn.

"Ha! Come on, all of you! Let me show you just how powerful my formation is. Don't you want this female ghost? Fine. Then I'll make you even more frantic!" Saying that, the fat man took out the talisman containing the female ghost and produced a red thread. He ran it through the ghost's chest.

Because Song Nianqiang had just told him that he did not need to hold back against that female ghost, and should use every method he had, Song Nianqiang suspected that her identity was far from ordinary and not at all what she had claimed. Just then, however, a few shadows suddenly appeared in the fat man's line of sight, but they vanished almost immediately, and he did not pay them any mind.