Eyes squeezed shut, Su Xiaoxiao remained dumbly in place. Uneasiness flashed across her face, then was replaced by a general sense of not knowing what to do with herself. Regardless, this wasn’t what a dead person, what a corpse was supposed to look like.
“Xiaoxiao, are we not in the skydragon tomb anymore?” Diexi asked again when the poison doctor didn’t respond.
Su Xiaoxiao still radiated discomfort, and her tender hands twisted and turned the hem of her dress.
“She can speak?” Lu Yun’s eyes widened and he paused in the midst of condensing a talisman in his hand.
“She can… oof!” Diexi grunted with pain as a gray talisman stinking of putrid decay made its way out of her body, attracted by the one in Lu Yun’s hand. “Is it out?”
Joy crossed her face; this Zombification Talisman had bedeviled her for quite some time. In fact, she’d been on the cusp of completing her evolution to a living being, but the talisman had negated all of her efforts.
Lu Yun nodded slightly and ignited a flicker of h.e.l.lfire, reducing the talisman to ashes.
As its name implied, a Zombification Talisman could zombify a living thing, similar to the effects of the Great Formation of Corpse Refinement and Bag of Corpse Refinement. The Corpse Refiners sure have a lot of tricks up their sleeves, huh.
Rumble.
An incredible burst of power exploded from the two-headed zombie, throwing the slightly weaker scaled-dragon backward and slamming him on a small mountain not too far off in the distance, instantly flattening it.
The Scaled-Dragon King roared furiously and ricocheted right back like a cannonball, hurtling into his enemy. He released the image of a dragon and crocodile from his body at the same time, the two intertwining to create a terrible killing force that bore down on the zombie.
“Awaughhhh!!” screeched the zombie, sending Yuchi Tianhuang flying with a flip of the hand, then brought its hands together to thrust them outward at the dragon-crocodile image.
Pffft!
The Scaled-Dragon King trembled but once, blood misting out of all his pores. Destruction crawled up every inch of his bones and meridians, shattering them to pieces. In the next moment, the second strongest monster spirit king of the North Sea flopped to the ground as a sack of quivering, twitching flesh.
“Awau awau awaughhh!!” Two decaying mouths split open, shrieking with a cacophony that could rouse the deaf and return sight to the blind. The sound waves rushed out of the place of extreme yin and pushed the waters, creating horrifying ripples that sped in all directions. Meanwhile, the two-headed zombie opened its arms wide and sprang at the p.r.o.ne Scaled-Dragon King.
Wham.
Yuchi Tianhuang rushed in just at this time, the innate power of metal flickering all over his body in aureate radiance. The light cut viciously at the zombie, as if the edges of keen blades.
Diexi remained staunchly at Lu Yun’s side in a protective stance, blocking all of the aftershocks caused by the clash between peerless immortals.
“Lü Biao!” called out Lu Yun.
A bright verdant figure flashed in front of him as a green-haired man charged out of the Gates of the Abyss, making directly for the two-headed zombie. Monster Spirit King Lü Biao of Mist Land had died under a single swipe of Lu Yun’s blade while protecting Lü Guhong, and was the first peerless immortal Infernum that’d come under the overlord of h.e.l.l’s command.
Wham.
Caught off guard in a moment of distraction, it was the zombie’s turn to careen backward. This created an opening for a tongue of h.e.l.lfire to envelope the Scaled-Dragon King and repair the ghostly soldier’s injuries.
A peerless immortal Infernum wasn’t an a.s.set that Lu Yun could afford to just throw away. Though there were many soldiers in his ghostly army, there were only a couple of peerless immortals, and it would be a painful loss if any were destroyed here.
This two-headed zombie is really strong… even Yuchi Tianhuang and the Scaled-Dragon King aren’t its match. Diexi and Su Xiaoxiao were patently stronger than those two, and it took the addition of Lü Biao to barely hold off this terrifying zombie.
“Just where does it come from?” Lu Yun’s heart clenched in fear.
Yuchi Tianhuang was a divine king, one of the White Tigers! The Scaled-Dragon King was the second seat of the North Sea, and when aided by Lü Biao of the Mist Land, they formed a trio of unparalleled peerless immortals who could shake the entire world with a stamp of their feet!
Su Xiaoxiao’s expression of discomfort deepened further, but she stubbornly stuck to the act of an unknowing, unfeeling zombie and pretended not to understand Lu Yun, but her small hands had turned the hem of her white dress into a wrinkled mess.
“The skydragon tomb, the zombie’s from the skydragon tomb!” Diexi answered. “After the Corpse Refiners planted the talisman in me, I escaped to the imperial waters of the North Sea and accidentally barged into the skydragon tomb…. I met that perverse existence there!”
As the king of zombies, Diexi could control all zombies beneath the heavens, even if she was only a peerless immortal. Who would’ve ever thought she’d be hunted by one instead?
“And her?” Lu Yun pointed at Su Xiaoxiao.
Though the poison doctor’s eyes were still squeezed shut, she seemed to sense that Lu Yun was pointing at her. Keeping up the act, she staggered and lurched like a low-level zombie, stumbling her way behind Diexi.
“Xiaoxiao saved me!” The zombie king wouldn’t hide anything from Lu Yun. Since her birth, she’d been bereft of friends and family in the world of immortals. Lu Yun was the only person who hadn’t treated her like some unnatural monster, so naturally she was very close to him.
“Doctor Poison Su Xiaoxiao, you’re coming with….” Lu Yun grabbed the zombie girl’s hand, causing her to shudder and freeze.
“You’re… so cold….” He felt like he’d grabbed an icy piece of frost jade, one that was about to freeze him solid. “Don’t resist!” he ordered before the Gates of the Abyss opened and swallowed both of their bodies.
Su Xiaoxiao instinctively wanted to resist, but the human’s words made her start and dismiss the immortal energy she’d been gathering.
Within h.e.l.l, Lu Yun and Su Xiaoxiao appeared at the same time.
“Where are we?” Her voice was clear and moving, but she still kept her eyes shut.
“A living corpse… the person is dead and their soul was scattered, but the body lives on…” Finally on his home turf, Lu Yun could immediately identify Su Xiaoxiao’s current state of existence.
She was a living corpse!
That was why she didn’t dare open her eyes. The moment she did, she would truly die and turn into a dead body. Everything that’d happened to her in life would all drift away on the wind.
Su Xiaoxiao trembled again and shuffled a few steps backwards.
“Take your place, seventh Envoy of Samsara!” Lu Yun pointed at the center of the girl’s forehead.
Whoos.h.!.+
h.e.l.lfire gushed into existence on her body as a black rune slowly formed on her forehead. However, a piercing shriek sounded at the same time.
“Ahhh!!” It came from Tinglan; three beams of faint light shot out of her body and sank into Su Xiaoxiao. It was the three ethereal parts of her soul, and they were quickly joined by seven beams of light cutting through the air.
……
“What happened?” Deep in the throes of battle, Beigong Chonglou suddenly shuddered and halted his exchanges with Jin Heyi. With the disappearance of the immortal ghost behind him, his senses returned to normal.
“Who are you, and why do you attack this prince?!” Fear tinged his tone, along with sheer bafflement as to what was going on.
“Eh? The immortal ghost disappeared?” Jin Heyi blinked, then defeated Beigong Chonglou with a wave.
……
“You can open your eyes now,” said Lu Yun as he digested Su Xiaoxiao’s memories and experiences.
“No!” came the quick reply, shot through with sweetness. It was an uncommonly nice voice to listen to. “I’m not wearing anything!”
Lu Yun held his forehead and subconsciously glanced at Su Xiaoxiao. Um… she’s on the skinny side, but she’s still got the goods. She’s got curves where she should have them, and valleys where there should be dips. The h.e.l.lfire earlier had burned her white dress to cinders.
“You know, you’re a peerless immortal, you can conjure a set of clothes for yourself.” He rubbed his nose.
Su Xiaoxiao was quite different from his other envoys. Upon a.s.suming their new position, they showed the utmost deference and respect to Lu Yun. Some even tried to seduce him and win his favor that way.
As for his latest addition, though she’d died, her body had lived on and been tempered by the pa.s.sage of countless eons. It’d reached peerless immortal realm, so that was the level of her cultivation upon revival.
Her new master’s words reminded her of what to do and she quickly bent down, huddling until the white dress from earlier appeared again. She then stood up again, beet red and looking at Lu Yun with some embarra.s.sment.
In his eyes, her refusal to open her eyes because she wasn’t wearing any clothes denoted a cowardly mindset. It seemed like her reaction to danger was to curl up in her blankets and pretend there was no danger at all.
“Seventh Envoy of Samsara, Su Xiaoxiao, greets the master!” the girl offered weakly.
Lu Yun looked at Su Xiaoxiao and shook his head; she was very different from Cangyin. The time manipulation art had sent Cangyin back to her origins, thus, she’d died in the form of an egg so he hadn’t been able to glean any memories from her. Su Xiaoxiao’s, however, were at his fingertips.
Of course, he needed some time to digest them all, but that was the last thing he lacked in h.e.l.l.
Discomfort still marked Su Xiaoxiao’s face. After all, she’d been known as a demon in the ancient world of immortals, one who’d committed genocide of all beings in eighteen major worlds. Everyone had been out for her head, and not even her master, Qi Hai, foremost of all pill masters, could save her. He’d been forced to cripple her cultivation and throw her out.
As for how she’d died… she didn’t have a clue.
All she knew was that she’d gone to bed one day, then awoken in this tomb. The ethereal and corporeal parts of her soul had mysteriously been swallowed by two corpse coffins, which had then transformed into two immortal ghosts. Those ghosts had inherited her skills in medicine and poison because they’d devoured her soul.
Meanwhile, her body had remained alive as a living corpse.
As for Guanqing and Tinglan, she had indeed saved these two orphans back in the day, but they weren’t her maids. Now that she’d come back to life and her soul was returned to her, the two ghosts naturally drifted away on the wind.
“You were right to do what you did.” Lu Yun suddenly looked at Su Xiaoxiao very seriously. “If I’d been in your shoes, I would also destroy everything in those eighteen major worlds. If they hadn’t died, the entire world of immortals—and all other worlds besides—would’ve fallen to a great disaster!”
Su Xiaoxiao trembled, then looked at Lu Yun with a hint of grat.i.tude. Her master had used ‘everything’, and not ‘everyone’.