The Great Worm Lich

In the desert more than ten miles away from the mine, the young Gate of Dao disciples in the two cars, who were originally heading sneakily towards the rocky terrain that was much higher than the desert, suddenly heard a familiar cold voice resonating from the air, causing them to be greatly taken aback.

After listening to what the voice said, the most eloquent Yu Longyu snapped back to reality first and smiled wryly. “It’s Senior Uncle Li who used Junior Uncle’s Water Mirror Technique to give us the order and asked them to go there. I didn’t expect the successor of the ancient witchcraft to be so vigilant. We parked more than ten miles away and yet he could still notice us. Sigh, looks like we must be more cautious in our next step.”

“Since it’s Senior Uncle’s orders, let’s hurry and go there then,” Lu Shangyou, the self-proclaimed leader of the young generation of the Gate of Dao, who initiated the attack, sat at the co-driver seat of the jeep in front in silence for a while with a grave expression. In the end, he finally opened his mouth and announced dryly, “We’ll do everything according to the Master’s orders!”

When he was speaking such words, it was apparent that this Gate of Dao’s young ‘leader’ had already planned to shirk his responsibility. The other disciples in the car did not show any emotions on their face and only Li Xiangzhou alone had her eyes widened and bloodshot, like a deaf, before suddenly taking a long breath.

When she breathed out once again, the air breathed in by her had already become fiery red. Nine red pills swam around vigorously like fish, clever yet bloodcurdling at the same time.

At the same time when Li Xiangzhou spat out the Sword Pill, Zhang Lisheng, who was on the mine, frowned as he muttered, “The power of flames? Don’t tell me that this is a trap and the person pulling the string is actually the Atlanteans? But the person sitting at the co-driver is that fellow called Lu Shangyou! Why would those aliens mix together with the cadres from the Chinese state-owned company? This relationship is so strange. Oh wait, now that I carefully feel it, this power doesn’t feel like the light and fire power controlled by the Atlanteans, but just a pure flame power. Er no, it’s not right. That sharp edge is not something a flame power can have. Could it be, could it be…Dao technique?”

When the young man was racking his brain in confusion, the two jeeps speedily drove towards him.

Just when the cars were about 300 to 400 meters away from the mine, the rear door of the first car suddenly opened. A gust of flame of about six to seven meters long gushed out like flowing water. With a shout loud filled with hatred resonating in the sky —”Delinquent, give me your life!”— it drew a graceful arc in the air and charged at Zhang Lisheng.

The scorching heat brazed his body and the sharpness scratched him, causing the casual wear worn by the young man to tear into many holes for no reason. Like a rag, it hung onto his body, the pure cashmere fabric became crispy and gave off an unpleasant burnt smell.

Seeing that his clothes and body would soon turn into ashes, Zhang Lisheng smirked coldly with no fear at all. His eyes that looked up at the sky did not even so much as blink.

He locked his gaze at the beautiful girl with a pair of blade-like dashing brows who brandished nine flying flaming swords — four in the front and five behind — while charging towards him. With a suspicious expression written on his face, he muttered, “As I’ve expected, it’s indeed the Gate of Dao disciples…” He stamped his left foot on the ground forcefully and turned the rocky land ten meters around him into crumbled soil, setting off dust in the sky.

The thick smoke spread outward, clashing together with the Sword Pill Li Xiangzhou was brandishing till a series of ‘ping ping’ sounds — like the sounds of a heavy hammer hitting a shield — resonated for a while. At once, the long flame, that was as agile as swimming fish suddenly became like the fish on the land, as they struggled with difficulty to move forward.

“Your Lordship, you have quite a good technique right there!” Upon seeing his companion had already revealed herself, a young man wearing a suit with eyes as bright as stars hopped out of the jeep. Before his feet could touch the ground, a gust of fountain-like sand had already shot out towards the sky. It enveloped him and speedily brought him to fly up to Li Xiangzhou. Flanking by the side, he shouted loudly.

“You must be an outstanding disciple from the Gate of Dao right? Let’s not discuss about my technique first. How fishy for all of you to come here! Aren’t you guys scared of dying here in the wilderness?” Zhang Lisheng smiled calmly and put on a manner of being a man of noble character before asking out of the blue.

“Fishy? Haha…” Looking down at the young man’s calm look, Li Xiangzhou let out a shrill laugh. “You killed our Gate of Dao’s disciple and so we’re here to seek revenge! Which part of this is fishy…”

“In that case, what a slow reaction you guys have. Your comrade has died for more than two years and you only come to find your revenge today? And not only that, it’s because you’ve encountered me coincidentally.” With just one question, Zhang Lisheng managed to find out that Tina was not in danger and everything was a trap. He interrupted the girl’s words and turned his attention to the jeep that had just stopped at the low rock mountain before shouting, “Am I right, Mr. Lu Shangyou?”

“The Gate of Witchcraft and Gate of Dao have been feuding for tens of thousands of years so why should you spout such nonsense, Mr. Zhang? Today, we’ll not talk about anything else and will just fight to our death!” Lu Shangyou had his heart entirely on the order given by the Gate’s Master through the Water Mirror Technique and no longer said anything else after a cold smirk.

He jumped out of the car and picked up two talismans that looked like ordinary yellow papers. Rubbing them together regrettably, he gritted his teeth and muttered an incantation, producing two shining giants of ten meters tall covered in heavy armor that looked like ancient Chinese generals. Brandishing their long halberds, they charged out towards Zhang Lisheng.

The instant Lu Shangyou made his move, the rest of the Gate of Dao elite disciples of the younger generation began to aid in combat one by one. A siege was formed in an instant.

Zhang Lisheng, who could not completely unleash his power due to the geographical restrictions, maintained a composed expression. However, he secretly complained of the difficulty in his heart. With great difficulty, he blocked the attack by manipulating the soil’s power and suddenly leapt behind to free himself out of the battle for the time being. With his entire body expanding, he became an erected giant eye.

He changed to become the eye beast and countless ‘moments of force’ flocked out from around his body. The flying swords that were hard to stop at first would be smashed onto the ground or torn into pieces with just a flick in his mind.

Zhang Lisheng was astonished that the singular ability of the beast could actually work so well against the Dao technique. When he saw the Gate of Dao’s disciples show a horrified expression one by one, he howled, “Since all of you want to have a match with me to fight till your death, I’ll fulfill your wish then!”

Then, he proceeded to attack Li Xiangzhou who would risk her life the most to attack him.

Just as he was about to succeed, an angry snarl resonated in his ears. “How dare you?!”. Countless complicated patterns appeared on the rock below.

Ambush from Gate of Dao’s masters! At that instant, the young man realized that he had stepped into a trap. He instantly retracted the moment of force to form an invisible defense around his body.

The mysterious rune carvings on the rock lit up one by one. Strange images appeared from all four directions of north, south, east and west. Four strange beasts of green dragon, white tiger, scarlet bird and black tortoise gradually showed themselves. After the strange beasts that were as big as a hill appeared and disappeared again, four Taoists were left standing in their place around the young man.

When Zhang Lisheng saw the Taoists who were wearing radiant yin and yang robes and the headgear curving upward that was embedded with a white jade in the middle with two pieces of Taichi strips behind, he knew that this was the so-called Taoist priests that had a combat ability equivalent to the Grand Wizard as he had seen this kind of dressing in the Gate of Dao’s library. At once, his heart clenched as he sneered. “Wow, the Gate of Dao really has a high opinion of me. It actually sends out four Taoist priests to set up formation to ambush me like a mouse? How ludicrous, dirty and lamentable…”

Since the formation had successfully trapped the successor of the ancient witchcraft in it, the priests did not make their move immediately, nor did they continue to call him names by ‘lowly creature’ or ‘delinquent’. Instead, their attitude strangely changed to become gentle.

One of the gentle elegant-looking Taoist bowed his head a little before saying, “We’re here to take revenge for our disciple who has died in tragic so of course we’ll use our means without restraint. Speaking of which, the fact that you can cultivate the ancient witchcraft to such a level and can even transform into a strange gu with no trace of human left means that you’re an outstanding person too. Now that you have lost to us and fallen into such a desperate situation, why do you still have to bother to struggle and end up having your soul shattered? You might as well do a good deed and swear to the Heavens and Earth. In that way, we’ll definitely let you go for you to reincarnate…”

“You plan to just use your mouth to persuade me to listen to you?” Zhang Lisheng did not correct him that he was actually using the Witchcraft’s Gate of Sacrifice’s power. With an even bigger sneer, he interrupted the Taoist, “Hey Taoist, you look exactly identical with that Gate of Dao’s disciple who has their body shattered by me two years ago. Both of you were the one who lured me into your trap but the way you two spoke was as though everything was my fault and that you were forced to do this. I’ve read about the Taoism’s Heavenly Dao Rule in the Gate of Witchcraft’s library before. One of them stated that China and the West are different. That time when Zheng Tianliang was killed by me for trapping me for no reason, according to the Heavenly Dao Rule, even death would be too good of a punishment for him. The same goes to all of you who trapped me here as well. C’mon, man, why do you guys have to keep making the same mistake and embarrass the ancestors in your gate. You might as well kill yourself instead…”

“Oh scoundrel, you’re good with your words, but unfortunately, you don’t know this saying of ‘don’t stand on trifles’!” When the leopard-eyed Taoist saw that the successor of the ancient witchcraft was young but was actually mentally strong and had a way with his words, he who was standing on the white tiger’s position howled angrily. “Senior Brothers, and Junior Brothers, this scoundrel is stupid and obstinate so it’s better for us to terminate him as fast as possible.”

“In that case, let all four spirits return to their positions and activate the formations…” When the aloof-looking old Taoist standing at the green dragon’s position on the Four Image Formation heard this, he nodded slightly and said. At once, wind gushed up in the formation in a turmoil as killing aura began to ooze out.

First, the talisman on the ground continued to transform into a Taoist army of dragon heads, tiger claws, tortoise shells and bird wings before charging towards the young man. Then, a series of ear-jabbing ‘ping ping…’ metal clashing sounds resonated in the air 30 to 40 meters above the ground. Groups of innate Sharp Metal Qi consolidated in the air, consolidating into thousands, even hundreds of millions, of sharp blades that charged towards Zhang Lisheng.

As time went by, the Taoist army and the weapons failed to attack and so, horrifying technique such as blazing fire, cold ice, lightning and so on beget in the formation, as though they were never to stop until the successor of the ancient witchcraft burned to ashes.

Unwittingly, Zhang Lisheng had been in the formation for 20 to 30 minutes. The ever-changing techniques in the Four Image Formation were specialized in restraining the brutal and dark forces of the wizards. By right, he would at least be severely injured, if not dead, having gone through such a stage.

However, the young man who transformed into the eye beast could break the tens of thousands of techniques just through one power alone. Be it the Taoist army or the blades, or being burned by the fire or drowned by the water, he could repel all of them away using his invisible force. Other than a few faint cracks on his body that was a result of his body being unable to withstand the power of the incarnation, there was no sign of injuries at all.