Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 335

As Han Li finally took out the jade box, the woman couldn’t hide her agitation and urged him, “Cultivator Han, quickly tear off that talisman and hand me the jade box!”

His hand, which was about to tear the talisman, stopped at her trembling voice.

This strange unease… Hesitating, he withdrew his hand and turned to look at her. However, the sight before him made his heart sink.

The opponent’s eyes were gleaming with a murky cyan color, and her face was grotesquely distorted, exuding an evil aura. The Nascent Soul cultivator [a high-level cultivator in the novel’s power system] with an extraordinary demeanor from just a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.

Startled by Han Li’s gaze, she immediately retracted the ominous aura and the ferocious expression.

“What are you doing? Hurry and tear off the talisman. Shouldn’t you do this much for the benefactor who gave you a precious treasure like the Spirit Eye Jade?”

Han Li calmly stared at the woman in black, then lowered his head to look at the jade box tightly wrapped in the golden talisman. Without a word, he slowly approached the woman.

“W-wait! Don’t come closer! Cultivator Han!”

The face that had been feigning calmness was now distorted with fear and panic.

The more intense the black-clad woman’s expression became, the darker Han Li’s face grew.

There was no need to listen to the opponent’s obvious lies any longer. He flung the jade box he was holding towards her.

He didn’t know why she was so flustered by a single talisman, but since he had realized that the opponent had other intentions, there was no reason to be lenient.

*Thud.*

The woman in black immediately tried to kick off the stone platform with one hand and flee. However, before she could even stand up, the restriction was activated, and her entire body was enveloped in a red light, pulling her back to her original position with a pained expression.

As the jade box arrived right in front of her, a clear, crying sound suddenly spread out and instantly headed towards the top of the woman’s head.

Then, golden light emanated from the golden talisman on the jade box, and golden incantations flowed out, falling onto the woman’s body.

“No!”

She seemed to know that it was already irreversible, raising her one remaining arm to cover her face. However, along with a desperate scream, her beautiful face was also horribly disfigured.

The incantations pouring from the talisman touched her shoulder, emitting a golden light and a plume of green smoke.

*Sizzle.*

*Kyahhh!*

A piercing, sharp screech that was impossible for a human to produce echoed. Han Li’s expression changed drastically, and he took a few steps back.

Soon, the area around the stone platform was completely filled with a hazy, dark green smoke, and except for the occasional flash of gold within, the woman’s figure was not visible. However, the horrific screams continued without pause, echoing loudly and fiercely throughout the stone chamber.

It sounded as if the woman was transforming into countless beings, making the listeners’ hair stand on end.

“… !”

Han Li licked his lips and held his breath. The dark green smoke began to fill the stone chamber, and after taking a whiff of the fishy smell, his head spun. The thick smoke contained a potent poison.

*Rustle.*

Suddenly, strange sounds were heard in succession from within the smoke.

As Han Li hesitated, unsure of the source of the sounds, a sharp, cyan claw flew out of the fog with a *whoosh*.

Startled, Han Li gripped the jade pendant tightly and was about to unleash a spell, but the silver energy on the bizarre claw transformed into the shape of a chain and contracted fiercely. Then, sparks flew between the two opposing forces, and a suffocating fishy smell surged up.

*Kyahahaha!*

A desperate scream echoed from deep within the fog, and the claw was quickly pulled back in. Han Li, with his lips pressed tightly together, stared intently into the poisonous fog without blinking.

He retreated further, leaning his back against the azurite wall, and poured ample spiritual energy into the jade pendant, preparing for any eventuality. At the same time, the red and yellow barrier surrounding his body also became noticeably thicker.

Even after a moment, the strange cries within the green poisonous fog did not subside, and the golden talisman on the jade box was becoming increasingly dim.

‘The golden talisman is lethal to that monster, but if its spiritual power runs out, it won’t be able to suppress the monster anymore.’

The horrific screams disappeared, and the fog became deathly silent, but the talisman was still faintly scattering afterglow. Han Li watched the talisman in the air but did not dare to approach rashly.

After waiting a while longer, the golden talisman and the jade box seemed to lose their power and fell into the green fog. Only then did he begin to move.

As he formed a hand seal and chanted a spell, a red ball of light the size of an egg was instantly created in front of him. Seeing it, Han Li gestured as if there was no more need to wait and sent it flying into the thick poisonous fog.

“Explode!”

*Boom!*

A deafening roar echoed in his ears, and the poisonous fog was immediately swept away by a gale, disappearing without a trace. At the same time, an intense heat filled the small stone chamber.

When dealing with evil auras or poisonous fog, there was nothing better than a fire-attribute technique. Despite the intense heat, Han Li stood still, watching the area around the stone platform that had reappeared.

However, he was shocked and swallowed hard. Something that still had a human shape was lying face down on the stone platform.

Its entire body was covered in dense, dark green fur, and it emitted a terrible stench. He didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely not human.

The monster, like the black-clad woman created by illusion, had only one arm. And at the end of it, long, jet-black nails were extended, which seemed to be the claws that had attacked Han Li earlier.

Han Li didn’t hesitate for long and extended his finger towards the dozen or so flying swords circling above his head. At the same time, the flying swords turned blue and rushed to hack the monster to pieces.

*Thud thud thud.*

Blunt collision sounds continued, but the monster with green fur maintained its form. A wry smile appeared on his lips, but he didn’t find it strange.

It was impossible for a demon sealed with such great effort under such tremendous restrictions to be ordinary. Rather, it would have been more suspicious if its head had been severed by the flying swords in one go. Han Li retrieved the flying sword magic treasure and took a few steps forward.

From the sleeve he swung, a blue light poured out, wrapping around the monster and silently flipping it over.

Finally, the true face of the green-furred monster was revealed.

The emaciated face had lost its vitality and turned ashen, and half of the face was a large maw with sharp fangs protruding out, making it extremely grotesque.

“This is?”

The monster’s appearance was somewhat familiar.

‘I think I’ve seen it in some scriptures…’

Han Li lowered his head for a moment, lost in thought.

“Corpse Fiend!”

He raised his head sharply, his face filled with surprise. A ferocious spirit that was famous in the ancient times.

A Corpse Fiend could be considered a type of zombie, but it was completely different from the zombies that cultivators usually refined. This was because the conditions for creating one were extremely demanding.

Although the method of refining a Corpse Fiend was not yet known, it was known that a corpse that met two conditions in life was required.

First, the deceased must have been a cultivator who had reached at least the Nascent Soul realm in life, and second, the corpse must have been of a cultivator with a wood or earth attribute spiritual root, or someone with a Heavenly Spiritual Root [a rare and powerful type of spiritual root].

In addition to this, the owner of the corpse that would become a Corpse Fiend had to die with immense resentment. Only then would they not be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation immediately after death and remain as an evil spirit.

Only when these various rare conditions were met would the basic preparations for refining a Corpse Fiend be complete.

Not only did they not have the fear of light, which was a fatal weakness for most demons and zombies, but they could also retain their memories from life and cultivate the techniques they had learned in life. Therefore, Corpse Fiends could be seen as half-human, half-corpse, or half-corpse, half-ghost.

Moreover, because they died with resentment, almost all corpses that were revived as Corpse Fiends enjoyed slaughter and took pleasure in torturing and refining the souls of the cultivators they killed in their stomachs.

It was an ominous existence that made everyone in the cultivation world pale at the mere mention of its name long ago. That Corpse Fiend had appeared.

It was said in the literature that Corpse Fiends were difficult to destroy because their entire bodies were as hard as diamonds, and they could only be refined slowly using True Fire or sealed using a Soul Extraction Technique. Han Li’s head began to ache.

“Hmm…”

The Corpse Fiend in front of him was not truly dead but was merely temporarily suppressed by an unknown golden talisman. It would probably take a considerable amount of time for it to recover its original energy.

His gaze, which had been on the Corpse Fiend, turned to the jade box that had fallen to one side. The fact that the Corpse Fiend had been suppressed by it but had not completely turned to ashes suggested that it was a type of sealing technique using Soul Extraction.

The fact that the Corpse Fiend, disguised as the woman in black, had tried to obtain the jade box and that it was sealed by a powerful method suggested that the Corpse Fiend’s soul was inside the jade box.

If so, how could the Corpse Fiend’s body, without its soul, move freely and even converse?

‘Could it be that the Soul Extraction Technique was not properly performed, leaving remnants of the soul within the body?’

Moreover, it was strange that the Corpse Fiend’s body was bound here with an enormous treasure like the Spirit Eye Jade. As doubts piled up, Han Li’s furrowed brow did not ease.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t come to a conclusion right away. To refine and eliminate this zombie from the ancient times with True Fire, it would require at least a Nascent Soul cultivator, and even if such a cultivator stepped forward, it would take months.

Even if he had the ability, he had no intention of wasting time and spiritual power to eliminate evil spirits and chase away demons for the sake of world peace. He just wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible.

If some other unlucky person were to enter this place and be deceived by the zombie disguised as the woman in black? What did that have to do with him?

If the Corpse Fiend was released then, the elders of various sects would step forward to resolve it. Han Li, who was looking around to see how to escape, looked at the jade box again.

He had stalled for some time, but in the end, he used a spell to pull the jade box into his storage pouch. Since it had a very special golden talisman attached to it, it was worth taking the time to study it carefully.

He would postpone opening the jade box until he had succeeded in reaching the Nascent Soul realm and reached a certain level. No matter how strong an evil spirit was sealed inside the jade box, by then, he would have the Evil-Repelling Divine Lightning and Soul-Subduing abilities, which were its natural enemies, so he had no reason to fear it.

Han Li poured spiritual power into the jade pendant, and the barrier of light that had been surrounding him suddenly disappeared, and a yellow wolf jumped out. He was preparing to escape the stone chamber using Earth Evasion [a technique to move through the earth].

No matter how strong azurite was, it was still stone, and he was not bound by chains, so he should be able to escape using Earth Evasion. Just as Han Li was about to command the small wolf, the spirit of the magic treasure, he suddenly turned his head with a tense expression.

He approached the Corpse Fiend’s body and pushed away the disgusting green-furred zombie. In the hollow space inside the stone platform, a snow-white Snowcloud Fox with pitiful eyes was blinking its black eyes, looking up at him.

“Haa… You’re quite clever. Even in this situation, you found a way to survive and hide in here.”

Han Li, realizing that the owner of the presence was a fox, smiled and released a blue aura, wrapping around the fox and pulling it towards him.

The Snowcloud Fox sensed something was amiss and tried to escape, but it could not overcome the speed of Han Li’s blue aura.

Han Li, who was about to turn around with the Snowcloud Fox by the scruff of its neck, tilted his head without realizing it.

“You little thing, you’re lucky. You survived even in the poisonous fog. And you’ve been living with the Corpse Fiend until now…?”

He stood abruptly, his expression immediately darkening, and he flung the fox violently towards the wall. At that moment, a venomous glint flashed in the fox’s black eyes.

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