Demoness, Stop! - Chapter 7 - Chapter 7 – The Oriole Behind

Li Yu’s room.

The Yin spirit stayed rooted in place.

Li Yu watched her with interest. This was a female ghost. When Li Yu channeled his spiritual power to his eyes, he could see her. When he withdrew his power, the space before him was empty, and he could only vaguely sense something’s presence.

Seeing a ghost for the first time wasn’t so frightening after all.

Li Yu felt confident that with just a single thought, he could make her completely vanish.

The Yin spirit in the room had never encountered such a situation before. After a brief moment of stunned hesitation, she immediately cried out in alarm and turned to flee toward the door.

This time, Li Yu did not channel his power to his ears, so he could only see her open her mouth but could not hear any sound.

He quickly walked to the door and opened it. Almost at the same moment, the other three doors also slammed open, and the figures of Jiang Li and the others appeared in Li Yu’s sight.

The courtyard, previously empty, was now a chaotic mess.

At some unknown time, dozens of Yin spirits had gathered there—men and women, old and young. Li Yu and his group had clearly barged into a ghost den.

However, these low-level ghosts posed no threat to them. Chen Ming conjured a ball of flame in his palm, causing the spirits in the courtyard to tremble and shriek in alarm.

From the flame, they felt the power of destruction.

The ghosts’ reaction pleased Chen Ming greatly. He snorted and said sternly, “Bold spirits! How dare you invade a Yang residence! Get lost immediately! If you dare come here again, I’ll scatter your souls to the wind!”

Under Chen Ming’s oppressive aura, the ghosts shivered. Only one little ghost, ignorant of its place, spoke out indignantly, “This was our home originally. They dug up our graves first and even threw our bones into the lake…”

“Uh…”

Chen Ming’s expression turned awkward for a moment, but that was all. After all, he was getting paid to clear disasters for people, and this job would earn him fifty spirit coins. He certainly wouldn’t defend ghosts.

Raising his voice again, he said, “Enough nonsense! Scram!”

No ghost dared speak anymore. They all floated toward the door. Including Chen Ming, none of Li Yu’s group made a move.

The righteous sect’s stance on demons and ghosts was not to kill them all outright. As long as they did no evil, righteous disciples generally avoided needless slaughter.

The ghosts slowly withdrew from the courtyard. A gust of Yin wind blew, stirring fallen leaves within the yard. At that instant, Li Yu suddenly felt a spine-chilling sensation.

The last ghost floating behind suddenly exploded in rage, forming two sharp claws and lunging at Chen Ming.

“Hmph!”

Chen Ming merely snorted coldly. The flames in his hand shot out and struck the old ghost.

The magical flames were not ordinary fire. The ghost’s two claws instantly shattered. It only had time to let out a miserable scream before completely dissipating into the world.

At the same time, the remaining ghosts in the courtyard became violent, flying at Chen Ming like moths drawn to a flame, one after another throwing themselves at him.

“This is what you brought on yourselves! I’ll let you die again!”

The Yin spirits attacked first, so Chen Ming no longer held back. He waved his hand and released a fireball.

In an instant, the fireball split into two, then four, and soon the single large fireball became countless small fireballs, all flying toward the ghosts.

Among the ghosts, except for the old ghost whose strength was slightly stronger, the rest were ordinary Yin spirits. They simply could not withstand a single hit from the fireball technique. The moment a spark touched their ethereal bodies, they would collapse and completely dissipate.

Li Yu’s ears were filled with the ghosts’ miserable screams, so he simply withdrew his spiritual power—out of sight, out of mind.

At this moment, a trace of doubt still lingered in his heart.

Those ghosts had clearly retreated, so why did they suddenly erupt in violence?

Looking at how they lunged at Chen Ming, it was obvious they had lost their minds.

Poof!

As the last fireball extinguished, every Yin spirit in the courtyard was completely eliminated—not one remained. Most of this happened in an instant; Li Yu and the others did not need to intervene. Chen Ming had destroyed all the ghosts by himself.

However, that “Heavenly Maiden Scatters Flowers” technique had almost completely drained Chen Ming’s internal spiritual power. He leaned against a corridor pillar behind him, his chest rising and falling lightly.

He cultivated the Golden Spirit Vein, so using fire-based basic spells consumed even more spiritual power than practitioners of the Fire Spirit Vein.

Zhou Zixuan stepped forward and asked with concern: “Senior Brother Chen, are you alright?”

Chen Ming straightened, puffed out his chest, and said, “Junior Sister Zhou, don’t worry. They were just a few reckless Yin spirits. What could possibly happen…”

Li Yu stretched his body. For this mission, he hadn’t really been involved much—he was just along for the ride.

Zhou Zixuan said, “Since everything is settled, everyone should return to their rooms and rest. Tomorrow morning, we’ll return to the temple together.”

Just as she finished speaking, Li Yu suddenly sensed something wrong.

At some unknown moment, the surroundings had darkened significantly, to the point where he could no longer see his hand in front of his face.

Li Yu looked up and found the moon was gone. Not only the moon, but the starlight had completely vanished as well. He threw out a fireball, illuminating the area again.

Only then did Li Yu realize the sky above them was covered by a thick black mist.

Drip.

Drip, drip.

Drip, drip, drip…

In the silent night, the sound of water droplets falling was clearly audible.

Li Yu suddenly turned his head toward the source of the sound and saw that in the southwest corner of the courtyard, the water well was boiling with black mist. Then, a white figure floated out of the well.

Vaguely, he could see it was a woman in white. Her complexion was extremely pale, and a heavy Yin energy radiated from her. Drops of water fell from her clothes, hitting the stone slabs with crisp sounds.

Li Yu did not channel spiritual power into his eyes but could see the ghost with his naked eyes.

This made his pupils shrink slightly. The white-clothed female ghost opposite him was no longer a Yin spirit, but a true ghost!

A fully manifested female ghost like this was no weaker than a Qi Refinement-stage cultivator. Moreover, the aura radiating from her made Li Yu feel immense pressure.

This female ghost was stronger than any of the four of them. Even if she hadn’t reached Qi Refinement stage two, she was at least at the peak of stage one.

The female ghost emerged from the well, suddenly transformed into a white streak, and flew toward a certain direction.

Li Yu immediately shouted a warning: “Senior Sister Zhou, be careful!”

Zhou Zixuan was prepared and instantly formed a barrier of flames around her body, but the female ghost didn’t seem to target her. The ghost brushed past her and sped forward.

Chen Ming saw the white figure flying toward him and was terrified. He immediately tried to gather spiritual power but then realized that earlier, in an attempt to show off in front of Junior Sister Zhou, he had completely depleted his spiritual power—not even a single fireball could be released…

As soon as this thought occurred, he felt a chill through his body, shivered, and then lost consciousness.

From the perspective of Li Yu, Jiang Li, and Zhou Zixuan, the female ghost transformed into a white streak and entered Chen Ming’s body. Chen Ming’s face immediately turned deathly pale, his hair loosened, and when he opened his eyes again, his gaze was strange and filled with thick Yin energy.

Zhou Zixuan’s face changed drastically as she said, “It has possessed Senior Brother Chen!”

The possessed Chen Ming raised his hands, curling his lips into a sinister smile. His voice was cold and eerie, as if coming from nowhere.

“It’s truly a feeling I haven’t had in a long time…”

At this moment, Li Yu finally understood why those Yin spirits had suddenly erupted and attacked Chen Ming. They were being controlled by a higher-level existence, whose purpose was to consume Chen Ming’s spiritual power and prepare the way for this female ghost to possess him.

Once she successfully possessed him, the situation for Li Yu and the other two would immediately become difficult.

If they used powerful spells, it was uncertain whether they could kill this evil ghost, but Chen Ming would definitely not survive.

Without any spells, their strength as cultivators would be reduced to about one tenth.

Moreover, even if they were forced to sacrifice Chen Ming, their spiritual power would be nearly depleted as well, and they would still become this evil ghost’s prey.

‘Chen Ming,’ with hair disheveled, looked at Li Yu and the others, licked the corner of his mouth with his tongue, and said coldly, “So there are four of you—four cultivator souls. You must be very delicious, worth many years of my cultivation…”

Whoosh!

Zhou Zixuan froze on the spot, feeling somewhat helpless, when suddenly a sharp gust of wind came rushing by her ear.

Five dark, bluish-black fingernails about an inch long appeared in front of her, aiming to stab her neck. Zhou Zixuan tried to raise her hand to block, but a force suddenly came from her waist, pushing her body three feet sideways, narrowly avoiding the female ghost’s attack.

Crack!

The sharp nails scratched a nearby wooden pillar, tearing off a chunk of solid wood. Zhou Zixuan felt a chill run down her spine—if that claw had caught her arm, it would likely have sliced her entire arm off…

“Hero saving a beauty? Then I’ll send you on your way first!” Chen Ming sneered.

His nails extended again about an inch, leaving a ghostly afterimage as he slashed toward Li Yu’s face.

Faced with the sudden attack, Li Yu instinctively turned his body ninety degrees to the left, grabbed Chen Ming’s left wrist with his left hand, and his right fist struck the vital spot behind Chen Ming’s left ear.

Then, stepping to the side, he bent his elbow and smashed Chen Ming’s neck from behind.

He performed these moves without a second thought—pure instinct.

When he graduated from the police academy, his hand-to-hand combat scores ranked first in the school. Later, after five years battling criminal organizations, he had been through countless fights. Without his exceptional skills, he didn’t know how many times he would have died.

In terms of spells, he might be weaker than Chen Ming and Senior Sister Zhou, but when it came to close combat, his physical conditioning, improved significantly since his past life, could easily beat ten Chen Mings.

Thud!

The Chen Ming possessed by the female ghost launched fierce attacks but met a miserable end.

Before he could react, Li Yu’s fluid combo knocked him to the ground. His head buzzed, and the ghost was stunned.

What just happened?

It only felt a flash and found itself lying on the ground.

If it were an ordinary person, Li Yu’s elbow strike would have left them unable to get up, but Chen Ming was a cultivator with formidable physical fitness—and possessed by a female ghost. He clapped his hands and bounced back up, his fingers like blades stabbing toward Li Yu’s abdomen.

Jiang Li and Zhou Zixuan snapped out of their shock from the previous scene and wanted to step forward to help Li Yu, but before they could move, two loud thuds sounded—Chen Ming was knocked down again.

Li Yu executed a kick followed by a straight punch to the throat, then finished with a neck-hold spinning throw—sharp and decisive—once again stunning Jiang Li and Zhou Zixuan.

In an instant, Chen Ming bounced up again.

Moments later, he was knocked down once more.

Repeatedly defeated, yet never giving up, the ghost-possessed Chen Ming knew no combat skills and could only take hits passively under Li Yu’s hands. The brutal process was painful to watch.

Jiang Li and Zhou Zixuan stood dumbfounded, even forgetting to step forward and help…