A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Inside the inn, Wei Dinggong let the purple-robed Taoist priest into the room, then instructed two young monks to guard the door before closing it.

"Her messenger just left, how come you're here now?"

"Green Hair's communication speed is always reliable. I haven't had much contact with you before, so to prevent any unforeseen problems, I'd better come and meet with you as soon as possible so we can discuss and finalize the itinerary."

The purple-robed Taoist priest felt warm all over. The half of his face that wasn't covered by his hair was flushed, as if he had just drunk a lot of wine and was tipsy, but there was no smell of alcohol.

After entering the room, he made no attempt to be polite, sitting directly on the bed with his left leg crossed over his right, his wrist resting on his left knee, and playing with the flute.

The host, Wei Dinggong, simply stood there, making no attempt to conceal his intention to bully the host.

This demeanor made Wei Dinggong frown slightly, feeling that it was exactly the same as that woman's style. He said, "Your attire is far too conspicuous. There are dozens of sects and hundreds of sorcerers living near the Zhenwu Temple. If someone sees you and spreads rumors, or even recognizes your identity, wouldn't I be completely exposed?"

The purple-robed Taoist's gaze remained fixed on his flute as he lazily replied, "That's why I chose to come late at night; at this hour, there's practically no one on the streets."

Wei Dinggong said with dissatisfaction, "Couldn't you have done something more subtle? Fine, since we're already here, let's get straight to the point and discuss the itinerary."

"The Ghost Festival Dharma Assembly is not far away. Tomorrow I will find an excuse to say that I have to go back to preside over the Ghost Festival Dharma Assembly in our area and say goodbye to the other monks. You change your clothes and stay at the inn for now. When it's time to leave, you can blend in with my disciples and travel together. Just don't run into those cunning and vicious old geezers like Monk Yanglian and Old Man Huangtou."

The purple-robed Taoist twirled the flute in his hand, not even raising his head, and listened to him finish speaking in a perfunctory manner before slowly saying, "But there's more than one person who came."

Wei Dinggong was annoyed, but patiently asked, "How many people are there?"

The purple-robed Taoist priest started counting on his fingers.

Wei Dinggong heard the sound of birds flapping their wings above and looked up.

The strange green-feathered bird was standing on the beam with its head tilted, staring at Wei Dinggong with its wide, bright, warm, and lively black and white eyes.

"Why did you come back again...?"

Before Wei Dinggong could finish speaking, he felt a numbness in his chest, and his voice went hoarse. He looked down and saw the white bone flute of the purple-robed Taoist pointing at his chest.

"What are you doing...?"

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. A strange feeling spread rapidly from the spot on his chest where the flute had struck him.

When this unfamiliar sensation reached the back of his head, Wei Dinggong even felt that his head was no longer his own; his consciousness became hazy and confused.

A moment later, the purple-robed Taoist put away his flute and raised his head.

The green-feathered bird's gaze shifted and met the purple-robed Taoist's eyes; their gazes were remarkably similar.

The strange bird swooped down and crashed into the face of the purple-robed Taoist, exploding into a cloud of emerald green smoke. The black hair that had been covering half of his face was blown up, revealing the scarred half of his face.

Immediately, the smoke split apart like small snakes, entering the purple-robed Taoist's nostrils and ears.

His black hair fell down again, and the purple-robed Taoist tapped Wei Dinggong's shoulder with his white bone flute.

"The answer to how many of us we've sent depends on how many of them have come. However, to be on the safe side, these people should definitely send people to guard various locations and keep an eye on the movements of the other factions. At most, no more than five will come looking for you here..."

………………

Guan Luoyang, Qiu Di, and Qiu Shi arrived at the residence and met with Daoist Zhiyuan of the Sanqing Temple.

"Shortly after Wei Dinggong and the others returned, a strange bird with an aura of supernatural powers flew through the roof and went inside to talk to him. I released a house-guarding insect to listen in, but to avoid alerting them, I didn't dare to get too close. I only managed to catch some fragments of their conversation when their emotions were fluctuating."

Master Zhiyuan said, "It is true that someone was secretly plotting to seize the token through a magical contest. They colluded with Master Weiding and were up to no good. However, they may not have much trust in each other. It seems that the secret treasury of Master Weiding's stone temple has already been emptied by them."

"Just now, another suspicious-looking Taoist priest in purple robes entered the inn, so I sent the Fragrance-Eating Ghost to report it."

It was no surprise that Wei Dinggong was a traitor within the righteous path; Guan Luoyang wasn't surprised. What concerned him was: "Daoist Master, you said they don't really trust each other?"

Master Zhiyuan nodded: "Judging from these few words, they must have been dealing with each other for many years, but they are still wary of each other. This is normal. Who would dare to completely trust someone like Wei Dinggong?"

Guan Luoyang raised his right eyebrow, seemingly lost in thought.

Qiu Di said disappointedly, "So, even that old bastard Wei Dinggong might not know their real plan and hideout?"

Qiu Shi then said, "To persuade a cunning old fox like Wei Dinggong to help, we need to use both coercion and bribery. They will at least reveal some things to sway Wei Dinggong. Besides, isn't there a purple-robed Taoist who comes to make contact in the dead of night? He probably knows even more."

Qiu Di found this reasonable and said, "Now that we've identified our target, why don't we call on more of our fellow disciples to help us capture them alive?"

Guan Luoyang objected: "No, we still need to keep an eye on the others, and we also need to keep enough people at the Zhenwu Temple in case something goes wrong. With just the few of us, we should act immediately. It would be best if we could capture them alive, but if we feel they pose a sufficient threat, we should not hesitate to kill them."

He patted Qiu Di on the shoulder and earnestly warned, "The Ghost Festival ceremony, which will be attended by high-ranking officials and princes, is imminent. Their scheme to deal with Zhenwu Temple and their fight to seize the order at this time are actually revealing the main plot of the whole conspiracy. So the specific details are not that important."

"The bigger the conspiracy, the easier it is to turn into an open confrontation. At that point, eliminating the opponent's manpower becomes the top priority."

"The more enemy experts we kill, the less risk we'll face in the future. It's a sure-fire way to make a profit."

Qiu Shi showed an expression of agreement, and his tone was unusually cold as he said, "Although important officials of the Ming Dynasty are protected by magical artifacts, Wei Dinggong may not be able to succeed in a surprise attack. However, the Qi-restricting technique is too uncertain at critical moments. Even if capturing him alive is secondary, killing him should be the priority."

Just as Qiu Di was about to nod, Daoist Zhiyuan's expression suddenly changed: "Oh no, my house-guarding bug has been killed."

Clang, clang, clang!

The inn's doors were wide open, and wine jars were smashed out, landing on the houses across the street. They shattered against the walls, crashed against the doors with a loud bang, and broke through the windows, filling the rooms with a pungent smell of alcohol.

The flames suddenly spread along the liquid.

The alcohol content of these liquors is actually not high, not enough to be used directly as fuel, but the flames that ignite them are strange. The core of the flame is bluish-white, while only the outermost layer of flame is orange-red and has a smell similar to saltpeter.

The fire was extremely fierce, and it quickly seeped in through the cracks in the doors, windows, and roof.

The heat was intense, almost oppressive.

Bang! !

The front and back doors of the house were almost simultaneously blasted open.

The back door was smashed open by Qiu Di, who carried an elderly couple who originally lived in the house out.

The front gate was kicked open by Guan Luoyang, and the two door panels shattered into pieces, flying towards the inn across the street and knocking down several young monks in the inn's lobby.

The inn had long been booked by Wei Dinggong, and it was full of his disciples. As soon as the young monks fell, the older monks, their faces ashen, began to gesticulate wildly, unleashing venomous snake-shaped magical weapons that flew towards the houses.

Guan Luoyang lifted his eyelids, taking in the trajectory of all the venomous snakes as they flew. He placed his left hand on the scabbard and his right hand on the hilt of his sword. With a stomp of his foot, he traversed the street, brushing past the venomous snakes that filled the air.

With a single step across the street, Guan Luoyang drew his sword and disappeared into the inn.

In the middle of the street, most of the venomous snake artifacts were severed by Guan Luoyang's sword, turning into shriveled snake skins that fell to the ground.

A few venomous snakes flew into the house. Master Zhiyuan held three incense sticks and bowed. Ghostly figures surrounded him, and a strong wind blew, causing the flames to dim and blowing all the venomous snakes away.

The originally supple and delicate snakeskin became dry and cracked after being swept by the cold wind, and broke apart wherever it hit the ground.

The magical artifacts refined by these younger generations are utterly insignificant compared to those of Daoist Zhiyuan.

However, when his yin wind suppressed those strange flames, instead of extinguishing them like ordinary flames, they surged from all directions as if stimulated, all converging on Daoist Zhiyuan.

Even the flames on the roof seemed to "swim" down like living things. The flames, which originally looked like they were going to burn the whole house down, all gathered inside the house to about five feet, forming a winding wall of fire.

Qiu Shi swung his longsword, which swept past the wall of fire. Surprisingly, the steel blade was covered with a layer of flames, just like dry firewood, which was difficult to remove.

It's easy to imagine that if they tried to force their way through this wall of fire, they would be engulfed in flames, their skin and flesh pierced through.

This is similar to the poisonous fire of the Master of Forbidden Lights. Although the temperature and toxicity seem to be much less than those of the Master of Forbidden Lights, the fire is started with alcohol and spontaneously gathers around, without even needing the arsonist to deliberately guide it.

Such ingenuity conceals profound mastery of magic and poison, something that even the master of forbidden lamps could not achieve.

"This type of poisonous fire seems to be particularly effective against your Zhenwu Temple's Seven Star Illusion Lamp Spell?"

Master Zhiyuan fed the ghosts with incense, and the ghostly figures around him emitted a large amount of yin energy, which eroded the fire wall. His face showed hidden anger. "Brother Jiuhe also has remnants of this kind of injury on his body."

Qiu Shi's left-hand lantern swayed, and the light and shadow on his face were uncertain due to the firelight. Under such intense interference, the Seven Star Illusion Lantern Spell was greatly reduced in effectiveness.

"The resources and magical expertise behind the painstaking research into this poisonous fire are indeed formidable, but this fire is definitely not the main cause of my uncle's death..."

Qiu Shi plunged his sword into the ground, switched his right hand to hold the lantern, and made a hand seal with his left hand. With his sleeves fluttering, his figure split in two.

At first glance, the two autumn stones are indistinguishable from the real thing, and the lanterns have also become two, one sweeping to the left and the other sweeping to the right.

The lantern crashed into the wall of fire, like a whale sucking in water; the poisonous fire, carrying the smell of gunpowder, was all drawn into the lantern.

The two lanterns each spun half a circle before colliding and merging into one, absorbing all the flames inside and outside the house.

"Taoist Master, go help Qiu Hong."

Qiu Shi carried a lantern and hurried along, scaling walls and alleys, leaping across rooftops and moving swiftly until he reached a point three miles away.

The water was deep and turbid, and under the moonlight, a lantern was thrown into the middle of the river.

Whoosh!

The flames spread out and, even in the water, were not immediately extinguished. Several minutes later, they were washed away and dimmed by the continuous flow of water.

If it weren't for this river, this toxic fire could have burned down the houses of seven or eight innocent people if it had spread. In the worst-case scenario, it could have even developed into a major fire that affected the entire street.

However, this troublesome solution was simply because Qiu Shi's Seven Star Illusion Lamp Spell was not powerful enough.

If Jiuhe were here, with his seven bodies and seven lamps appearing together, even if the scale of the poisonous fire were several times larger, it would only be absorbed into the lanterns, thus amplifying the divine power of the righteous lamp flames.

"The only reason my martial uncle couldn't even escape was because there was someone with significantly higher strength, someone truly stronger than him, also lying in ambush..."

Qiu Shi sprinted back, a rocket-shaped flame flicking from his sleeve.

As the fireworks exploded in the night sky, most of the twenty Taoist priests who had remained at the Zhenwu Temple on the mountain immediately set off down the mountain.

At this moment, Master Zhiyuan had already arrived at the inn across the street. The inn's lobby was filled with monks lying on the ground with broken calves and knees.

Some were already unconscious, while others, with pale faces and wide-open eyes, crawled on their hands, seemingly oblivious to the pain of being dragged along the hard stone floor by their broken legs.

All the monks had stiff facial features, almost unlike flesh and blood, and instead resembled cork statues covered with green bark.

The broken limbs and bone injuries on these people were clearly caused by Guan Luoyang.

But Guan Luoyang would never turn a living person's body into such a grotesque, unconscious form.

"It's a form of black magic that uses a burrowing insect to penetrate the back of the neck, attach to the cervical bone, and turn a person into a walking corpse."

Master Zhiyuan felt a sudden tremor in his heart.

He released a house-guarding insect that looked like a white flying ant to gather information in the inn. Before the insect died, the monks were all normal. But the instant the house-guarding insect died, Wei Dinggong's more than twenty disciples were all cursed and turned into this state.

These people are no ordinary people. To be brought to the Zhenwu Temple by Wei Dinggong, they must have all cultivated some magical power and can be considered true sorcerers.

In the blink of an eye, he took the lives of more than twenty sorcerers, turning them into his puppets. Throughout the entire Southeast Asia, there are very few who can master the art of black magic to this extent.

Everything was completely different from what Master Zhiyuan and his group had expected. They had come to set a trap to arrest the mole after discovering his identity, but it seemed that these people had been used as pawns by the other side first.

Why? If they had noticed the Zhenwu Temple's actions beforehand, then notifying Wei Dinggong to flee would have been the right choice.

Why would they abandon these sorcerers and take the initiative to provoke them? What is their purpose?

Just as Master Zhiyuan was stunned, a figure crashed through the second-floor railing and fell down.

Master Zhiyuan looked closely and realized that it was none other than Master Wei Ding.

This monk, who usually had a high nose and bright eyes and an excellent appearance, now had a bluish face, numb features, his right hand was still bandaged, and his intact left arm had been severed by a sharp knife. Despite the large wound, no blood gushed out; only dark blood flowed out slowly.

Two pythons were coiled around his body. One of them had its head cut off and was slowly shriveling up. The other python bit anyone it saw and suddenly opened its mouth wide, flying towards Daoist Zhiyuan.

As Master Zhiyuan flicked the incense pill to deal with the python's pounce, he leaped backward and glimpsed the scene inside the dilapidated room on the second floor.

Tables, chairs, beds, and cabinets collapsed or shattered. Guan Luoyang raised his long sword and blocked a white bone flute that was being swung at him.

The purple-robed Taoist, who was feeling warm all over, wasn't drunk from drinking too much. Rather, before he even met Wei Dinggong, his potential had been unleashed at any cost, causing his internal organs to surge, his blood to accelerate, and every blood vessel to endure double the impact.

At the moment his thrust collided with Guan Luoyang's longsword, a layer of white steam even rose from his hair.

"With two major achievements in martial arts and the ability to cultivate magical power, let me see just how strong you really are, this suddenly appearing figure!"