I'm invincible once I descend the mountain; the beautiful CEO is forcing me to get our marriage

The sound echoed in the darkness, then quickly vanished without a trace.

Anya stood there, feeling the pervasive chill grow even stronger. She opened her mouth, wanting to ask something, but found that the figure in front of her had already gone far away. She could only grit her teeth and continue to follow, stumbling along.

The passage is much longer than I imagined.

I don't know how long I walked, maybe the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, maybe longer, but the impenetrable darkness before me finally showed a slight change.

There is light ahead.

It wasn't lamplight, but a hazy, dim light, like the pale light that only appears on a cloudy day.

The two quickened their pace, and when they reached the end of the passage, the path beneath their feet came to an abrupt end.

They were standing on the edge of a cliff.

Anya's pupils contracted sharply, and she instinctively looked down.

That one glance left her completely stunned.

Below the cliff, there was actually a city.

A vast, yet utterly silent, underground ancient town.

Green tiles and flying eaves, crisscrossing streets, and rows of houses stretching to the horizon, shrouded in a gray mist.

But the entire town was dark, without a sound, not even a breeze.

This place is like a giant tomb forgotten by time, so quiet it's unsettling.

"Where...is this place?" Anya's voice was a little hoarse.

"A small town."

Ye An's answer was calm. He leaped into the air, his body as light as a weightless leaf, and floated down towards the town dozens of meters below.

Anya's eyelids twitched at the sight. Without thinking too much, she quickly found a few protruding rocks on the cliff and climbed down using both her hands and feet.

The feeling of deathly stillness intensified as my feet stepped onto the solid bluestone path.

The deserted streets and closed shops exuded an indescribable eeriness.

Anya instinctively gripped the dagger in her hand, warily surveying her surroundings.

She pushed open the half-closed wooden door of a nearby house, and a musty, stale smell wafted out.

The room was dimly lit and contained no tables, chairs, or pots and pans.

There were only a few dozen paper figures standing inside the room.

These paper figures are over a meter tall, dressed in ancient clothes. There are men and women, young and old, and their faces are all painted with an extremely eerie smile. Their eyes, drawn with ink dots, are staring straight at the direction of the door.

"hiss……"

Anya gasped, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

She mustered her courage and walked inside, bypassing the paper figures, and turned her gaze to the main hall of the house.

There, three black coffins were prominently displayed.

Paper figures, coffins.

The scene resembled a silent funeral in progress.

Ye An also walked in, ignoring the lifelike paper figures, and went straight to one of the coffins.

He reached out and gently pushed the black coffin lid.

"Squeak—"

A piercing scraping sound rang out in the deathly silent room, sounding particularly eerie.

The coffin lid was opened a crack.

Anya nervously leaned closer and peeked inside.

empty.

There was nothing in the coffin.

Just as she was feeling confused, an extreme sense of danger suddenly came from behind her!

Anya felt a chill run down her spine. She grabbed Ye An's arm tightly, her voice low and trembling.

"Don't move!"

"That paper figure in the corner...it's looking at me! Its eyes just moved!"

She hadn't finished speaking.

The paper doll she pointed out, dressed in a green silk dress, trembled violently.

Immediately afterwards, its head turned at an eerie 180-degree angle, its smiling face facing Anya.

Its limbs were bent backward at an angle that completely defied the laws of physics, and its whole body lay on the ground like a spider ready to hunt its prey. With a chilling wind, it pounced on Anya like lightning!

This happened so fast!

Anya reacted extremely quickly, almost instinctively sliding to the side and narrowly avoiding the fatal blow by keeping her body close to the ground.

As she rolled to her feet, she reversed her grip on the specially made dagger and used it to block the paper figure's outstretched arm.

"clang!"

A crisp sound.

Anya felt an immense force, far beyond what a piece of paper should possess, emanating from the dagger. The shock made her hands go numb, and she uncontrollably staggered back seven or eight steps before her back slammed heavily against the wall and came to a stop.

She quickly steadied herself and shouted at Ye An, who was still standing in the same spot.

"Watch out! Something's wrong with this!"

Ye An acted as if he hadn't heard, and didn't even raise his hand.

He simply watched with interest the paper figure crawling on all fours, watching it pounce on Anya again in a bizarre manner, and a flash of understanding appeared in his pale golden eyes.

He spoke softly, his tone carrying a hint of inquiry, as if he were talking to himself.

"So that's how it is. It's not a ghost, but puppetry."

"Using paper to carry soul thoughts and drive people to kill... This ancient cultivator's method is quite interesting."

Anya took a deep breath, her fingertips trembling slightly, and channeled her internal energy into the dagger like flowing water.

With a flash of cold light, she slashed fiercely at the elusive paper figure.

The feeling of the blade cutting into flesh was somewhat strange, as if it were cutting into a thick layer of waterlogged skin.

The paper figure made a muffled sound like tearing cloth, and a charred gash appeared on its chest.

It was struck by the immense force and flew backward, landing lightly yet heavily in front of Ye An, its painted eyes seemingly staring intently at the two of them.

The paper figure in the green skirt made a strange "rustling" sound as its limbs rubbed against the ground. Its entire body transformed into a green shadow and pounced again!

This time, Ye An finally made a move.

He didn't look at the fiercely attacking paper figure, nor did he even glance at Anya, who was on high alert.

He simply raised his right hand slowly, bringing his index and middle fingers together, as if he were holding an invisible sword.

At the fingertips, a streak of crimson light appeared out of thin air, like a burning spark, standing out conspicuously in the dim room.

"Imperial Edict!"

A single word escaped his lips.

hum!

A slight tremor ran through the air.

A palm-sized talisman, entirely composed of crimson flames, materialized out of thin air and shot out like an arrow.

The talisman was moving faster than Anya's dynamic visual limits; she only saw a red line flash by.

In the next instant, the crimson talisman landed precisely on the forehead of the female paper figure.

"Sizzle—"

It looked as if boiling oil had been poured onto the snow.

Crimson flames erupted from the center of the talisman!

The raging flames instantly engulfed the entire paper figure.

"grumble--!"

A piercing scream, not belonging to a human being at all, burst forth from the flames.

The paper figure twisted and struggled wildly in the flames, its limbs flailing wildly, but it was unable to extinguish the flames on its body.

In just two or three seconds.

The monster, which had been so ferocious just moments before, and whose defenses were impenetrable even to a specially made dagger, was completely reduced to a wisp of smoke and vanished into the air amidst the flames.

Only a small clump of black ash remained in the original spot.

Within the flames, there seemed to be an extremely ethereal and faint human figure that flashed by in an instant.

Anya stood frozen in place, holding the dagger, her mouth slightly open, unable to close it for a long time.

That's it...?

She could see clearly that Ye An had only moved two fingers and uttered one word from beginning to end.

Then, the monster that posed a deadly threat to her was burned to ashes?

This is outrageous!

It was within Anya's expectations that Ye An was highly skilled in martial arts and adept at dealing with other martial artists.

But the fact that he handled these strange and evil spirits with such ease was truly beyond her expectations.

She turned her head sharply, looking at Ye An in disbelief, her beautiful almond-shaped eyes filled with shock.

"What...what is this? Are you using a Taoist talisman?"

She had heard that the young Taoist priest from Longhu Mountain had also come this time.

If she hadn't been so certain that Ye An could never be a Taoist priest, she would have almost doubted his identity.

"More or less."

Ye An walked to the pile of ashes, his expression indifferent, as if he had just casually swatted a mosquito.

"These paper figures are puppets, each containing a remnant soul stripped from a living person, which drives their actions."

As he spoke, he casually pushed open the lid of another black lacquered coffin next to him.

"And inside these coffins are their true owners."

Anya leaned closer to take a look, and her heart skipped a beat.

Inside the coffin lay a male body dressed in ancient clothing, with a lifelike face and skin that even retained a slight elasticity, as if he had just fallen asleep.

But there was no trace of human life in him.

A well-preserved corpse.

Just as Anya was still processing this incredibly shocking information...

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The dull, oppressive, yet highly rhythmic sound of drumming came from the depths of the ancient town without warning.

The sound seemed not to be heard through the ears, but rather struck directly on everyone's heart, causing their heartbeats to involuntarily follow its rhythm, making their chests feel tight and as if they were about to vomit blood.

The moment the drumbeats sounded.

A sudden change has occurred!

"Crunch..."

A soft, teeth-grinding sound.

Anya turned around abruptly and saw that the sleeping male body in the coffin that Ye An had just pushed open suddenly opened its eyelids!

Those were empty, lifeless eyes, devoid of any focus.

Immediately afterwards, like a puppet on strings, he stiffly sat up from the coffin!

At the same time, the lid of the remaining coffin in the room was also pushed open from the inside with a "bang," and another female body, with equally empty eyes, slowly sat up.

Holy crap!

Anya's scalp instantly flared up, and a chill shot from her tailbone straight to the top of her head.

She instinctively looked out the window.

That one glance made her blood almost freeze.

On the street, the wooden doors of the houses that were originally closed were now slowly pushed open from the inside.

One, two, ten, hundreds...

Hundreds and thousands of expressionless, stiff-moving "townspeople" emerged from their coffins, forming a silent flow of people, and walked step by step toward the direction from which the drumbeats came.

The entire silent ancient town seemed to come alive at this moment.

This scene is more shocking and eerie than any horror movie!

However, Ye An's reaction was completely different from hers.

His eyes lit up at that moment.

From the direction of the drumbeats, he clearly sensed several powerful fluctuations of true energy colliding violently, accompanied by the sounds of intense battle.

"The first group of people to come in are over there."

"Let's go take a look."

Ye An left behind a sentence, completely ignoring the walking corpses passing by, and took the lead in following the huge "townspeople" procession.

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

Anya snapped out of her daze and was about to follow when a chilling aura, even more biting than before, rushed towards her.

The yin energy emanating from the awakened "townspeople" gathered together, causing the temperature in this space to drop sharply. Her protective energy was being consumed at an alarming rate under the corrosive influence of this cold energy.

She hesitated for only a moment before her body stiffened.

Ye An seemed to notice her predicament and glanced at her.

Anya gritted her teeth and could only desperately muster her strength to catch up quickly.

Something strange happened.

When she approached within three steps of Ye An, a faint, warm aura gently enveloped her.

The Yin energy that could freeze the soul was instantly shut out and vanished the moment it came into contact with this aura, as if it had encountered its nemesis.

The almost frozen energy within her body began to flow smoothly again.

Anya was deeply shocked.

She looked up at the composed figure in front of her, her heart filled with mixed emotions.

"If you don't keep up, I'm leaving."

Ye An uttered a sentence without turning his head.

"Hmph, always doing unnecessary things!"

Anya blushed, scolded him playfully, but her feet followed him without hesitation.

They seem quite happy...

……

at the same time.

On a long street deep in the ancient town.

"Hold on! Everyone hold on! We can't kill all these bastards!"

He Zhenshan was covered in blood, his true energy surging. He punched a paper figure that pounced on him and smashed it to pieces. He roared at the remaining team members behind him.

This top team from Wudong Province was in a terrible state at this moment.

The team, which originally consisted of dozens of people, now has less than thirty. The three Grandmaster-level experts at the Celestial Realm are now deathly pale, clearly having exhausted their true essence and physical strength to the limit.

"Second Uncle! What kind of hellhole is this?! Where are the immortal ruins?! All I see are these endless paper figures! Where's the treasure?"

He Fei, as a martial artist of the Transformation Realm, was already at his limit.

He swung his knife and felled a paper figure. Before he could catch his breath, another paper figure silently approached, and a withered hand flashed out and grabbed his arm.

In a moment of carelessness, he was unable to dodge in time and was about to be torn to shreds by the sharp paper claws.

"Xiao Fei!"

He Zhenshan's eyes were bloodshot, and he roared in anger.

His inner energy erupted without reservation, instantly shaking off the paper figures that were attacking him. With a flash, he struck first, delivering a powerful palm strike to the chest of the paper figure that had ambushed He Fei.

"Bang!"

The paper figure exploded into countless fragments.

He Fei was saved, but He Zhenshan himself suffered a deep, bone-revealing wound on his back from the sharp claws of another paper figure, and blood instantly stained his clothes.

"Second Uncle!" He Fei exclaimed.

"Stop talking nonsense!" He Zhenshan, enduring the excruciating pain, pulled him behind him. "Follow me, charge in! Staying here means certain death!"

He led the remaining troops in a desperate final breakout towards the center of the battle, where the fighting was most intense.

……

Ye An and Anya followed the large procession of "townspeople" at a leisurely pace, passing through several deserted streets.

Soon, the figures of He Zhenshan and his group, struggling to break through the encirclement, came into their view.

Anya gasped when she saw the team's miserable state, and was about to say something.

Ye An, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped.

He didn't look at the fierce battle ahead, but slowly raised his head and cast his gaze at the end of the street, where a towering black drum tower stood.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

Just as He Zhenshan and the others were giving it their all and were about to break through the encirclement of the paper figures,

The "town dwellers" who had gathered from all directions had arrived.

With expressionless faces and synchronized movements, they formed an impenetrable human wall on the street, completely blocking He Zhenshan and his group's last escape route.

Despair instantly enveloped the surviving team.

Behind that cold wall of people, Ye An and Anya's figures quietly appeared.