Chapter 168: Chapter 168: Searching for Evil
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Yellow Mud Fortress.
Stepping through the filthy puddles on the ground, Wang Chen stopped in front of a stone fortress.
This was the seventh day of his participation in the Cloud Sun Sect’s Cleansing Realm Operation.
Over the past few days, his team had checked four Loose Cultivator city strongholds, one after another.
Yellow Mud Fortress was the fifth.
The location of this stronghold was quite remote, with a rather harsh environment surrounding it. Inside, a large number of mortals lived among chaotically arranged buildings, giving the place the feel of a slum within the world of immortal cultivation.
The dusty roads were littered with garbage and permeated with a foul stench!
By comparison, even the Outer Sect of the Cloud Sun Sect seemed like heaven.
Wang Chen raised his hand and knocked on the firmly closed door from afar, “Cloud Sun disciple conducting a search for evil cultivators, please open the door!”
Unlike the Five Tiger Stockade, although there were not a few cultivators living in Yellow Mud Fortress, their overall strength was much weaker.
The fortress didn’t even have a Defense Array.
Therefore, faced with the pressure of the Cloud Sun Flying Warship, the cultivator leader in control of Yellow Mud Fortress knelt on the spot.
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There was no resistance, no escape, just a complete surrender.
The task of the Sunset Peak disciples like Wang Chen was to check every house within the fortress for hidden evil cultivators.
After a moment, the thick door creaked open, and a sallow-faced woman bowed to Wang Chen, “Greetings to the Upper Cultivator.”
A gleam flickered in Wang Chen’s eyes as he asked, “Is it just you here?”
This woman was also a Qi Cultivation cultivator.
But she was only at the second level, and her spirit seemed fatigued and weak, probably ailing.
At that moment, a little girl, about six or seven years old, timidly peeked out from behind the cultivator woman.
A melon-seed face, big eyes, red lips and white teeth, with two small braids.
If she could change into better clothes, she could be a beauty.
Upon meeting Wang Chen’s gaze, she immediately pulled back her head.
The woman cultivator was clearly anxious and did not answer Wang Chen’s question.
Instead, she shielded her daughter behind her.
An idea crossed Wang Chen’s mind, and he stepped into the house.
Stone fortresses were a common structure in Loose Cultivator strongholds, made by piling up mud and solidified with Mudstone Technique into a semi-circular shape, then outfitted with a few small windows for ventilation and lighting.
Similar to a bunker.
The advantage of these dwellings was that they were easy to build, very sturdy after being reinforced with Mudstone Technique, and had good defensive capabilities.
The most important aspect was that they were cheap to construct.
Of course, living conditions left much to be desired, with the interior being dark, damp, and with an odd smell.
The yellow-faced woman’s house was small, and Wang Chen searched inside and out, but found no sign of other people.
The home was poor, lacking even a few decent pieces of furniture.
Wang Chen withdrew his gaze and looked towards the mother and daughter huddled in the corner of the room.
He flicked his wrist and produced an Evil-Detection Talisman!
The purpose of the Evil-Detection Talisman was to detect evil power, which could be effective against Evil Wraiths and evil cultivators.
The talisman Wang Chen held was issued by the sect, specifically for this cleansing mission!
As the talisman silently burst open, flecks of Spiritual Light infused with Pure Yang Qi enveloped the yellow-faced woman and the little girl behind her in an instant.
Neither exhibited any abnormality.
This meant they were both normal.
However, Wang Chen acutely noted the woman’s expression of relief.
Although she quickly realized something was amiss and immediately controlled her expression,
her inner emotions were still unmistakably revealed.
Without changing his expression, Wang Chen asked, “Do you have a hidden room here?”
The yellow-faced woman hastily replied, “No, there isn’t.”
Lying!
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Loose Cultivators in the Outer Domain often faced threats from Evil Wraiths, Monster Beasts, and bandits. They banded together for self-preservation, building stone fortresses. How could they possibly not dig secret rooms and tunnels for hiding and escape?
When the Five Tiger Stockade was inspected previously, quite a few Evil Cultivators and thieves hidden underground were dug out!
Wang Chen didn’t call out the other party’s lie, but suddenly lifted his foot and stomped heavily on the ground.
Boom!
A muffled sound echoed as the entire stone fortress violently trembled, and a shower of dust cascaded down.
The next moment, a stone slab several steps away from Wang Chen lifted up high.
Revealing the dark tunnel below!
In terms of skill in digging tunnels and constructing hidden rooms, if Wang Chen claimed to be second, no one in the Cloud Sun Sect could claim to be first.
So the other party’s lie was meaningless and only exposed her guilty conscience.
“Ah!”
Seeing such a scene, the yellow-faced female cultivator couldn’t help but scream, her complexion turning deathly pale in an instant.
Wang Chen reached out, pushed the stone slab aside, and asked in a deep voice toward the tunnel, “Do you plan to hide in there for a lifetime?”
He had already sensed the presence of a third person below!
No sooner had Wang Chen’s words fallen than a dark figure burst out from the tunnel below, flicking dots of cold light toward him.
Wang Chen was undoubtedly the primary target.
But, even the mother-and-daughter pair beside him were within the range of the hidden weapon’s attack.
It was indeed ruthlessly extreme!
“Die!”
Without a second thought, Wang Chen met the oncoming hidden weapons with a Vajra Fist!
His Heavenly Dragon Vajra Method had already been cultivated to the fourth level, his body refinement was so strong that it was comparable to the Purple Mansion, and combined with the Grandmaster-level Vajra Fist, he was virtually invincible in close combat.
Common magic artifact-level hidden weapons might be formidable against ordinary cultivators.
But for Wang Chen, who had achieved Great Achievement in body refinement, they weren’t even qualified to scratch an itch, his fist’s force surged forth, extinguishing the cold light, and blasted all of the assailant’s attacks right back.
Bang!
The attacker was like being hit head-on by a ten-thousand-pound hammer. His body curled up like a cooked shrimp, his chest and abdomen were concave, and gods knew how many bones had been broken.
He was actually blasted back into the tunnel by Wang Chen’s punch from afar!
“Don’t!”
The yellow-faced female cultivator, as if waking from a dream, cried out as she fell to her knees in front of Wang Chen, pleading, “Upper Cultivator, spare his life, he didn’t mean to offend, please show mercy!”
As she spoke, she frantically opened her Storage Bag, “I have Spirit Stones, I have, all for you…”
Wang Chen silently shook his head and immediately activated his Magical Armor, diving into the tunnel ahead.
This tunnel was short, leading to an underground secret room.
Wang Chen fell into the secret room and, with a flick of his hand, threw out an Evil-Detection Talisman.
With the help of the exploding Spiritual Light, he saw the situation inside the secret room clearly.
The secret room wasn’t large and had a bed set up. There lay a middle-aged man on the ground with a twisted face.
His mouth and nose bled and his expression was fierce, his eyes filled with a grievous and poisonous gaze.
When the light from the Evil-Detection Talisman landed on the middle-aged man, wisps of grey fog immediately started to emanate from his body.
With such a situation, it was either possession by an Evil Wraith or a long-standing immersion in Evil Power!
The Evil-Detection Talisman didn’t have any destructive power, but the middle-aged man acted as if he had suffered enormous damage. At the moment when the Spiritual Light touched him, he couldn’t help but let out a piercing scream.
He abruptly leaped up, lunging at Wang Chen like a bolt of lightning.
His hands sprung out with claws several inches long!
However, a large net suddenly unfolded in front of Wang Chen, enveloping the menacing middle-aged man within it.
The scream resounded once again.
Much more terrifying!
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