Chapter 48: All Evil Will Ultimately Be Brought To Justice By Black Cat Sheriff!
Clear out the corpse ghosts outside the door, Yuan Zhu rushed into Vajra Temple in one breath, the Yellow Springs Buddha Rhyme (Polluted Aura) unique to this place surged more than tenfold, the shadow rifts that were originally clearly visible in his eyes now became blurry and gradually drifted away, difficult to grasp…
“Eh? Can’t exploit the bug anymore.”
Entering Vajra Temple was like stepping into another away ground domain, suppressed everywhere by invisible forces. It was beyond his capabilities to casually toss corpse ghosts into the Shadow World to trap them to death like outside the door.
“Boss, be careful! This place is even more sinister than the Sacrifice Hall back then. Once you enter the temple gate, it’s like entering another independent space. Fortunately, it’s not completely sealed on the physical level; if you throw a stone toward the wall outside, the stone can still fly out. If we can’t win, let’s just flee with abandon. Don’t worry, they can’t stop us!”
The Game Sprite confidently chickened out, planning for defeat before victory. In terms of fleeing, she was no weaker than her own master!
Tiger Demon nodded, looking at the group of corpse ghosts that noticed the door being breached and were surrounding and killing over one after another. He muttered: “If you put it that way, then I do have a way!”
Buddha Corpse Ghost led the elites in the temple to surround and attack Buddha Tomato, but at this time in Vajra Temple, there were still a large number of corpse ghost monks stationed at the lair, with no lack of premium ones mixed in.
For example, the Snail Zen Master who had just run out of the temple to gaze at the stars had the ability to break illusions and even hid other trump cards, but unfortunately hadn’t made a move before being thrown into the Shadow Dimension.
Now, the Four-Armed Arhat guarding in front of the stone bridge, and the Two-Headed Monster Monk on the opposite shore of the pond, were both elite monsters in the eyes of the Immortal Scripture.
The pollution index in their bodies was more than ten times that of ordinary corpse ghosts, already enough to threaten him in Tiger Demon Form.
However, this group of corpse ghosts was long dead through and through, their brains rotted. Even if successfully restarted by Yellow Springs pollution, they had little intelligence and lacked tactical methods, so dealing with them wasn’t too difficult.
Tiger Demon charged forward at this moment, a Shadow Wind rising around his body, sweeping the entire field and repelling and blowing away all the Yellow Springs corpse qi on them.
At the same time, a claw reached out, shadow power like black mist surging and erupting, gathering and shaping between the tiger claws into a massive shadow claw that flew several meters, seizing a corpse ghost.
Then Tiger Demon unleashed full power, swinging his arm in a flipping motion, simultaneously driving that pitch-black shadow claw to hurl the corpse ghost out of the courtyard wall like throwing a baseball.
Caught off guard, this corpse ghost was really thrown out by it. With a ‘bang!’, it smashed onto the ground outside the courtyard wall.
“Haha, it worked!”
Yuan Zhu was overjoyed; thanks to the Game Sprite’s timid cowardice, she had planned an escape route early on, allowing him to seize this flaw in Vajra Temple.
Ao! Roar! Wa wa wa!
One by one, multi-armed corpse ghosts waved dharma palms, unleashing attacks infused with death qi, forcing Tiger Demon to dodge and shift positions repeatedly, while sharp claws shot out wind blades and shadow blades in retaliation.
Four-Armed Corpse Ghost launched with a spring, swiftly killing to his front, a pair of thick dharma palms pinching seals, drawing strong death qi to form a dharma seal that continuously bombarded, each palm faster than the last, constantly smashing onto Tiger Demon’s pitch-black rough fur.
Tiger Demon’s fur looked sleek and smooth from afar, but up close each hair was rough and hard, interwoven into a layer of hard fur padding that effectively dispersed and resolved force impacts; when the attack transferred to the thick tiger skin, it was another layer of tough defense.
Four-Armed Corpse Ghost’s Buddha Seal palm strikes continuously hit, causing Yuan Zhu excruciating pain, but after the momentary agony faded, he surprisingly found it was just a little painful.
The Yellow Springs pollution contained in those attacks hadn’t even breached Tiger Demon’s most basic defense, let alone the ‘Soul Firewall’ serving as inner armor.
“Roar!”
With an angry roar, a claw counter-struck, slapping onto the Four-Armed Corpse Ghost at close range. The opponent hurriedly turned dharma palms to block in front of its chest, but was still slapped flying by Tiger Demon’s paw, smashing cannonball-like into the nearby rockery.
Such powerful power?!
Yuan Zhu looked down and flipped his tiger claw; this body’s power was simply heaven-defying!
“Roar roar roar!”
Kitten rampage!
While roaring in fury, he repeatedly swung claws to sweep the ground, tearing and cutting the thick stone slab floor, flipping up chunks of crushed stone, and under Summon Wind’s acceleration, turning them into cannonballs that shot out, knocking approaching corpse ghosts flying backward one after another.
Is this the joy of claw sharpening?
The nails didn’t hurt at all, instead giving a mysterious pleasurable sensation. Thus Tiger Demon dug even more demonically like a kitten, movements blurring into afterimages, flipping and shredding countless thick stone slabs and chunks, leaving deep cutting marks.
A claw swung out, Shadow Wind and shadows intermingling to form an energy tiger claw that shot out again for the kill, slicing corpse ghosts into scattered chunks all over the ground.
Splash splash splash! Splash splash splash!
Waves of tidal surging sounds rose, on the opposite shore of the nearby small pond, that Two-Headed Monster Monk pressed palms together in front of its chest, legs spread wide in horse stance, then upper body tilted to the left, right leg lifted high, and stomped down hard.
After repeating this action multiple times, the calm small pond grew increasingly turbulent under his push, ultimately surging up two-meter-high waves of turbid Yellow Springs water that flipped high out of the pond, smashing onto the ground and splashing onto those corpse ghost remains.
The shattered flesh chunks rapidly absorbed the Yellow Springs turbid water, attracting each other and reassembling into complete corpse ghosts, emitting even stronger filthy aura.
They too pressed palms together in front, raising a third limb dharma palm high, once more drawing a strand of turbid water from the pond to entwine their bodies, charging at the intruder.
“Boss, quickly try your close combat talent! Direct melee fierce combat isn’t worth it, you’re at too much of a disadvantage!”
The Game Sprite hurriedly reminded: although you are a big tiger, your bloodline supernatural abilities have all been twisted by pollution into a magic system; frontal hard clash isn’t worth it. Stop kitten claw scratching, how much power is that? Quickly try attack-type supernatural abilities!
Under the Game Sprite’s reminder, Yuan Zhu noticed the full-of-question-marks [?? Claw ??], this supernatural ability clearly full of unknown flaws and loopholes. If possible, he really didn’t plan to use it directly, but test it first in a safe area.
[Claw]!
But as the Game Sprite said, this seemed to be Tiger Demon’s only close combat fierce combat supernatural ability, perfectly suited to the current situation.
So he tried activating it, and shadow power rapidly poured into a pair of forelimbs. Cool energy circulated in the finger bones, then sharp tiger claws began violently lengthening, like Wolverine shooting metal blades, tiger claw nails popping out five dagger-like sharp bone blades.
Not only did the nails lengthen dramatically and become incomparably sharp, large amounts of white jade skeleton material identical to the Snake Tail grew upward against the tiger claws, forming a ferocious exoskeleton arm armor unified in style with the skeleton tail, firmly protecting the claws, forearms, and forelimbs.
Yuan Zhu’s mind flooded with information: as long as he continued injecting magic power, his hind limbs, even body and head, would sprout this sharp, razor-edged exoskeleton armor full of ferocious bone blades and barbs, evolving into [Skeleton Garurumon. Kitten Edition]!
“Holy crap, kinda cool!”
Yellow Springs corpse ghost sneaked close for attack, Tiger Demon raised claw to block. Without much force, just letting the arm armor grown with sharp skeleton barbs clash with the corpse ghost’s dharma palm easily pierced the opponent’s flesh arm, while the exoskeleton armor left a puddle of Yellow Springs water, emitting sizzling corrosion sounds.
Snap!
Arm slightly exerted force, using the sharp bone claws to easily tear the corpse ghost into upper and lower halves, then exploded mid-air by Snake Tail whip. Yuan Zhu looked at the rapidly self-repairing skeleton arm armor, and the Yellow Springs turbid water still stubbornly corroding and decomposing the jade bones.
Two utterly different polluting energies clashed, eroding and neutralizing each other with sizzling corrosion sounds. Clearly, his Shadow Power was far inferior to Yellow Springs Buddha Rhyme.
This was not only due to ‘shadow pollution < Yellow Springs pollution', but also his lack of a complete supernatural system, Tiger Demon Template not as intact as Buddhist Cultivation system; plus fighting away from home ground, suppressed by the greater environment.
Fortunately, he didn’t lack polluting energy, multiple bloodline talents stacking to close the gaps, and crushing on intelligence level.
He twisted his tiger body, the skeleton Snake Tail behind suddenly lengthening and whipping out, escaping into the ground shadow and vanishing, then reconverging into a water-bucket-thick half-body Shadow Snake Demon that charged out the temple door, burrowing into ground crevices to connect with the outer Shadow Dimension.
At this moment, he was like Evangelion Unit-01 with a power cord in its butt. No more worrying about spiritual energy (energy), he could output freely.
[Claw] Max!
Dual arm skeleton armor surged and thickened into heavy armor, even more ferocious. Simultaneously rapidly covering shoulder armor, converging left and right at the spine. Hind limbs also grew matching skeleton shells, then covering whole body and head, with two long saber-tooth tusks growing at the sides of the tiger mouth.
True. Skeleton Tiger Demon!
Whole body wrapped in exoskeleton, full of security, a ten thousand times stronger than Mao Mao King’s uniform!
Turning to look at the pitch-black giant snake that vanished into shadow and reappeared in the distance, a row of small question marks popped in Yuan Zhu’s mind.
Why was Skeleton Snake Tail’s combat mode (Shadow Manipulation) a pitch-black shadow giant snake wrapped in semi-transparent shadow flesh; whereas Shadow Tiger Demon fully driving [Claw] turned into Snake Tail’s skeleton form?
This black-white swap, interwoven form, did it hint at his potential to comprehend the ‘Tai Chi Great Dao’?
Crack crack crack… Four-Armed Corpse Ghost led subordinates charging again.
Waves of Buddha Seal dharma palms continuously bombarded the exoskeleton armor, which already had hard-to-penetrate fur membrane defense, now with an extra thorny skeleton armor layer, even harder to breach.
Tiger Demon endured the sizzling corrosion pollution, wildly swinging dual palms to manipulate Shadow Wind and shadows into giant hands that dragged corpse ghosts one after another to his front, then erupting monstrous strength to slap them flying out of the walls.
Outside, the Snake Demon with most of its body drilled into shadow bounced and bit repeatedly, clamping flying-falling corpse ghosts in its mouth, swinging head to smash into Shadow World, continuing to catch mid-air like baseball and fling into Shadow World again.
Relying on a body of bloodline supernatural abilities, Tiger Demon rampaged through Vajra Temple, weaving and shuttling, driving Shadow Wind and black fog, commanding countless one-time shadow Ghost Companions, like a demonic monster descending, stirring a bloody slaughter in the Buddhist holy ground.
It, acting for heaven to punish evil and promote good, swept all these corpse ghosts blaspheming the Buddhist treasure temple into the garbage bin!
All evil will eventually be brought to justice by Black Cat Constable!
In little time, the small fry were cleared out. Even the trickiest Two-Headed Old Monk and Four-Armed Corpse Ghost were swallowed head-on by the arrogant Shadow Snake Demon, then light-speed fled outside the temple door, ‘waaah’ vomiting them out. Then returned with mouth full of ‘ptui! ptui! ptui!’.
“Awesome, Boss! Did you see? I burst-killed two mini-BOSSES! I cleared Vajra Temple!”
Giant Snake Demon excitedly reared up twisting side to side, just like the demonic twisting inflatable greeter doll at mall entrances.
She happily babbled for a while, but saw Tiger Demon with no reaction, stunned. Giant shadow Snake Tail lowered its head, overlooking the seemingly small (4m fierce tiger) yet cute armored big kitten, tilting head in confusion: “Boss? Why aren’t you cheering and applauding for me?”
Yuan Zhu: “I’m thinking about a problem. This [Claw] is pretty powerful in use, greatly enhancing defense and cutting damage, looks cool and domineering too. But always feels like it’s missing something? Not quite there.”
[Ghost Companion] lacks soul data, pollution traits, and underworld death connections; now partially supplemented with ‘Yellow Springs Death Qi’, just waiting to refine the first sacrifice to try herding.
[Summon Wind] lacks its own unique ‘wind’, but the path to supplement is clear. And wind from tiger fits Tiger Demon style perfectly.
But only this [?? Claw ??] clashes with Tiger Demon bloodline talents, instead very ‘snake system’, making him feel not very matching.
“Uh…” Game Sprite gradually shrank, withdrawing skeleton body from shadow back to original ferocious snake bone specimen form, carefully wording: “…This might be my fault?”
“What do you mean, explain clearly.”
The Game Sprite who couldn’t lie told the truth: “Boss, do you remember the original bloodline talent replaced by Shadow Manipulation?”
“[Demonic Energy Manipulation]?”
“Right!”
Game Sprite stuffed some original Tiger Demon data into his head.
Original ‘Tiger Demon Spiritual Root’ recorded a complete bloodline inheritance [Demonic Energy Manipulation, Ghost Companion, Ghost Claw, Summon Wind, Mountain Lord Ghost Realm], each ring interlocking.
Tiger as king of beasts innately possesses unmatched physique and power, few rivals except river dragons. Thus when fierce tiger cultivates into demon, shedding primitive life, it retains robust physique and fierce combat ability.
So Tiger Demon body is extremely tough, immense strength, thick blood durable, steel muscles iron bones, explosive stamina. All inherited by Yuan Zhu.
[Demonic Energy Manipulation], Tiger Demon’s first talent, further amplifies physical advantages. Inject demonic energy into flesh for all-around reinforcement improvement, rampaging everywhere. Comparable to Muscular Flesh Liberation or Hulk transformation.
[Ghost Companion], unrelated to flesh fierce combat, opens a new underworld cannon fodder second track beyond physical killing, mastering underworld power.
[Ghost Claw] is then fusion of Demonic Energy Manipulation and Ghost Companion, merging two talents into one for his use. On Tiger Demon Body secondarily amplified by demonic energy, enchanting tiger claws with Ghost Companion, condensing underworld power to attack flesh and tear soul, third reinforcement amplification!
Thus Yuan Zhu was dissatisfied with current [Bone Claw], always feeling something missing. Because he only inherited Tiger Demon Body, lacking demonic energy secondary reinforcement, Ghost Companion triple enchantment, and Ghost Claw’s unique counter-rush attack eruption.
From invincible ‘soul + physical’ dual-attribute counter-kill, transformed into defense-oriented exoskeleton attack. Damage greatly discounted.
As for later Summon Wind, underworld Tiger Demon summons Nine Nether Shadow Wind of course, continuing to stack underworld talents. Drive Shadow Wind for large-range group attack, blowing apart prey’s three souls seven poises, capture and refine new Ghost Companions.
Ultimately Mountain Lord Ghost Realm successfully communicates Yin-Yang Realms. Ghost Realm’s thick home ground power then feeds back to bless the three major talents Ghost Companion, Ghost Claw, Summon Wind.
Ghost Claw appears early but is Tiger Demon’s strongest single-target kill method, never phased out, usable till death. In ideal state, Ghost Claw can stack ‘demonic energy, Ghost Companion, Shadow Wind, Ghost Realm’ fourfold blessing.
As for now… cultivation universe monster bloodlines, what relation to Du Ling Star? To integrate locally, must accept pollution remodeling, whitewash the Boss Template.
Thus underworld-styled underworld ghost tiger became Shadow Tiger Demon. Physical system supernatural ability Demonic Energy Manipulation became magic system talent Shadow Manipulation.
“Not right, where did this [Universe Within The Belly] come from? My Snake Tail has nothing to do with underworld ghost tiger.”
Yuan Zhu used dual vision, controlling tiger head and Snake Tail to gaze at each other, a big question mark popping in his mind. What’s up with this tail? The more he looked, the more out of place, like a freebie with phone top-up.
Game Sprite: “Good question! I can only say Boss you are truly gifted! Your Mutated Spiritual Root not only contains complete Tiger Demon bloodline info, but 1.5x luxury pleb upgrade kit! Inherited ultimate innate divine abilities from two demonic monster bloodlines, shattered and reassembled, greater potential but needs initial grind adaptation.”
“[Universe Within The Belly] is this tail’s, Snake Demon’s innate divine ability, also inherited by me? I’m a chimera hybrid, not much different from Black Tortoise?”
One turtle body snake tail, one tiger head snake tail, so bizarre! No wonder always a bit schizophrenic illusion. Turns out 1.5x luxury pleb upgrade kit, more quantity no extra price.
He simultaneously drove bloodline supernatural abilities from two species, originally mismatched, but after Shadow Pollution whitewash, forcibly stuck together.
Skeleton Snake Tail began fusing with Shadow Manipulation; [Claw] inherited snake bone armor reinforcement; snake system [Universe Within The Belly] even added devouring prey, refining Ghost Companions function, leaning toward Tiger Demon.
Two systems talents began mutual grind adaptation.
“Exactly, Boss don’t be disappointed. [Claw] seems to lose Ghost Claw potential, but deeply bound with Universe Within The Belly. Universe Within The Belly is ultimate innate divine ability same level as Mountain Lord Ghost Realm, infinitely devours prey to grow. Now Bone Claw strength depends on Universe Within The Belly strength. When you prosper later, one claw down carries a ‘space’ attack intensity!”
Game Sprite continued hyping bright future: if feed Universe Within The Belly to hundred-cubic capacity, then one claw tear adds a space’s quality blessing atop bone claw. One slap smashes any prey to bits.
If Universe Within The Belly becomes true universe, then one claw is Power of a Realm.
“Moreover, if grind well, two bloodline paths will fuse ever tighter, ultimately forming brand new bloodline supernatural ability, birthing tiger-head snake-tail new species! Then [Bone Claw] can still stack [Shadow, Ghost Companion, Summon Wind, Universe, Ghost Realm], Boss you will be even more badass! (voice crack)”
Under Game Sprite’s nonstop hype, originally somewhat depressed Yuan Zhu perked up again, full of anticipation for the future!
I see this [Bone Claw] still has lasting charm, looks cooler the more I see! Mere Ghost Claw too underworld-styled, doesn’t match my majestic domineering self!
So he casually praised: “Well said, such a sweet little mouth!”
Game Sprite: “I’m your most loyal rainbow energy nutritionist! Bid farewell to anxiety and inner conflict, confidently strut every day! Boss mighty, Boss new! Bee! (voice-crack shout)”
Yuan Zhu in great mood continued maintaining ‘Skeleton Tiger Demon’ posture, vigilantly and cautiously surveying Vajra Temple. After the previous rampage, he had tossed all limited corpse ghosts out of the temple, imprisoned in Shadow World.
At this moment, vast Vajra Temple empty and desolate, still drifting with thick Yellow Springs Buddha Rhyme, but dead silent. Without corpse ghost operation, threat index plummeted.
“Let’s go, take a good look around, carefully scour every inch of land for me, see if there are any valuable treasures? Don’t miss any.”
Game Sprite: “That small pond, that small pond! Hurry over, such thick Yellow Springs Death Qi, that’s the spring source! Quick see if there are heavenly materials and earthly treasures inside?”
“Heavenly materials and earthly treasures? They exist in this filthy world too?”
Game Sprite: “Isn’t that common sense from your brain’s cultivation novels?”
“That’s novels, not common sense! Don’t misapply, this isn’t some proper world.” And you’re an artificial intelligence, how are you getting dumber?
As Yuan Zhu’s cognition of Du Ling increased, he found Game Sprite getting sillier. Couldn’t distinguish true and false in his memories, naively applying myth novels as real information.
But her emotional value provision talent was still very useful. Keep ramping up the mental massage for me! This king can take it.
Seeking recommendations, monthly tickets, comments… prepping subscription begs days in advance.
