CHAPTER 419: 【164】FIVE GHOSTS SOUL-DEVOURING NAIL, DRAGON AND TIGER SUBDUE DEMONS_5

"What?!" The Black Kidney Mage was instantly shocked, finding it unbelievable.

How could a Martial Artist dodge the Five Ghost Soul-Devouring Nails, let alone destroy the Five Ghosts?

But the current state was telling her plainly that this was indeed the case.

Before the Black Kidney Mage could be more shocked, the second jar immediately exploded, followed by the third, and the fourth.

At this moment, she finally realized that something was wrong; things had developed beyond her control.

Once she lost the help of the Five Ghosts, the Soul-Devouring Nail condensed with Spirit could never return to her body.

The consequences would be unimaginable; Spirit is the ’soul,’ and without the Spirit’s return, it means the body lacks a soul.

The consequences are dire, as anyone could imagine.

The Black Kidney Mage urgently turned her head and shouted to Bao Pi: "Junior Brother, go find the Master, quickly go find the Master to save her!"

Before she finished speaking, the Black Kidney Mage’s eyes suddenly became vacant, and her powerless body collapsed to the ground; although she was still breathing, she lost the ability to think and act.

The Spirit failed to harm others but was damaged outside, which is a backlash.

Lu Lei and Bao Pi were completely stunned at this moment.

The five exploded jars, and the Black Kidney Mage collapsed on the altar, all signs indicated that this revenge ended in failure.

Bao Pi’s legs trembled; his senior sister was second only to Master Xuan He in stature.

In this world, she aimed to kill, yet there was failure?

"Bao Pi, what do we do now?" Lu Lei snapped back to reality and hurriedly asked.

"Quick, pick up my senior sister, hurry, follow me to find the Master, only the Master can save her," Bao Pi urged, then quickly ran towards the courtyard.

But Lu Lei, stuck with an unpleasant task, was unwilling.

The Black Kidney Mage smelled bad enough, and her clothes were soaked in the foul water from the exploded jars, making the stench unbearable.

Even using a hundred cans of herring wouldn’t match the stink of the water from these five jars holding the infants.

But there was no choice; this was on the Observatory Master’s turf. If Lu Lei didn’t comply, Master Xuan He could get angry, and while he might not punish Bao Pi, he’d definitely hold Lu Lei accountable.

With gritted teeth, Lu Lei picked up the unconscious Black Kidney Mage, slung her over his shoulder, and followed quickly.

The two ran all the way through the vast observatory until they reached the main hall of the Daoist temple.

Inside the hall was a faint aroma of medicine, along with a statue that Lu Lei had never seen before, neither a Daoist immortal nor a Buddhist Buddha.

And beneath the statue, an old Daoist with a goatee sat cross-legged—it was the Observatory Master, Taoist Master Xuan He.

"Master! Something’s happened! Senior sister is in trouble!"

With a leap, Bao Pi kneeled, sliding seven or eight meters on the smooth marble floor, arriving before Taoist Master Xuan He, and shouted eagerly.

The old Daoist opened his eyes, instantly startling Lu Lei, who walked in afterward.

Because Taoist Master Xuan He’s eyes were extremely peculiar—his left eye was pure black, and his right eye was pure white.

"What happened?" Taoist Master Xuan He frowned and asked.

"Senior sister performed the Five Ghost Soul-Devouring Nail, but it seemed to have backfired." Bao Pi hastily recounted everything that happened in one breath.

Taoist Master Xuan He looked at the Black Kidney Mage placed on the ground by Lu Lei, and his expression instantly turned murderous: "Damn it! Who destroyed my eldest disciple’s soul!!"

The Five Ghost Soul-Devouring Nail was, in fact, the skill Taoist Master Xuan He taught the Black Kidney Mage.

This craft was acquired by Taoist Master Xuan He from Southeast Asian mages, then improved and self-created.

It uses the traditional method of raising evil spirits as the Five Ghosts, applying the principle of the Five Ghosts Transporting Skill, requiring only a cultivator’s Spirit to be strong enough.

Condensing the Spirit into long needles, cones, nails that can penetrate others’ bodies, it employs the Five Ghosts as a moving tool.

To achieve harming others invisibly from afar, making the target dead in an extremely odd manner, deaths undetectable in supernatural ways.

This differentiates Taiping Tiangong from the Heaven and Earth Alliance and the White Lotus Society.

Though they are a Martial Artist force, they’ve long since disregarded the physical strength of Martial Artists, whether Ming Jin, Dark Force, or Huajin.

A century or two ago, Taiping Tiangong began shifting focus to studying the Spirit.

With the corpse dissolution immortal method from the royal tomb, Taiping Tiangong achieved significant progress in ’cultivating Spirit.’

Even to the extent, they could now accomplish killing from distances using cultivated strong Spirit.

However, despite this method being powerful, its drawbacks are extremely evident.

The Spirit is intertwined with life; problems with the Spirit make the body languish.

If the Spirit is destroyed, the physical body dies immediately.

And using Spirit to attack others’ Spirit is undoubtedly like wielding a double-edged sword.

Yet, as most people’s Spirit cannot manifest visibly, this double-edged sword behavior isn’t particularly fatal to Taiping Tiangong.

After all, worldwide, there are few like Wang Longhu who can manifest Spirit as "Heaven and Earth."