Chapter Twenty-Five: Joining Hands to Vanquish Evil

  "Dong! Dong! Dong!"

  Three crisp sounds, Sun Tao's sword talisman was blocked by Qin Hu's round disk artifact, Qin Hu's breath became even more dull, his thin and frail figure appeared even more haggard.

  Hurry!

  Liu Kai let out a light shout, and the flying sword under his feet transformed into a flowing ray of light that shot towards Qin Hu. Liu Kai then waved his hand, casting a series of profound and mysterious spells, as one by one, fireballs shot towards the dead puppets in the broken temple.

  The ruined temple was ablaze with flames shooting up to the sky, and the air was filled with the stench of burning corpses. The dead puppet that Qin Hu had refined was incinerated by Liu Kai's fireball, and the withered trees nearby were also set ablaze. The crackling of the fire was deafening, and smoke billowed everywhere, soon engulfing the ruined temple in a sea of flames.

  "Wait for me, I, Qin Hu, will be back. This vendetta will not go unavenged, I, Qin Hu, swear to never be a human again."

  The undead puppet was destroyed, and Qin Hu lost nearly half of his combat strength. Liu Kai's offensive was fierce, with flying swords bringing up flashes of light that slashed towards Qin Hu, leaving multiple gruesome wounds on his body. Qin Hu spat out a mouthful of blood foam, uttered a ruthless remark, and rushed towards the Land Temple.

  "Want to escape? It's not that easy, you'd better stay here!" Sun Tao, who had been paying attention to the movement in the field with his divine sense, suddenly discovered that Qin Hu was about to leave. He let out a cold hum and his divine sense invaded the world of Journey to the West, summoning Bajie, one of the two marshals of the heavenly canopy, out.

  A streak of gray light burst out from Sun Tao's brow, and under his spiritual control, it flew towards Qin Hu. The gray light trembled on Qin Hu's back, and the figure emerged silently behind him. Suddenly, a fist burst out, shooting straight at Qin Hu's heart, and he was instantly blasted flying.

  "Despicable, to actually launch a sneak attack." Qin Hu was ambushed from behind, turned around and saw that the one who had launched the sneak attack on him was actually a gibbon. He involuntarily cursed out loud, having been approached by this gibbon without even knowing it, truly deserving of death.

  At the sound of Qin Hu's angry roar, Bao Zhang, one of the two Bao generals, responded with a punch to his back. The punch was thrown out and all that could be heard were the dull thuds "Boom! Boom!" as Qin Hu was caught off guard by Bao Zhang's close-range attack. He had no chance to counterattack and was knocked flying, turning into a human sandbag.

  A set of Tongbei Fist was unleashed, Qin Hu was left with broken bones and torn tendons, his nose and mouth bleeding profusely, like a blood-soaked person. He lay on the ground, gasping for air, barely clinging to life, with only half a breath left in him.

  Qin Hu fell into defeat, was beaten by the collapsing general and left with only half a life. Sun Tiao stepped forward, not waiting for Qin Hu to react in any way, the small flying sword artifact in his hand cut towards Qin Hu's throat, one slash of the throat, and Qin Hu immediately lost his soul.

  "This Daoist friend, thanks to your help, I wouldn't have been able to kill this demon otherwise." With one slash, Qin Hu was killed. Sun Tao let out a long sigh of relief, finally having beheaded the evil leader. He immediately turned to thank Liu Kai, the blue-robed Daoist.

  "Words from a fellow Taoist, exorcising demons and guarding the Tao, this is what we orthodox Taoists should do. I am Liu Kaitao, a disciple of Qing Song Guan." The blue-robed Taoist Liu Kaitao bowed back to Sun Tuo with a smile and introduced himself.

  "It's actually Liu Daoyou from Qing Song Guan. Qing Song Guan has always had a good reputation for exorcising demons and protecting the Tao, and it's not weak in Yunlai Country either. What a fortunate encounter! Liu Daoyou, this fire is burning more and more fiercely, we must think of a way to put it out."

  "This, Sun Dao You, this I'm powerless to do anything about it. I'm a fire repairman, can't cast water-based spells, and this fire is probably going to burn out of control." Looking at the raging flames that were spreading in all directions, Liu Kai scratched his head with some embarrassment. He hadn't expected that the fire would get out of control and spread to the surrounding areas, fortunately there was no one around or it would have caused significant casualties.

  "This, Liu Daoyou, I also don't know any spells, this fire can only be left unattended now, fortunately there's no one around here, otherwise it would be disastrous!" Sun Tao heard and said with some helplessness, spreading his hands.

  "This won't do, although I'm not good at water-based magic to put out the fire, but I'm good at fire-based magic. I'll still control the fire within a certain range and let it burn itself out, don't let it spread and destroy the ecosystem here." Liu Kai spoke as he threw out mysterious hand seals with both hands, mobilizing the surrounding heaven and earth's primal energy to control the fire above the dilapidated temple grounds. Only when the dilapidated temple grounds had completely turned into a ruin and the surrounding fire was no longer spreading did he stop.

  "Brother Sun, the fire is out and this demon's head has been eliminated. What are your plans now?" Sun Tao took out the storage bag obtained from Qin Hu, divided the items inside with Liu Kai, who immediately asked Sun Tao with a kind intention.

  Divide the things in Qin Hu's storage bag, Sun Tiao immediately won Liu Kai's favor, and after several exchanges, the two began to call each other brothers.

  "This Qin Hu has been eliminated, but the remnants of the Five Tigers Gang he controlled have not been completely eradicated. I plan to go to He Shui Jun and thoroughly remove this tumor of the Five Tigers Gang. What are your plans, Brother Liu?" Sun Wei heard this and thought of the evil deeds that the Five Tigers Gang had done in recent years, which he had learned from the mouths of the common people. The gang had brought disaster to the villagers, bullied men and women, and oppressed the weak. Such an evil force should have been eliminated long ago, and he couldn't help but say so.

  Qin Hu is dead, Sun Tao will not let the Five Tigers Gang off like last time. This Five Tigers Gang must be uprooted, if the Five Tigers Gang is not eliminated, another Qin Hu will appear to harm the villagers.

  Liu Kai was going down the mountain to gain experience, and he didn't have anywhere good to go. This time, he went down the mountain just for experience, to be a hero, and to eliminate evil with his sword. After hearing about the evil deeds of the Five Tigers Gang in Heishui Prefecture, Liu Kai immediately wanted to join Sun Tao to exterminate the remnants of the Five Tigers Gang.

  The two of them made a plan and saw that the fire in the temple had been extinguished, with only a small area still emitting wisps of smoke. This scattered flame would not cause too much damage to the surrounding area. The two of them were busy for most of the day due to this big fire, and as the sky gradually darkened, the sun slowly set towards the west, about to dip below the horizon. The two people didn't linger in this place any longer and headed towards the riverbank city.

  Kawasakigun!

  The gang leader of the Heishui County, Wuhu Gang, was killed in a massacre at their headquarters due to Sun Tao's actions. The Wuhu Gang suffered heavy casualties and their overall strength greatly declined. How could the other underground forces in Heishui County let go of this fat meat? That night, the other major gangs and forces in Heishui County launched a surprise attack on the Wuhu Gang's headquarters.

  Sun Tuo and Liu Kai returned to the Heishui County, the whole county was shrouded in night, they ordered a sumptuous dinner at an inn, Sun Tuo and Liu Kai hastily finished their dinner, then led by Sun Tuo rushed to the headquarters of the Five Tigers Society.

  When they arrived at the Five Tigers' headquarters, the Five Tigers' headquarters was brightly lit, and a fierce fighting sound came from inside. The other major forces in Heishui Prefecture launched a surprise attack on the Five Tigers under the banner of "eliminating evil for the people". In the chaotic crowd, the figures of government officials could be vaguely seen, it seems that this Five Tigers is indeed unpopular, and as soon as they showed weakness, the other major forces in Heishui Prefecture attacked them together.

  "Brother Sun, it seems we don't need to intervene anymore. The Five Tigers Gang has committed countless atrocities and everyone wants them dead. Even if we don't take action, they will still be destroyed soon." Liu Kai said to Sun Tao, looking at the Five Tigers Gang's hideout engulfed in flames from the alleyway.

  "Hmm... the Five Tigers have committed countless evils, it's time for them to face retribution. We don't need to take action, the remnants of the Five Tigers will soon perish on their own, let's go! There's nothing more for us to do here!" Sun Tuo nodded in agreement upon hearing this.

  Sun Tuo and Liu Kai got along well, the two were traveling together, and didn't part ways just because they had dealt with the remaining members of the Five Tigers Gang. Instead, Liu Kai followed Sun Tuo back to Lai Fu Inn to stay for a while.

  In this river water county, there are still many monks, but these monks' divine powers are not visible, and ordinary people can't recognize them even if they see them.

  As for the understanding of this Xiu Zhen realm, Sun Tuo still only has it limited to his memories. In He Shui County, there were cultivators' figures, he just had a little impression in his memory, if not for coincidentally meeting them, he really didn't know. The two agreed to go and experience it tomorrow, then each returned to their own room to rest.

  Back at his residence, Sun Tuo closed the door and began to ponder today's gains and losses.

  This Qin Hu was also a poor ghost, on his body except for two pieces of low-grade artifacts, there were several hundred spirit stones, and not even one talisman. Sun Tuo didn't want those artifacts, he only took the spirit stones and the gold, silver, and jewels from the mundane world. His body didn't have any true yuan law power, so even if he had taken that artifact, he wouldn't be able to use it, it could only be used as an ordinary weapon. So he did a favor for Liu Kai and gave it to him.

  "This Five Tigers Gang is finished, from now on we can't be as reckless as this time. If it's an enemy, we should cut the grass and eliminate the roots. This time if it wasn't for Liu Kai, who knows, we might have fallen into Qin Hu's trap."

  Recalling today's thrilling journey, all of this is because of insufficient experience, not understanding the dangers of the world. Tigers don't harm people intentionally, but people have intentions to harm tigers. Sun Wei is still too young, if he were in the Five Tigers Gang headquarters, using all his strength to kill them off, there wouldn't be today's incident.

  Sun Wei muttered to himself with a thoughtful expression.

  After this battle, Sun Tuo understood a truth: as long as they were enemies, they had to be eliminated completely, and it was absolutely impossible to show mercy.