Chapter 39: The Incantation of the Nine-Prison Master

Ruan Shiyin’s condition gradually descended into madness, her resentment radiating outward, her features contorted beyond recognition. Dark hollows framed eyes filled with hatred as she spoke, “Mother, you can’t understand how hard I struggled to escape that prison. Why must people like us be bound by endless rules and restrictions?”

Her already scarce reason burned away, leaving only a seething fury and bitterness. Screaming, she raised her hand, ready to strike her own mother!

Ruan Shiyin had lost her mind.

Fang Xiaoyi shivered all over, her legs stiffening. Remembering that Li Xuan was still inside the teaching building, she swallowed her resentment and took step after step toward the elder, standing beside her.

Gritting her teeth, she summoned her courage, drew out the Eastern Peak Emperor’s talisman, gripping it tightly with both hands, and stabbed it sharply toward Ruan Shiyin.

The talisman pierced two inches into Ruan Shiyin’s abdomen, black blood gushing forth. The skin on Fang Xiaoyi’s hands that touched the blood began to sizzle, emitting black smoke as if acid had been spilled on it.

Pain wracked her body, making her tremble.

Ruan Shiyin had not expected anything to wound her directly.

With a violent toss, Fang Xiaoyi was thrown aside, the talisman dropping to the ground.

Ignoring the torn stocking on her thigh revealing bloodied wounds, she snatched up the talisman and rushed forward, hoisting the elder onto her back and sprinting toward the school gate.

Black blood still flowed from Ruan Shiyin’s abdomen, agony unbearable. Regaining some clarity, she realized Fang Xiaoyi and her mother had already left.

Her hatred having no outlet, she turned toward the teaching building.

There was still one more.

Ruan Shiyin appeared inside the teaching building’s office and was startled to find incense, candles, and ritual papers arranged on the floor—it was clear some ceremony had just taken place, though the practitioner was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, she thought of the rooftop.

With a single thought, she appeared there, where she saw the school’s only male teacher, Li Xuan.

He had opened the wooden box brought up earlier in the day, revealing a square table draped in black cloth. On it lay incense, yellow paper, a peachwood sword, and four intricately carved spirit tablets representing the Northern Yin Emperor, the Northern Pole, the Eastern Peak Emperor, and Marshal Tianpeng.

In his hands was a hammer drill, poised and running on the northeastern section of the rooftop floor.

The drill’s surface was covered densely with talismans and seals radiating solemn and strange power, filling Ruan Shiyin with an overwhelming sense of danger.

Without hesitation, she lunged forward—so fast it was like teleportation.

Li Xuan sensed her arrival immediately. Setting up the ritual altar for the three emperors and the marshal, he had been waiting for her. Swiftly drawing the Tianpeng ruler from his waist, he shouted and struck her face fiercely, sparks flying as her skull caved inward.

Ruan Shiyin howled in pain, clutching the ruler despite the searing burn on her palms. Her eyes wild, she rasped, “You’re not even a student! Why are you opposing me? I’m only punishing students according to school rules—isn’t that what the school has always decreed?”

Li Xuan had no desire to argue with her.

Supporting the ruler with his left hand, he gripped the hammer drill with his right, aiming the bit at a pre-marked spot—the location of Ruan Shiyin’s head on the assembled spirit form he had tested earlier that afternoon with talisman papers.

He pressed down hard and activated the drill.

The heavy hammering shattered the rooftop’s concrete, debris flying as the drill bit bored a six-centimeter hole with ease.

Though Ruan Shiyin’s body had been dismembered long ago by construction crews, to reunite her soul and body, the spirit’s essence would concentrate at the corpse’s core—the humanoid shape Li Xuan had gathered with his talisman.

The drill pierced through the head of the spirit form.

A hole appeared in her forehead, and she screamed in agony, releasing her grip.

Taking advantage of the moment, Li Xuan inserted a firecracker into the cavity carved out by the 12-millimeter drill bit, lit it with a lighter, and turned to flee.

Boom!

The rooftop floor exploded violently, a half-meter crater forming with scattered bone fragments visible within.

Ruan Shiyin recoiled in fear.

Blood poured from her orifices as she summoned every ounce of strength to reopen the office door, unleashing the ghosts of more than twenty students who surged forth, attacking Li Xuan.

It was as if they challenged, “Go ahead, kill us!”

These sanctimonious hypocrites...

The students’ spirits were weak, easily dispersed by ordinary talisman papers.

But Li Xuan dared not use such methods.

If the souls scattered, they would never find peace, condemned to eternal torment worse than hell.

The students swarmed, tearing at Li Xuan’s flesh, ripping open wounds that bled freely.

Enduring their assault, Li Xuan reached the altar, withdrew a gourd, and opened its stopper toward the school gate.

“Come!”

The Eastern Peak talisman, which belonged to him, slipped free from Fang Xiaoyi’s grasp and flew through the air toward him.

He caught it and placed it on the table, striking it three times with the Fengdu Guardian Seal in his left hand. With his right, he formed a sword mudra, striking the prison script on the talisman and chanting loudly:

“Tianpeng, Tianpeng, ancestor of all gods. Heaven and earth, sun and moon, water, fire, thunder, and wind. The five directions and five emperors, the three realms’ demons and monsters. Heaven, man, earth, and water, the constellations and star palaces. Tianpeng presides, encompassing all energies. Commander of Fengdu, fierce and heroic. When this order is issued, who dares disobey? I summon the nine prison lords, the six cave demon kings, the treasure spring prison, the inspectors and officers. I now command you to arrive at the altar swiftly. Urgent as the decree of the Northern Yin Xuantian Fengdu Supreme Emperor.”

Such incantations do not require completion to take effect.

With sincerity in heart, uttering the first word summons the god’s attention.

At the first strike of the seal, all the student ghosts clinging to him were flung off instantly. The second strike sent Ruan Shiyin flying as well.

At the third strike—

The Tianpeng Marshal’s spirit tablet on the altar emitted a faint white glow, then suddenly flared to the brightness of a hundred-watt bulb, nearly blinding Li Xuan.

This curse was from the “Northern Yin Fengdu Supreme Black Law Spirit Text,” a summoning spell calling the Nine Prison Lords. Though it sounded like it summoned the Tianpeng Marshal, it actually called his subordinates.

The spirit tablet trembled continuously.

Li Xuan’s heart wavered, but the ugly truth must face the elders.

Though he had sworn allegiance to the Northern Yin Fengdu Emperor’s lineage and personally received scripture from the Eastern Peak Emperor, these great powers remained silent throughout, leaving him uneasy. When questioned, he claimed discord within Fengdu’s sect and lacked the courage to admit being a direct disciple.

He needed official recognition, a legitimate status.

Normally, he dared not seek favor from the Fengdu Temple directly, but now, in this “School Cemetery” world, he could conveniently inquire about the Fengdu emissaries’ intentions while hunting demons.

“Ruan Shiyin, hold on a little longer; I just need to make a good impression...”

At that moment, a profound yet ethereal voice echoed from the spirit tablet: “Impertinent!!!”

Li Xuan instinctively looked up.

The tablet’s light surged, dazzling and blinding, then shot forth a gleaming white long sword.

Wow...

The Nine Prison Lords?

To eradicate Ruan Shiyin with such force, she had cost more than enough...

The sound of blade piercing flesh!

The rooftop’s surrounding wall bowed outward in an arc, cracked deeply, and a bloodied sword tip, nearly a foot long, protruded.

The ghosts present were frozen the moment the divine sword appeared, as if time itself had stopped. Even Ruan Shiyin, among their ranks, was reduced to a mere thrall.

Blood trickled from Li Xuan’s mouth as he stiffly bowed his head, staring at the snow-white sword embedded in his chest.

He looked at the spirit tablet in shock.

This sword...

Was it meant for him?