Chapter 203: The Bait

Li Tan kept silent, closely observing the movements inside the room.

The couple of villagers with unnatural behavior sat with their heads lowered for more than an hour. It was already past midnight when they finally raised their heads.

Their expressions were blank, like emotionless puppets. They stood up together and slowly walked out of the room.

Finally, something was happening.

Li Tan became fully alert and observed their every move more carefully.

The man and woman exited their room and entered the front hall, but didn’t stay there. Instead, they entered the room of the traveler who was staying there. Sitting on the edge of the bed, they stared at him with eerie smiles.

Even Li Tan found the scene unsettling. If the traveler were to open his eyes at this moment, he would surely be terrified out of his wits.

But apparently, the traveler had to wake up and face reality now, because the male homeowner, from somewhere unseen, raised a kitchen knife high over his head.

“Not good!” Li Tan muttered in a low voice.

He sprang up like a spring, grabbed a leaf, infused it with true energy, and flung it with force. The leaf transformed into a sharp projectile. With a “whoosh,” the raised knife fell to the ground, and a cut appeared on the man’s hand.

Even the strongest person would surely cry out in pain in such a situation, right?

But the homeowner showed no reaction at all. Instead, he bent down and picked up the knife again.

“What’s going on here?”

Frowning, Li Tan rushed forward, smashed through the window, and as he landed, he delivered a flying kick to the man’s face. With a “crack,” teeth scattered across the floor.

“What’s—what’s happening?”

Startled by the commotion, the traveler in the bed finally woke up. People nearby, like Scholar Zhang, also awoke.

“Run!”

Without hesitation, Li Tan grabbed the confused traveler and fled outside.

Soon, Scholar Zhang hurried over, anxiously asking, “Master Li, what are you doing? Why did you break someone’s window in the middle of the night?”

Li Tan calmly pointed toward the house.

Scholar Zhang shifted his gaze accordingly. Moonlight poured through the broken window, illuminating the two homeowners inside. Their posture was extremely strange, like robots with rusted joints that could barely function. Slowly, they began to move toward their location.

Even the most clueless person could tell something was wrong with the two now, right?

Scholar Zhang’s face turned pale. He quickly hid behind Li Tan, trembling as he asked, “What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re already dead.”

“How can the dead still move?”

“Hmph, very advanced corpse manipulation.”

“W-what?”

“Don’t ask questions. We’re in serious trouble. Quickly, gather everyone.”

Seeing Li Tan’s solemn expression, Scholar Zhang realized the gravity of the situation and hurriedly pulled a few reluctant young men to go wake others.

Meanwhile, Li Tan remained in place, watching the moving corpses in the distance.

“They’re using the entire village as sacrifices and not even sparing travelers. I never expected to encounter an evil cultivator in a place like this. Looks like I can’t just ignore this.”

“Evil cultivators” refers to those practitioners who, in their pursuit of power, disregard moral boundaries and stop at nothing. Such individuals are hunted down by all righteous cultivators. Li Tan wasn’t the type to actively seek out villains or feel compelled to confront every evil he encountered. However, evil cultivators were an exception.

If left unchecked, thousands could be slaughtered. More than two thousand years ago, an ancient book recorded a similar incident—an evil cultivator at the Master level killed five other Master-level experts in one day and used over a thousand members of a sect as sacrificial offerings, burying them all alive. Eventually, the Xia Dynasty had to unite with all nearby sects and even enlist the help of experts beyond the Master level to finally kill him.

From then on, whenever cultivators encountered evil practitioners, they would temporarily set aside all disputes and unite with a shared hatred to eliminate the threat.

Demonic cultivators usually caused a lot of commotion, so documented cases of them in the past two thousand years have been rare.

But now, unexpectedly, one had been encountered here.

Li Tan signaled the surrounding people to step back and walked forward himself. Soon, he approached the couple and grabbed the man’s head, twisting it with force. With a “crack,” the man’s head turned backward. Li Tan repeated the same action on the woman. Finally, releasing his grip, two corpses fell to the ground—in fact, two normal corpses.

For these two deceased individuals, it was perhaps a form of liberation. However, the onlookers watching this scene now regarded Li Tan with a hint of fear in their eyes.

Li Tan walked back, and those in front of him instinctively stepped aside.

He loudly instructed, “Everyone, take care of the elderly and children. Follow me.”

A murmur spread through the crowd, but no one opposed. Then, Li Tan led the group down the mountain.

After a short while, Scholar Zhang came running back with seven or eight people, out of breath and pointing behind them, “Th-there…”

“What’s wrong there?”

Li Tan turned around and couldn’t help frowning.

In the darkness not far behind the caravan, about a dozen undead figures, just like the previous couple, were persistently approaching. Additionally, more undead figures were continuously emerging from the surrounding paths.

“To manipulate so many puppets, the practitioner must either have reached the Transcendent level, or there are multiple dark cultivators involved. If it’s a Transcendent, their presence here is virtually impossible. The resentment from killing these villagers would be insignificant. However, dark cultivators typically act alone and seldom collaborate in groups.”

Li Tan was puzzled. Based on the current information, the perpetrator must be a dark cultivator, yet there was evidence suggesting otherwise. The conclusion and evidence contradicted each other, leaving even Li Tan confused.

“Ma-Master Li, they’re coming!”

Scholar Zhang anxiously tugged at Li Tan’s sleeve. Snapping back to reality, Li Tan had no choice but to face these undead figures.

His approach was unusually simple and brutal. He activated the Maya Step, rapidly closing the distance, then twisted a neck with a “crack,” and another undead figure collapsed.

In an instant, all the undead figures near the caravan were dealt with.

Scholar Zhang watched in stunned amazement. After Li Tan returned, he finally snapped out of his shock and ordered everyone to stay close and leave this village immediately.

Since the village was built along the mountainside, the path down was easy to find—just head downhill. However, the further Scholar Zhang walked, the more something felt off. It wasn’t until seven or eight corpses blocked their path that he realized what was wrong.

The village was so small that it only took a few minutes to walk through. Yet they had been walking for nearly a quarter of an incense stick’s time and were still within the village. Moreover, the clothing on these corpses was exactly the same as those Li Tan had previously eliminated!

“Ma-Master Li, have we encountered a ghost wall?”

Scholar Zhang was completely at a loss.

Li Tan took a step forward, scanning up, down, left, and right before calmly stating, “It’s not a ghost wall. We’ve been trapped inside a formation.”

The phenomenon known as a “ghost wall” typically had only two possible explanations. The first was being mentally confused by a ferocious beast, as Li Jingying had experienced previously—appearing to walk for a long time while actually remaining in one place. The second was being trapped within a formation, endlessly circling within a fixed area.

The first possibility was immediately ruled out. Unless someone reached the Transcendent level, they couldn’t deceive Li Tan’s spiritual perception. The second possibility was more likely, and for it to trap Li Tan, the formation must be extraordinary.

This didn’t necessarily mean the practitioner was extremely powerful—it might also be utilizing the villagers’ resentment from their violent deaths as power.

Regardless of the truth, Li Tan’s current goal was singular: escape the village with the caravan members, monitor from outside, and return to investigate after dawn.

However, this wish was likely to be dashed. He tried over a dozen methods to break the formation, but none succeeded.

Scholar Zhang grew anxious, “Master Li, are we stuck here forever?”