775 A Battle in the Starlit Night

Under the starlight, Princess Zhang Le was clad in a black palace dress, her long hair hanging loosely behind her back; her face was so pale that it almost looked transparent. A thin layer of light shrouded her petite body, making her look like a soul reaper who appeared only in the black of the night. Her arms were outstretched, parallel to her shoulders, and her fingers were moving rapidly to perform various incantation gestures. As her low chanting echoed out into the surroundings, all the plague viruses in the province began to drift toward the Prefecture Overseer's mansion.

The night breeze was gusting as blue torrents rushed into the mansion, heading straight for the secret chamber. The viruses, which were conjured from the divine power of the God of Scourge, were extremely brutal and nasty. Wherever they passed, houses rotted and collapsed, and mountain rocks weathered away into dust. If Princess Zhang Le had not made them avoid common people along the way, this provincial capital city would have long been turned into a land of death.

Sad and shrill screams rang out continuously from within the mansion. All the members of the Ye clan, from the youngest to the oldest, were turned into hollow human skins amidst the piercing shrieks and cries. Their flesh and blood had given birth to more viruses, which towered into the sky in plumes of blue smoke before pouring back down into the mansion.

The people of the Yu clan hiding in the mansion were letting out painful moans as well. The viruses were corrupting their bodies; devouring their flesh, blood, and energy. As their cultivation bases were much stronger than the people of the Ye clan, they had more energy for the viruses to consume, which meant they could live longer. However, it also meant that the pain of having their flesh and inner organs gradually infected by the viruses was prolonged. As a result, many of them were howling and screaming in hoarse voices while running wildly about the mansion in pain.

The golden body of the God of Scourge Princess Zhang Le had formed controlled not only the plague virus. Since she was named the God of Scourge, it meant she could bring forth any kind of disaster and misfortune.

There was a man from the Yu clan who was running wildly when he suddenly lost his footing as a stone step snapped beneath his feet. Hence, he lost his balance and fell headlong to the ground. A thud rang out as the unlucky fellow's temple smashed on the sharp edge of the stone step, causing his head to crack and explode like an egg, with his brains spouting several feet away.

There was another man who was groaning with pain, rolling back and forth on the ground with hands clutching his belly, when the ceiling over him collapsed all of a sudden. A dozens of feet wide, huge boulder plunged whistling down, and smashed him flat like a pancake.

Unable to endure the intense pain inside, one of Yu Miao's grandsons hissed and roared furiously while performing a double-handed incantation gesture and intoning a spell to summon the power of the Ghost God he worshiped, wrapping himself in a blaze of fire. He wanted to burn off the viruses that kept invading his body, and wipe out those that were growing inside him. But, the pain in his body suddenly intensified more than ten folds, which was more than a normal person could tolerate.

It caused him to loosen his hand incantation gesture, and resulted in the magic that had just taken shape to explode, striking him with a serious backlash. Roaring flames burst out of his seven orifices, and soon, he was nothing but a heap of ashes.

And that was not all. One of Yu Miao's sons, who was fat as a toad, was twitching convulsively with both legs in the air as he pulled out a bottle of life-saving and detoxifying pills. He removed the stopper and fished out two pills that were the size of pigeon's eggs, shoving them into his mouth. However, as his saliva was consumed by the viruses, instead of melting down in his mouth, the pills rolled straight down his throat and happened to get stuck in his throat, blocking his airway.

Consequently, he was killed by two pills which were supposed to save his life. It proved that he was really down on his luck.

In just ten minutes, more than half of Yu Miao and the dozen of Elders' families had died from all sorts of strange and bizarre reasons. It was as if they were jinxed; their various ways of death were so peculiar that Yu Miao and the others who had witnessed all this could not believe that their family would have such a bad luck.

This was the divine power of the God of Scourge. Whoever was targeted by this power, his every move, every word, and every action would bring death to himself, and any external factor would become the cause of his end. Unless it was warded off by an opposing divine power, those who were targeted by the divine power of the God of Scourge would certainly be subjected to all kinds of strange tortures, which would not stop until they were dead.

There were many magic that could restrain the divine power of the God of Scourge, but the Dao of Ghost God cultivated by Yu Miao and others was not one of them. So, although they had an amazing overall strength, and their cultivation bases were much higher than Princess Zhang Le's, there was nothing they could do to stop her from using the divine power to wantonly kill their families.

A loud rumble echoed out as a large hole suddenly cracked open on the ground, and two of Yu Miao's direct descendants accidentally fell into it and broke their necks. Yu Miao's eyes shot with blood when he saw that he had lost two more descendants. He let out a loud roar of anger and suddenly shot into the sky amidst a gust of chilly wind, flying straight toward Princess Zhang Le, who was floating in the air.

Princess Zhang Le narrowed her big eyes that shone brightly like the stars as she gently performed an incantation gesture with her little hands, then pressed them down at Yu Miao. "Scourge!"

An iron-beaked ibis suddenly appeared in front of Yu Miao, who was springing at full speed. It was a kind of bird famous for its incredible speed, with a long beak that could break gold and shatter iron, proven to be very good at penetrating all kinds of restrictive magic as well. In fact, one of the crossbow bolts used by Great Yu's army was made from this bird's long beak.

Yu Miao dared to swear on the souls of all his ancestors that there was not a bird in the air within a hundred miles of him just now. But, with a cry from Princess Zhang Le, this iron-beaked ibis suddenly appeared in front of him, and was flying toward him at full speed!

The iron beak, one foot and two inches long, accurately pierced Yu Miao's mouth, and came out from the back of his neck along with the bird's long neck. Many of his teeth were broken by the tough beak. Blood mixed with broken teeth gushed out of his mouth, running down his jaw and staining the unlucky bird all over.

This was the horror of the God of Scourge. As long as one was targeted by the divine power, all sorts of strange disasters would fall upon oneself out of nowhere, so sudden and unpredictable that it would be impossible to guard against them in advance.

The pain made Yu Miao cried out from within his lungs, and he stopped in place immediately, scrambling to pull the ibis out of his mouth. As he did that, the tough and rough beak brushed against his wounds, washing him with a wave pain so intense that all his muscles were shivering violently while cold sweats were breaking out all over his body.

Then, he flipped his palm to produce a ball of black flame that emitted an evil aura, and pressed it hard onto the see-through hole on his neck. His wound sizzled, and it was soon cooked. Yu Miao had used this cruel mystic art to temporarily protect the fatal wound.

Without giving him the time to clean up the wound, a beam of five-colored divine light thrust out from the top of Princess Zhang Le's head. Within the light, the golden body of the God of Scourge sat cross-legged in the magnificent shrine, and two fine lines of evil light came shooting out if her eyes to lock on Yu Miao's body. Then, the golden body raised her fingers up and pointed at him, giving a light snort. In the next moment, a meteorite suddenly emerged above him, plunging down at top speed. With a diameter of about a thousand feet, the entire meteorite was composed of high-density essences of five metals. Usually, even a palm-sized essence of five metals weighed tens of thousands of kilograms. So, it was not tough to imagine how incredibly heavy this meteorite was.

Yu Miao felt the strong wind coming from above, and he looked up blankly. When he saw a meteorite plunging down at him, his pupils constricted abruptly, and he growled, "Damnit!" For a moment, he felt an unspeakable pain and sorrow fill his heart. How could there be such a huge meteorite smashing down straight toward his head?

He had just been severely wounded by the iron-beaked ibis, and he was in such a pain now that even his mind was numb, which made him react slower than usual. There was no way he could avoid the meteor.

Just when Yu Miao was about to be smashed to a pulp by the meteorite, the Secluded Elder, who was not too far behind him and wreathed in thick blue smoke, flew toward him in a towering rage. A faint layer of Yin flame over the old man's skin had stopped the blue viruses from entering his body. As he drew near, the Secluded Elder struck his palms at the void, and two huge hands, each measuring over a thousand feet wide, immediately emerged above Yu Miao with a thunderous boom. As soon as they made their appearance, both huge hands cupped the meteorite from below and diverted its incredible impact, throwing it away in a random direction.

The Secluded Elder fixed his eyes at Princess Zhang Le as he clenched his jaw and said, "The Primordial Dao of Divinity? I can't believe that a little girl such as you have awakened the bloodline of the Ancient God! The golden body you have formed belongs to the God of Scourge, right? No wonder my clan has suffered such a heavy casualty! Your means are vicious and brutal, little girl!"

Princess Zhang Le twitched her lips as she gave a cold laugh and said proudly, "Save your breath, old fool! Had it not been because you were scheming for my husband's territory, I wouldn't have wasted my time on you, a bunch of old fogies who look neither like men nor ghosts! I'm tired of talking to you. With a word, all the members of the Yu Clan in Zhong Province are going to die today!"

As she said that, she performed a double-handed incantation gesture and intoned a spell in a deep voice. Small explosions suddenly raged across the Secluded Elder's body, opening up bloody holes the size of fists and sending his flesh and blood flying in all directions. Even worse was that a powerful magic he was just about to unleash suddenly went out of control. A group of ghosts sprung out of his palms as they clung to his body and began to bite and gnaw at him. His body shrunk rapidly as his blood essence was being sucked away by these ferocious ghosts.

Yu Miao let out a sharp roar and said, "How dare you? How could a weak girl like you have the audacity to threaten to wipe out the Yu Clan? Elders, let us join forces and kill this wicked girl! She can't be allowed to continue giving us trouble!"

As his voice was still echoing in the air, the dozens of Elders, whose bodies were also riddled with explosions, had turned into gusts of strong wind and rushed toward Princess Zhang Le. The viruses kept transforming into small bombs in their bodies and exploding. The fleshly bodies of these Elders were not as strong as those of the Great Yu's warriors. There was no way their fragile bodies could withstand the power of the explosions. As a result, in just a few short breaths of time, they were almost completely ripped to shreds.

They gnashed their teeth to endure the severe pain while intoning incantations silently to summon the Ghost Gods they worshiped. The only thought these Elders had in mind at the moment was to concentrate all their powers on killing Princess Zhang Le as fast as possible.

Princess Zhang Le gave a cold snort and lightly waved her hand. With the gesture, the dozen of captains Ji Ao sent here cried out at the same time, all charging toward the Elders whose bodies were covered in blood and gore, save two who stayed back to protect the princess.

There was a sudden flash of light in the distant sky, and a dozen large flying ships could be seen flying over at lightning speed.

Yu Mu had arrived with a large army. Since he and Yu Miao had openly turned against each other, he had to exterminate Yu Miao to prevent any future troubles. This was Yu Mu's chance to take complete control of Yu Clan in Zhong Province. How could he let it go?

Surrounded from three sides, Yu Miao and his party had been cornered to a dead end.