CHAPTER 207: A Hundred Spirits In A Frenzied Dance

The ability to use the mystical rules of nature and a few special ingredients to create a formation that could capture the wonders of heaven and earth was a secret skill that all demonic magical cultivators could grasp.

Han Shuo was no longer content to remain passive after digesting all of Chu Cang Lan's memories. Even if his current cultivation level wasn't up to par, he would be able to take a more active role by using some magical formations.

With a strategy of acting first and reporting later, Han Shuo took over the shop with the place of extreme water. He used Florida as an excuse to fob off Harris when he arrived later.

The Cairo mercenaries were in charge of everything in the Valley of Sunshine, so they weren't afraid of Han Shuo's tricks. The shop would be returned to Han Shuo unconditionally as soon as Florida was dead. Han Shuo had just taken possession of his property.

A shop wasn't like other things that could be taken and stored away. If that had been the case, Harris probably wouldn't have been willing to hand over the shop so early, as he would have been afraid that Han Shuo would have taken the items with him. But since the shop was immovable, Harris didn't have to worry about that. Not to mention that the deed was still in his hands. That's why Harris didn't say anything after listening to Han Shuo's explanations, tacitly agreeing with what Han Shuo had done.

The shop that was said to be cursed was larger than Han Shuo had imagined. It was approximately four hundred square metres, with an eighty square metre courtyard. There were many small and large rooms, including various tables, chairs, beds, lamps, and assorted furniture. Because it was an evil place, all the items inside had become unlucky after the owner's death. No one would take anything from this shop and possibly bring trouble down on their heads. Aside from the lack of blankets and other necessities, as well as a thick layer of dust from being unoccupied for so long, there wasn't much missing from the shop.

Han Shuo had already explained the peculiarities of this storefront earlier when he talked about forming the mercenary band. Even though Emily and Phoebe didn't fully understand his explanation, they understood that Han Shuo had already removed the impure thing from this shop. Because of their trust in Han Shuo, the two girls felt a little uncomfortable in this place, but they didn't protest and allowed Han Shuo to set up shop there.

Since he'd decided to set up a formation, he had to make the necessary preparations. Han Shuo made a list and gave Emily and Phoebe the task of gathering some necessary cold items to form the foundational materials.

Out of consideration for their safety. Han Shuo had Gilbert follow them. With such a strong and extraordinary Dark Dragon following them, and the two girls being an archmage and a swordmaster respectively, they probably wouldn't come off any worse if they ran into Edwin.

Once everyone had been sent on their way, Han Shuo chanted a necromancy spell and summoned ten skeletal warriors. He gave an order and they all picked up brooms and dustbins and began to sweep from room to room.

The Shura Soul Formation was a formation that trapped victims in a realm of illusion. This formation required the death auras of a hundred wraiths to support it, as well as the bones of cold lands to form six shura pillars, and the blood of virgins for ink. Once the pillars were inscribed with magical glyphs, a piece of floating rock infused with five drops of the caster's blood essence would form the eye of the formation and complete it.

Once the formation was formed, any enemies who didn't understand the formations would be attacked by the death auras of a hundred wraiths as soon as they entered. They would become disoriented and see illusions, discovering a ghostly clone of themselves who would kill them at any cost. Fear would cause him to sink into madness in an instant. Besides, no matter how strong one's heart was, it was very difficult to triumph over one's heart.

The well in the middle of the place of extreme water had been slightly modified by Han Shuo so that he could make full use of it. Using the well as the eye of the formation, he had added some of the materials he'd picked up over the past few days to form a small-scale 'Kelpie Possession Formation'. Each wraith had been implanted with a jellyfish and transformed into a kelpie in the well using secret arts. Anyone who approached them would be possessed by the kelpies and dragged into the well.

After setting up the two formations, Han Shuo suddenly thought that he'd been wise to combine the use of Chu Cang Lan's magical cultivation with the necromancy magic of this world. It seemed that when they were combined, they would indeed produce unforeseen effects.

The Shura Soul Formation spirits could be replaced by wraiths, and the Bones of Cold could be replaced by ordinary skeletal warriors. The Kelpie Possession Formation also used wraiths. If Han Shuo hadn't known necromancy magic, he would have had to gather all the materials himself from the graveyards.

However, with the identity of a necromancer, he only needed a few chants to gather all the materials. He'd saved himself a lot of trouble.

After a day's work, Emily, Phoebe and Gilbert were quite surprised by what they saw when they returned to the shop late at night.

There were six stark white bone pillars in six different corners of the courtyard. A cold aura emanated from the centre of the courtyard. There were clouds of misty ghosts in the air, posing and making faces as they danced through the air. An eerie feeling filled the surroundings.

Several white, misty clouds hovered intangible around the fountain in the centre, forming leering and grimacing faces. A blood-red stone lay in a hollow beside the fountain. Some of the ghosts floating in the air were circling around the stone, their bodies coloured red as a result.

Han Shuo was sitting cross-legged in front of the stone, with rays of black splendour emanating from the palms of his hands. His hands had turned an inky black as a hazy light circulated around his body, making his entire being appear quite evil.

The doors to all the rooms around the courtyard had been opened and all the dusty rooms had been thoroughly cleaned. The light in them was cosy and inviting, with none of the cold air from the courtyard drifting into the rooms. "Oh my goodness, what have you done?!" Emily exclaimed in surprise as she turned in place. Curiosity filled her eyes and she reached out to touch one of the Shura pillars.

"Don't move!" Han Shuo suddenly opened his eyes and called softly to Emily.

Emily's jade hand was about to touch the pillar when she hastily pulled it back as if she'd been frightened. Phoebe and Gilbert were still a little taken aback. They'd never thought this place could have changed so much in the space of a day.

A strange presence pervaded the courtyard, making them instinctively uncomfortable. They'd never seen this array of straight objects before and had no idea what they were for. Their minds were full of questions at the moment.

Smiling faintly, Han Shuo rose from his cross-legged position and dripped a drop of bright red blood onto the stone. The breezy courtyard whipped up even stronger winds as the wraiths danced and howled with the addition of the blood. Gusts of the cold air of death made everyone feel incredibly frightened.

"Did you get everything I wanted you to buy?" Han Shuo smiled faintly.

"Ask him, he was the one who collected the most important thing!" Phoebe pointed at Gilbert with a flushed face.

"Gracious Master, why do you collect the blood of virgins? They are too shameless and dirty!" Gilbert snapped and looked at Han Shuo with a disdainful expression, yet he seemed quite excited.

"Oh shut up, do you get it?" Han Shuo glared at Gilbert angrily.

"Heh5, I did, I did. There's nothing that can't be settled without gold coins! I only spent fifty gold coins and went around the small alleys of the valley to get what you needed." Gilbert pulled out a palm-sized bottle as he spoke.

Emily and Phoebe both snorted coldly as he took out the bottle and split off in two directions, heading for the rooms.

"Why are you two snorting at me? It wasn't me who wanted to do this, it was all Master's orders! Did you think I wanted it? All those stupid women in there were looking at me like I was a giant pervert! If I hadn't taken the gold coins out, I'd probably have drowned from the spit they threw at me!" Gilbert looked quite upset when he saw both Emily and Phoebe looking down on him, and couldn't help but complain loudly.

There were some very wealthy customers in the red light district who liked to be served by virgins. In order to attract these customers, the people in charge would spend a lot of money to buy virgin slaves. Han Shuo had sent Gilbert there because he knew this.

Even though Han Shuo had a thick enough skin, he still couldn't let go of his face enough to buy these things. After all, if someone who had no idea what was going on saw his actions, they would think his actions were dirty enough.

"Alright, alright, go about your business, don't bother me!" Han Shuo rather understood Gilbert's complaints, but he didn't bother to comfort him.

Han Shuo had used the Demonslayer's Edge to carve various complicated drawings on the six Shura Pillars. He now fetched a bucket of spirit water from the place of extreme water and diluted the vial of virgin blood in it.

He stirred it with a spoon made from the wood of a peach tree, then picked up the bucket and flew upwards, landing on the first Shura pillar and pouring the liquid onto it.

Emily and Phoebe came out of their warm rooms when they saw Han Shuo begin his work. Their clear eyes were full of curiosity as to what Han Shuo was doing.

The reddish liquid flowed down the images that Han Shuo had carved earlier. Amazingly, none of the liquid dripped onto the floor. It filled the cracks in the pictures as if it had been attracted by a surge of power.

Han Shuo tossed the empty bucket to the side after pouring the liquid over the six pillars. He then flew to the blood red stone next to the fountain and sent black sparkles from his palm, forming a magical formation and branding it into the centre of the blood red stone. The six pillars suddenly glowed with red light as the faces of all sorts of howling and wailing wraiths appeared in the images carved into the shura pillars. The hundred wraiths that had been flying around the courtyard rushed towards the images like sparrows returning to a nest.

The originally intangible wraiths merged with the twisted forms of the spirits as they sank into the shura pillars. The spirits seemed to come to life as they began to thrash and dance on the shura columns, revealing fanged and bloodthirsty mouths. Successive, bloodcurdling screams of despair rang out into the night sky, terrifying the people around them.

This is bad! Han Shuo was terrified. He hadn't thought that after the formation was completed, such terrifying screams like wraiths cries and wolf howls would be heard. . He immediately formed another spell and threw it at the floating rock that had absorbed five drops of his blood essence.

At that moment, all the wraiths were sucked into the Shura Pillars, and the pillars, with hundreds of ghosts dancing madly above them, became lifeless as the ghosts inside seemed to be frozen in the ghosts' drawings.

"Give me the rest of the materials. The formation should be completed first. Even if that old monster Edwin pays you a visit, I'll make sure he doesn't get away so easily!" Han Shuo laughed madly as he spoke to Emily and Phoebe.

Their faces were full of shock at the moment. When they heard Han Shuo's words, they handed over the cold items they'd bought in a morass of confusion. When all the materials had been collected, Han Shuo began to fly quickly around the courtyard, amidst the confused looks of the three people. It was then that the three of them discovered the many large and small trenches that could perfectly hold all the items in Han Shuo's hands.

Han Shuo retreated from the courtyard when all was ready and called Gilbert to his side where he stood next to Phoebe and Emily.

He gave a mental command and a beam of red light rose from the courtyard into the sky. The wind howled in the courtyard for a moment as an extreme feeling of cold from the hundred dancing ghosts on the pillars penetrated the hearts of the other three.

The three understood that after Han Shuo's preparations, a simple courtyard had been transformed into a place of deadly danger!

"Everything will be perfect once we set up a soundproof force field around the area!" Han Shuo turned to Emily with a mysterious smile.

"Leave this to me!" Emily understood his meaning and unleashed a dark magic. Magic waves suddenly appeared above the courtyard, descending like a shapeless dome.

"What happened, did the evil god's curse flare up?" Harris's cry suddenly rang out from outside as hoofbeats echoed. Harris and others of the Cairo mercenary band appeared on horseback outside the shop, Harris knocking on the door and shouting.

As the eye of the formation, the floating rock also had five drops of Han Shuo's blood essence on it. Therefore, Han Shuo could easily control the entire formation through the floating stone with a simple thought.

When he heard Harris' call from outside, Han Shuo slightly changed the formation and made it return to normal. Apart from the six shura pillars, there were no other changes.

"Nothing much, has Mr. Harris come by to tell us some news?" Han Shuo opened the door to let Harris in as he replied easily, beaming widely.

Harris looked around with his sharp eyes after entering, sweeping them through every corner of the shop. He asked Han Shuo with some confusion, "Why have six strange columns suddenly appeared?"

"Oh, we're planning on making this a long-term residence, and we created these six pillars for support because there's no place to hang anything out to dry. What brings Mr Harris here?"

"There was a bloody light just now, and others in the neighbouring shops heard terrible cries coming from here. They said they were frightened and wanted us to come and see what was happening. I was also afraid that something had happened to you, so I came over to take a look!"

Laughing lightly, Han Shuo joked, "These people are quite cowardly. We were just practising magic. We have several people here, and we wouldn't be afraid even if the curse were to work. Don't worry!"

"Eh, the guy who collects virgin blood is your friend too?" Harris nodded and was about to leave when he suddenly spotted Gilbert. He couldn't help but ask Han Shuo.

"Uh... you could say that!" Han Shuo felt a bit uncomfortable as he turned back to stare at Gilbert. The latter was about to erupt in anger when Han Shuo told him to be quiet and then turned back to explain to Harris.

"Why do you have such a friend? He's so disgusting!" Harris looked at Gilbert with extreme disdain and seemed unwilling to stay any longer as he hurriedly took his men and left.

"The hell! It's all Master's orders, what the hell has it got to do with me?" Gilbert finally couldn't hold it in any longer after Harris had left and roared, smoke billowing from his orifices.