PD -Chapter 187 The Savior Appears

The black shadow was exactly the same as the straw man we had seen earlier in front of the earthen house when I was with Tang Shanshan. It was clearly the evil mountain deity that had been corrupted by sinister intent and used living people as sacrifices.

I instantly threw out all my talismans. They struck the black figure with dull thuds. Fire talismans ignited its clothes and the straw hat on its head.

However, within the flames, it did not slow down in the slightest. The rusted iron hook in its hand had now turned bright and polished, gleaming with a cold light as it swung straight down at me.

I instinctively dodged and retreated rapidly. A golden light barrier—my protective incantation—burst out from my body. But after a few steps back, I saw the shadow flicker several times and suddenly vanish into thin air.

My heart sank immediately. It was going after Tang Shanshan.

I turned around and saw that burning figure reappear beneath the tree that was about to collapse.

Instead of rushing to chase Tang Shanshan and the others as I had expected, it stood under the tree and placed its hand on the trunk.

The moment its hand touched the massive tree, the violent and strange trembling of the entire tree instantly stopped. The effect of my blood-based damage on the giant tree also vanished.

What’s more, I saw the hunched straw-man-like figure slowly merge into the tree itself.

The giant tree seemed to regain strength. From its previous withered state, it began to grow rapidly again, instantly becoming taller and thicker than before.

And at that moment, the straw man had already been completely swallowed by the trunk. The giant tree had become its new body.

Thud… thud…

The tree trembled as it slowly grew limbs, and then it actually began to walk forward. Each step it took against the ground produced a thunderous impact.

After only two steps, it reached forward and grabbed Tang Shanshan, Zhenzhen, and Old Li.

Its arms stretched dozens of meters, sprouting countless vines that wrapped around them and lifted them up.

I cursed under my breath. Facing such a massive creature, I was completely running out of options.

But I still couldn’t give up. If I did now, all four of us would become sacrifices to this damned mountain god.

Just as Old Li had said—if we were going to die, we had to fight it to the end.

I rushed beneath the giant figure and grabbed onto its branches, trying to climb upward.

Because I had seen something strange: within its thick trunk, there seemed to be a face embedded inside. My plan was to go straight for it.

I climbed desperately upward, but halfway up, a vine suddenly wrapped around me and hurled me away. I slammed into a nearby tree.

I felt like my spine was about to snap.

When I landed, I had already closed my eyes—because I saw the giant figure lifting its foot, about to crush me into pulp the next second.

But at that moment, a powerful beam of light suddenly lit up in front of me, shining from deep within the forest, like a car with high-beam headlights.

The instant the light appeared, the giant foot frozen mid-air.

I immediately felt a wave of relief and scrambled out from under it.

“Catch!”

A familiar voice came from a distance.

Then I saw a figure standing where the light was shining—Liu Xiaopeng.

I felt a surge of excitement.

He threw something toward me, and I instinctively caught it—it was my Spirit Subduing Ruler.

It seemed Liu Xiaopeng had not only seen the message I left him, but also predicted what might happen… so he had gone back to the office to retrieve my equipment and tools.

These were things I had created years ago on a whim when my spiritual power was still weak and my understanding of the Heaven-Through Mystery Record was only at a superficial level.

At the time, they had helped me a great deal in strengthening my abilities and amplifying my techniques.

But later, as events forced me to grow stronger, I kept improving my spiritual power and studying deeper techniques, and these old tools were stored away.

Now, unexpectedly, they had become our lifeline.

I opened the box containing the Spirit Subduing Ruler and whipped it out like a whip, wrapping it around the branches of the giant tree. Then I quickly moved behind several trees, using both the ruler and the surrounding trunks as support to bind the mountain god’s body.

Of course, I knew such a simple trick wouldn’t hold it for long.

But I wasn’t trying to trap it—I was using it to climb onto its body and rescue Tang Shanshan and the others.

Liu Xiaopeng then threw me another item: a spiritual energy battery.

It was a device I had developed in the past to store spiritual power. I would infuse it daily so it could be used in emergencies. Now, it was finally useful.

I gripped the battery, and as I activated it, the stored spiritual energy flowed back into my body, replenishing my depleted dantian.

In an instant, golden light erupted from me. I leapt upward, stepping lightly on the Spirit Subduing Ruler as I ascended.

Qian trigram, Kun trigram, Zhen trigram—each step landed precisely on the engraved hexagram marks along the ruler.

At the final step, when I reached Tang Shanshan, a spiritual sword suddenly appeared in my right hand. Using the ruler as support, I unleashed a high-level Spirit Sword Incantation from the Heaven-Through Mystery Record.

Gritting my teeth, I swung the sword down at the vines binding her.

Like cutting tofu, silently and effortlessly, the vines were severed.

I immediately caught Tang Shanshan as she fell into my arms.

At the same time, I saw Liu Xiaopeng rushing up along the trunk of the giant tree. Talismans on his feet made him as light as a feather.

Holding Tang Shanshan, I slashed twice toward Zhenzhen and Old Li, cutting their bindings. They fell toward the ground.

But Liu Xiaopeng was right below them. He grabbed their clothes mid-air and leapt down, landing safely.

I also quickly descended along the Spirit Subduing Ruler with Tang Shanshan and set her down.

“With Xiaopeng here, you don’t need to worry anymore. Take them and leave!” I shouted to Tang Shanshan.

Tang Shanshan looked at Liu Xiaopeng, realized she couldn’t help, and quickly took the others and ran down the mountain.

And I turned back around—with Liu Xiaopeng—to face the enemy once again.