A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality (Chapter 601-Chapter 800)

A painful moan roared from within the smoke and the sharp claw quickly withdrew.

Han Li stared into the mist with tightly shut lips, his expression continuously fluctuating. After some consideration, Han Li’s expression grew sullen and he drew back with two additional steps. With the Lapis Stone wall close against his back, he poured a great amount of spiritual energy into the jade scepter, thickening the red-yellow light barrier around his body and causing him to feel somewhat more at ease.

After the time it took to brew a cup of tea, yet another monstrous scream left the mist, and the radiance of the jade box’s golden talisman gradually dimmed. The amount of talisman characters it produced had also started to grow sparse.

With all that he had seen, Han Li mused, ‘It seems the golden talisman is capable of restraining either ghosts or demons, but it has a rather limited amount of spiritual Qi. It will eventually expire and will no longer be able to restrain her.”

Fortunately, Han Li’s worries were unfounded.

In the following moment, the final scream faded away and the smoke had grown still. However, the golden talisman’s light had yet to fade away.

Han Li glanced at the golden talisman and didn’t immediately approach it. Instead, he waited for a moment more. After the golden light faded away and the jade box fell into the dense smoke, Han Li’s expression began to stir.

He waved his arm and put away the spirit beast pouch for the time being. He then formed an incantation seal with the newly freed hand and began to mutter something in a low voice. In the following instant, a red, egg-sized fireball appear in front of him.

After taking a glance at the fireball, Han Li pointed into the smoke and the fireball flew into the green smoke as a streak of red light. He raised his brows and uttered, “Explode.”

Boom! The smoke was swept up in a gale and was scattered in an instant, only to be replaced with a burnt stench.

As expected, fire attribute techniques were the most effective means of dealing with poisonous Qi.

Han Li stood in place as he felt hot winds blow against him. A strange expression stirred in his eyes as he stared at the stone platform while the smoke cleared away. When he eventually saw what was there, he felt his heart jump and he dryly swallowed as a shiver went down his spine.

There was a human-shaped silhouette on the platform that remained still, and it was unknown whether it was still alive.

Although it could be said to be human-shaped, there was dense green fur covering its body. Additionally, it smelled very much like a rotting corpse.

Although he didn’t see what it truly was, it was absolutely not human.

Like its human form, it had only one arm, but this arm was much longer and had pitch-black claws. This was clearly what had attacked Han Li earlier.

What was even more notable were the many chains that wrapped around its body. Not only did they bind its legs and arm, but it also pierced through its chest and back. It had been entirely restrained.

Without much further thought, Han Li pointed to his flying swords and had them pierce into the monster.

As a result, a series of muffled clangs sounded out. The green fur had repelled them without harm.

Han Li wryly smirked, but he didn’t feel particularly surprised. Given what heavy restrictions the monster was subjected to, Han Li would’ve been somewhat astonished if that had actually cleaved off its head. It couldn’t have possibly been that simple.

Han Li waved to the swords and had them fly back towards him. He then took a few steps forward and lightly flung his sleeve towards the green haired monster. At that moment, an azure mist of light shot out form Han Li’s sleeve and gently enveloped the monster, resulting in it dropping to the floor with its true appearance revealed.

With its hair parted, it was revealed to have only skin and bone as if it were a dried up skeleton. Its half open mouth had a pair of inch long fangs emerging from it, making for a frightful appearance.

“This is...” Han Li glanced at the green fur on the body and took another look at its face. It faintly felt familiar as if he had seen it before in a jade slip.

After lowering his head in contemplation, its name suddenly appeared in his head. He couldn’t help but raise his head and frightfully shout, “Cadaver Demon!” He suddenly recalled the fearsome legends of this vicious spirit from times of antiquity.

“Cadaver Demons” were a type of Jiangshi. However, it was greatly different from cultivator refined corpses and ordinary Jiangshi that naturally rose from deep within the earth. It only appeared under extremely rare and specific circumstances.

Although no one knew of the method by which this fearsome spirit took form, there were two main conditions that a Cadaver Corpse required to take form.

First, there must be a corpse of a Nascent Soul cultivator at the very least. Corpses of mortals and inferior cultivators weren’t sufficient for a cadaver demon to form. Secondly, the corpse must have heavenly spirit roots that are either wood or earth attribute. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to draw support from nature to rise once more.

In addition to this, the cultivator must’ve died harboring immense grievances. With the soul unwilling to return to the path of reincarnation, it is retained by the corpse. As time passed by with some other unknown conditions fulfilled, the soul and corpse would fuse together to form the monster known as a Cadaver Demon.

The monster could be said to be half human and half Jiangshi as well as half Jiangshi and half ghost.

Not only did it lack the fatal weakness of sunlight that ghost demons and Jiangshi possessed, but it also possessed most of its memories and techniques from when it was alive. And because it died harboring grievances, this fearsome spirit was undoubtedly bloodthirsty. They were particularly fond of hunting down cultivators and slowly torturing their souls with corpsefire for their amusement as they feasted on them.

It had been ages since the last Cadaver Demon had appeared in the cultivation world.





Chapter 613: Transformation


Recalling the stories about the Cadaver Demon’s incredibly durable body, Han Li felt slight dejection. According to the rumors, he could only use true fire to slowly burn the corpse or extract the soul and seal it.

The Cadaver Demon clearly wasn’t dead. It was merely restrained for the time being by the unknown golden talisman. He reckoned it would take quite a while before the Cadaver Demon would be able to recover its strength.

With that thought, Han Li’s gaze fell onto the jade box at the corpse demon’s side. Since it had suppressed the Cadaver Demon and still hadn’t burned to ash, it must be a seal of sorts.

From how closely related the jade box was to the Cadaver Demon and the golden talisman that sealed it, it stands to reason that the box must’ve contained the Cadaver Demon’s soul.

But in that case, why was the the Cadaver Demon able to control its body? It had also managed to nearly deceive Han Li into opening the jade box with its great intelligence. Could it be that the soul extraction was incomplete and that a remnant of the soul remained inside her body?

Also, why did the Cadaver Demon have a jade spirit well in its possession? Did it acquire it after it was trapped?

As Han Li was puzzling over this, he frowned and sank into deep thought.

After a short moment, Han Li bluntly tossed the useless question away and began to look around for a way to leave.

He would need to be at least at the Nascent Soul stage to be able to burn away the Cadaver Demon with true fire. Additionally, it would take several months at the very least. Even if Han Li had the cultivation to do so, he wouldn’t waste the time or effort on such a fruitless task.

He’d rather just get as far away from here as possible and have the Cadaver Demon continue to remain in isolation.