"Save me!"
The monk lying on the ground had spotted Mu Jinyu and the dozen or so people approaching. Unable to get up from the ground, he struggled to speak and reached out to Mu Jinyu, pleading for help.
As he spoke, his facial expressions twisted and changed.
Sometimes he flashed a hideous smile, imbued with a chilly sense of malice; sometimes it was as if he was crying and laughing at the same time, making one faintly hear the playful and quarreling sounds of children, adults, and the elderly.
Mu Jinyu's gaze sharpened, and she knew right away that this was indeed the Ghost-Faced Demon.
Moreover, it seemed to be, just as Ru Muhongchen had said, a Second-Level Demon that wasn't very dangerous.
"Eh, when did this monk sneak into our ancestral hall? Why is he lying on the ground motionless? Is he trying to pull off a scam in our village?"
At this moment, the elder drifted in from the doorway, looking at the monk on the ground struggling against the erosion of the Ghost-Faced Demon, and he expressed his surprise.
Mu Jinyu did not speak, she gripped the Golden Dagger in her hand and quickly walked over to the monk. Then she abruptly raised the dagger and stabbed it down towards the monk's face!
"Shi!"
Her move was fast and ruthless, to an outsider it would appear as if she intended to kill.
However, when the dagger pierced the skin of the monk's face, it did not cut open a large gash; rather, it made a metallic clang as if it had struck gold-iron.
"Clang!"
"It is indeed the real Ghost-Faced Demon!"
Mu Jinyu formed a spell with her hands, muttering the Evil-Suppressing Scripture. Then, she violently bit her tongue and spat a mouthful of blood, which hit the monk's face—sometimes dark, sometimes ashen—with a "puff" sound.
"Sizzling!"
Just like pigskin thrown into a red-hot iron pot, the monk's skin shrank and twisted violently as if being deep-fried.
"Puff!"
Then, the "skin" of the monk came off and floated in mid-air, preparing to cover Mu Jinyu's face!
"You're quite bold!"
Seeing this, Mu Jinyu snorted with a laugh, waving the Golden Dagger and piercing through the half-floating, constantly changing face.
"Shi!"
Like piercing through leather, the Ghost-Faced Demon, which had detached from the monk's face, could no longer resist the restraint of gold and was immediately pinned by the Golden Dagger, unable to move.
"Phew… I'm finally saved…"
At that moment, the monk who was lying on the ground, too exhausted to get up right away, took a few quick breaths and then expressed his relief.
Mu Jinyu glanced at him, noting that his face was still bloody. However, upon closer examination, it was apparent that his skin hadn't been peeled off by the Ghost-Faced Demon. The blood was likely from when the Ghost-Faced Demon had peeled off the skin of other villagers.
"A man of Buddha's Light Shines Everywhere?" asked Mu Jinyu.
As she casually asked, she reached for the gold briefcase at her waist, preparing to throw the Ghost-Faced Demon that was still twisting on the Golden Dagger into it for suppression.
"Yes, are you from Dragon King Hall?"
The monk was finally regaining some strength and as he spoke, he clumsily got up from the ground, complaining, "I never thought I'd almost capsize in the gutter…"
Before he could finish speaking, he saw something behind Mu Jinyu, and his blood-stained face suddenly changed as he shouted to her, "Run, the Ghost-Faced Demon is not that simple!"
Without waiting for Mu Jinyu to react, he turned and dashed towards the rear hall.
Mu Jinyu, considering the monk's reaction, felt her heart skip a beat and quickly turned her head to look.
She saw the elders who had been babbling nonstop now standing still as corpses, rigid in their places.
They were expressionless, their faces as pale as corpses, the eerie smiles that once lingered on their faces had disappeared, their eyes hollow and maliciously fixated on Mu Jinyu and his followers.
"Swoosh swoosh!"
As Mu Jinyu looked over, the red lines at the edges of their cheeks suddenly enlarged, and with a ripping sound, like leather being torn from an adhesive surface, a dozen human faces peeled away and soared into the air!
"Bang bang bang!"
And as their faces were stripped away, the old men and women's bodies fell backward, lifeless and silent.
The dozens of human skins floated and spun in midair before starting to twist and merge into an even larger and more terrifying ghost face!
"Whiz whiz whiz!"
Not far away, the faces of villagers from other residences, also stripped by the Ghost-Faced Demon, were converging toward this location.
Mu Jinyu instantly understood why the monk had taken to his heels and run.
This Ghost-Faced Demon was definitely not just a Second-Level Demon!
And he guessed the monk must have witnessed this scene beforehand.
With this realization, Mu Jinyu suppressed the thought of going head-to-head with the Ghost-Faced Demon and shouted to his restless followers, "Don't attack, let's go!"
"Huh?"
Chen Sheng, who was just about to call his brothers to action and plunge a dagger into the ghost face, was taken aback by Mu Jinyu's words.
He believed that now was the best time to attack, while the ghost face hadn't yet formed into the giant ghost face, fearing that once the ghost face grew, it would become even more troublesome.
"Dragon Master, this..." Chen Sheng felt that Mu Jinyu lacked experience, which was why he made such a judgement, and wanted to continue persuading him.
"Stop arguing, let's go!"
Mu Jinyu said firmly and started running toward the direction of the rear hall.
Although he had brought these followers to increase their experience in dealing with demons, if they refused to listen to him and were determined to be headstrong and seek death, he could only abandon them.
Mu Jinyu thought to himself that indeed, he had relied too much on Ah-Xiang in the past. After becoming the Dragon King, he let Ah-Xiang handle things at the Dragon King Hall. Now, although these followers obeyed him in small matters, they did not trust him with more significant issues.
As Mu Jinyu left,
Some, like Chen Sheng, hesitated and did not follow Mu Jinyu to the rear hall.
Others believed that Mu Jinyu wouldn't act without a reason and coupled with the monk's earlier flight, they didn't hesitate much and followed Mu Jinyu to the rear hall.
In the end, of the dozen or so people, three stood their ground and did not leave.
They clenched their teeth, armed with Golden Daggers, and launched themselves at the huge ghost face that was nearly fully pieced together!
"Shick!"
The daggers they wielded fiercely penetrated the ghost face's forehead, at the position of the eyes.
Unexpectedly,
Although their Golden Daggers successfully hit the ghost face, because the ghost face wasn't fully merged yet, it just twisted and the array of faces peeled apart, making it as if they had stabbed the air.
"Ahh!!"
At that moment, they felt a searing pain on their own faces, and then they saw three very familiar faces floating up to join the ghost face in mid-air!
It was...
Their own faces!