Chapter 406 - The Voodoo Curse of the Three Corpses (2/2)
Xiao Chen frowned. Su Lianyue acted so quickly but he realized what it was that she fed the woman: a little red pill looking almost similar in size to the shrinking elixir he just took before. “What is that pill you fed her?” He asked.
“The pill for the Yin-Yang Voodoo Curse of the Three Corpses!” Su Lianyue admitted coldly.
The name sounded so ghastly that Xiao Chen could hardly suppress a shiver himself. Su Lianyue snorted and began weaving her fingers, making hand seals while muttering a long litany of incantations. Then she tapped at the woman’s forehead with a finger and the woman winced as if she was hit by a stroke and she was no longer in control of herself.
“Go! To the Rock!” Su Lianyue growled a command and the woman nodded, much to Xiao Chen’s amazement, so obediently that he would have mistaken her for a puppet. Clearly, the Voodoo Curse was taking hold of her.
Su Lianyue and her mind-controlled woman began heading out of the forest before the former stopped and turned back. She saw Xiao Chen still rooted to his spot and barked, “What are you still waiting for, you pervert?!”
“Ah… Yes, of course,” Xiao Chen jerked himself back to the present and kept up. They walked to almost five kilometers and arrived before the mouth of a cave. There were no sentries outside; the guards were only inside, watching the Rock.
They entered the cave and walked down a long stone passage which was lighted at intervals with flaming flambeaus. As they traveled down the barren, rocky tunnel with the wavering glow of the flames displaying the strange images and runes chiseled into the walls of the cave passage. They looked very ancient and the runes were nothing Xiao Chen could recognize, looking hardly like the scripts of the common tongue used this age.
After 15 minutes, they finally arrived before a set of tightly-shut doors. This must be where the Rock was kept, Xiao Chen wondered. A squad of eight guards watched the door and greeted the woman in red politely, “Lady Ambassador!”
Su Lianyue, with the effects of the Voodoo Curse, controlled the woman, allowing her to speak on her behalf, “The High Chieftain wishes to see them.”
The sentries showed no signs of deferment nor disobedience, only dipping their heads in complete capitulation. Realizing that they were feeling suspicious, Xiao Chen produced the pass he had stolen and showed it to them. The eight men withdrew, allowing entry for Xiao Chen and his companions. Xiao Chen placed the pass into a cavity in the door and that undid the sealing enchantment that kept the doors locked. The large stone gateway opened with a shaking rumble and opened to admit them.
The stone slab for the entrance was at least a few yards thick, Xiao Chen observed, and it was almost unbelievable that another 8 sets of doors of similar strength awaited further inside. Xiao Chen and his companions passed through the Rock and came to a desolate gorge. The way leading up would bring them to the upper echelons of the Corpse Refinery Sect stronghold.
Yawning cave entrances and dark buildings lurked in the shadows of the gossamer moonlight streaming from above. With the woman in red now controlled by the Voodoo Curse, Xiao Chen and his companion have readily dispensed with their former plan of sneaking in quietly in favor of walking in openly. They needed to look for where Yu Yangzi’s soul was kept and Su Lianyue said to the woman with steel in her voice, “Bring us to where Yu Yangzi is kept. And avoid all patrolling guards, mind you!”
The woman shuffled in her steps then she stopped. Creases formed on her brows as she gritted her teeth and she recoiled a little, obviously struggling to fight against the influence of the Voodoo Curse, Su Lianyue realized. With a few hand seals and another spell, Su Lianyue tapped again on the woman’s head, strengthening her enchantment and the woman’s befuddled expression changing to one of polite indifference, bending once more to Su Lianyue’s will and she continued forward obediently.
The Voodoo Curse governing her actions and speech was hardly the only enchantment on her; she would have not been so easily cursed by Su Lianyue if not for Xiao Chen’s magic seal on her powers.
“Your voodoo curse is as impeccable as always, my lady,” Xiao Chen observed dryly as he walked abreast with his companion. Su Lianyue narrowed her eyes and peered at him dubiously. “And what’s it to you? Are you interested to learn some too so that you can have her strip in front of you and dip herself in iced water?”
“Ah!?” Xiao Chen stuttered, surprised to hear his own words coming from her, “What I said earlier was merely to distract the Two Supremes. Surely you understand what I was doing? I’ve never defiled any woman before…”
That earned him a scoff from Su Lianyue. “That is knowledge only you yourself are privy to, I’m afraid. Not that it mattered to me anyway.”
Xiao Chen could only giggle weakly. “Is she really taking me for a real pervert?” In a vain attempt to mask his embarrassment, he chuckled. “I know a friend who is also skilled in voodoo curses too.”
“Is that so? So who is the better user of curses? Your friend or I?”
“Err…” Xiao Chen could not resist a shiver. The reminiscences of Shangguan Yan and her witcheries never stopped filling him with dread and creepiness even after he achieved the powers of the Nascent Soul Realm. “I’d say you’re both good at your crafts,” Xiao Chen allowed.
Su Lianyue raised a finger to her lips suddenly. They were nearly out of the gorge and the glows of flames were flickering in the distance, heralding the arrival of a troop of patrolling guards. In spite of having the woman under their control, but they were nearing the sanctum of Ye Wuxin and they could never be too careful.
They hid and waited for the guards to pass by before they pressed on stealthily. The frostiness in the air only grew thicker the more they progressed, but the chill and foreboding dread did not seem to emanate from the mountain that loomed before them, but rather the rear of it.
The journey went on uneventfully for another hour with numerous brushes past scores of patrolling troops. They finally arrived at a strange and relatively hidden cave entrance. The ghastly chill of deathliness gushed relentlessly from the yawning mouth of the cave. Two rows of guards lined the passage leading deep into the bowels inside and Xiao Chen could feel the strengths of the Nascent Soul Realm radiating of each of them. As if it could not be any worse, there were even century-old Corpse Puppets watching the way in. The infiltration they have been doing before this seemed more like a walk in the park suddenly to Xiao Chen.
“This must be where Yu Yangzi is held,” Xiao Chen whispered and Su Lianyue responded with a tacit nod.
They were still contemplating their options and their attention had drifted off the woman in red. She shook herself in bewilderment and finally succeeded in wrestling herself free from the Voodoo Curse. She darted out of the forest and ran towards the cave, her arms raising frantically to catch their attention.
“WHO GOES THERE!”