Chapitre 72: Black Talisman

Bu Dong held the black talisman up with two fingers and focused a small amount of chi into it.

"Activate!"

He immediately placed the black talisman onto the ground and an elaborate magic circle with a luminous image of a yin and yang with other peculiar symbols surfaced right before him.

The customers that were watching the dungeon instance buzzed out in excitement! Even Jin folded his arms and leaned forth the bar counter to catch the scene as it unfolded right before them.

A thick fog arose right before Bu Dong and a fairly enormous furry figure was summoned out of the magic circle.

"Oink!"

"That black talisman summoned Mr Oink?!" Most of the old customers including Bu Dong was shocked! Wasn't the black talisman supposed to help them and not complicate the situation even more?

"Continue watching." Jin snickered a little as he folded his arms.

"Did Captain Hei actually gave wrong information?" Bu Dong's brain was in a mess and he readied his sword to fight against the eight-legged boar which he previously encountered in the Goblin Dungeon.

"Oink! Oink!" The eight-legged boar seemed happy in spite of its grunting as it saw Bu Dong. At the same time, it actually gazed keenly at the zombie abomination. Bu Dong could not comprehend the next scene when Mr Oink actually lunged itself towards the zombie abomination. "Bat! Yue Han! Watch out! Mr Oink is coming!" Bu Dong hurriedly exclaimed.

However, it was too late when Yue Han heard the warning. He suddenly saw a familiar figure dashing towards him and the zombie abomination. Thankfully, his shadow form was still in effect when Mr Oink collided into him. Hence, all he got was some blunt trauma at the side of his body.

The boar furiously rammed into the zombie abomination which inadvertently helped Yue Han to move it nearer to Shi Zuo. Not only that, the leg injury which Xiong Da inflicted earlier took effect and the zombie abomination fell to the ground. It was not able to get up in time to prevent the next consecutive strike from Mr Oink.

Meanwhile, everyone was cheering for Mr Oink for no particular reason. "This is amazing! Does that mean the same thing might happen from Bin Yong's black talisman activation?" One of the returning customers who knew Boss Jin's dungeons well enough questioned him.

"Perhaps," Jin's smiled broadly and returned to the Panda Port to attend to a new customer.

Seeing how the abomination was on its knees, the boar lowered its head and pierced its tusks into the abdominal area of the zombie monster. Mr Oink used all its muscles to lift the zombie abomination up before slamming it down to the ground. The ground trembled and even cracked from the impact due to the continuous assault by the eight-legged boar. It seemed to cause some degree of internal injury with sounds of bone cracking and blood spewing from the wound inflicted by Mr Oink' tusks.

The abomination roared in an unknown language for every zombie in the vicinity to hear and its intentions were clear. It commanded the zombies to attack the boar and demanded them to sacrifice themselves to heal it.

"Oh no, you don't. Towering Tortoise Technique! The Aggravated Cries of the Tortoise!" Kong Xian spoke loudly in a firm voice. While it seemed ironic to say the name of a technique to produce the provoking war cry, it was the way how eastern cultivation techniques and weapon arts worked in this world.

Words itself are a form of power. A praise, an insult or even just a sentence of reason could invoke the chi within to be released out of the body. To date, the concept in the power of words igniting chi from within could not be fully comprehended by martial arts grandmasters, past scholars or even modern researchers. There were theories but the evidence to most of them was at most flimsy.

However, that did not stop any cultivator for fully utilising it into their cultivation styles. Thus by saying the name of the technique or weapon art, the words imbued the cultivator's chi allowing it to be shaped and formed into the desired effect of a technique.

While most techniques required the incantation of its name before executing the attack, some techniques from certain cultivation styles allowed one to attack first before stating its name. Most of such cultivation styles were mainly used in an assassination. However, in the case of Jin, his Nineteen Lazy Astral Panda cultivation style utilised a different sort of concept.

Kong Xian's thunderous shout enabled him to emit a huge breath of chi causing the zombies to move towards Kong Xian in order to satisfy their hunger pangs for chi. The shout overpowered the commands of the abomination, rendering its cry for help useless.

Seeing how he succeeded in luring the majority of the zombies, Kong Xian quickly proceeded deeper into the forest with Xiong Da alongside him.

All thanks to Mr Oink, Yue Han was finally alleviated from the mounting pressure he had faced against the abomination and stepped aside from the battlefield to catch his breath.

"Good job Yue Han! You confronted your fears with determination." Shi Zuo took a deep breath in and dragged the gigantic axe towards the abomination. "It is time to face my fear too." Shi Zuo feared his technique would fail him.

Meanwhile, the abomination, despite its lack of intelligence, noticed that reinforcements would not be coming and for the first time, it struggled to get Mr Oink's tusk out of its body by persistently striking the boar until it managed to break one of the tusks out of its head.

Mr Oink experienced such an excruciating pain from the broken tusk that it finally withdrew itself from the scuffle and the abomination shouted in victory. Without delay, it commanded the zombies residing in its mouth to emerge and mend its wounds.

Unfortunately, its victory and respite were short lived.

"Intermediate Great Axe Art! The Divide between the Mountains of Mad Monkey!" Shi Zuo was seen unleashing a tremendous amount of chi in an instant. The cultivation of the Mad Monkey was portrayed above Shi Zuo with two monkey silhouettes banging their hands in midair. Suddenly, a third monkey silhouette materialised from nowhere and joined the two monkeys.

"Grade 3!!!!" The customers roared with exhilaration in their hearts as they saw Shi Zuo jumped from Grade 2 Peak to Grade 3.

The great stone axe he held up became larger to the extent it was similar to the build of abomination. With two hands barely grabbing onto the great Axe, Shi Zuo swung it down with all his might aiming at the mouth which was positioned at the back of the monster. The force was so vehement that Shi Zuo thought that his backbone would have cracked by just swinging the great axe.

As predicted, the zombies within the mouth came out trying to halt the swing of the great axe but it was fruitless. The axe was so heavy that it sliced and smashed every zombie in the abomination's monstrous mouth as they tried to block the attack. Finally, the axe was lodged into the zombie abomination's back and the weight of the axe made the abomination completely immobile.

"Now! Bu Dong!" Shi Zuo fell to his knees but Yue Han caught him in time and carried him further away from the abomination.

"Intermediate Sword Art! Lacerate in the Blazing Edge of the Angry Ape!" Bu Dong was already running towards the abomination and simultaneously preparing to activate his technique without the distraction of the zombies.

His sword instantaneously turned bright orange red and heat was being radiated out of it. Bu Dong stabbed the abomination with all his might and plunged his sword deep into it. At that moment, the flesh of the abomination started to turn scarlet red in colour and a fire was ignited within the monster. Black smoke was seen coming out of the abomination's orifices and within seconds, the stench of dead flesh burning diffused into the air. The fire within the monster started to burn fiercely and in minutes, the whole body was on fire.

The customers cheered loudly at Squad B victory and at the end of the pile of burnt flesh was the great axe which returned to its original size. Yue Han high fived Bu Dong as Shi Zuo sat for a while.

"Leader, there is no time to rest. We must assist Tortoise and Hippo." Bu Dong offered his hand to Shi Zuo.

Separately, Squad A Leader Bin Yong was having a bit of trouble on the third floor of the Watchtower. "Leave me be! Rabbit and Bellflower, take this white gem to the next floor!" After throwing the white gem to Jia Le, Bin Yong panted as his buckler was raised up high to protect his face and his sword pointed towards a zombie.

A Zombified Grade 3 Cultivator.