Chương 50: Imperial Magistrate Yue Zhenli (Final)

"Her meridians are ruptured!" Constable Mu shouted with bloodshot eyes, driving a third thin needle into Magistrate Yue's abdomen.

"I need to check her Root and Solar Plexus Chakras! Heavens, how did se lost so much Qi?" Moving swiftly, he searched through Magistrate Yue's bamboo slip for any Jade Spiritual Stone. Finding none, Constable Mu swore under his breath and waved at the inspector standing guard.

"You, go fetch the medicinal pills! Bring me any Spiritual Stones," he shouted.

"Oh heavens, have mercy on me. Make sure she brought more on the horses." Despite the Constable's orders, the Inspector did not move. He remained on guard, sword drawn, eyes fixed outward.

"Dumb and useless mortals," swearing under his breath, Constable Mu glanced at Magistrate Yue's exposed chest and swallowed. Usually a lustful man, his gaze over her breasts lacked any trace of arousal. Inwardly, he felt nothing but fear when seeing the Magistrate's current state! Her body was riddled with stab wounds and deep slashes, her flesh torn and barely holding together. Glaring with bloodshot eyes at the Inspector nearby, he screamed like a pig.

"She cannot die! All of you can die, but she cannot! She's from the Yue Clan, you insignificant creatures! Go fetch the pills!" Despite his screams, the Inspector did not move, and the other one beside the Constable continued assisting by pushing needles into the Magistrate's body with mechanical movements. Constable Mu's face twisted as heat rose to his head. His fists clenched and his teeth ground together. Standing up with a huff, he threw his arms into the air and said, "Fine, fine! I will do it myself!"

The moment he moved away from the Magistrate, however, both Inspectors turned their swords at him.

"Magistrate Yue commanded us to remain on guard and for you to treat her," one Inspector said flatly.

"You must not leave until she is healed. Please, don't try to leave." Grabbing his hair with both hands and pulling hard, Constable Mu let out a bitter, despairing laugh.

"Oh heavens, she will die because of these Imperial Servants," he muttered, his gaze unfocused.

"Will the Yue Clan blame me? Hehe, of course they will. Should I kill myself to avoid the trouble?" Taking a deep breath to calm his wits, the Constable thought about what he should do. For a moment, he considered killing the Inspectors and getting the pills to save Magistrate Yue. But a single glance at her condition made him hesitate. Constable Mu assumed that Magistrate Yue had fought a Demonic Cultivator, and that either she had won and barely survived or that both sides had been reduced to this state.

The best-case scenario was that the enemy was long dead, of course, but he would never believe in such luck. In his view, if the enemy were wounded but alive, then he would need the Inspectors as bait while he struck from the shadows. And if the enemy were unharmed, then it would likely be someone at the Foundation Establishment realm. In that case, they would be as good as dead, so killing the Inspectors hardly made any difference.

As thoughts raced through his mind, the guarding Inspector suddenly stepped forward and slashed at him! Simultaneously, the sitting Inspector abruptly stood up and joined the assault. Reacting instantly, Constable Mu sent Qi through his twelve meridians. With a flick of his hand, four hidden needles, each coated in green venom, shot toward the two inspectors. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Despite being caught off guard, he had lived longer than most cultivators at his realm, so his battle experience wasn't null! He was quicker than trained mortals, even given his old age, so avoiding their attacks through a movement technique was easy. Unsurprisingly, two needles struck each Inspector, one needle at the throat and the other at the heart. Observing this, Constable Mu frowned. He couldn't understand why he was attacked out of the blue!

Controlling his breath and Qi through a breathing technique, he relaxed his tensed body when no more attacks came. Scanning the surroundings, still uncertain about what had happened, he was about to investigate further the situation when his eyes bulged, nearly popping out of their sockets.

"No!" Shouting, Constable Mu took three quick steps. He rushed to Magistrate Yue and kicked the one-armed Inspector, who had awakened somehow despite almost bleeding to death. Constable Mu knelt and trembled, examining her condition. Apparently, while the other two Inspectors had drawn his attention, the last one had driven the nearby needles into Magistrate Yue's bandaged eye sockets, piercing her brain. If not for her being a cultivator, she would have died. Aghast, Constable Mu did not dare remove the needles.

Brain injuries were the most dangerous, capable of causing irreversible damage. With trembling lips, his eyes shook erratically for a moment until he calmed down. He realized something. Then, after a loud sneer, he threw a needle in the unconscious Inspector's throat, ensuring the poison would spread through the bloodstream and kill the mortal within seconds. Next, with narrowed eyes, Constable Mu shouted, "Who goes there? Cease your attacks, enemy of the Empire!

Your friends and family will suffer for your transgressions if you continue these vile actions! Controlling Servants of the Empire is a grave sin!" After his shouts, he used investigative techniques to assess the situation. Before he could discover anything, however, a sharp pain struck his mind, and his vision turned red. His eyes bulged as hundreds of fireballs descended from the sky, blasting through trees and houses, most of them in his direction. Fortunaly, he noticed it was an Illusion.

Gritting his teeth, Constable Mu resisted the mental pressure with a scowl, and the illusion shattered. He stumbled backward, nearly falling, feeling a spike of pain in his chest. Ignoring what he thought as a phantom pain, he shouted, "Don't make me laugh, such a lousy spiritual techn—" Mid-sentence, he vomited blood. Looking down, his eyes shook as It seemed that one of the fireballs had been real. Kind of. A flaming bat had slammed into his chest, searing his skin and piercing straight through his heart.

Tasting his blood, he felt his Qi flow falter as a foreign force sucked it along his blood, making him drop to his knees.

"Li'er, father is sorry…" he muttered, his eyes glazing over. With a dull thud, Constable Mu collapsed, lifeless. The color drained from his skin as his blood, Qi, and any sign of vitality were consumed. Then, when he turned into a mummified body, a burned bat with torn wings and melting flesh crawled out from the hole in the corpse's chest, like a grotesque insect. Lucian, in his bat form, was almost out of Blood Essence and couldn't heal himself with the Constable's blood because of the Qi inside.

Before that, he also had doubts about how to deal with so many people. It was fortunate that, for some reason, the Inspectors' minds were easily influenced. He had barely spent Blood Essence to manipulate them! In the end, it all worked better than he planned. All Inspectors were dead, guaranteeing his safety since even a single sword strike would be enough to cut him in half, and Constable Mu had also perished, failing at his trap! Looking at Magistrate Yue, he thought, You are the next.

Because of her special technique, she was still alive, making Lucian feel a surge of desire to become a cultivator. As a vampire, he could regenerate limbs easily, but there was always a price to pay, sometimes beforehand, other times afterwards. In a cultivator's case, it was just a matter of Qi, as far as he could tell.

Half crawling and half flying, pieces of his bat body fell to the ground and melted, until he finally climbed onto Magistrate Yue's body and, too weakened to pierce through her bones, entered through her mouth. Imperial Magistrate Yue Zhenli was depleted of Qi, her brain pierced, and unconscious. Lucian had lost two-thirds of his body and needed to find a way to gather enough Blood Essence to recover before succumbing to death. Neither was in their prime.

Using the Rune of Greed, Lucian sucked the three Inspectors' blood, the crimson stream flowing through Magistrate Yue's mouth and throat into his direction. The blood he had drained from Constable Mu swirled inside him, the Qi within it preventing him from refining it. He knew the same would happen with Magistrate Yue's blood, but he had no choice.

He needed more Blood Essence to remake his body, and leaving to search for other humans was out of the question, not only because of the formation but also because he lacked time. In his bat form, forcing his way through Magistrate Yue's throat toward her abdomen, Lucian would have to figure out how to refine Blood Essence tainted with Qi or die trying.