Chapter 388: Bitter Victory
A Resentful Spirit knows no fear and possesses no reason. This is both its advantage and its disadvantage.
Its fearlessness allows it to unleash terrifying destructive power, pushing its offensive capabilities to the extreme, but without reason, it is easily led by the nose.
The Resentful Spirit before them was precisely this type. She possessed immense destructive power, evident from how she dealt with the Old Man.
Moreover, she had been dispersed twice, yet seemed to suffer no significant ill effects, which further demonstrated the terrifying extent of her power.
However, she faced attacks without dodging, relying solely on brute force to clash, and this was her weakness. As long as they exploited this flaw and slowly wore her down to death, they weren't without a chance.
At this moment, Yang Haoran held precisely this thought.
But Yang Haoran was also very clear about one thing: while they could target the Resentful Spirit's weakness, her formidable destructive power remained. If they were even slightly careless, they could still be injured by her, or even lose their lives. Thus, they had no choice but to be cautious when facing this Resentful Spirit.
At Yang Haoran's signal, the three once again launched an attack on the Resentful Spirit. Yang Haoran's Spirit Power possessed a strong suppressive effect on ghosts, so his attacks inflicted the most damage on the Resentful Spirit.
Next was Luo Dui. The weapon Luo Dui wielded was a peach wood sword, which also had a certain suppressive effect on ghosts, so the damage it inflicted on the Resentful Spirit was equally not to be underestimated.
The two sides engaged in a fierce exchange of blows. Under the relentless assault of Yang Haoran and the other two, the Resentful Spirit's body was dispersed again and again, only to reform. Yang Haoran and his companions were not faring well either. Despite their utmost caution and vigilance against the Resentful Spirit's ferocious attacks, their bodies still bore varying degrees of wounds. Bai Xue, especially after reverting to her true form, had the most injuries among the three; wounds were visible everywhere on her colossal snake body, some even deep enough to expose bone.
In this situation, Bai Xue not only refused to retreat but was even provoked into a furious rage. Using her enormous body as a weapon, she desperately attacked the Resentful Spirit, venting her inner fury and frustration.
With the three of them fighting in concert, the Resentful Spirit's body was scattered and reformed countless times. For the first few instances, after her body was dispersed and then re-coalesced, there was no noticeable change, as if her dispersion had no effect on her at all.
However, as the number of times her body was dispersed increased, her form began to grow ethereal, and her power diminished accordingly.
As her strength was gradually eroded, her impact on Yang Haoran and the others naturally dwindled.
By the end, she could no longer affect Yang Haoran and his companions in any way, completely suppressed by the trio.
The great battle lasted a full three hours. After those three hours, Yang Haoran, panting heavily, forcibly stuffed the weakened Resentful Spirit into his Soul-Gathering Bead.
Even he was gasping for breath, so the condition of Bai Xue and Luo Dui was easily imagined; both were almost completely depleted of strength, utterly exhausted.
Had this Resentful Spirit been even slightly stronger, perhaps it wouldn't have been the spirit exhausted to death today, but the three of them instead.
As the Evil Spirit was forcibly sealed within the Soul-Gathering Bead, it signified the end of this brutal struggle. Yang Haoran and his allies had, of course, emerged victorious, but this victory came at no small cost.
Victory was achieved in the battle, yet there were no cheers, for other than the three of them, no one else remained on the scene.
The other Night Watchers and Spirit Police had already departed. During the earlier confrontation with the Resentful Spirit, Yang Haoran had seized an opportunity to tear open space, allowing the surviving Night Watchers and Spirit Police to evacuate with the wounded and the deceased.
He did this because he knew the Resentful Spirit couldn't be subdued in a short time, and the injured Night Watchers and Spirit Police couldn't afford to wait. If they didn't receive timely treatment, they might lose their lives. That was why he found an opening to rip space, enabling the living to withdraw with the injured and the dead.
The place they evacuated to was the Spirit Police headquarters, as it housed a formidable medical team on standby around the clock, with advanced facilities and conditions that no other hospital in Lecheng could match; treatment there would be far more effective.
Thus, after their evacuation, only Yang Haoran and the other two remained at the scene, along with the ferocious Resentful Spirit.
Although they received no cheers from others, Yang Haoran and his two companions all breathed a sigh of relief. Subduing this Resentful Spirit had cost them dearly, nearly claiming their lives. Now that she was finally dealt with, they naturally felt a profound sense of ease.
"I didn't expect to return to such a fierce battle right away. This isn't a good omen," Yang Haoran said with a wry smile after catching his breath and putting away the Soul-Gathering Bead.
"It's a good thing you came back. If you hadn't arrived today, things would have been dire. We might not even have had the chance to retrieve our bodies," Bai Xue said, transforming back into her human form beside Yang Haoran and panting heavily.
Luo Dui also returned to Yang Haoran's side, his face drenched in sweat, a look of lingering fear etched upon it, and he too was gasping for air.
"We'd known for a long time that this Old Man wasn't a simple character, so we'd been preparing all along, not daring to act against him lightly. The reason we dared to launch our operation today was because we believed everything was ready. Yet, we still underestimated him. If Emissary Yang hadn't arrived in time today, we might have ended up utterly wiped out here."
Next, Luo Dui gave Yang Haoran a rough explanation, allowing him to understand what had truly transpired.
After Fatty Qu was apprehended, he confessed everything: his ghost infant was acquired from the owner of the Good Times Funeral Supplies Store—the very Old Man devoured by the Resentful Spirit.
As they couldn't ascertain the Old Man's true power, the Spirit Police dared not act rashly. Instead, they spent a considerable amount of time using various methods to gauge his strength.
After gaining a rough understanding of the Old Man's capabilities, Luo Dui spent even more time planning and deploying, including what kinds of restrictive barriers and formations to use, all part of his meticulous arrangements.
Only after everything was thoroughly prepared did Luo Dui decide to launch the operation. However, he hadn't anticipated that they would still underestimate the Old Man's power, nearly meeting their downfall right here.
If he had a choice, Luo Dui wouldn't want to make an enemy of a powerful entity like the Old Man. However, from his standpoint, eliminating the Old Man was an absolute necessity.
The reason was simple: the materials the Old Man used to refine Resentful Spirits were things that couldn't see the light of day—the souls of the living, the bodies of the dying, and especially newborn infants and pregnant women, all served as his ingredients for refining Resentful Spirits.
The Old Man commanded a vast number of Resentful Spirits. To refine such a multitude of them, the sheer quantity of materials required was naturally terrifying. The most common method for obtaining such an abundance of materials was to kill people for them.
In other words, the Old Man had killed countless individuals to refine these numerous Resentful Spirits, and these victims were primarily infants and pregnant women. How could Luo Dui possibly allow such a vicious and depraved maniac to continue existing in this world? He naturally had to find a way to eradicate him.
As for the Old Man's identity, even without Luo Dui's explanation, Yang Haoran could have guessed some of it. After all, with Fatty Qu's incident preceding this, how could he have had no suspicions at all?
During Luo Dui's explanation, the three managed to recover slightly. While a return to their peak condition was impossible, at least they were no longer gasping for air so violently.
"Should we go down and take a look? " Bai Xue glanced at Yang Haoran, then at Luo Dui, finally letting her gaze fall upon a dilapidated house by the roadside below.
"It wouldn't hurt to go down and see," Luo Dui said. "What if there's something left in the shop that hasn't been removed? It could still cause trouble and harm ordinary people."
Yang Haoran nodded, also agreeing to check. Although the Old Man and the Resentful Spirit had been dealt with, who could be certain that the Old Man's funeral supplies store wasn't still hiding other harmful things?
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