The touch of the spirits was cold and numbing, but given the chance and time Wu Xiaoming was able to tank it with his Qi flowing through his meridians. The spirits themselves were not able to withstand the spray of black dog urine, and they backed off screaming, moaning, many of them turning into ashes from the urine attack.
The position of the Queen's Suite was hidden behind a wall, but the energy seeping out of it only exposed the location to Wu Xiaoming.
"Get outta the way you fuckers!" Wu Xiaoming had to control how frequently and forcefully he swung the canister to avoid expending all of his black dog urine before he could even get to the same room. Many spirits backed and faded away, but many still swarmed at him.
"Motherfucker!" Wu Xiaoming barked and launched a kick at a male spirit as he sprayed leftward. The kick crushed the spirit's waist while the urine melted two gnarly spirits with broken skulls and necks. He charged forward after muttering "shield" to protect himself, right at the wall where, judging by the dark energy seeping from behind, the door to the Queen's Suit would be.
"Boom!" Wu Xiaoming's entire body broke through a thin wooden facade for a wall and the fragile wooden door behind it. The dark energy and the black fog inside the room was so thick, that he even felt a sense of suffocation.
It was a spacious room, with plenty of old-timey decors. King-sized bed, silk bedsheets, red velvet drapes with golden patterns, a small chandelier, even a phonograph on the polished wooden nightstand beside the bed.
And in the middle of the room, was a small carpet with a red, round array woven onto it. In a luxurious leather chair beside a sealed door - a door to the balcony, sat a dried corpse.
"Holy - " Wu Xiaoming almost cursed. The room smelled of dust, rot and very old wine, but not the kind of stench one would expect from the presence of a corpse. Yet, none of the spirits seemed to dare come in. Wu Xiaoming looked back at the door he broke through, only to find the hallway outside completely empty.
Also, on the back side of the door, there seemed to be quite a lot of pieces of paper stuck on it. He fixed his eyes on them - they seemed to be writings and drawings of some kind. Scriptures and symbols, from what the looks of them.
The dark energy in the room began flowing the moment he entered. Slowly but tangibly in a vortex into the corpse sitting in the luxury leather chair. Wu Xiaoming did not really have the time nor energy to wait and see, so he simply just thrust the canister right at the body, mouth facing forward.
The black dog urine did not even touch the body before it began to smoke and evaporate. A big splash from the canister, only a few droplets landed on the body and the chair. Wu Xiaoming narrowed his eyes, before shooting forward right at the dried corpse.
A freezing aura almost paralyzed him as he got close, his fingers and his arms were slowed and it became even more difficult to control his muscles. But he managed to turn the canister upside down just above the dried corpse's body, and let the black dog urine pour right out.
A foul stench from urine vapor struck Wu Xiaoming in the face. He almost coughed, while at the same time regained a little bit of control over his arms and hands. But barely a moment into his pouring the liquid on the body, an invisible force held his entire body and threw him against the wall behind him.
His back left a heavy dent on the wall and he slid down on the ground. The canister bounced out of his grasp. He tried to catch it but it just slipped through his palm and fingers. The black dog urine began pouring onto the carpet as it landed sideways on the ground.
The body and the chair sizzled and smoked from the urine, but at the same time, thick black smoke poured from the corpse's entire body and took the shape of a human. Two eyes opened up on the human-shaped smoke shadow's face - they did not have pupils, just glowing pale blanks in the eye sockets. It raised its right hand, and a sword appeared in it - a sword with a crooked blade, made of glowing purple crystal.
As the shadow strided towards Wu Xiaoming, Wu Xiaoming ruffled through his backpack and grabbed a handful of his pre-made fire talismans. As the shadow was a few more steps away from him, his right hand swung, throwing all of them right at it.
That was all six of his fire talismans, all burst into flames at the same time. The flames merged together midair and turned into a small firestorm, engulfing the shadow in whole. Wu Xiaoming wasted no time and shot up from the ground, grabbing the soapberry wood staff from his backpack and swung it right at the shadow's weapon - purely out of instinct, disarming the shadow right now seemed like a much better choice than trying to injure it in one swing.
"Clunk!" The wooden shaft collided with the crystal blade, knocking the blade off the shadow's grasp, while a few slivers cracked and flew off from the blade itself. Yet at the same time, the shadow raised its left leg and kicked him right on the abdomen.
Wu Xiaoming flew backwards, almost losing his staff. He crashed into the foot of the bed and bounced off on the ground. His stomach rumbled, and that kick had knocked the wind out of him for a moment he could barely breathe.
The shadow marched forward as the flames on his body were dying down, revealing a suit of cloak and well-fitted chest armor also made of black smoke.
He thrust his left hand forward, his middle and index fingers pointing straight at the shadow. A beam of concentrated golden light struck the shadow right on the chest, causing a visible explosion and forcing the shadow back by a few steps.
Wu Xiaoming tried to yell using his Law of the Words attack, but he was still wheezing and could barely make a sound. So he just kicked the canister right at the shadow, hoping more liquid could spill from the container and onto this enemy.
The shadow shifted its body aside in an attempt to dodge the canister, but was still glazed by it and caught a splash. The flames from the fire talismans had died down quite a bit, but the black dog urine simply added another source of bane to its body.
Wu Xiaoming forced himself to take a quick deep breath and charged at the shadow once again. But the shadow simply raised both hands at him and another invisible force snatched him by his entire body and threw him at a wall like last time.
Just as his back banged against the wall, the phonograph began playing. Simple classical music, maybe Beethoven or Mozart - Wu Xiaoming was simply not as educated in the area to tell. He had no time nor energy to distinguish either - the music was making his ears ring, his head dizzy, his limbs cold, numb and trembling.
Before Wu Xiaoming could process what had happened, a bell made a loud, powerful ring, and a golden shockwave exploded from the hallway outside. Along came the roar of the man in a suit: "Back off, you foul spirits! Fade to nothingness as you should!"
The golden energy swept through Wu Xiaoming's body and burned away most of the numbness in his body and the dizziness in his head. The shadow, walking towards Wu Xiaoming, was pushed by the shockwave and had to regain his composure. This gave Wu Xiaoming a window of opportunity, as he shot up and swung his soapberry wood staff right at its head.
"Bang!" It was like banging a piece of metal plate - or a helmet. The shadow stumbled and fell just like an actual man. But the direction in which he fell was bad news for Wu Xiaoming - the crooked sword with purple crystal blade was only a few steps away.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming yelled, while shooting another beam of golden light at the shadow.
The explosion from the energy blast tore a small piece off the shadow's helmet, and the golden light only glazed by its left shoulder and burned a hole on the carpet. Neither of the attacks stopped it from holding the crooked crystal sword once again.
"Shit!" Wu Xiaoming darted backwards.
The shadow lunged at Wu Xiaoming holding the sword, with supernatural speed. But the man in a suit had already reached the door, with a golden bell in his left hand and a metal dagger in his right hand. He rang the bell one more time, while pointing the dagger at the shadow.
Another golden shockwave exploded, while the golden dagger resonated and released a golden shadow of itself right at the dark human-shaped shadow.
The shadow stopped mid-attack and backstepped toward the inside of the room. It was still blasted by the golden shockwave, while the golden shadow of the dagger changed course and struck it right in the waist.
The golden dagger shadow crashed into dozens of splinters. At the same time the human shadow threw the sword right at the man in a suit. The man dropped to the ground before the sword could impale him. Its golden bell was not so lucky though - the blade left a gash on its body while breaking the string that connected it to the handle.
"Shit!" The man yelped, apparently some kind of energy invaded his hand and forearm from the sword. He immediately drew a symbol on his left forearm using his right hand, then raised his voice at Wu Xiaoming: "Leave! Run! This thing here is too dangerous!"
"You should run too!" Wu Xiaoming coughed and yelled back.
"Who's there!? Come out here! " Just this moment, another male voice barked from the far end of the hallway outside: "Come out, right now!"
The shadow stood up and tried to charge at the man in a suit, but unknowingly it stepped onto a fresh, almost dripping wet mark - a wet mark left by Wu Xiaoming's canister and its inner content.
The shadow let out a hoarse roar, with palpable anger and frustration. It paused for a minute, seemingly getting a sense of something, before turning into a black whirlwind and disappearing in the room - along with the dried corpse in the leather chair.