Gu Zhao had thought he'd stumbled upon a classic scene of a righteous heroine punishing evildoers. He was just trying to think of an excuse to strike up a conversation, to see if he could learn a little about this world from her.
But before he could even speak, the woman proved more forward than he was, bluntly saying she wanted to "get acquainted" with him.
However, the moment they heard her words, the gratitude in the villagers' eyes vanished. With a sudden uproar, they scattered. Even an old man who had been so frail he needed someone to support him was now scrambling and limping into a nearby house.
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
One after another, doors slammed shut.
CAW CAW CAW...
Other than two crows cawing from a branch at the village entrance, the entire place fell deathly silent.
Gu Zhao stood stunned for a moment before it dawned on him.
'Running into bandits raiding the village doesn't guarantee you'll be killed. But running into someone who can instantly wipe out dozens of them and clearly isn't one of the good guys... now *that's* real danger!'
All he could say was that these illiterate villagers had a better sense of danger than he did.
But it was too late for Gu Zhao to run. Not only was he her target, but he also saw her gently blow a puff of air in his direction.
Gu Zhao's pupils contracted. 'I'm a dead man!'
The next moment, he felt a sinister wind enter him, threatening to freeze his body solid.
"Don't be afraid." The woman in green was already beside Gu Zhao. As she leaned in, he could not only see the gentle tremble of her chest but also smell a sweet scent wafting from her. "That wasn't the Soul-Scattering Wind. It won't disperse your soul."
The woman purred, "Don't move. Let me help..."
Before she could finish, she saw Gu Zhao suddenly leap back, putting distance between them.
The woman stared, utterly baffled.
"Well, I seem to have misjudged you." The woman's eyes narrowed as she sized Gu Zhao up with keen interest. "So, you're a Mage."
"I'm not a Mage, I'm a Daoist!" Gu Zhao assumed a defensive stance, his body still trembling slightly. "What are you?"
The sinister wind had entered Gu Zhao's body, transforming into a frigid energy that tried to freeze him solid. But the moment it stirred, it triggered an instinctive reaction from the Magical Power within him.
Though his Magical Power was still scarce, the frigid energy melted away the instant it touched it, so he was not paralyzed.
"Daoist?" A flicker of confusion passed through the woman's eyes, as if she'd never heard the term before.
But she paid it no mind. Instead, she touched a hand to her lips and chuckled. "You can't even tell that I'm not human. You really are just a fledgling Junior Mage."
Gu Zhao's pupils contracted. "You're not human?"
"I am the Divine Maiden of the Golden Wind Sect. Normally, only sect members who have performed great deeds are allowed to enjoy my body. I'm doing you a favor today. Shouldn't you be grateful? Come to my embrace."
Smiling, the woman walked toward Gu Zhao.
As she did, her eyes turned pure black, her face went deathly pale, and her lips became as red as blood. Her entire presence turned cold and alluring as a sinister, chilling aura spread out to envelop Gu Zhao.
"Junior Mage, just be a good boy and submit to..."
She was mid-sentence when she saw Gu Zhao raise his left hand, tucking his thumb in and clenching his fingers into a fist.
The next moment, a magnificent aura erupted from Gu Zhao's body, completely dispelling the surrounding sinister chill.
The woman's eyes widened in shock.
A faint, tingling numbness spread across her body, and a sense of impending doom washed over her. She stopped in her tracks and demanded, "Who are you?"
Gu Zhao's right hand twitched. He opened his mouth, as if trying to speak, but no words came out.
The woman's expression shifted, and the corners of her lips curved into a smile as if she'd realized something.
Gu Zhao opened his mouth again, his right hand frozen in mid-air. He seemed to be straining but still couldn't utter a single word.
The smile in her eyes deepened, and she laughed knowingly. "Junior Mage, your Magical Power is too weak. Don't force it, you'll only hurt yourself. You'd be better off submitting to me and enjoying the ultimate earthly pleasure."
The next moment, Gu Zhao's right hand suddenly moved. As his fingertips formed a seal, he began to chant.
"Thunder and lightning pursue, as Heaven and Earth observe. Righteous Qi from all eight directions, may electric light now surge!"
After the sixteen-word, four-line incantation, Gu Zhao held his right palm up vertically, then with a flick of his wrist, aimed it at the woman.
"Decree!"
The moment Gu Zhao began to speak, the woman knew something was wrong and shot backward in retreat.
As Gu Zhao finished his chant and aimed his palm at her, she stared intently at it, conjuring a cloud of black smoke in preparation to defend herself.
But with his single word, "Decree!", she saw a flash of violet and gold light, heard a deafening thunderclap, and felt as if her mind had been struck by a sledgehammer. Her entire body seized up...
Then, her world went black, and she knew no more.
...
Gu Zhao stared, somewhat dazed, at the scene before him: a pile of charred dust and a set of green robes fluttering to the ground.
Then, he couldn't help but raise his hands, his eyes filled with a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"The Celestial Thunder Seal... Palm Thunder... the Thunder-Initiating Curse..."
'Oh my god! It actually worked!'
A moment ago, when his Magical Power had suddenly activated and dispelled her frigid energy, Gu Zhao had a flash of inspiration.
'Since the Five Thunders Order activated the Innate Qi I've accumulated from ten years of Cultivation, and it's even gradually filling my body with Magical Power, it must mean the Tao Scripture I've been practicing actually works.'
'If the Cultivation Technique from the Tao Scripture is effective, then shouldn't the other Daoist Skills work too?'
So, Gu Zhao subconsciously formed a Celestial Thunder Seal—also known as the Celestial Thunder Technique. As he did, he felt a sense of transcendence, as if he had become the very embodiment of righteous worldly energy, the Nine Heavens Thunder God himself.
Filled with confidence, Gu Zhao prepared to chant the All Heaven Thunder God Curse.
But he couldn't get the words out!
Not only that, but he felt a turbulent surge in his Magical Power, and his Divine Soul wavered.
Gu Zhao knew immediately that he was too weak to cast such a powerful Thunder Curse. He switched to the Five Directions Barbaric Thunder Spell, but he couldn't cast that either.
Not daring to delay any longer, Gu Zhao decisively switched to the most basic one, the Palm Thunder Spell, and finally succeeded.
And then he watched as the woman in green, who had killed dozens of bandits with a single breath, was rendered completely helpless by the bolt of lightning from his palm.
The black smoke she had summoned dissipated in the thunder, and her delicate body disintegrated in the flash of lightning. A moment ago, she was a beauty, both innocent and seductive; now, she was just a pile of black powder, no longer resembling anything human.
"Alright, so she really wasn't human," Gu Zhao muttered to himself.
The words had barely left his lips when he felt the Five Thunders Order in his mind tremble. It emitted a pull, and a wisp of energy drilled into his mind, where it was absorbed by the Order.
In the next instant, he felt the lightning around the Five Thunders Order in his Sea of Consciousness grow noticeably brighter. It gently stimulated the Magical Power circulating through his body, causing it to flow much faster.
'A cheat ability!'
'Killing monsters to level up!'