Chapter 28

In just a few breaths, the courtyard of the dilapidated temple was filled with white bones.

The scroll floating in mid-air, after dropping all the white bones, split open on its own and turned into two pieces that drifted to the ground.

Someone picked up the shattered scroll and found that the densely packed figures of children on the painting had all disappeared.

Looking at the white bones in the courtyard of the dilapidated temple, they immediately had a bad guess:

Were the children sealed in the painting all killed and turned into bones?!

"Where are the children? Where are the children you kidnapped?"

A constable, after staring at the bones scattered all over the courtyard for a moment, rushed at the bandits in a frenzy, beating and kicking them to force answers.

One of his children had also gone missing.

He did not want his child to be among these bones.

The bandit, with a face covered in blood, laughed maniacally as if he felt nothing: "Aren't all the children here? Hahaha... all here!"

The heartbroken constable wished he could draw his sword and kill the bandit.

Outside the dilapidated temple, the parents and relatives of the missing children broke through the guards' blockade and rushed into the courtyard.

They wailed over the white bones on the ground:

"My child! My child—"

"My dear grandson, how could you leave me first?"

"My dear daughter, it's all my fault, I'm sorry, I didn't take good care of you, letting the bandits harm you."

"Little Wu, how could you die? Among so many bones, which one is yours?"

The parents and relatives of the missing children picked up the bones on the ground, examining one and comparing it with another.

When the children were alive, they could easily recognize them, but now that they were dead and turned into bones, they couldn't tell which bone belonged to their child.

This made them even more sorrowful, and their cries grew louder.

At this moment, a few stray dogs squeezed through the crowd and ran into the courtyard of the dilapidated temple, barking loudly at the parents and relatives of the missing children, as if trying to tell them something.

Unfortunately, no one could understand dog language.

The parents and relatives of the missing children thought the dogs were attracted by the bones and wanted to eat them, and they became furious.

Some of them spread their arms to drive the dogs away: "Scram! Get lost! Don't even think about eating my child's bones!"

Others picked up stones from the ground and threw them at the dogs.

One dog, unable to dodge in time, was hit on the head, bleeding profusely, and stopped in its tracks, not daring to move forward.

The other dogs quickly gathered around it, trying to protect it.

Qin Shaoyou noticed that in the eyes of these dogs, besides anxiety and worry, there was also a deep sense of sorrow and despair.

As he was observing the dogs, something strange happened in the courtyard of the dilapidated temple.

A parent of a missing child, holding a piece of bone that might or might not belong to their child, suddenly stopped crying and showed a look of pain on his face.

A stray dog, seeing this, rushed at him in a frenzy, barking and leaping, as if trying to snatch the bone from his arms.

The people around, not knowing what was happening, thought the dog was trying to attack the man.

Just as they were about to shout, they saw blood flowing from the man's body, dripping to the ground.

The people around were shocked and angry, shouting and cursing:

"The dog bit someone!"

"These dogs not only want to snatch our children's bones, but they also bite people!"

"Kill them! Kill these dogs!"

Some people rushed forward and kicked the dog, the force of the kick sending it flying.

The dog landed, looking very painful, likely injured.

But it didn't hesitate and rushed at the man again, barking incessantly.

The people around finally noticed something strange about the man.

The blood on his body was not from the dog bite.

A piece of bone had pierced his heart.

Blood flowed down the bone, dripping to the ground.

This piece of bone was the one he had been holding.

But how did this bone pierce his heart?

Was it an accident caused by the dog's attack?

Or was there something wrong with the bones?

Many questions arose in the minds of the people.

Qin Shaoyou, outside the dilapidated temple, suddenly changed his expression. Through his "Eagle Eye" ability, he saw the bones in the courtyard of the dilapidated temple starting to move.

He urgently shouted a warning: "There's something wrong with these bones, stay away from them!"

But before the people in the courtyard could react, the bones on the ground started to move.

With a bone-chilling "crack," the bones on the ground, as if pulled by invisible strings, formed skeletons, some complete, some only half or part.

These skeletons pounced on the people around them at lightning speed.

Some pierced bones into people's bodies, while others opened their toothless, muscleless mouths to bite into human flesh.

And these skeletal creatures were not just causing trouble inside the dilapidated temple; many of them rushed out, trying to attack the people outside.

Panic and chaos ensued both inside and outside the dilapidated temple.

People scattered in all directions like headless flies.

"Ghost, there's a ghost!"

"These bones have turned into monsters!"

"Run! Run or you'll die!"

The constables and night watchmen in the courtyard of the dilapidated temple, after a brief moment of shock, drew their swords to cut the bones and save people.

Qin Shaoyou and his companions also drew their long swords to face the skeletons rushing out of the dilapidated temple.

"Snap!"

Qin Shaoyou swung his sword and cut a tibia that was attacking someone.

But the tibia, after breaking, did not stop moving. Instead, it split into two pieces and continued to attack him.

Ma Heshang rushed over, using his fist to help Qin Shaoyou knock away a piece of bone, and quickly said: "Cutting other parts of the bones is useless; you need to cut the head. Bone demons and bone ghosts are driven by the ghost fire and demon energy in their skulls. As long as you crush their skulls and disperse their ghost fire and demon energy, the bones they control will fall apart on their own."

"Understood."

Qin Shaoyou stopped纠缠 these bones and rushed towards a nearby skull.

The skull, seeing Qin Shaoyou coming, rolled to the side and controlled other bones to attack him, trying to stop him.

Qin Shaoyou, protected by his armor, ignored the bones attacking him, allowing them to collide with his body, making a clattering sound.

Many bones got stuck on his body but couldn't penetrate the armor.

Qin Shaoyou caught up with the skull, stepped on it with his foot, and then chopped it in half with his sword.

The ghost fire and demon energy in the skull immediately dissipated.

The bones it controlled fell to the ground and stopped moving.

Qin Shaoyou was about to rush to the next skull when he noticed a new page in the recipe in his mind.

It was a medicinal dish called "Medicinal Bone Soup," which not only strengthens bones but also hardens and strengthens the skin and muscles, like an extra layer of flesh armor.

The introduction also said: "Bone demon soup, bone demon soup, one bowl a day, hard and strong."

It was unclear whether the "hard and strong" referred to the bones or some other part.

The effect of the bone demon soup surprised Qin Shaoyou.

He now needed to focus on defense, ideally to the point where even demons and ghosts couldn't break through.

But what surprised him even more was the ingredient for this medicinal dish.

It was not human bones, but dog bones contaminated by demon energy.

"Are these bones from dogs? They are not the missing children?"

Qin Shaoyou was both surprised and puzzled.

Because the skulls, tibias, and hand bones looked like human bones, not dog bones.