Chapter 146: Ghost King

The people darted frantically, not giving a damn about anything. Trista looked at the figure in the distance resentfully and gritted her teeth. "How did he realise that I was just pretending to be a pitiful girl?" she weighed but couldn't find any clue. 

"Save me!" as she was fleeing with her full might, a miserable cry came from behind. She glanced from the corner of her eyes while still running. The group of vicious ghosts had already caught up to the people who left further behind, and now, they could only wait for these creatures to tear them apart bit by bit.

Trista didn't give those people a second look and continued to make her escape. In the meantime, three more people joined her, who weren't any slower than her. They exchanged glances with Trista and rushed alongside with her.

More and more helpless shrieks echoed; however, no one went to help those pitiful souls. It was hard to save their own life, who would go out of their ways and ask for more troubles at such a time? No one.

"You bastard, what did you do to enrage these creatures to such a level?" Trista shouted as she caught up to Ayaan's group.

"How would I know that?" Ayaan sneered, not willing to talk to this lady. He loathed backstabbing and would never forgive anyone, who backstabs him. From the very start, Ayaan had been suspicious about this lady. She pretended to a pitiful girl because she wanted to know his strength. 

However, when she heard that he was going to the Ghost Area, she abandoned him because the Ghost Area was too dangerous and went to her companions. Later, she waited for him, thinking he would die in the Ghost Area or come out with a body full of injuries. To her shock, neither of those two things happened and to add salt on her injuries, he brought tens of thousands of ghosts with him.

As her people died at the hands of ghosts, her expression turned uglier. She looked at Ayaan and his women and shouted, "you will pay for this, bastard! Just you wait."

After shouting at him, she changed her direction, heading somewhere else with her people.

"Heh? Do you think you can walk just like that after conspiring against me? Don't you want to know why I didn't expose you immediately?" Ayaan mocked. "It was because: I was waiting for your reinforcement. I have to say that you have disappointed me. These three people aren't bad; being at the Embryonic Realm is good. However, do you think they are powerful enough to defeat me, and my women? You are too naive!"

"Watch out!" Trista cried. However, she was still a bit late to warn. A tiny hairpin penetrated one of three people's heads, and his body stiffened. Though his eyes were still open, there was no life left in them; strangely, his body shrivelled and became nothing but an embodiment of a zombie and fell on the ground with a thud.

Before anyone could react, two more attacks arrived in front of the remaining two men. One was a silver blade; it tore through space and arrived in front of the man, separating his head while blood splattered everywhere. The other attack was an icicle that smashed the last man. For a second nothing happened, and as the man thought he escaped a calamity, his expression froze and twisted in pain. 

In front of shocked Trista, his entire body covered in ice, then, shattered in millions of small crystals. Though everyone fought in front of Trista except Ayaan, they never released their entire strength, not even Isobel who battled with the Snake King. That gave her the wrong information about their strength. She thought they were just ordinary Embryonic Realm Cultivators. 

However, everyone of Ayaan's women cultivated a technique that they inherited from the pagoda's second Alter, making them way stronger than the normal Embryonic Realm Cultivator. Furthermore, every cultivation technique in this world came from the fifth level of the pagoda; later, they spread on the entire Central Continent with different means. How could those techniques compare with the techniques given by alter itself?

Trista looked at her dead companions—who were at the Middle Stage of Embryonic Realm—with shock and terror. She thought that they would be enough to handle Ayaan and his women. Only now did she realise that was such wishful thinking. These women killed a man with an attack. They didn't even need to use a second move. She had never seen such strength before at the Early Stage of the Embryonic Realm.

"Jus-just you wait!" she shouted towards Ayaan's group, escaping frantically.

"Should we catch her?" asked Rebecca. "She could be a fatal danger in the future."

"No need," Ayaan shook his head. "She is just a minion, not worth spending much time; at the speed, we are growing, sooner or later, she will die at our hands."

He turned towards the ghost army and said, "right now, we need to deal with these creatures."

"I don't think they can cause us any damage. Should slaughter them?" Noor asked. Her eyes shone excitedly. Though she was a little dissatisfied that Ayaan didn't tell her about Trista being an imposter. She didn't dare to act dissatisfied because it was her fault to believe in someone without thinking. 

Furthermore, Ayaan had warned her many times to not trust people easily; speaking that they were full of schemes and malice, but she had always thought that Ayaan was being too cautious. Today, however, she learned a great lesson. 

"We can fight with these ghosts, but what about Akash? He isn't powerful enough to deal with them." Ayaan shook his head. However, no one stopped running while they talked. They were sprinting with all their might. 

"Don't worry about Akash; I will protect him." It was Leafwhisk who said. " You just need to focus on killing these creatures. It is an opportunity for you to strengthen yourself. So you have to grasp it; leave the safety of this little guy to me."

"Are you sure?" Ayaan reconfirmed with the lady. Only after Leafwhisk nodded, he stopped running. He looked at the ghosts, looking like a herd of wild creatures and gripped the hilt of his sabre as he readied himself for a vicious fight. 

He activated his breathing technique, and thousands of threads spread from his body, connecting with all the ghosts present. Strong energy burst into his body from every direction. This technique was way more powerful with thousands of ghosts present. He could suck a tiny bit of energy from all the creatures in front of him; that increased his strength way faster than before.

"Attack!" shouted Ayaan and dashed in front of the nearest ghost, separating its head. The ghost turned into the black mist that went inside Ayaan's body, and later, came out as white light, disappearing towards the sky. As Ayaan's group killed the ghosts, they entered his body and he refined their evil energy, leaving the purest white light behind—the soul!

Ayaan looked towards his women from the corner of his eyes and saw Rebecca slaughtering evil creatures with her sword as if they were nothing but tofu. There was no expression on her face and maintained her emotionless face; no matter how many ghosts she killed.

No far away from her was Noor, slaughtering evil spirits with her two knives with an unbelievable speed. From time to time, she would disappear and appear behind her target. Before these ghosts could realise her location, they would die a miserable death… err… they were already dead.

After that, he turned towards Isobel and saw her moving gracefully. However, she was as good at killing these creatures as her two other sisters. After all, she cultivated blood, but in these ghosts, there was no blood. Therefore she struggled to kill these creatures. Even then she killed tens of ghosts in a single breath's time. This speed was already very fast and Ayaan couldn't help but nod in acknowledgement.

Further behind them stood Leafwhisk and Akash, looking at the fight eagerly. For Akash, this fight was rather weird because he couldn't see any ghost in front of him. There were only Ayaan and his women, swinging their weapons in the air. However, he didn't find it funny; on the other hand, he became even more determined to become strong. At that time, he could also slaughter these creatures, just thinking about it made his blood pumped in excitement.

"Don't worry. Your big brother Ayaan would definitely find a way to activate the pagoda sign on his wrist, then you will also have a powerful Sword Cultivation Technique." Leafwhisk who was standing beside him saw the change in his state. Therefore she said encouragingly to the boy. Akash looked at Ayaan in the distance with eyes full of worship and nodded towards Leafwhisk.

"Chii!!" Suddenly a shriek came from a distance and every ghost stopped fighting. Ayaan and his women also maintained a distance from those creatures and looked in the distance as ghosts parted to make a path for someone.

Slowly a big figure revealed itself with a long horn on its head while his body looked exactly the same as those ordinary ghosts. "Oh no!" shouted Leafwhisk. "Let's run. This is the Ghost King and its strength is beyond the Embryonic Realm. Every ghost layer has a single Ghost King, which is the strongest ghost in the entire ghost herd."

As she explained she started to run, not wasting any time. Ayaan and his women also sprinted in her direction. "Kekeke, do you think you can escape after killing my subordinates?" a burst of creepy laughter came from behind that gave everyone a chill.