CH 101

Chapter 101 – Summit

What was surprising to Ying Wei was that the ghostly fog surrounding the mountain peak was actually extremely weak. With just a few incantations from the two, a massive hole was blasted into the ghost fog.

“Brother Ying, do you think the Evil Spirit intentionally did this to lure us inside?” Luo Chengyi said doubtfully as he stared at the pitch dark gaping hole. He valued his life very much, and couldn’t help being overly cautious.

Ying Wei nodded and said, “Most of the Malicious Spirits only have very preliminary spiritual awareness. Evil Spirits are just like normal people, and can even transform completely into human form. However, this obvious of a trap would be too clumsy for it.”

With a throw of his hand, he tossed out a wolf-shaped puppet. It appeared before them and charged directly into the hole that was blasted into the ghost fog.

“Awoooooo!” the wolf puppet howled viciously from within. As the sound reverberated outward, the surrounding ghost mist became thinner by a good amount.

“Huh? It’s actually not a trap set up by the Evil Spirit?” Ying Wei said, sounding doubtful. He casually cast a barrier around himself before walking in after the wolf puppet.

Luo Chengyi was still a bit hesitant. But seeing that Ying Wei had already entered the ghost fog, he gritted his teeth and followed.

… …

Xu Disheng’s group of three eventually arrived inside the Miaohua Sect. A scene of utter destruction lay before them, never again to be restored to its former liveliness.

The Miaohua Sect was the only sect in the Guangxi Province. There were over a dozen Sea of Qi stage disciples and several hundred Cleansed Meridian stage disciples here, but they were all massacred in a single night!

There were already over 70 Malicious Spirits suppressed inside of the Yin Yang Diagram. Every time he suppressed a ghost, he would put it in the Soul Suppressing Vestment to transform them into pure Soul Force, which would nourish the blurry, nascent consciousness within.

The number of ghosts in the Miaohua Sect was far beyond everyone’s expectations. In all likelihood, most of them were once the disciples of the Miaohua Sect. After they died, their resentment didn’t scatter, so they weren’t able to pass on to the next life and turned into Malicious Spirits.

“The other disciples who were heading for the top of the mountain probably already encountered unexpected circumstances,” Zhong Zhengqing said, his face twinged with sorrow. “There are simply way too many ghosts here. It’s way beyond expectation. If Junior Brother Xu wasn’t here, it would have been dangerous for us.”

“Don’t worry about other people. We should worry about ourselves first,” Wei Tianhe said without even turning around, his tone hinting at his low spirits as he followed closely behind Xu Disheng.

Zhong Zhengqing shook his head. He gazed at the backs of the two people in front of him and went forward to catch up with them.

Boom!

Xu Disheng stopped in his tracks, looking towards the top of Miaohua Mountain. There were radiant lights of all kinds bursting out, along with the occasional cacophonous noise. The expanse of ghost fog eventually faded, which was presumably due to the two Dao Foundation stage disciples taking action against the Evil Spirits.

After pondering for a moment, Xu Disheng started walking off to the right. “We won’t go up the mountain anymore. We’ll go somewhere else and keep catching the ghosts.”

The other two didn’t have any objections. After all, it was extremely common for disciples of the sect to use ghosts and demons to practice their abilities, so it was nothing new to them.

However, Xu Disheng was pretty ruthless about it. Any time they ran into groups of three to five Malicious Spirits, he would unleash a swipe with the Yin Yang Diagram and suppress them, leaving the other two no opportunities to act.

They really were able to go with what they said back at Mountain Affairs Peak about being able to take it easy and get through the mission.

Right now, there was no danger present to them, so the atmosphere between the three relaxed a lot, enough for them to laugh and chat a bit. But most of the time, it was Wei Tianhe speaking.

“After this mission is over, I’ll have saved enough spirit stones to enter the Cultivation Hall on Second Mountain for one whole day!” Wei Tianhe exclaimed with an expression of excitement. “I’ve been stuck at the peak Sea of Qi stage for the last several decades, but this time, I’m going to try to see if I can really break through to the Dao Foundation stage.”

“Cultivation Hall?” Xu Disheng repeated, creasing his brows.

Wei Tianhe was astonished. “Junior Martial Brother Xu, you haven’t heard of Heart Refining Mountain’s Cultivation Hall?”

Xu Disheng didn’t respond, just glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

Receiving his look, Wei Tianhe flushed a bit in embarrassment. “Cultivation Hall is the most famous place in the Heart Refining Mountain Range. You can enter by paying spirit stones. There are all kinds of ways to cultivate there and gain a massive increase in strength! But it simply costs way too many spirit stones, so only those wealthy disciples can afford to go.”

A bunch of things suddenly became clear to Xu Disheng.

He Junyu couldn’t have been older than him by more than 10 or so years, so how could his Amassing Water form have reached such a high level of attainment? Jie Zizhuo only had one offense-type Magic Treasure, but he could force Xu Disheng to use his hidden cards by using one black saber light after another.

Could all of this have been related to the effect of this Cultivation Hall?

He had entered the Sacred Sect alone, so there were too many things he didn’t know about the Sacred Sect. There were many methods to raise one’s strength in the Sacred Sect, but he just hadn’t discovered them yet.

While he was contemplating these things, his feet didn’t stop moving. In the time it took for an incense stick to burn, he had already absorbed several scattered Malicious Spirits.

In this time, they hadn’t run into any other disciples heading up the mountain, probably because they had stopped proceeding forward after seeing that there were simply too many ghosts. They had most likely already fled the mountain.

While they were moving forward, their jade identity tablets suddenly vibrated, emitting a pale red glow.

“An urgent message?” Wei Tianhe muttered. After he took out his jade identity tablet, his expression changed slightly. “Martial Uncle Ying has called the disciples to the summit for assistance. Should we go?”

“Against an Evil Spirit that even two Dao Foundation stage disciples couldn’t deal with? Wouldn’t that just be sending ourselves to our deaths?” Zhong Zhengqing said, his expression ugly. “Why does he want us Sea of Qi stage disciples to go help? Dealing with Evil Spirits shouldn’t have been our duty in the first place!”

After the two of them stopped speaking, they turned to look at Xu Disheng. Zhong Zhengqing clearly didn’t want to go, but Wei Tianhe was planning to blindly follow Xu Disheng.

“Since the two Dao Foundation stage disciples can still send out an urgent message, that means the situation might not be that bad,” Xu Disheng said, casually swiping out with the Yin Yang Diagram and catching a Malicious Spirit. Throwing it into the Soul Suppressing Vestment, he continued, “We’ll go take a look.”

“Junior Martial Brother Xu, is that one of those extremely rare ghost controlling techniques?” Wei Tianhe asked, looking at Xu Disheng’s Soul Suppressing Vestment with a hint of envy.

Xu Disheng didn’t respond or explain, but something did occur to him.

Perhaps, if he wanted to openly use Soul Song, he could play it off as a ghost controlling technique when forced to explain to others.

“This… Junior Martial Brother Xu, Junior Martial Brother Wei, I’m going to go down the mountain,” Zhong Zhengqing finally decided to say after several moments of hesitation, a little ashamed.

He glanced at Xu Disheng, but he didn’t say anything in response before starting to walk towards the top of the mountain.

As Wei Tianhe looked at Zhong Zhengqing, the look in his eyes seemed to harden, becoming more certain of his choice to believe in the might of Xu Disheng’s Magic Treasures. He followed closely after Xu Disheng, who was already several dozen meters away in the span of just a few breaths of time.

Zhong Zhengqing watched the two figures as they grew further and further away. “Look at you, relying on a Magic Treasure and letting it get to your head! There’s at least two Evil Spirits up on the summit. Go ahead and rush to your deaths then!”

With that, he took out a flying spirit sword and tried to leave Miaohua Mountain.

But… Why couldn’t he take flight?

When Zhong Zhengqing looked down, his pupils contracted wildly, and he almost shouted out loud!

There were four to five paper dolls with bizarre, freakish smiles hanging from his flying spirit sword. They were dangling in midair, dragging him down and making him unable to take flight.

Zhong Zhengqing desperately activated his flying spirit sword with all his might. He was soon on the verge of shaking them off.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, a particularly strong Malicious Spirit appeared in midair right next to him with a twisted grin on its face. It swiped at Zhong Zhengqing, tearing off his left arm completely!

Fresh blood spurted out! Zhong Zhengqing’s face turned deathly pale. He couldn’t afford to save spirit stones at this moment. He immediately took a Spirit Gathering Pill and began to frantically revolve profound qi to stem the bleeding.

That Malicious Spirit, which was on the verge of the Evil Spirit stage, tossed his decapitated left arm into its mouth and began to chew on it with a sickening grin on its face. “If you stayed with that person with the Magic Treasure, we wouldn’t have dared to show up. Now, you brought about your own downfall. You can’t blame anyone else for this.”

Just as it finished speaking, several equally strong Malicious Spirits appeared beside it.

Zhong Zhengqing slowly shut his eyes, a hint of remorse appearing in his heart.

These Malicious Spirits cannibalized off of their kind and had managed to reach a considerably high level of spiritual awareness. Xu Disheng had cleaned up nearly half of Miaohua Mountain by himself, absorbing many ghosts in the process. The remaining Malicious Spirits were secretly watching them from their hiding spots, not daring to appear before them.

Zhong Zhengqing thought that the safe choice was to not go to the summit to confront the Evil Spirits. He never would have thought that his decision would bring about this result.

The Malicious Ghosts turned into a ravaging black wind, swarming over him. Several moments later, all that remained lying on the cold, mountainous rock were a longsword Spirit Tool, contaminated with ghostly qi, and a damaged storage-type Spirit Tool.

After cultivating for a hundred years, a life came to its untimely conclusion. In the end, not even a single bone of Zhong Zhengqing’s corpse remained.