Chapter 68 — The Heavenly Star Hall

King Xuan Yuan Fa gave a cold snort. In truth, neither of them wished for an open rupture; seeing that Zhou Xuan had offered them a way out, how could they refuse to take it? Without a word, both transformed into shadowy afterimages and shot straight downward. Zhou Xuan stamped his foot, quietly slapped a Divine Travel Talisman onto his leg, and followed close behind them—and to his own surprise, he did not fall behind.

All three were near the pinnacle of mastery. Though Zhou Xuan could not match those two superhuman figures, his power had surged enormously; with the Primordial Derivation working in concert with his true body, he could just barely hold his own against a cultivator in the mid-to-late Spirit Transformation stage. And Zhou Xuan had just absorbed the mental force of that fierce ghost soldier—in sheer strength of thought, he likely surpassed even those who had only recently entered the late Spirit Transformation stage! With such powerful mental force, he could manipulate his own true essence and magical tools with effortless agility—especially since a portion of the mental force stored in the Primordial Derivation had not yet had time to be refined.

Zhou Xuan was brimming with confidence. With the Blood Transformation Divine Saber at his side, he felt sure he could contend with anyone! In an instant, the three-hundred-zhang Sima Path was crossed in a single leap. The massive bluestone stairs finally came to an end, and the space opened abruptly into a vast, empty hall. Stone pillars—each requiring at least a dozen men with arms linked to encircle—rose on both sides of the hall, inlaid with glittering patterns of star clouds that made one feel as though adrift in outer space. The Sima Path had been spacious and high enough, but this hall was at least ten times—perhaps a hundred times—more expansive. The pillars marched forward in rows, leaving a central passage several dozen zhang wide that stretched deep into the hall. Zhou Xuan and the others strained their eyes and dimly made out a tightly shut bluestone gate at the far end.

"What is this place?" Zhou Xuan was not ashamed to ask. Better to understand an unfamiliar place than to lose one's life over ignorance—that would be a poor bargain indeed. Wen Yanlan said nothing, only studying the giant pillars inlaid with star-cloud patterns. But Zhou Xuan could tell she had not figured anything out either; her ears seemed to twitch slightly as she waited for King Xuan Yuan Fa to answer. "Eh!? How can I see so clearly?" Zhou Xuan suddenly doubted his own eyesight. Wen Yanlan was a grandmaster of the demonic path—her true essence had long since reached the stage of inward restraint. Though she was not deliberately concealing the changes in her body, the faint twitching of her ears was not something an ordinary person could detect. "So it's because my mental force has greatly increased!" Zhou Xuan realized the reason. Secretly he resolved to absorb as much mental force from the army souls as possible. If he could condense mental force into something tangible, as King Xuan Yuan Fa had done, then the whole world would be his to roam!

"This is the Heavenly Star Hall! It was here that Xu Fu set up the Constellation Grand Formation to draw down the power of the stars and suppress the vengeful spirits. These one hundred and eight stone pillars were once the Tiangang Disha Formation arranged by one hundred and eight Daoist masters to quell those same spirits. It failed—but Xu Fu reworked them into Pillars of Heavenly Stars, and each pillar now holds nearly two thousand vengeful souls—all of them Qin and Zhao soldiers who died at the Battle of Changping!" King Xuan Yuan Fa, having lived so many years, certainly knew his secret history well.

"Two thousand apiece—one hundred and eight makes two hundred thousand! And those are only the soldiers who fell in battle. What of the four hundred thousand buried alive?" Zhou Xuan sensed something was off—the fiercest portion had been omitted entirely. Wen Yanlan, demon among demons though she was, could not get a word in and simply watched the two men exchange questions and answers in silence.

"Hmph! Those four hundred thousand buried alive—their resentment is so fierce that even the nine-fold heavenly thunder tribulation could not dispel it. Even if Xu Fu were ten times the man, how could he seal them all? Legend says they are suppressed at the very lowest level, together with Bai Qi, the God of Slaughter! But beyond that I cannot say. My knowledge ends at this Heavenly Star Hall. As for what lies behind that stone gate at the rear of the hall—that I do not know!" King Xuan Yuan Fa waved his hand, his expression composed.

Zhou Xuan secretly studied his expression and concluded that the old demon was indeed hiding nothing. He relaxed slightly. At last Wen Yanlan found her chance to speak. Though she meant to ease the tension, her tone remained icy: "That is enough. We likely cannot even collect the two hundred thousand vengeful souls here. That army soul from before must have escaped from this place—and a single one was already hard to deal with. Let us first handle the situation before us. We must not enter a mountain of treasure and come away empty-handed!" There was sense in this, and even King Xuan Yuan Fa nodded repeatedly.

"But each of these star pillars holds nearly two thousand vengeful souls. If they were all released at once—even if you two possess world-shaking demonic power and heaven-covering Daoist arts—I fear we would be left without so much as a bone to bury!" Zhou Xuan had seen how fierce even a single headless soldier's spirit could be when it occasionally slipped out. Two thousand at once would be unthinkable. It would likely take every master in the Daoist world, every treasure deployed, and a grand killing formation of immense power just to deal with them.

At Zhou Xuan's words, Wen Yanlan's and King Xuan Yuan Fa's expressions turned ugly. True enough—even for cultivators at the Refining Spirit and Returning to Void stage, facing two thousand army-soul fierce ghosts of the mid Spirit Transformation stage at once was all but impossible. But to give up now would be like spitting out a fat piece of meat already in their mouths—even more impossible!

"Very well! Let us first return to the Sima Path and jointly set up a formation. Then we shall blast open the seal and lure those vengeful ghosts into our trap. We will hide within the formation and strike when the moment is right—collecting as many as we can!" A cunning gleam flashed through King Xuan Yuan Fa's eyes, so quickly that Zhou Xuan did not notice.

"That is the only way! It is dangerous, but fortune is sought in peril—let us stake everything on it!" Neither Zhou Xuan nor Wen Yanlan objected. Both sides agreed to the plan.

Retreating into the Sima Path, all three brought out their signature skills, dazzling Zhou Xuan's eyes. King Xuan Yuan Fa shook both hands, and more than a dozen swords radiating cold light suddenly appeared in the void before him—cyan, red, yellow, blue, green, a riot of five colors wreathed in cloud-mist. Every one was clearly a top-grade treasure, and Zhou Xuan could not help but feel envious. "This old monster—didn't he say he had no magical treasures? So he was just crying poverty!" But Zhou Xuan was not truly surprised. An old demon who had lived for thousands of years would be a rare sight indeed if he were truly penniless.