Everyone inside the great temple scrambled to reverse the Detailed Explanation of the True Dao Mechanism, feeling their bond with the temple growing ever weaker. They rushed toward the exit in a panic.
Behind them, the white-robed Nuo Immortal closed in for the kill.
One woman glanced back and saw the white-robed figure with its back toward her—its back splitting open on both sides, transforming into a grotesquely enormous maw.
She screamed. The next instant, the Nuo Immortal's entire body devoured her whole.
The creature's skin rippled for a moment, then opened again, spitting out a bleached skeleton before lunging at the next victim. It moved with uncanny grace, drifting like wind through the great temple. Each time it caught someone, its back would split open and swallow them down.
Yet many still made it outside. Xu Ying grabbed Yuan Qi and leaped onto a massive boulder. Yuan Qi was about to jump to the next stone when Xu Ying blocked him: "Don't move!"
He summoned his sword qi and slashed downward, splitting the boulder clean in two.
The boulder they stood on could no longer support their weight. It sank slowly, as though the stone had been dropped into water.
Those who rushed up behind them copied the trick, leaping onto boulders and splitting them—but with too many people on a single stone, it plummeted. The descent grew faster and faster.
A cluster of people clung to one another atop a falling boulder, shrieking in terror.
Yuan Qi peered over the edge and remarked: "At this speed, whoever falls probably won't survive."
The others became more cautious, careful not to slice away too much stone at once.
Suddenly, the great temple itself rumbled and shook. It sprouted countless legs, tore free from the earth, and charged after the escapees.
The white-robed Nuo Immortal's voice rang out, laughing: "I must have been addled with rage—I forgot I can't leave the temple gates to catch you myself. But I can send the temple after you instead! Where did that sword-wielding brat and that shameless snake run off to?"
The temple gates yawned like a great maw, chasing the crowd from behind.
"Merge with me, become me! I shall grant you supreme glory and eternal life!"
Xu Ying looked up to see people tumbling from the sky—those who hadn't yet hit the ground, their screams echoing without end.
Some walked upon nothingness in midair, others treaded on clouds. Far more couldn't fly, so they mimicked Xu Ying's trick, leaping onto boulders to use their weight to drag the stones downward.
But from the immortal mountains, colossal deity statues leaped over the ridges—deities of every shape and form, treading upon auspicious incense clouds to cut off their escape. Others had become living stone masses, wielding tendril-like blood vessels to seize people from all directions.
The dead piled up in droves.
"A-Ying, is that a Nuo Shaman's artifact on your back?" Yuan Qi noticed the mask strapped behind Xu Ying and suddenly asked.
Xu Ying was startled but delighted. He hastily removed the Wuchang mask and grinned: "Xiao Qi really does know his stuff. I obtained this mask by chance. An official from Yongzhou prefecture donned it and transformed into a Wuchang Ghost. Quite strange."
Yuan Qi explained: "I've read about this. When Nuo Shamans forge artifacts, they often capture powerful creatures—demon gods, ghost gods, and such—and skin their faces off. Then they refine the creature's vital essence into the mask. Once completed, wearing the mask lets you assume that creature's living form and wield its abilities. That mask of yours is probably the face of a Wuchang Ghost."
Xu Ying was spooked and nearly threw the mask away—then thought better of it.
The boulder beneath them continued to plummet. Suddenly, lightning and thunder split the sky. Xu Ying looked up and saw Governor Zhou Heng and Prefect Ling Youdao joining forces to besiege the great temple!
Behind Zhou Heng's head, radiance bloomed—revealing a vast sea of chaos. Within it, a profound grotto-heaven spiraled outward in helical patterns, spinning as it extended into dark, empty void.
Within that grotto-heaven sat a second grotto-heaven, clouds churning and rotating to form its outer shell, pushing deeper into the sea of chaos.
Within the second grotto-heaven lay a third, penetrating even further into the chaos. It was extraordinary.
Xu Ying stared intently and realized that behind the fat governor's head floated five nested grotto-heavens—one inside the next, expanding outward!
"Fishing the mud-pellet from the sea of chaos! This governor is a supreme expert—he's unlocked the fifth layer of the mud-pellet secret repository!"
Xu Ying burned with envy. In that incomplete ancient text from the Qinyan Cave stone chamber, it had said that opening the mud-pellet repository required a Nuo Shaman's assistance—striking the chaotic mud-pellet egg with the mightiest blow to blast open a grotto-heaven, then drawing out the mud-pellet's vital essence from within!
Before, Xu Ying had never understood how one drew out that essence. But watching Governor Zhou Heng's battle with the white-robed Nuo Immortal, he finally grasped it.
"The brain is a sea of chaos, holding infinite energy. Grotto-heavens are deep wells bored into that chaos—like drawing water from a well, pulling the sea's energy out in a ceaseless stream." He pondered silently.
Governor Zhou Heng's partner, Ling Youdao—the Underworld Prefect of Yongzhou—was equally formidable. Wielding a judge's brush and a scroll of life and death, his divine power was unmatched. Golden characters flew from the scroll by the hundreds, slamming into the great temple.
He was a Prefect of the Underworld, sustained by Yongzhou's incense energy. Not only did mortals worship him, but every deity of every mountain, river, and village in the prefecture paid him tribute!
He had cultivated Yongzhou for ages untold. His incense energy was incomparably dense—far exceeding the stone-deity statues within the five immortal mountains.
Yet even with two supreme experts combined, they were on the brink of defeat against the great temple.
The temple was the white-robed Nuo Immortal's Hidden Vision Latent Transformation—a realm constructed from countless manifestations of the Great Dao, forming waterfalls, trees, and architecture. Every single landscape feature was a devastatingly powerful technique!
The white-robed Nuo Immortal stood behind the temple gates, waving a hand or flicking a finger, and terrifying techniques launched from the waterfalls, striking both experts until they coughed blood and retreated.
Suddenly, the residual shockwave of a technique crashed down from the sky and struck the boulder Xu Ying and Yuan Qi were on. A corner of the stone sheared off and floated skyward.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi stared in shock. The boulder beneath them plummeted toward the ground.
They were still several li up. At this speed, they would be smashed to pulp!
Xu Ying leaped off the boulder and called out: "Yuan Qi, wait for me at the temple gate!"
Yuan Qi coiled his body—over ten zhang long—around the boulder, trembling. But after falling a hundred zhang, the stone's descent gradually slowed, and he relaxed.
He looked up to see lightning and thunder splitting the sky like raging floods—the shockwaves from the techniques of the white-robed Nuo Immortal, Governor Zhou Heng, and Prefect Ling!
Through the chaos, he could just make out a small figure riding a bronze bell through the lightning, only to be swept away by a torrent of water along with the bell, disappearing to parts unknown.
"A-Ying is blessed by heaven. He'll be fine." Yuan Qi whispered to himself.
Xu Ying rode the bell through the raging storm and flood, tossed about like a leaf in a tempest at sea. Then a bolt of lightning struck the bell's surface.
*CLANG!*
The bell rang out, and countless intricate patterns bloomed across its surface, forming a thick wall of light that rotated, deflecting the residual techniques all around!
The bell's power flared, but the blow knocked it off balance. It tumbled and crashed into the forest of an immortal mountain, carrying Xu Ying with it.
The forest collapsed in a wide swath. Then the bell bounced, hit the ground again, its ringing echoing through the valley and startling the revived deity statues, which all turned their heads toward the sound.
Xu Ying staggered to his feet, every bone in his body aching. The bell beside him trailed smoke, its surface a chaotic tangle of scratched patterns.
Suddenly, the forest shook with the roar of combat—powerful beings clashing. Xu Ying crept forward and hid behind a boulder, peering out. His heart lurched.
A ghost-faced deity swung its sword and decapitated a raging ape!
The ape's headless body shrank rapidly, transforming into a middle-aged man. The severed head rolled to a stop, the ape face reverting to a human countenance—eyes wide open, dying with grievance unrelieved.
"Yongzhou Judicial Adjutant, Zhou Zheng!" Xu Ying's heart pounded from behind the boulder.
Zhou Zheng's power had been extraordinary. To think such a being could die at the hands of this ghost-faced deity—its strength was terrifying beyond measure.
The ghost-faced deity suddenly turned its head, its gaze sharp and piercing, sweeping toward Xu Ying's hiding spot.
Xu Ying ducked.
The bell urgently whispered: "A-Ying, this is bad—the ghost-faced god is coming!"
From the other side of the boulder, heavy footsteps approached. The deity had sensed him.
Xu Ying steadied his racing heart: "Brother Bell, a thousand days of raising the bell, one day of use! Can you fight like you did just now?"
"Raise my ass!"
The bell spat profanity, furious: "If you'd truly raised me for a thousand days, I'd have smashed ten of these ghost-faced gods to scrap! The problem is you haven't! This thing's power far exceeds the City God—I'm no match for it!"
Cold sweat rolled down Xu Ying's forehead: "Then can we run?"
"Definitely not faster!"
...
The ghost-faced deity caught a faint murmur from behind the rock. Its ferocious features twisted into a snarl as it lunged around the boulder, murderous intent blazing.
Then it saw clearly what was hiding there and paused. It growled in displeasure, but the killing intent gradually faded.
There was no human behind the boulder. Instead, a Wuchang Ghost—over a zhang tall, withered as a skeleton—cowered there, deathly pale, a long crimson tongue dangling from its mouth.
The Wuchang was a common spirit of the underworld; the ghost-faced deity was familiar with them. But this one seemed unusually scrawny, malnourished-looking, and pathetically timid—trembling behind the rock.
The ghost-faced deity spoke to the Wuchang: "Har hulur!" and handed over a blood-soaked cloth bag.
The Wuchang nodded eagerly and reached out to take it. The bag had been looted from Zhou Zheng's body.
The ghost-faced deity strode forward without looking back: "Boye hulur!"
The Wuchang obediently followed, stumbling along—one foot high, one foot low.
Without warning, the ghost-faced deity surged ahead, murderous aura blazing. The Wuchang peered out to see dozens of martial sect disciples besieging another deity—a bull-headed, human-bodied figure, covered in wounds, on the verge of collapse.
But with the terrifying ghost-faced god joining the fight, those dozens of Nuo Shamans were slaughtered in moments.
The ghost-faced deity, drenched in blood, beckoned to the Wuchang.
The Wuchang obediently approached, clutching the cloth bag.
The bull-headed deity carefully extracted two Myriad Spirit Pills from the carnage and said to the Wuchang: "Sohah hulur!"
The Wuchang hastily opened the bag. The bull-headed deity placed the pills inside, then said to the ghost-faced god: "Pose pose hulur!"
The ghost-faced deity replied: "Hongbo dan hulur!"
The bull-headed deity snickered and tugged at the Wuchang's long tongue.
Xu Ying nearly yelped. He was, of course, the Wuchang.
Pinned behind the boulder with nowhere to retreat, a flash of inspiration had struck him. He'd donned the Wuchang mask.
It was his first time using a Nuo Shaman's artifact. He didn't know whether he could actually transform into a Wuchang Ghost—but the moment the mask touched his face, the transformation occurred, and he became a genuine underworld spirit, deceiving them completely.
Strangely, once he'd assumed the Wuchang form, he could understand the ghost gods' speech without any instruction—their barrage of spectral gibberish became perfectly clear.
But when the bull-headed deity tugged his tongue, it nearly pulled the mask free, nearly scaring him to death.
The bull-headed deity released his tongue. The two towering spirits walked side by side with Xu Ying between them, heading toward the mountaintop.
Inside his mind, the bell's voice murmured worriedly: "A-Ying, how long can this mask last? What if there's a time limit—"
"I'd be dead," Xu Ying whispered.
The bull-headed and ghost-faced deities simultaneously turned to look at him, suspicious—they had heard him.
Xu Ying kept his composure: "Bo ha bo ha, na mo bo ha!"
The two deities were satisfied and continued uphill.
Xu Ying, wedged between them, cautiously peered into the cloth bag—his heart pounding. Inside lay seven or eight Myriad Spirit Pills, some of which must have been collected by Zhou Zheng!
They arrived at another sacrificial altar. The ghost-faced deity opened its mouth and spat out several souls, letting the statue before the altar absorb them.
The statue revived, exchanged a few spectral words with them, and joined the procession.
Along the way, the ghost-faced deity revived statue after statue. By the time Xu Ying had thirteen deities at his side, even more arrived from the other immortal mountains.
In his Wuchang form, Xu Ying stood over a zhang tall—but among these deities, many of whom stood five or six zhang, he was a runt.
Whenever a deity held a Myriad Spirit Pill, it would hand it to Xu Ying to place in the bag.
Before long, the bag held a full fifteen Myriad Spirit Pills.
"With so many pills, if I were to pocket them and run..."
Xu Ying's eyes darted. "I'd die in spectacular fashion."
These pills were offerings to the white-robed Nuo Immortal. The assembled deities were heading to the great temple to pay homage and present the pills!
This was a pilgrimage!
"For me, though," he thought, "it's a funeral procession!"
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*To allow the author better creative freedom, please refrain from discussing the stock market.*