Put Away Your Divine Techniques Now!

Chapter 1081 - 322: Ghost Cloud Cliff

[Apologies, I only managed to rush home last midnight, didn’t get any sleep, and wrote this Chapter. I returned later than expected, an extra day beyond my leave, which was my mistake.]

Chapter 322 [Ghost Cloud Cliff]

Ghost Cloud Cliff.

The common holy land, or rather the forbidden land, of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Race in the Southern Border.

Among the Ghost Race, everyone speaks of it with dread, fearing it like a tiger.

Just because this place represents cruelty, bloodshed, suppression, brutality, and... torment among the Ghost Race.

Just like in the past when the Southern Border did not have the Ghost Race, within the Ghost Race, there was no such so-called forbidden land as Ghost Cloud Cliff.

Since the Saint Venerable created the cultivation technique of the Ghost Race, merging the mountain tribes of the Southern Border into a unified Ghost Race, this newly born ethnic group initially underwent a period of flourishing and prosperous development.

Like a newly emerging seedling, it initially brimmed with vibrant vitality, growing vigorously and flourishing...

Then, inevitably, as everything in this world follows this pattern, after experiencing the booming period, it will inevitably enter a decline.

The Ancestor Saint of the Ghost Race of the year established the cultivation technique of the Ghost Race and the Great Dao of the Ghost Race while simultaneously arranging a covenant with the Domain Realm tribes, sects and families, and even the Saints of the heavens.

In the land of Southern Border, with the City of No Return as the boundary, the part to the west belonged to the Ghost Race’s territory.

This divided the vast region of the Southern Border, with the Ghost Race solely occupying half of a barren land.

Subsequently, countless mountain tribes began to merge, initially into eighteen tribes, and then further into a unified external entity known as the "Ghost Race."

However, speaking of merging may seem easy, but if we talk about the practicalities...

The process was neither smooth sailing nor mild, nor was it calm and peaceful.

The merging process might have been filled with annexing, clever acquisition, and seizing by force...

I am a tribe, you are a tribe. After we merge, who shall lead, and who shall follow? Why should I yield to you? Or why should I abandon my independent status, forsake my people, relinquish my mountains and woods, and even abandon my original beliefs to submit to another tribe, even sever my previous faith, destroy my former sacred relics, and even abandon my ancestors’ names?

One tribe after another vanished and was delisted, eventually countless tribes merged into one of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Race. During the unseen phases, endless blood unknowingly flowed.

Who knows how much hatred and unresolvable grievances were left behind.

The so-called "merger" was never peaceful!

Nor was it something that could be achieved over tea and conversation!

Blood was shed, a great deal, an enormous amount of blood!

Ghost Race, this name externally represents a unified whole.

But internally, the Ghost Race was never a monolithic entity!

The eighteen tribes, each tribe has deep-rooted enmities and grudges between them.

Even within each tribe, among different tribes and factions, there might be ancient handed-down feuds!

The Saint Ancestor initially manifested an almost harsh cruelty, with thunderous suppression methods, directly obliterating all forces and voices opposing the entirety of the Ghost Race!

With absolute power, absolute violence, he shattered all attempts of opposition and rebellion among the mountain tribes!

During this process, many mountain tribes that had been prominent in ancient times were directly delisted, buried within the river of history.

The "Helin Tribe" in the original Southwest Mountain of the Southern Border once ruled over six hundred peaks, spanning eight thousand miles, even forming a nation, revered as ancient stone forest as the tribe’s sacred relic, and with the antlered deer in the forest as the tribe’s totem.

At its peak, their population exceeded a million!

However, during the Ghost Race’s merging process, the Helin Tribe refused to abandon their customs and beliefs, rejected forsaking the tribal sacred relic stone forest, refused to change the tribe’s totem, and refused to join the newly founded "Ghost Race", declining to become one of the eighteen tribes.

The price was that the Saint Ancestor descended with a miracle and crushed their sacred stone forest into dust with a single palm!

The tribal totem sacred beast, the antlered deer in the forest, was slaughtered to extinction!

And a million tribe members were divided among twenty plus tribes after being besieged and captured!

At the end of the annexation war, in the final battle to exterminate the tribe, eight thousand loyal guardians of the Helin Tribe’s holy land were slaughtered, their heads lopped off and made into eight human towers!

The mountain tribe Helin Tribe, once dominating the Southwest region of the Southern Border, was thus extinguished!

The Helin Tribe even became later seen as the jester or a joke in the ancient myths passed down within the Ghost Race.

—They could originally have accepted the decrees of the Ancestor and, with their scale and strength at the time, become one of the foundations of a tribe among the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Race, establishing one of the eighteen leaders.

They refused.

The result was the tribe’s complete extinction.

And taking their place was a tribe that first invaded their holy land in the final battle.

And that tribe was later ordered by the Ancestor to form one of the eighteen tribes centered around that tribe.

After more than a decade of initial "merging", with enough blood spilled and enough people dead, the Ghost Race was born.