novelraw Chapter 160 : Breaking the Life Lock
Chapter 160 : Breaking the Life Lock
Ghost Realm, Ghost Xuan Sect.
A middle-aged man in black robes entered the forbidden area, dismissing all the ghost cultivator guards. He walked leisurely into the depths of the forbidden area, opening the great door to see the behemoth crouching in the blood pool. A smile appeared on his face.
Growing well...
Growing so well...
It's getting bigger and bigger!
The Ghost Xuan Sect Leader casually took out several blood-soaked Nascent Souls of cultivators and tossed them into the pool. The behemoth instantly devoured the Nascent Souls, its form swelling even larger.
At this rate, in just half a year... less than half a year! His grand plan would finally succeed!
Beneath the wild joy was frenzied hatred. Zong Xun gritted his teeth, his eyes full of venom and resentment. His grand plan could have succeeded a hundred years ago, but it was ruined by that meddlesome woman!!
Recalling the scene from that year, he had deceived everyone, releasing Chi during the Myriad Stars Sect's last ancestral worship ceremony. The Sect Leader had already been poisoned by him and was powerless to resist. He successfully cut out the spirit infant from her womb to serve as Chi's new physical body for descending into the Spiritual Abyss Continent.
As long as he could control the spirit infant, he could control the powerful Chi. This was a plan he had schemed for a long time, and it was so close to success. Unexpectedly, that woman wasn't completely dead and stabbed him at the last moment, sacrificing her divine soul to cause the ritual to fail.
The spirit infant wasn't completely devoured by Chi, but a part of its divine soul was affected, becoming an anomaly of coexisting spirit and ghost.
Zong Xun also suffered backlash due to the ritual's failure, his realm dropping to the Dharma Transformation stage. Moreover, his foundation was damaged, and his cultivation could hardly progress for a hundred years, causing him lifelong resentment... However, if he succeeded this time, he could use Chi's power to return to his peak!
"Report to the Sect Leader, we have spread the news of living cultivators coming to the ghost realm throughout the entire ghost domain. Many fierce ghosts we sent out have discovered the traces of those foreign cultivators and are pursuing them!"
"Are they still alive?"
"A little ghost just came to report that those cultivators have been killed by the fierce ghosts we sent out. They're just about to be completely devoured."
The ghost soldier who came to report smiled slightly, "That person said these sect disciples were quite cunning, but in this subordinate's opinion, they're nothing special! They're just a group of novice sect disciples after all, with mediocre strength. How could they possibly match us?"
A cold smile also appeared on Zong Xun's face, but he was still cautious and asked again, "Are you certain those people are completely dead?"
"They are indeed dead through and through. That little ghost even took us to see their corpses. It was indeed the aura of those living cultivators. This subordinate has confirmed they are dead and disposed of them. The Sect Leader can rest assured!"
"Very good!"
Zong Xun also secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't afraid of mere disciples, but he feared these people coming to interfere.
This plan must be foolproof. It absolutely cannot be disrupted midway again!
After the last plan failed, Zong Xun fought desperately and only obtained Chi's infant form. He needed a hundred years to nurture it to adulthood. As long as he could successfully grow it to adult form, that powerful and terrifying force would be more than enough to overturn the cultivation world!
However, before growing to adulthood, this thing was also extremely fragile. He had to ensure no more troubles arose in the remaining half year... As long as he could get through this last half year, he would stand at the pinnacle of the three realms and four races!
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Ghost Realm Treasure Vault.
The treasure vault was a good place.
Whenever Chu Sang arrived at a new place, this was a must-visit location.
Gu Chang'an watched his three Junior Brothers and Sisters skillfully sneak into the ghost race's treasure vault, rummaging through it without any psychological burden. For a moment, he doubted himself, unsure whether he should join or... join?
He had come out of seclusion too late.
Who would have thought his Junior Brothers and Sisters had become... so wild?
Especially the leader, Little Junior Sister, who kept refreshing his worldview time and time again.
Speaking of yesterday, they had kept that cowardly ghost. Little Junior Sister even placed a curse mark on that cowardly ghost, making him go to the Ghost Xuan Sect to report the good news of their deaths.
The other side naturally wouldn't believe so easily, so they sent several envoys to check.
So Little Junior Sister took out their life-sized simulacrum puppets, dripped a drop of blood on them, fooling those inexperienced ghost cultivators.
Thus, they "socially died" in the ghost realm.
The Ghost Xuan Sect naturally didn't need to waste effort on a few dead people, and those ghost cultivators and vengeful ghosts all retreated.
They then put on thousand-face masks, assumed new identities, and infiltrated the ghost race's treasure vault.
Speaking of which, they had to thank Ling Yu for providing them with the Ghost Xuan Sect map. Not only was the map drawn in detail, but it even marked clearly how many troops were stationed at each location and when shifts changed.
They were more familiar with the layout of this place than the ghost race themselves, easily sneaking in.
The ghost race's treasure vault had no formations, but it required identity verification.
Chu Sang immediately took out Second Senior Brother's identity token, openly swiping it to enter.
This journey so far couldn't be called smooth sailing; it was more like the ghost realm welcoming them with open arms.
The other side was overjoyed thinking they were dead, while they were overjoyed robbing the treasure vault.
This was truly a double celebration.
You're happy, I'm happy, everyone's happy.
Chu Sang released Xiao Bai to search through the treasure vault.
Compared to the demon realm's treasure vault, the ghost realm's was much more meager. Most things were useless to them, so they didn't bother taking these space-occupying junk items.
Xiao Bai lowered its head to sniff, stopping in front of a box.
Chu Sang immediately followed, opening the box to find a fragment of a map inside.
The items in this treasure vault were mostly plundered by the Ghost Xuan Sect Leader from various places over the past hundred years. This map fragment also looked quite old, very worn, almost impossible to see what was drawn on it... but Chu Sang vaguely felt this map fragment was somewhat familiar. She took out the two map fragments she had obtained before.
Sure enough.
The broken edges of these three map fragments could be pieced together.
It seemed... there were still two pieces missing?
Not knowing what this map was for, she carefully put away all three fragments, having a vague intuition that she would be able to find the remaining two fragments.
They had gathered most of the valuable items from the treasure vault. It was time to get down to business.
Following the map provided by Ling Yu, they went directly to the ghost race's forbidden area.
Chi was most likely hidden by that old bastard in the forbidden area.
The ghost race guards at the entrance to the forbidden area were no match for them, but they weren't sure of the Ghost Xuan Sect Leader's current strength and needed to be wary of whether he was inside.
Chu Sang released Xiao Bai.
Xiao Bai's body turned into a ghostly form, secretly infiltrating the forbidden area. It came out after a while, shaking its head, "Parent, there's no one inside the forbidden area."
"That's good."
Chu Sang looked at her senior brothers and sisters who were holding their breath in concentration, encouraging them, "Let's go in!"
Trespassing into the ghost race's treasure vault and then into the forbidden area was something they wouldn't have dared to imagine before. But with Little Junior Sister leading the way, they inexplicably felt a sense of security, even more than with Big Senior Brother who was at the Dharma Transformation stage.
"Let's go!"
They agreed unanimously.
After taking down the guards at the entrance, four figures quickly slipped inside.
It must be said that Second Senior Brother's authority in the ghost realm was truly high. His identity token was almost an all-access pass, not only allowing entry into the treasure vault but also the ghost race's forbidden area without fail. This saved Chu Sang the time of learning how to break ghost race formations, which might have been discovered and caused more trouble.
Entering the depths of the forbidden area.
At a glance, they saw that familiar behemoth, identical to what they had seen in the Myriad Stars Sect illusion. However, the sense of pressure was far weaker than before, and its form was much smaller in comparison, like an infant form that hadn't fully grown.
Fortunately, they had come in time. If Zong Xun had really released this thing half a year later, the entire cultivation world might have truly been destroyed because of it.
Now it was only a half-grown form, and there was still a slim chance of eliminating it.
The behemoth also noticed this group of living ghost cultivators who had trespassed into the forbidden area. Two red, lantern-like eyes appeared in that huge, viscous mass formed entirely of light-absorbing blackness, filled with greed.
It had eaten only dead cultivators for a hundred years. Seeing several living people, it had already formed a conditioned reflex, extending countless black tentacles to attack without hesitation.
Tang Yanling used her zither music to slow Chi's attack speed. Gu Chang'an and Tantai Ming, one on the left and one on the right, raised their swords to meet the attack, cutting down all the black viscous tentacles.
With sufficient main combat strength in the team, Chu Sang calmly retreated to the rear, using talismans to form arrays.
She held a white jade pen inlaid with gold, her entire spiritual power concentrated at the pen tip. The spiritual energy in the air fluctuated as if tangible, countless abstruse talisman characters appearing under her pen.
Chu Sang was a true sword cultivator, but she had indeed made her fortune through talisman drawing, yet had never had a proper talisman tool.
This talisman pen in her hand was almost equivalent to an immortal tool, without a trace of ghost energy, a pure product of the cultivation world. It was clearly something that old Zong Xun had taken from the Myriad Stars Sect's treasure vault years ago, buried in the ghost realm for a hundred years. Now she would bring this immortal pen back into the world, letting it shine brilliantly!
With just a few strokes, the formation was complete!
Meanwhile, Gu Chang'an and Tantai Ming moved like shuttles, even more powerful with Tang Yanling's support. In just a few blinks of an eye, they had cut down most of those tentacles.
After being cut off, the tentacles would still wiggle like earthworms, inserting themselves into the ground and then emerging from underground, catching them off guard.
At this time, Chu Sang's attack formation superimposed with the defense formation showed its great usefulness, instantly repelling those tentacles, preventing them from approaching the group.
"Its tentacles can continue to grow!"
Tantai Ming stared intently at the monster's lower body.
He and Gu Chang'an had both discovered that the most troublesome part of this monster was its endless tentacles. Not only could they change length at will, but their attack speed was also very fast. If it weren't for Tang Yanling restraining its speed, the two might have been hit before they could even strike Chi's body.
Even more troublesome was that these tentacles could regrow.
No matter how many tentacles the two killed, they would continue to grow endlessly. They couldn't kill them all, only wasting their spiritual energy in vain.
The source supplying these tentacles with endless growth was below, underneath this monster.
There must be something under this monster!
Gu Chang'an's eyes flashed, and he immediately went to attack the monster's lower body.
Chi's pressure suddenly increased several times, preventing the two from getting close.
"Even in its unformed state, its strength is very powerful, almost equivalent to a half-step Unity stage," Gu Chang'an frowned.
Chu Sang touched her storage bag. Since entering the forbidden area, her big darling had become active again.
Perhaps she could let the ghost king devour Chi as well.
But Chi wasn't like those small ghosts that could be swallowed in one gulp. In the ghost realm, it was always a matter of big ghosts devouring small ghosts. The ghost king was now at late Dharma Transformation stage, while Chi was at half-step Unity stage. If she rashly released the ghost king, Chi might end up devouring her big darling instead.
Got it!
She had an epiphany.
"Big Senior Brother, Seventh Senior Brother, you two keep cutting. Don't cut its tentacles anymore, cut its main body!!"
As she spoke, Chu Sang also released Karma Burns the Three Realms, the Xuan Ling Sword, and the Primordial Soul-Chaser to join in cutting the radish.
Slice by slice!
Every piece of viscous, slime-like substance they cut off, she had her big darling swallow in one gulp.
Cutting while eating, eating while cutting...
Gradually, the originally huge behemoth that occupied nearly half of the forbidden area shrank to less than half its original size.
As Chi's form shrank by half, its strength also diminished accordingly.
So the group cut even more enthusiastically.
By the end, when Chi couldn't be cut any further, it had none of its earlier arrogant air. It seemed to finally know fear and tried to shrink underground.
Before Chu Sang could give the order, the ghost king directly rushed forward, swallowing it in one gulp, crunching it with a "crunch."
After successfully swallowing Chi, the ghost king seemed to have food poisoning and actually started to go berserk, even wanting to attack Chu Sang!
She immediately activated the Buddha's light to envelop her entire body. The golden Buddha's light scorched the ghost king, calming it down again, and it was collected back into the Hundred Ghosts Banner.
This farce finally ended.
After Chi disappeared, everyone naturally saw what was hidden underneath.
At a glance, everyone's hair stood on end.
All corpses.
Thousands upon thousands of corpses... there were even several cultivators who had been thrown down recently, their flesh not yet fully decayed. Half of their faces were intact, while the other half was just a skeleton with tender flesh still attached. The scene was extremely shocking and nauseating.
And at the very bottom.
There was a human-shaped lock wrapped in iron chains, carved with various blood-red patterns, restraining it.
Chu Sang recognized it at a glance.
This should be the life lock Second Senior Brother had mentioned.
As long as the life lock was shattered, Second Senior Brother would no longer have to obey the Ghost Xuan Sect Leader's orders.
Chu Sang immediately wanted to charge down with her sword to shatter the iron chains outside the life lock.
Just at this moment, the main door opened, accompanied by an angry shout. A terrifying attack rushed towards her.
"Seeking death!!"