Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 105: Chen Huangpi Joins the Ranks

"There's no way these things are immortals!"

The Brass Oil Lamp said with certainty. "If they were, that would mean every immortal in the mortal world has been turned into an evil spirit, sealed away, and then had their corpses hacked up and dumped into the Yellow Spring."

The Guanzhu had brought only three thousand Daoists from the Great Qian Immortal Dynasty.

Those Daoists, like Yi Qingzhou, were all immortals.

Though ones like Yi Qingzhou and Xu Qingshan weren't considered especially powerful among their kind.

But an immortal was still an immortal.

The Great Qian might have been an Immortal Dynasty.

Yet setting aside the hidden monsters lurking within various sects, great teachings, and ancient families.

On the surface, the dynasty had only about ten thousand immortals.

Beyond the Great Qian, the immortals under other factions could be counted on a single hand.If these black-robed, hat-wearing entities truly were immortal corpses like Yi Qingzhou's.

Then most likely, every immortal in the mortal world was already dead.

"But they really do look exactly like the Slender Evil Spirit."

Chen Huangpi fingered the cloth strips dangling before his eyes. "Look — this is the bamboo hat the Slender Evil Spirit gave me. And the tattered black robes they're wearing are identical to its too."

"A Gui, do you know what those things are?"

The Life-reaping Ghost had been blocked from the earlier exchange between Chen Huangpi and the Brass Oil Lamp.

But it could still see the world outside the manual.

Looking at those entities dressed identically to the Slender Evil Spirit, the Life-reaping Ghost was equally baffled.

"Master, I've never seen creatures like those."

"They're probably Evil Corruptions spawned after that sun fell into the Underworld Yellow Spring."

The Underworld Yellow Spring had already been transformed.

It was nothing like the Life-reaping Ghost's memories.

Its old experience and knowledge naturally couldn't be applied blindly anymore.

Chen Huangpi thought for a moment. "These things give me a very bad feeling. If they really are immortal corpses and decide to attack me, I'm as good as dead. Even if they're something else, I don't want to run into them."

"I'll climb around them."

With that, Chen Huangpi clung to the mountain and began traversing sideways along the rock face.

There were far too many of those Slender Evil Spirit lookalikes.

Well over ten thousand.

They walked in tight succession up Mount Luopo, like a colony of ants on the march.

Chen Huangpi didn't know why they could walk while he had to climb.

But he had no intention of tagging along behind them.

After all, this ascent was only meant as a scouting run — so he would know what to expect when he returned for the real climb.

As for what the Brass Oil Lamp had said about him fooling the Life-reaping Ghost and Golden Horn.

Well, call it an unintended consequence of honest intentions.

But right then.

The Brass Oil Lamp suddenly tensed. "Climb faster — the things above seem to have noticed you."

Hearing this.

Chen Huangpi immediately flattened himself against the rock face, curling into a ball behind a protruding boulder.

At the same instant, a frigid gaze swept downward.

On the mountain above.

The very last figure in that long, climbing procession — the one wearing a bamboo hat — had lowered its head and was peering below.

Luckily, Chen Huangpi was nimble.

The creature stared for a while, found nothing, and withdrew its gaze. It continued following the column upward.

"Whew..."

Chen Huangpi exhaled. "Good thing it didn't spot me."

He resumed traversing sideways across the mountain face.

Whether by luck or providence.

He hadn't been climbing long before the precipitous cliff suddenly leveled out into gentle terrain.

Looking further up.

A mountain path materialized before him.

He strode onto it and instantly felt the burden lift.

"My luck can't really be this good."

Chen Huangpi couldn't help but say, "Could I really be a part of the Underworld Yellow Spring? Am I the darling of this place too?"

Those hat-wearing entities had no path beneath their feet.

Yet they walked as if on flat ground.

Chen Huangpi couldn't do that, but a mountain trail had appeared right before him.

If that wasn't luck, what was it?

The Brass Oil Lamp was dumbstruck. "This is bizarre. I've been patrolling mountains with you for years and never once had anything good happen. Yet the moment we set foot in the Underworld Yellow Spring, our fortunes flip completely."

"It's almost like coming back to..."

"Back to what?"

"Back to your mother's house!"

"Come to think of it — that does feel about right."

Chen Huangpi chattered as he jogged up the path.

The trail grew smoother and smoother.

Straighter and straighter.

As easy as walking on flat ground.

"If this path leads all the way to the summit, I might not even need to come back. I could get the Soul-Restoring Jade today."

To himself, Chen Huangpi thought, 'Master always said there's great terror between life and death. Looks like he's the same as A Gui — been away from the Underworld Yellow Spring too long. Doesn't know the times have changed.'

But the path didn't lead to the summit.

And Chen Huangpi didn't make it to the end before he stopped.

Because he saw a door.

A massive red door — red to the point of piercing the eyes, vivid as arterial blood.

As if someone had drenched it in a basin of gore.

No — blood was actually flowing out from beneath the door.

And it was increasing. Like a sudden mountain flood, the crimson door burst open, and a torrent of severed limbs and mangled flesh came washing out on a tide of red.

"Evil Corruption! It's an Evil Corruption!"

The Brass Oil Lamp shrieked. "Chen Huangpi, you're nobody's darling! Run! Run now!"

It didn't need to say so.

Chen Huangpi had already spun around and bolted the moment he laid eyes on the red door.

His face was ashen, his movements frantic.

No wonder those hat-wearing creatures avoided this path.

So there was an Evil Corruption lurking on it.

The so-called "path" was probably a deliberate trap set by the thing.

Though the Evil Corruptions of the Underworld Yellow Spring all bore the same label.

There were obviously differences in power among them.

The red door didn't feel as powerful as Calamity Eye, but it radiated a nameless, indescribable wrongness.

And most critically.

Mixed into the river of blood was yellow mud-sludge.

As if Mount Luopo were hollow at its center, with the interior connecting directly to a tributary of the Yellow Spring.

He couldn't touch it. Couldn't let it graze him.

All he could do was run.

But the further he ran, the more his scalp prickled.

Going up is easy; coming down is hard.

However comfortable the ascent had been, the descent was every bit as miserable.

The roaring rush of the blood-river across stone filled his ears. Chen Huangpi didn't even need to look back. He could already smell the stench of blood and mud mingling together.

"Climb to the side!"

The Brass Oil Lamp yelled. "If you don't get out of the way, we're either swallowed by the yellow sludge or washed off the mountain and smashed to pulp!"

"You think I don't want to?!"

Chen Huangpi's face was white. "The path is following me."

No matter whether he veered left or right.

He was always dead center on the trail. A path barely wide enough for two people, and he couldn't step off it no matter what.

Worse still.

The path had an end.

A hundred paces ahead, the trail simply stopped.

"I'm done running!"

Chen Huangpi halted abruptly and whipped around.

A mudslide of blood surged toward him — churning with severed limbs and yellowed sludge, crashing against his face like a wall.

Chen Huangpi slapped the Soul-Hooking Manual.

The Void-Piercing Sword appeared in his hand.

"I don't care what kind of Evil Corruption it is. Cut first, ask questions later."

Chen Huangpi gritted his teeth, gripped the hilt, and wrenched the blade free.

To the agonized wail of Calamity Eye.

A sword light of blinding brilliance slashed upward toward the blood-river.

The light wasn't wide — a thread-thin line descending vertically from above, cleaving into the crimson flood.

The torrent's downward momentum froze in an instant.

Then, with a thunderous splash.

The blood-river parted down the middle, as though Chen Huangpi had carved a corridor through it by sheer force.

"You started this!"

With the river split apart, Chen Huangpi could see the red door at the trail's end.

His expression was frigid, his killing intent razor-sharp.

He killed to survive.

He hadn't wanted to draw the Void-Piercing Sword unless absolutely necessary. Overusing it would slowly drain Calamity Eye's life — the sword's power came from its shadow, and if Calamity Eye died, the shadow would cease to exist.

But since the blade was drawn, he might as well test the limits of what Calamity Eye could endure.

"Kill!"

Chen Huangpi raised the Void-Piercing Sword and charged toward the red door with unstoppable momentum.

No blood-river to bar his way.

He moved at blinding speed.

The sword light was faster still!

One slash rang out, and Calamity Eye's anguished cry grew yet more piercing. The eye embedded where scabbard met hilt wept tears of blood.

Pain...

Pain beyond the threshold of endurance.

But something else was in even more pain.

Boom.

The red door shattered under the sword light and disintegrated into fine dust.

The entire mountain body of Mount Luopo shuddered.

"Pathetic!"

Chen Huangpi scoffed. "I was worried the Underworld Yellow Spring's Evil Corruptions would be something terrifying. In the end, one swing and it's—"

The word "dead" never left his mouth.

Because he saw that behind the destroyed red door was a pitch-black, sinister cave mouth.

And it was expanding toward him.

No — more precisely, it was rushing at him.

"Bring it on! Have another swing!"

The words barely left his lips before he launched another blade of light.

But this time, it was useless.

The light plunged into the cave mouth, its brilliance illuminating the dark interior. Chen Huangpi glimpsed a tunnel that cut straight through to the other side of Mount Luopo.

As though the mountain had been bored clean through.

The sword light was impossibly fast — in less than a single breath, it reached the opposite end.

There, another red door stood.

It, too, was obliterated.

"Mount Luopo is alive..."

Chen Huangpi recalled the very first thing he'd said upon seeing this mountain.

Now, understanding dawned.

If Mount Luopo were a person, then the red doors he'd just destroyed were its front teeth.

He had knocked out two of its teeth.

Naturally, it was furious.

"I'm sorry — that was my mistake."

Chen Huangpi shouted as he ran. "Mount Luopo! Oh, great Mount Luopo, I'm also a part of the Underworld Yellow Spring! I'm an Evil Corruption too! We're family! I'm just a kid — please don't hold it against me!"

But the black maw of the cave didn't slow for even an instant.

In the blink of an eye, it had blinked through space to appear directly behind Chen Huangpi — like a jaw stretching itself impossibly long, opening cavernously wide before snapping shut.

"Huang Er, save me!"

"What good is yelling for me?! Call for Master!"

"Master, save me!"

Chen Huangpi's face turned crimson with effort. He screamed at the sky with every ounce of strength in his body.

But the one who answered was not Master.

It was figure after figure — each clad in tattered black robes, each wearing a bamboo hat with colorful cloth strips dangling from its brim.

Those figures stood on the slopes of Mount Luopo. In one sharp, unified motion, they turned their heads.

Row upon row of eyes — pupils white as bone, the whites of their eyes black as pitch — all fixed their gazes downward in perfect unison.

Or, more precisely — on the bamboo hat atop Chen Huangpi's head.

Then, as if confirming his identity, their collective gaze shifted to the black cave mouth.

The gaping maw had stretched to enormous proportions.

Yellow mud-sludge roiled within, ready to erupt. But under the weight of those ten thousand frigid stares, it relented — unable to surge forth.

Whoosh.

The cave mouth retreated at speed.

The mountain path beneath Chen Huangpi's feet was retreating too.

He stumbled, nearly losing his footing — but just then, a pale, elongated arm reached down from above and seized his shoulder.

Chen Huangpi looked up.

The long procession of figures stretched out before him.

He had been placed at the very end of the column.

As though he had rejoined a formation.

Stranger still, the moment he entered this procession, the steep, sheer cliff of Mount Luopo beneath his feet transformed. The jagged rock face became a staircase — one that led all the way to the summit.

He looked around. Countless departed souls drifted in the air.

As far as the eye could see, the space surrounding Mount Luopo was packed with untold numbers of spirits.

Chen Huangpi breathed in realization. "So it was these souls pressing down on me. That's why I couldn't fly."

"Wait — are they taking me up the mountain?"