Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 80: The God-Burying Mound

The mountain paths were treacherous and slick with rain.

Chen Huangpi moved like the wind, cutting through the Hundred Thousand Mountains. He wasn't using any escaping technique to fly — and yet his speed was too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Truly — chasing the wind within the wind. No, to be more precise: what Chen Huangpi was chasing was a pinch of yellow clay dust blowing through the wind.

As soon as daylight broke, Chen Huangpi had eagerly taken out the grain of yellow earth given to him by the Yellow Peril, ground it into powder, thrown it into the air, and it immediately began pointing him toward the God-Burying Mound.

At this moment, the brass oil lamp was perched on his shoulder. Chen Huangpi wore on his head the bamboo rain-hat traded from an evil spirit — countless colorful strips of cloth dangled from its brim, obscuring his true appearance completely. And the Life-reaping Ghost had transformed into armor encasing his body, making him look tall and commanding.

A pity the Kidney Temple had closed and the black smoke no longer appeared. Otherwise — with black smoke rolling with every movement — the impression he gave would have been three parts more imposing.

"A'Gui — how is Golden-Horn doing?"

"Contract-holder, rest easy. It's already recuperating from its wounds."

"Good."

Chen Huangpi let out a breath. Over the past two days, the Life-reaping Ghost and Golden-Horn had been fighting each other inside the Soul-Hooking Register. By the end of it, Golden-Horn's jaw had been knocked crooked. But the Life-reaping Ghost hadn't had it easy either. After all — even reduced to just a soul, a Son of Diting was nothing to take lightly.However — the forty deities' souls that the Life-reaping Ghost hadn't yet finished digesting had been put to use during the two days of combat. After two days and two nights of fighting — the Life-reaping Ghost's power had actually grown stronger. It seemed close to returning to its peak strength.

The God-Burying Mound was dangerous. And the Yellow Peril was out there right now canvassing evil spirits all across the Hundred Thousand Mountains. Who knew how many terrifying entities would show up today.

Chen Huangpi ran through the calculations in his head. The Life-reaping Ghost's current strength could definitely hold its own against a Disaster-class entity. He himself had been diligently watering the Demon Tree these past two days, extracting a great deal of power — enough to trade blows with a Disaster as well. Add in the brass oil lamp and their combined strength was genuinely impressive, even by the standards of the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

With that thought, Chen Huangpi said thoughtfully: "If the opportunity arises — I want to kill the Yellow Peril."

"That one absolutely deserves to die!"

The brass oil lamp said: "If it were an ordinary Disaster-class entity, it would be one thing. But the Yellow Peril is different. It was contaminated by the Yellow Springs mud — it should have returned to the Yellow Springs a long time ago. But instead it has been lingering in the mortal world, making itself into an undying, indestructible existence. If it's given more time, it's going to become a Calamity."

"Once it's a Calamity, it'll be even harder to deal with."

"But you definitely can't kill it right now. You'd need to wait for Guanzhu to wake up and ask him to intervene."

"Not necessarily."

The hand seals of the Life-Slaying Sword Formula rose in Chen Huangpi's mind. These past two days, beyond watering the Demon Tree and nailing his master to the wall, he had spent all his remaining time studying this Life-Slaying Sword Formula.

It was a technique from the Pure Immortal Temple. When Chen Huangpi had first gone into the Scripture Pavilion, he couldn't read a single word there. But he had seen its terrifying power in action through the evil spirit formed from Xu Qingshan's severed arms.

However — those arms had only formed eight seals. The Soul-Slaying sub-technique of the Life-Slaying Sword Formula. Chen Huangpi had now witnessed it twice, and by the second time, had committed it entirely to memory. When he tried to activate the Life-Slaying Sword Formula himself, though, he felt like something was missing. Whether he channeled the Demon Tree's power or used the vital essence he had built up in his Liver Temple — what came out didn't even hit as hard as a solid punch. To say nothing of comparing it to the Grand Sui Demon-Slaying sword qi.

Chen Huangpi had a gut feeling: if he could just figure out what his version of the Life-Slaying Sword Formula was missing — he could master it in an instant. And then the Soul-Slaying technique, which specifically targeted and destroyed souls, would be exactly what was needed to deal the Yellow Peril a fatal blow. Potentially even actually killing it wasn't out of the question.

And just at this moment, the brass oil lamp spoke up: "Chen Huangpi — look ahead. That looks like the God-Burying Mound."

"Let me see."

Chen Huangpi looked where it indicated. There, several dozen li away, was a mound of earth shaped like an overturned bowl — several hundred zhang tall. All around it were the marks left by an earth dragon turning: trees snapped, river channels redirected, even nearby mountain peaks had crumbled and sunk. Set against the surrounding terrain, this mound stood out completely — as if it had appeared out of nowhere.

"So this must be the place."

At that moment, the pinch of yellow earth dust that had been guiding Chen Huangpi all this way seemed to complete its task and drifted upward — floating toward the very top of the God-Burying Mound.

The top of the God-Burying Mound was flat. When Chen Huangpi arrived, he found that a considerable number of evil spirits had already gathered. Some looked like people, some like objects, and some were just a jumbled assortment of heads fused together. On top of all that — the autumn rain kept drizzling, and here they were standing on a burial mound in the middle of it — which gave the whole scene a distinctly chaotic and ungodly atmosphere.

As Chen Huangpi arrived, those evil spirits all turned and looked at him. He didn't even flinch — he looked back at them, one by one.

This reaction annoyed some of the evil spirits considerably. Evil spirits were by nature volatile and unpredictable — gathered together like this, they were even more restless than usual.

But just at that moment — the Soul-Hooking Register on Chen Huangpi's person suddenly radiated a wave of cold.

"Contract-holder — the spirits who signed the contract have arrived!"

The Life-reaping Ghost's words had barely faded when a group of evil spirits appeared at the top of the God-Burying Mound. The lead entity was three or four meters tall, thin and lanky, wrapped in tattered black robes. It was the 'good evil spirit' from before — the one who had traded a sky-immortal command token and a heap of other things to Chen Huangpi for a wisp of black smoke.

The tall thin evil spirit naturally spotted Chen Huangpi. So did the other evil spirits that had come with it. Then, immediately, those spirits began looking around themselves and picking things up — grabbing stones, picking up branches — before all rushing over to Chen Huangpi as a group and thrusting their random assortment of objects toward him.

"Great-Ferocious evil spirit, Great-Ferocious evil spirit!"

"Trade, trade!"

"Trade for black smoke! Great-Ferocious evil spirit good! Good evil spirit!"

Chen Huangpi's expression immediately went dark. He snapped: "My black smoke doesn't fall from the sky — you can't just trade for it whenever you feel like it. Get out of here right now or I won't show you any mercy."

Hearing that, the evil spirits looked at each other. And then all of them lowered their heads in dejection.

Even among evil spirits, there were differences between good and bad. The bad ones were brazen and never knew when to stop. But the good ones — had a thousand different ways of being good.

The tall thin evil spirit was a good one. It had already noticed those first evil spirits and their oddly charged attitude toward Chen Huangpi. Its gaze swept toward them — filled with deadly intent.

Wherever that gaze landed, the evil spirits showed unmistakable signs of wariness.

And the ones with stones and branches — were now absolutely furious.

"Great-Ferocious evil spirit good! You are bad!"

"You — how outrageous! Outrageous!"

One evil spirit with a clearly articulate human voice even walked right up to those spirits and berated them loudly: "Do not be rude to the Great-Ferocious evil spirit! Apologize this instant! Otherwise — I'll eat you!"

Hearing that, those evil spirits began trembling.

"It's the Great-Ferocious evil spirit!"

"I've heard its name before — it eats evil spirits! It's terrifying!"

"I'm sorry — I shouldn't have been rude to you!"

"I was wrong — please don't eat me!"

The whole thing was absurd beyond words. Even the brass oil lamp clicked its tongue in amazement: "I've heard tales among mortals of guard dogs that occasionally wandered into wolf packs — and the wolves, being dim, took them for their leaders. I assumed it was exaggeration. But today, it seems it may well be true."

It couldn't have imagined it even in a dream. Chen Huangpi — a fake evil spirit wearing the skin of an evil spirit — had somehow blundered his way into becoming the Great-Ferocious Evil Spirit who specialized in eating evil spirits. And in such a short amount of time, it seemed every evil spirit in the Hundred Thousand Mountains already knew his name. Most unbelievably of all — one group made up the story, and another group actually believed it. These evil spirits really were complete fools.

Chen Huangpi paid no attention to Huang Er. He simply faced those gathered evil spirits and said: "I'm not the Great-Ferocious evil spirit."

The evil spirits froze. Then their eyes all turned toward Chen Huangpi and went dangerous.

"I've changed my name. I'm called the Great King Huangpi now!"

Every single one of those eyes immediately went wide with terror and reverence.

"Great King Huangpi! Great King Huangpi!"

The evil spirits cheered. Anyone passing by would have taken Chen Huangpi for a bandit king, with these spirits as his lieutenants.

At this point, the tall thin evil spirit sat down beside Chen Huangpi.

"You seem to have grown stronger."

Chen Huangpi felt the tall thin evil spirit's aura, and couldn't stop himself from saying: "Is it because of my black smoke?"

The tall thin evil spirit nodded. It couldn't speak — it only lifted aside the tattered black robes wrapped around it.

Chen Huangpi leaned in to look. Previously this evil spirit's skin had been deathly pale. Now it had shifted to a faint dark greyish-black. Its body was thin and elongated, with an enormous cavity occupying the entire abdominal region. Inside the cavity, the faintest trace of black smoke could be glimpsed. Clearly, over the past stretch of time, this tall thin evil spirit had almost fully absorbed the wisp of black smoke Chen Huangpi had given it.

Turning his awareness to the other evil spirits who had also received black smoke — Chen Huangpi could feel that his black smoke hadn't been absorbed at all inside them. In fact, it had grown slightly stronger. With a single thought, that black smoke would come back to him immediately.

"There's something strange about this tall thin evil spirit."

"Even the Demon Tree can't absorb your black smoke — and yet it can. This isn't just 'strange,' it's beyond any limit of strange!"

The brass oil lamp's tone was deeply wary. If not for the fact that so many evil spirits were present, and it could faintly sense even more approaching from all directions, it would have urged Chen Huangpi to make a move right now and kill this tall thin evil spirit first — to avoid future complications. A single wisp of black smoke had already caused such bizarre changes in it. Who knew how much black smoke was stored inside Chen Huangpi's Kidney Temple? Who could say whether this evil spirit wouldn't be overcome by greed and set its sights on Chen Huangpi?

Sensing the brass oil lamp's thoughts, Chen Huangpi said without much concern: "The tall thin evil spirit is a good evil spirit. If it wants more black smoke, it'll definitely bring something to trade for it."

"There's a saying — know a person's face, not their heart. Evil spirits don't even have hearts. You can trust one?"

"Then why hasn't it gone to steal the black smoke from the other evil spirits? It would be far easier than taking it from me."

"..."

The brass oil lamp was stopped cold. It was true — the other evil spirits all had black smoke given to them by Chen Huangpi, and by any measure, stealing from them had to be much easier than taking it from Chen Huangpi himself. Could it be that this tall thin evil spirit really was a decent evil spirit that played by the rules?

And just at this moment — the tall thin evil spirit abruptly shot to its feet, staring in a particular direction. Its dark purple lips parted, exposing rows of bone-white teeth. Its already frightening face became even more savage and ferocious.

The next second. Song Jiu's silhouette materialized out of thin air. Behind him loomed a deity in cyan armor — and the moment that deity appeared, cyan light erupted outward, pressing down on every evil spirit present, forcing them to lower their heads.

Song Jiu raised the Geomantic Divine Compass in his hand — its needle pointing directly at the tall thin evil spirit.

His cold smile said everything: "So the missing Geomantic Divine Compass was with this evil spirit all along."