Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 82: The Temple Master's Sword, The Eye Demon's Mark

Song Jiu and the Qing'an County City God had never imagined this in their wildest dreams.

They had prepared thoroughly.

A County City God, Song Jiu temporarily empowered by the official seal, and eight hundred lesser gods.

Such strength should have left them with a fighting chance of escape even against a Calamity-class evil spirit.

Yet here in the God-Burying Mound, evil spirits roamed the earth like flies, and Disasters were as common as dogs.

Above hung the colossal Eye Demon Calamity, its massive orb festering with fleshy growths.

And somewhere in the shadows lurked another Calamity — the owner of the four-fingered black claws.

What kind of hellish place was this God-Burying Mound?

How had it drawn so many terrifying existences to a single location?

The cruelest part was that they had no chance to flee.The moment Yellow Peril gave the order—

Two black claws emerged from the void and pressed down on the foreheads of Song Jiu and the Qing'an County City God.

The flame atop Song Jiu's head was instantly snuffed out.

The Qing'an County City God fared even worse — struck as though by lightning, its eyes rolling back, it lost all control of its body on the spot.

Simultaneously, the owner of those black claws materialized from the void.

It stood roughly thirty meters tall.

It had eight heads, each with savage, bestial features — flushed crimson across the cheeks while the forehead was a deep indigo-purple.

Below the heads, its torso was a mottled blue-black.

Its surface was hairless, skin rough as sandpaper.

Its upper body was broad and powerful, sprouting sixteen arms.

Its lower body had only a single leg, with manacles coiled around the ankle.

"Mang Shan Jun!!!"

The instant Song Jiu laid eyes on the creature, his face went white.

He seemed to recognize it.

The Calamity called Mang Shan Jun cast a cold glance at Song Jiu. "Cultivator. Gossip-monger!"

Song Jiu opened his mouth to speak, but the words transformed into a blood-curdling shriek.

AAARGH!!!

With a wet ripping sound—

Song Jiu's tongue was torn clean out of his mouth.

Blood sprayed in a gushing torrent.

Mang Shan Jun pinched the tongue between its four-fingered black claws and tossed it into the mouth of the head facing Song Jiu.

It had all happened too suddenly.

Chen Huangpi couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Song Jiu hadn't even said anything yet, and Mang Shan Jun had already ripped out his tongue.

Truly deranged.

Yellow Peril took it upon itself to explain. "Great King Yellow Skin, you may not know this, but our friend Mang Shan Jun here isn't from the Hundred Thousand Mountains. It was once an Arhat from the West Region Buddha Kingdom. In the fourth year of Qingli, it traveled to the Da Kang capital, Jingcheng. Then, for reasons unknown, it suddenly transformed into an evil spirit."

"The cultivators in Jingcheng tried to kill it, but it proved far too terrifying as an evil spirit. It barely managed to escape into the Hundred Thousand Mountains and went to ground."

"I see."

Chen Huangpi mused, "It despises cultivators so much and calls them gossip-mongers — perhaps it suffered because someone talked too much?"

"Ha! Cannot be spoken of, cannot be spoken of."

Yellow Peril deflected with a laugh, refusing to continue on that subject.

As though it were some kind of taboo.

But Chen Huangpi didn't take it at face value.

He had been wary of this Yellow Peril for a long time.

Last time, he had seen through its game of winning hearts at first glance.

He wanted no part of it.

And now he was even more certain that Yellow Peril was deliberately showing off — projecting an image of a mastermind pulling strings from behind the curtain. After all, it had managed to lure this many evil spirits, Disasters, and even two Calamities here. Was that really through raw power? Hardly.

Just then—

Mang Shan Jun came hopping over, dragging the limp forms of Song Jiu and the Qing'an County City God like dead dogs.

It only had one leg, so "walking" was really bouncing.

Despite that, its massive frame moved with surprising stability — even faster than walking.

As for the lesser gods, they were herded along like sheep.

Mang Shan Jun bounced to a halt before Chen Huangpi. Its sixteen eyes — one pair per head — swept over him briefly, then turned cold and fixed on Yellow Peril. "When do we open the God-Burying Mound?"

"Right now!"

The instant Yellow Peril spoke, it steered its floating temple to hover directly above the God-Burying Mound.

The Mutant Divine Statue moved at the same time.

Since arriving, it had completely ignored Chen Huangpi.

As if all prior grudges had been set aside.

Suddenly, the gaping maw on the Mutant Divine Statue's chest split open, and from within crawled an evil spirit with an absurdly oversized head and spindly, withered limbs.

It opened its mouth and announced, "The Great and Most C-C-Calamitous Evil God has arrived! All of you — out of the way!"

"It's the Big-Head Evil Spirit!"

Chen Huangpi cried out in surprise. "What happened to it?"

At this—

The Big-Head Evil Spirit whipped its head around and looked at Chen Huangpi. Its tone was the same as always — a little helpless. "G-Great King Yellow Skin, the Calamitous Evil God's throat bone was carved out. It swallowed me and now parasitizes my body so I can speak on its behalf."

"Next time you go to the marketplace, I won't be able to show you the—"

Before it could finish "the way"—

The Mutant Divine Statue roared furiously, scaring the Big-Head Evil Spirit into clamping its mouth shut.

The other evil spirits had already cleared a wide berth.

The vast summit of the God-Burying Mound—

Was suddenly emptied of a large area.

The Mutant Divine Statue stood at the edge of this clearing. The vertical eyes on both its palms opened wide, scanning for something — an entrance.

Before long—

It pointed.

Not toward the center. Not toward any of the cardinal directions.

It pointed at empty air.

The next instant—

"Here! Here! Here!"

From within its temple, Yellow Peril opened its mouth wide and spat out a stream of yellow mud.

Its body had long since solidified. Expelling this mud seemed to cost it dearly — cracks immediately spiderwebbed across its frame.

The yellow mud contained a trace of golden blood.

As though it had a will of its own, it hurtled toward the spot the statue had indicated.

Then the mud adhered to something invisible, as if an unseen surface had been marked. A seal.

Yellow Peril raised its gaze toward the giant eye looming in the dark clouds above.

That eye had no pupil and no sclera.

Nothing but writhing fleshy growths.

Chen Huangpi took one look and felt his scalp tingle.

Not from fear.

But because he sensed an overwhelmingly terrifying power gathering within that eye.

Power enough to annihilate heaven and earth.

Perhaps even more horrifying than the crimson pillar of light that had erupted from the Magic Tree's demonic eye — the one that used a blood moon for a pupil and the night sky for an iris.

What astonished Chen Huangpi further was that from deep within that gathering storm of power, he detected a faint, achingly familiar aura.

The fleshy growths inside the giant eye parted one by one.

They revealed a darkness as profound as any abyss.

Then that darkness began to boil.

A sliver of white — infinitely thin — pierced through the blackness. The moment it appeared, the dark was cleaved apart.

The white line grew thicker and thicker.

Like a pupil taking shape.

No — it wasn't a white line at all.

It was light. Sword-light.

So sharp that a single glance created the illusion of one's very soul being sliced in two.

"Hurry! Close your eyes!"

The Brass Oil Lamp screamed in terror. "It's the Temple Master's personal sword — that is the light of that blade!"

"Contractor — don't look! Don't look!"

The Life-reaping Ghost's voice was laced with agony.

Chen Huangpi was wearing its skin, and thus seeing through its eyes.

At this point, the Life-reaping Ghost felt that if it looked any longer, the sword-light would cleave it clean in half.

"Is Master's sword inside that eye?"

Chen Huangpi squeezed his eyes shut. His mind was a roiling tempest of thoughts.

He had never seen that sword.

He had never even seen the Nine Separation Bell — only heard its tolling.

But the Brass Oil Lamp had seen the sword, and held it in the highest regard. In terms of sheer killing power, the sword was the mightiest artifact in the Pure Immortal Temple — even the Nine Separation Bell couldn't compare.

Moreover, the Evil Buddha had been an existence on par with an immortal.

And that sword had taken its head in a single stroke.

This giant eye was terrifying, true — but it was only a Calamity. Could it really be stronger than the Evil Buddha?

Chen Huangpi's thoughts churned.

He desperately wanted to open his eyes and see whether his master's sword truly lay within that eye.

But the moment the impulse arose—

He crushed it.

'A Gui's eyes can't withstand it. I can't do that to it.'

Chen Huangpi felt helpless.

But just then, his mind erupted with a thunderous roar. Characters materialized in his consciousness, flowing like flowers, birds, fish, and insects.

It was the complete text of the Yin-Yang Harmonization and Spirit Transformation Art.

Just like the Five Viscera Spirit Refining Art, this soul-cultivation technique practiced itself automatically, as though it were alive.

It had sensed Chen Huangpi's will.

His still-unformed Six Yin God — the one he had forcibly activated several times before — suddenly snapped its eyes open.

The next instant—

Chen Huangpi felt total darkness engulf him.

Then he opened his eyes.

These were not his eyes, and yet they were.

They were the Six Yin God's eyes.

He gained an uncanny perspective — everything in all directions flooded into his vision at once.

He looked at his own physical body.

Eyes shut tight, golden-black script flickering across his mind.

Deep within his five organs, similar characters lay hidden.

Inside the Kidney Temple, the Magic Tree was still being nourished by black smoke, its power still being siphoned.

Looking higher, he saw his liver. A ceaseless stream of yellow-green essence bubbled from it, cycling day and night without rest, steadily forging the Liver Temple.

Something existed within that still-unfinished Liver Temple.

Even with the Six Yin God's vision, he couldn't make out its full shape — he could only sense that it resembled the black smoke somehow.

'The black smoke grew from the Kidney Temple — the Liver Temple would naturally develop something new as well...'

Understanding dawned on Chen Huangpi.

He shifted his gaze outward.

He saw the entrance to the God-Burying Mound — that point in empty space the Mutant Divine Statue had indicated. It was an enormous tomb gate, inscribed with countless strange characters. They resembled ghost-script, yet were its polar opposite.

Where ghost-script was obscure and shadowed—

These characters were radiant and majestic, carrying an indescribable air of transcendence.

Chen Huangpi had never seen this script before, yet — just as with ghost-script — he understood its meaning at a glance.

Though the characters were as numerous as ox-hairs—

Together, they conveyed a single message.

Suppress Immortals! Suppress Immortals!

Chen Huangpi murmured in bewilderment, "The gate of the Pure Immortal Temple becomes the Suppress Immortal Temple every night. Could this God-Burying Mound be connected to my temple?"

The God-Burying Mound was a great distance from Mount Yuqiong and the Pure Immortal Temple.

Several thousand li at minimum.

Chen Huangpi had never been here before. Questions filled his mind, but there was no one to answer them.

He looked up at the giant eye in the sky.

Within it, the sword-light had taken full form.

It blazed with dazzling radiance.

Like a sun, unleashing its keen brilliance without restraint.

Even the Six Yin God's vision felt a sting of pain.

Chen Huangpi endured it, widening his eyes to see clearly.

Not until the blazing sword-light contracted in a sudden pulse — hurtling downward toward the tomb gate — did he finally glimpse what truly lay within the giant eye.

His master's sword was not inside.

Only a sword's shadow remained.