Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 87: Yellow Peril Has Doomed Me

Danger upon danger upon danger!

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva fled through the air and dodged a streak of jet-black sword-qi by a hair's breadth.

But when it glanced back—

There was Chen Huangpi, riding waves of surging black smoke, sword-shaped branch in hand, closing in for the kill.

"I want you dead!"

Chen Huangpi's voice was bone-chillingly cold, his killing intent towering to the heavens.

Every sweep of his arm unleashed another horrifying arc of sword-qi.

The black smoke was boiling.

Never before had it been this violent and tempestuous.

He could even feel the boundless black smoke sealed inside his Kidney Temple straining to break free, answering his call.But until the Five Viscera Spirit Refining Art was fully complete—

The Kidney Temple's gate could not be reopened.

That black smoke would remain trapped inside.

Even so, Chen Huangpi's body was swelling with power.

In this state he felt utterly at ease, his mind flooded with countless mysterious techniques at a single thought.

Open his eyes and he would kill. Open his mouth and he would devour.

"Let's talk this through! We can talk!"

"KILL!!!"

Chen Huangpi roared.

Before the echo faded, eight arcs of sword-qi hurtled toward the Bodhisattva's skull.

"AAH! My arm!"

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva screamed. Already suffering its own backlash and barely enduring a slash of sword-qi, it managed to jerk its head aside by a whisker — but an entire arm was severed clean off.

Grey dust erupted from the stump.

And the black smoke already clinging to its body surged toward the wound like sharks scenting blood.

Chen Huangpi's sword-qi came laced with black smoke.

The two effects compounded, relentlessly devouring the Bodhisattva's body.

Hissss...

The sound of black smoke corroding flesh.

"What in the world IS this black smoke?!"

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva's scalp prickled with terror.

It was a consecrated god turned evil spirit — fundamentally extraordinary in nature. Yellow Peril, that shoddy product of a failed consecration, didn't even compare. And gods born after the Heaven and Earth Mutation were even further beneath it.

The Bodhisattva's body was a true divine vessel.

Yet against the black smoke, that supposedly golden form was — if not as fragile as paper — barely tougher than a block of tofu.

What was more horrifying—

After its arm was severed, the black smoke devoured it instantly. When it tried to regenerate the limb, nothing happened.

As though its true form had lost an arm as well.

"Chen Huangpi, you go too far!"

The Bodhisattva howled skyward. With its remaining hand, it struck its own chest.

It coughed out a stream of dust.

Golden light flickered within it.

"As I wish, as I will! Open the door — NOW!!"

The Bodhisattva burned through its power without reservation. The dust coalesced into a doorway, and it plunged through without hesitation.

The next instant—

"Close! Close! Close!"

The door slammed shut behind it.

"Escape-One Divine Light!"

Chen Huangpi extended his hand. The Brass Oil Lamp appeared in his palm at once.

Under the power of the Dog Rearing Scripture—

Chen Huangpi could command every one of the Brass Oil Lamp's abilities.

The Escape-One Divine Light was naturally his to wield as well!

But in Chen Huangpi's hands, this Escape-One Divine Light looked nothing like the golden radiance the Brass Oil Lamp normally produced.

It was the complete opposite.

A darkness so dense it seemed tangible swallowed Chen Huangpi whole.

The next instant—

The darkness contracted and collapsed, and Chen Huangpi vanished with it.

...

On the other side of the door—

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva spat out another mist of grey dust.

This time, it wasn't channeling any technique.

The backlash combined with the black smoke's torment had devastated its body. Cracks riddled even its internal organs, forcing it to hemorrhage — its version of a mortal coughing blood.

"Damn it all! Every last one of them!"

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva groaned in agony. "Yellow Peril has doomed me! It told me Chen Huangpi was just a cultivator disguised as an evil spirit, and I actually believed it. That Chen Huangpi is more demonic than any evil spirit! What the hell IS he?!"

The black smoke was something beyond its comprehension.

And the fact that Chen Huangpi could command it made the whole thing even more incomprehensible.

"If not for the backlash, would I have been reduced to this?!"

The Bodhisattva fumed. "You want to kill me? Not a chance."

Indeed — the door was already shut.

Unlike the tomb guardian beast, although both were consecrated gods—

The tomb guardian beast was a gatekeeper.

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva was essentially a burial offering. It couldn't leave the God-Burying Mound. Only its peculiar abilities allowed it to move freely among all three levels.

Without it, anyone who entered the mound would be stuck wandering the first level until they gave up and left.

Unless they did what the Calamity Eye had done — brute-force a new entrance with sword-light.

But just then—

Directly above the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva—

Right where the closed door had been—

Everything went black.

Within the darkness, two crimson points flickered in and out of existence.

"What is—"

The Bodhisattva froze for a fraction of a second. Then those two red points snapped wide open — unmistakably a pair of eyes seething with killing intent.

"CHEN HUANGPI!!!!"

"You—"

The Bodhisattva recoiled in horror, mouth opening to speak.

A bolt of sword-qi lanced from the darkness — descending vertically, crashing toward its skull.

"Flee!"

The Bodhisattva acted on pure instinct, spewing out a plume of dust.

The next instant, the sword-qi punched straight through its head, grinding it to powder.

"So close!"

Chen Huangpi dropped from the darkness, Brass Oil Lamp in hand.

He looked coldly at the space below him.

This was the second level of the God-Burying Mound — an enormous pit. Chen Huangpi stood at its rim, bronze oil lamps lining the walls all around, their flames blazing like torches and illuminating everything.

Looking down, the pit plunged to unfathomable depths.

But the marks of excavation were clearly visible — spiraling downward, ring after ring.

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva's crack-riddled true form materialized deep within the pit and immediately plummeted downward. "Chen Huangpi, wait—"

The Brass Oil Lamp spoke up uneasily. "Something's wrong with the bottom of this pit. There are many evil spirits down there, and plenty of divine corpses too. The Bodhisattva might be luring you down on purpose. Don't fall for it—"

"Then I'll kill them all!"

Chen Huangpi's voice was ice.

His killing intent was too thick — like an unsheathed blade that wouldn't rest until it tasted blood.

Without another word, Chen Huangpi leaped into the pit.

The Brass Oil Lamp buried its metaphorical face in its hands. "It's over. Chen Huangpi has gone berserk again."

The Life-reaping Ghost said anxiously, "Huang Er, think of something! This is the God-Burying Mound. If he goes on a killing rampage, he'll stir up catastrophic trouble!"

The Brass Oil Lamp sighed. "What can I possibly do? I thought the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva would pay a real price trying to revive the Temple Master. Who could have predicted it would be cunning enough to cobble together a 'Chen Liujia' and then call Chen Huangpi 'disciple' to his face? Of course he snapped."

After all, the Temple Master had raised Chen Huangpi like his own flesh and blood.

Through who knew how many years.

The Brass Oil Lamp itself had been awakened to serve as Chen Huangpi's companion when Charles appeared to be two or three years old.

Appeared two or three.

In reality, it had been over two hundred years.

If Chen Huangpi had truly been born from an egg, then the Temple Master was the first face he saw when he broke the shell.

This went far beyond simple devotion between master and disciple.

So when the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva conjured that grotesque thing and told Chen Huangpi "this is your master, this is what he looks like" — how could he not lose his mind?

It was like someone pointing at a dog and saying "that's the father who sacrificed everything to raise you."

And your father had just died.

Nobody could take that.

But no matter how desperately the Brass Oil Lamp tried to reason with him—

Chen Huangpi heard nothing.

Wind howled past his ears.

The scene before him blurred.

He fell like a meteor, and still he wasn't descending fast enough.

"Escape-One Divine Light!"

Chen Huangpi activated the Brass Oil Lamp again. Darkness swallowed his form.

He materialized next to the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva, stepping out of the void. The dead branch in his hand whipped and slashed — wave after wave of sword-qi rained down upon the Bodhisattva.

"You can't escape!"

And truly, the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva could no longer escape.

Its body had reached its limits. Besieged from within and without, no matter how it dodged, the sword-qi fell like rain — one slash was bound to connect.

Squelch...

The Bodhisattva's hand was sheared off.

CRACK...

A fissure split its waist.

Swish-swish-swish...

Sword-qi after sword-qi carved into the Bodhisattva's body.

Each stroke hewed away another chunk of flesh.

"AAAGH!!!"

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva shrieked without end.

But Chen Huangpi listened and his bloodlust only surged higher. His body shot forward in a blur. The dead branch in his hand radiated an eerie black glow, sharp as a true blade — and he rammed it straight into the Bodhisattva's horse-mouth.

The branch was forged from the Magic Tree's power.

The Magic Tree was a Calamity, and nourished within the Kidney Temple, it grew stronger every day.

Though the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva was also a Calamity—

With one weakened and the other ascendant, Chen Huangpi could genuinely take its life.

The branch plunged into the Bodhisattva's mouth and a geyser of grey dust — its version of blood — erupted outward.

Chen Huangpi twisted his wrist. The branch churned violently within.

When he yanked it free—

Entrails came with it.

But the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva didn't die.

Far from it — it ground its teeth and snarled, "Those who worship me receive their wish. When I worship — I return the favor! I wish: let this black smoke no longer touch me!"

The instant the words left its mouth—

Every trace of black smoke that had penetrated the Bodhisattva's body vanished.

"I wish: let my divine body endure, eternal and flawless!"

The cracks covering the Bodhisattva's frame sealed over at once.

Its aura strengthened dramatically.

Then the Bodhisattva opened its horse-mouth wide and blasted a fog of grey dust straight at Chen Huangpi's face.

Golden light shimmered within the dust.

And it was laced with that insidious, mind-warping demonic influence.

Chen Huangpi refused to let it touch him. He immediately opened the distance between them.

But not before landing one last strike.

The blade bit deep into the Bodhisattva's shoulder and carved away half its chest along with it.

Pain...

Pain beyond endurance!

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva was maddened by the agony. Its body was not flawless for eternity.

It merely no longer cracked on its own.

Severed portions could never regrow.

By now, Chen Huangpi had quite literally whittled it down to a limbless stump.

And the black smoke that came with that final slash had latched onto it once more.

"I wish: let the black smoke no longer touch me!"

The Bodhisattva activated the same ability again.

The black smoke vanished in an instant.

That was the last straw for the Brass Oil Lamp.

"How?! On what grounds?!"

The Brass Oil Lamp cried out. "The Magic Tree can only resist the black smoke through brute force! Is this thing stronger than the Magic Tree?!"

"Chen Huangpi — see that?"

The As-You-Wish Bodhisattva leered. "Your black smoke is useless against me. Without it, no matter how monstrous you are, you're just an overgrown Disaster. I am a god. I am a Calamity. Killing you would be effortless!"

With that, it charged at Chen Huangpi.

Grey dust poured from its nostrils and mouth.

As though it were about to unleash some devastating finishing move.

But Chen Huangpi neither advanced nor retreated. Instead, he rode the black smoke straight toward it.

His expression was glacial. Not a word left his lips.

Deep within his Kidney Temple, however, agonized and savage howls erupted.

The black smoke inside couldn't break free — but it was draining the Magic Tree's power at a frenzied pace, channeling every drop to Chen Huangpi.

"Kill! Kill! Kill! Sever! Sever! Sever!"

Chen Huangpi gripped the sword-shaped branch and slashed downward with all his might. The air split with a strange sound — like fabric being torn apart.

Simultaneously, branches of the Magic Tree burst into existence from every direction.

They cracked like whips, lashing toward the As-You-Wish Bodhisattva hidden within its cloud of grey dust.