Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
This was a brand-new ghost, a powerful ghost.
It was not born from a human, but from a fiend monkey, and the ghost still retained some of a monkey's special traits. In front of the Ghostface King, he had been respectful, but his Transformation-level strength meant that he was a force to be reckoned with.
If one looked carefully, one would find that this ghost shared some similarities with the ape Tang Jie had once refined long ago using the Ghost Classic!
In truth, this was a ghost guard, but the Nether Court's way of creating ghost guards was much simpler and more powerful. Many of the Ghost Dao secret arts used by humans were modifications of those used by the Nether Court.
The ghost king stroked the head of that new ghost, and then it pointed forward. The ghost monkey stood up and roared at the heavens, then it leaped at the fiends. Even before it reached the fiends, its claws swiped at the air, creating countless ghostly claws that attacked the fiends.
The ghost monkey naturally wasn't strong enough to do anything to the fiend kings, but it was enough to hold down a single fiend general.
And a moment later, the ghost king did what it had done before, firing another black arrow of decay. It knew that the fiend kings were too strong to kill, so it aimed its arrow at the weaker fiend generals. It appeared that it planned to turn the fiends into ghosts one by one.
The Nether Domain had its own conflicts, every ghost king trying everything it could think of to expand its power. But outstanding subordinates were hard to come by, and each powerful ghost guard needed a thousand temperings and refinements to create. In comparison, destroying some powerful creature and using a secret art to convert them into a subordinate, thus preserving the maximum amount of the strength they had in life, was a far superior way to get strong subordinates. For this reason, the ghost kings were always happy to cross over to the other side and engage in some slaughter.
And right now, that ghost king considered the fiend kings and generals as the finest materials, an excellent source of power.
"Dodge!" A fiend king chopped a palm, cutting down that arrow of decay and saving one of his fiend generals.
"Thank you, Your Majesty!" The fiend general was filled with gratitude, but he had barely spoken when the river waters erupted, turning into a giant hand that grabbed the general and pulled him into the river. A moment later, there was a sharp scream.
"Bastard!" The fiend king was furious over having the subordinate he had just saved suffer this fate. A moment later, the waters churned, and a ghost covered in black fog emerged, creepy laughter coming from its ethereal form—another ghost king.
On the other end of the river, another two ghost kings appeared, one with a long and drooping tongue and a mourning staff in its hand, while the other ghost king was actually holding its own head in its hands, four ghost lanterns floating around it.
These bizarre ghosts cackled as sinister gusts blew around them, and the hearts of the fiends grew cold.
But at this point, they had no choice but to fight. They could only split off a few more fiend kings to deal with the threat, but this meant that the offensive against the fiend snake weakened once more.
Meanwhile, that ghost king who had appeared first continued to fire off black arrows, and in the blink of an eye, it had created three more powerful ghost guards.
As the fiends weakened, the ghosts grew stronger, and the battle grew more and more difficult. And as the attacks from the fiends weakened, the fiend snake found it easier and easier to endure their barrage, and it prepared for a counterattack.
Aghast, the Ghostface King cried out, "It doesn't make sense! It doesn't make sense!"
It truly didn't make sense.
Even if they considered that Sun Shuming had expanded the passage, the force protecting this place shouldn't have been this powerful.
If the Blackwater Snake was this absurdly powerful, how had Fengshan gotten the flower before? The Ghostface King didn't believe that Fengshan sent the equivalent of 18 fiend kings and nearly one hundred fiend generals every time.
Humans couldn't afford to be this liberal with their power.
So how did they do it?
There had to be something going on!
The Ghostface King had already realized this.
But no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't understand where the problem was, and the situation was only worsening.
The Ghostface King knew that there was a high chance that they would be completely wiped out if this continued. He shouted, "Whitebrow King, Nine Lives King, come with me to kill that ghost king."
The Nine Lives King was that wildcat. Cats had nine lives, making them able to enter the Yellow Springs and return. The wildcat had died several times and returned, which was why he knew more about the Nether Court than most.
The three fiend kings lunged at the black arrow ghost king.
This ghost king knew that it was a pure law cultivator, strong in spell arts and weak in close combat. Conversely, fiends were innately strong, and almost every fiend was capable in close combat. The three fiends were intent on pitting their strong point against its weak point.
As expected, this ghost king retreated while waving its white scepter, summoning layers of ghostly energy.
The ghostly energy carried the powerful corrosive properties innate to the Nether Domain, and the fiends didn't dare to touch it, thrusting out their palms to disperse it. But the ghost king continued to release this ghostly fog, which began to form into fog ghosts that shrieked as they lunged at the three fiend kings. While the fog ghosts were rather weak, their soul attacks were still a headache, and even the three fiend kings found them a problem.
The Ghostface King lost his patience and opened his mouth, unleashing that blue flame that had destroyed that earlier ghost king.
This was his True Essence, a prodigious power he released by consuming the energy in his fiend pellet. But the Ghostface King was only powerful enough to use it three times. If he used it more than that, he would affect his cultivation and no longer be able to recover the energy he consumed. As for the other fiend kings, they were weaker than him, and even three times was asking too much of them. They wouldn't use it unless their lives were in danger.
As the blue light appeared, the ghost king shrieked and backed away, a barrier of black smoke appearing in front of it. The blue light struck the barrier and penetrated through it, striking the ghost king. The ghost king wailed as green smoke boiled off its body. It still lived, but it had been badly wounded. At this, the other ghost kings laughed, and none of them went to its aid. It was clear that the ghost kings also didn't get along well with each other.
The three fiend kings were just about to kill the ghost king when a sharp cry came from behind them.
A green bolt of light shot at the Whitebrow King.
The Whitebrow King snorted and spat out a small red pearl, which radiated crimson light that protected him. This was a treasure that he had spent many years refining, and its effects were incredible.
Poof! The green bolt struck the red pearl's barrier and disappeared, upon which all the fiends sighed in relief. But a moment later, the red barrier shuddered and then exploded, the powerful shockwave sending the Whitebrow King flying.
A large sword flew out of nowhere and headed straight for the Whitebrow King.
"Celestial Sword!" the Whitebrow King yelped. Not daring to take this attack, he instantly shot away and just barely managed to evade the sword.
But as he dodged the sword, a white lotus flew through the air. As if everything had been calculated beforehand, it appeared right in the Whitebrow King's path, radiating white light that paralyzed the Whitebrow King.
And then a large golden character flew through the air and disappeared into the Whitebrow King's head.
The Whitebrow King howled as golden light began to shine from his head, and with a boom, his head exploded.
But this still wasn't enough to kill him, another head growing from his chest. Meanwhile, the Ghostface King came rushing over to save him.
Two blasts of wind intercepted him while a callous voice rang out, "Just go and die already!"
The large sword dropped from the sky, striking the Whitebrow King's body and blasting it into pieces, the fierce sword energy instantly obliterating the regenerative ability of every cell and ending any hope the Whitebrow King had of reviving.
A fiend king had been slain.
"Sun Shuming!" the Ghostface King bellowed.
It went without saying that all this was the work of Sun Shuming's hidden group. Not only had they been long ready for this ambush, they worked extremely well together. There was someone for piercing through defenses, another for fixing the enemy in place, another for intercepting reinforcements, and another for killing. They had even calculated the route the Whitebrow King would take to retreat. Only by working together had they been able to slay a fiend king.
"Hehe, serpent king, there's no need to be so angry. It's just a few small tricks, hardly worth mentioning." Laughter ensued as Sun Shuming's group appeared over the Blackwater River.
He held a large brush in his hand as he looked at the Ghostface King. Smiling, he said, "I thought that even if the Blackwater Snake and the ghost kings couldn't destroy you all, they would at least have no problem heavily wounding you. Once we made our sudden attack, we would be able to easily kill a few fiend kings. But to my surprise, not a single fiend king died, and it was the ghost kings who were starting to falter. We had no choice but to strike earlier than planned, ultimately taking the life of only a single fiend king. What a pity."
He spoke as if he had cooked a meal poorly and made an embarrassment of himself in front of guests.
His brush began to draw in the air, and a bright "剑" (sword) character appeared. Sun Shuming dabbed the character with a brush, and the character turned into a sword.
"Mighty are the men of Fengshan, dancing and singing of slaying fiends to the vast sky! Go!"
He was quite the straightforward one, moving to attack just moments after speaking.
As Sun Shuming shouted, the sword shot at the Ghostface King.
The Ghostface King hadn't expected this man to be so direct. Enraged, he was about to shatter that sword when he felt a gust of wind behind him and realized that he was in trouble. Ignoring the sword, he turned around and thrust out his palm.
A black arrow rammed into his hand.
The Ghostface King yelped as his body erupted with fiend energy to fend off Sun Shuming's sword. Clenching his teeth, he chopped at his right arm, severing it. As the severed arm flew up, it decayed into white bone. A moment later, the Ghostface King regrew his right arm, but his complexion had paled somewhat.
Sun Shuming sighed. "I was even more rushed this time, as I saw that the ghost king was about to attack, but this meant I couldn't cooperate with my colleagues, resulting in failure. Yunshan, if you had kept up and followed my attack with the Celestial Sword, you would have heavily injured—if not killed—him. If any of you had made a follow-up attack of any sort, the Ghostface King would have been right behind the Whitebrow King. Missing out on such an opportunity is because you all lack focus. Do not make the same mistake again!"
The young lord of the Celestial Sword Sect, Liu Yunshan, smiled and said, "It was my mistake. I will definitely follow Sir Sun next time."
The others agreed. On the other end, the fiend kings were baffled by this conversation.
They looked over at Sun Shuming, who looked seriously at the Ghostface King and said, "Relax. Next time, I definitely won't let you dodge."
He flourished his brush, and another golden character appeared.
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