The poisonous mists in the sky slowly dispersed, and clarity returned to the stretch of sea.
A rift in the void opened as the power of the Hell Scroll stretched outward, drawing the remnants of the sixth-rank Swallow-Ghost into its depths.
At once, the scroll seethed and roiled, and three ghostly silhouettes emerged in succession.
[Poison-Breeding Ghost]
Rank: Eighth
Life Pattern: Poison Ward (Blue)
[Flying Swallow Ghost]
Rank: Eighth
Life Pattern: Swallow Reversal (Blue)
[Lightfoot Ghost]
Rank: Eighth
Life Pattern: Float (Blue)
Three eighth-rank great ghosts, each a masterpiece of Yanfu Dao's secret ghost-rearing methods, manifested, each with powerful, practical abilities.
The Poison-Breeding Ghost granted immunity to a hundred venoms.
The Flying Swallow Ghost enhanced movement and escape techniques, lending speed and agility.
The Lightfoot Ghost likewise boosted speed whether walking, fleeing, or swordplay.
All three shared an affinity with the Swallow-Ghost's nature, making the fusion smooth and effortless.
Jing Qian waved his hand, and the three ghosts took residence within his body, each merging with an organ.
The Poison-Breeding Ghost settled into his pancreas.
The two speed-enhancing ghosts lodged themselves in his knees.
In an instant, his mana surged another thirty percent, his strength once more elevated with flawless new blessings.
By this point in the Sea of Resentful Souls, he had already forged ten great ghosts.
Aside from the two ninth-rank Marker ghosts, all the others had reached the eighth rank, each possessing unique supernatural effects of immense value.
It wasn't that Jing Qian was unwilling to refine higher-ranked ghosts; his current cultivation simply limited him. For now, he could not create spirits beyond his own rank.
Still, even these eighth-rank ghosts would continue to grow stronger as his cultivation advanced, nurtured until they transcended their original grade.
With eight great ghosts currently inhabiting his body, his mana reserves had risen to 1.8 times their former capacity. His physical body was heavily reinforced, he carried immunity to poisons, and his movement, escape, and sword speed had all increased dramatically.
All told, his power had more than doubled.
Such was the miraculous synergy of the Hell Scroll paired with Yanfu Dao's ghost-controlling secret arts.
And even amid these sweeping gains, the unique boon granted by the Longevity Life Pattern, now bound to his Qingping Sword Casket, stood out above all.
Jing Qian quietly savored the new sword-Casket resonance while hovering above the waves, waiting for the Sea of Resentful Souls to reveal its next challenge.
Having slain even a sixth-rank ghost, the mark upon him had fully solidified now, and a dark-red blood pearl floated before his brow, radiating bone-deep chill.
Suddenly, the sea erupted in hundred-foot waves as nine black water pillars shot skyward.
A shrieking gale howled across the surface, laced with piercing wails. Jing Qian's knees flared with blue light as his figure blurred, dissolving into afterimages as he soared upward.
Looking down, he saw them: nine sixth-rank great ghosts, lurking in the depths, leaping up to ambush him.
Each ghost was a grotesque giant infant's head, the size of a millstone, with a body barely a foot long, hideously distorted, enough to make one's skin crawl.
The nine ghosts opened their massive mouths wide, spewing streams of black smoke and lunging at him to bite.
But Jing Qian's Other Shore Unending escape art was unmatched in speed, and now, bolstered by the new swiftness of his ghostly allies, he was as elusive as mist, effortlessly dodging all nine strikes.
These were no ordinary fiends. Though they appeared separate, they were in truth a single entity: the Nine-Linked Ghostlings.
If refined into a Life Pattern, they would form a Violet-Eye rank Innate Ghost Pattern of staggering might.
For any disciple of Yanfu Dao, awakening such a Nine-Linked Ghostling Life Pattern and refining nine innate ghosts at once would instantly elevate them to the status of true core heirs of the ghost-controlling lineage.
Within the entire spectrum of Yanfu Dao's ghostly Life Patterns, the Nine-Linked Ghostling was second only to the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade, a Golden Root–tier life pattern.
When Jing Qian laid eyes on the Nine-Linked Ghostlings, his heart stirred, greed flaring within.
If he could subdue them into the Hell Scroll, it would be equivalent to refining nine sixth-rank great ghosts in one stroke.
Compared to slowly raising eighth-rank ghosts one by one and painstakingly elevating them step by step, this was infinitely more efficient.
To him, this was nothing less than a gift from the Sea of Resentful Souls itself!
And beyond that, what better test subjects for his newly awakened Qingping Sword Casket than these nine fiends?
He gathered a thread of Qingping Sword Qi, invoked the new resonance of the sword casket, and slashed.
The blade struck one of the nine ghosts. That writhing monstrosity jolted as if struck by lightning, frozen stiff midair, then plummeted into the sea below.
Jing Qian's eyes gleamed with delight. Without hesitation, he unleashed eight more sword-silks, striking the rest in turn.
In the blink of an eye, all nine sixth-rank ghosts had collapsed to the waves, their massive bodies twitching, paralyzed and unresponsive.
Laughing heartily, Jing Qian descended, unfurling the Hell Scroll.
The scroll stretched and twisted like a silken ribbon, snaring the nine specters one by one, stringing them together as though threading a necklace.
Subdued by the scroll's weight, the nine ghosts shrank into doll-sized forms.
Jing Qian dragged them in tow, then slipped into the Void Realm.
Before the Void Furnace, he cast the scroll wide, shaking loose the Nine-Linked Ghostlings and throwing them into the flames.
At once, the vast Toad's Purifying Fire, filling nearly the entire furnace, wrapped them in blazing embrace.
Within the fire, the Revolving Son of Heaven Seal, the very foundation of Jing Qian's Yanfu path, pressed down, pinning the nine tightly, forcing them to endure the searing crucible together with it.
If they survived this refining under the heavenly fire, his Spiritual Construct would reach full maturity, and the nine ghosts would be subdued in kind, propelling Jing Qian's strength to a new peak.
He watched the furnace with deep satisfaction. With the suppressive might of a fourth-rank fire, even if the nine ghosts awoke, they could never overturn the heavens.
Leaving the cat-spirit Xili to mind the flames, he flashed back to the Sea of Resentful Souls.
By now, the blood pearl above his brow had darkened into deep violet, radiating dreadful menace.
If the sea itself had a will, surely it would tremble in shock. Nine sixth-rank fiends, each brought down in a single stroke, what kind of "eighth-rank" cultivator could wield such terrifying might?
In truth, even Jing Qian himself hadn't foreseen it. The new resonance awakened within the sword casket had unveiled an incredible power.
When the Longevity Life Pattern fused with the Qingping Sword Casket, it miraculously granted him the ability to wield sword qi that could shorten or extend lifespans.
A power utterly beyond his imagination.
Every slash now carried a hidden resonance, stripping away a sliver of an enemy's lifespan.
And those stolen fragments of life, through the thread of sword qi, would flow back into Jing Qian himself.
The conversion rate wasn't high. Robbing an enemy of one full day might only grant him a bare fraction, no more than the span of a few minutes.
But it was still a method of lengthening his life that was utterly unique, without precedent.
In the Yingfutu Realm, every life-prolonging elixir was an extravagantly priced treasure.
This sword that reaped longevity was priceless beyond measure.
And as for combat, what enemy could remain calm facing a blade that drained away the sands of their life with each cut?
Ghosts, however, were another matter. The twisted dead of the Sea of Resentful Souls had no lifespans to harvest. Against them, this Life-Reaping Sword was far less effective.
Yet Jing Qian discovered something even more shocking.
By inverting the power, he could drive his own lifespan outward, pouring it into others.
This, he called the Life-Bestowing Sword.
At first glance, it seemed laughably wasteful self-harm to aid an enemy. But the more he thought, the more terrifying possibilities unfurled.
And when tested, its true nature revealed itself against ghostly creatures, the Life-Bestowing Sword was an absolute nemesis.
For beings without life spans, a sudden injection of vital years was poison of the highest grade.
He spent three months of his own life, gifting each of the nine ghosts ten days of vitality with one strike apiece.
The moment that living essence entered them, vitality and death-energy clashed violently inside, locking the fiends in a deadlock.
And when a ghost's inner power seized up, its entire body froze in a crash state, helpless before the sword.
Even the dreaded Nine-Linked Ghostlings were left paralyzed, utterly at his mercy.
Three months of life traded was a bargain beyond compare.
Jing Qian grew more and more convinced of the Longevity Life Pattern's unmatched worth.
From this single "resource Life Pattern," he had forged not only a path to survival but also a unique method of slaughter.
His cultivation path itself would change from here forward, shaped by this new sword resonance.
Already, his mind was racing, where in this world were crowds of living beings, from whom he might harvest lifespans in abundance?
But even as his thoughts ran wild, a sharp, chilling premonition pierced him like a dagger at the throat, a thorn in the marrow.
Without hesitation, Jing Qian flashed into the Void Realm.
An instant later, a vast surge of power erupted from the depths of the sea below, freezing the entire region in place beneath its crushing weight.
To his astonishment, the entity that had risen from the Sea of Resentful Souls this time was no mere ghost; it was already at the Fifth-Rank Earthfiend level.
What's more, this was no ordinary fifth-rank. Its cultivation was profound, only a hair's breadth away from the Fourth-Rank Star-Seizing Realm.
Across the frozen expanse of sea stood a girl clad in a silken skirt woven with golden threads. Her beauty was sharp and proud, her expression cold as ice, yet her appearance was indistinguishable from a living person; she even mimicked the rhythm of breath.
The aura radiating from her was overwhelmingly powerful. With ease, she suppressed a thousand miles of sea, cutting off Jing Qian's path to hunt weaker ghosts.
Jing Qian had studied the Dao Book of the Nether Cycle of Yanfu extensively and was no stranger to the lore of ghostly beings.
A ghost that could appear so lifelike could only mean one thing: it had endured the torment of Firefiend tempering at the fifth rank, and completed the transformation of yin into yang.
Such an opponent, Jing Qian knew, he could not face head-on.
Still, opportunities to encounter a Fifth-Rank Earthfiend were rare. He had no intention of letting this chance slip away.
From within the dimension, he tore open a rift in space and loosed a Longevity-Bestowing Sword toward her this time, staking only a single day of his own lifespan, testing the waters.
The sword-silk cut across the sky, striking the ghostly maiden.
At that moment, a phantom manifested upon her back a pale, fleshy white grub sprawled across her shoulders.
Jing Qian's sword qi, infused with lifespan itself, was swallowed whole by the worm, leaving not even a ripple of power behind.
His Worldly Insight Life Pattern trembled violently, casting the creature's identity into his mind:
Spiritual Construct: Flesh Worm
Category: external moon
Rank: Fifth-Rank
Suppression Requirement: God-Ghost Manifestation
Lifespan Burden: Two days per day sustained
So, she carried a Spiritual Construct of her own, which had pushed her combat power to new heights.
And his Qingping Sword Qi couldn't even pierce the worm's greasy hide. Victory was impossible.
Losing a full day of his lifespan for nothing, Jing Qian ground his teeth, yet instead of retreating, he chose to run another experiment.
He summoned a Marker Ghost, channeled his Sumeru Life Pattern's power into it, and left it hovering in place. He himself retreated swiftly through the dimensional void, stopping only once he'd reached ten li away.
From there, he drove the Marker Ghost to open a shallow spatial rift in front of the maiden, then quickly sealed it.
The provocation worked.
The worm on her back detached a tiny grub no larger than a fingertip, which darted headlong into the rift.
This Fifth-Rank Earthfiend truly could resist the slicing power of a void fissure and had forced its way into his Sumeru Dimension!
Jing Qian had tested his domain many times before using the sixth-rank souls of Luo Yaozhi, Yang Jia, Yin Ghosts, and even the dragon he had captured. None of them, at the Sixth-Rank Suppressing Spirit level, could breach his dimensional barrier.
As master of Sumeru, his authority was absolute.
But here, before this girl, her worm had succeeded in infiltrating.
This was a critical revelation: against Fifth-Rank Earthfiends, his Sumeru Life Pattern was no longer absolute. He would have to tread carefully, lest arrogance hand an enemy his tail.
The Marker Ghost took the brunt of the intrusion, torn apart by the grub and forced back into the Hell Scroll. A minor loss, he could resummon such pawns at will.
But what caught Jing Qian's interest was this: for the first time, a foreign power had been drawn into his Sumeru Dimension.
And though the grub was of the Fifth-Rank Earthfiend class, carrying a Golden Root Life Pattern within, it still wasn't enough to defy him.
In his own realm, with his authority absolute, Jing Qian easily subdued the creature, binding it as spoils of war. With the Hell Scroll, he refined it at once.
From the scroll emerged two new great ghosts:
Ghost Left Eye
Rank: Eighth-Rank
Life Pattern: Ghost Eye (Blue)
Ghost Right Eye
Rank: Eighth-Rank
Life Pattern: Ghost Eye (Blue)
At his beckon, the pair entered him, fusing into fine rings of power around his pupils.
At once, his vision cleared, his sight sharpened to piercing clarity. Even the power of his Worldly Insight Life Pattern surged stronger.
Snatching up a piece of a Fifth-Rank ghost's power for free, Jing Qian's mood soared.
Even that one little grub was worth nearly as much as half of the Swallow Ghost.
Jing Qian was tempted to open another rift and see if he could siphon more of the maiden ghost's power for free. But just then, the ghostly girl standing in the mortal realm suddenly spoke:
"Xiao Bai, can you still sense the marker of that cave-heaven?"
The fleshy grub on her back writhed and, in a childlike voice, replied:
"Lady, I cannot. That cave-heaven seems newly born, its aura is weak, yet it already feels as though it has a master. When my avatar entered, all sense was cut off!"
The girl nodded slightly.
"Next time, I'll throw in your true body. This cave-heaven feels so feeble, I doubt the Heavenly Gang Tower has noticed it yet. If I can seize it, my ascension to the Star-Seizing Realm will be within reach."
The great grub shivered and protested:
"Lady, best not! We don't know what lies inside. If I charge in recklessly, it might be walking into a fiery pit."
"Don't fret. Even if you die, I'll fish you back out from the Soul-Summoning Pool. Just take it as scouting the path for me. And if I truly claim this cave-heaven, I'll petition Grandmother to grant you a bowl of soul-soup. How about that?"
The grub seemed reluctantly persuaded and squirmed in silence.
All of this, Jing Qian overheard from the shadows of the void.
Clearly, this ghost maiden had formidable backing, not only wielding a Spiritual Construct and powerful cultivation, but also speaking casually of secrets laden with weight.
She went on:
"The Heavenly Gang Tower, backed by the Divine Dynasty, uses the Celestial Sphere to probe the world, suppressing and seizing all cave-heavens. Without a way to evade them, even a newborn cave-heaven will meet calamity.
"But…I know of a method to slip past their nets. All it requires is"
Jing Qian, listening from the dimension, was at first engrossed, for such secrets were tied directly to his own pattern.
But suddenly, unease stirred deep in his gut.
Would someone really speak such critical secrets so openly?
His eyes flicked to the blood-red bead of a brand hanging before his brow. A chill ran through him. Without hesitation, he tugged on a marker and decisively fled the Sea of Resentful Souls.
In the next instant, he emerged on Hunzhou Island, alighting in the Buddha Tower's yamen.
The ominous feeling lingered. He chose to trust his instincts.
And indeed shortly after he left, the sea erupted in upheaval. From the abyss below, a pitch-black hook shot upward, latching onto the spot where the rift had just closed.
Crack!
The sound of space shattering rang out like glass breaking.
The hook sank into the fractured gap, prying at the barrier between the mortal world and the dimensional void, trying to force its way into Sumeru itself!
But behind that barrier lay an endless maelstrom of temporal vortices, tangled skeins of alternate dimensions.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred of these were lethal dead ends, places from which there was no return. Only those stabilized as cave-heavens had any use.
Without a marker's guidance, finding one was nearly impossible.
The hook hovered there for a long while, unable to choose a path. At last, the rift smoothed over under the pressure of the mortal realm.
Suspended in the air, the hook revealed a projection of power: a beautiful bride in crimson wedding robes, her veil slightly lifted.
She murmured:
"The fish slipped the hook. What a pity.
"Wild cave-heavens are rare indeed. For even the Heavenly Gang Tower to miss this one…unexpected."
The white-clad ghost girl spoke up:
"Grandmother, you came in time. My act wasn't convincing enough; I spooked him."
She conjured an icy mirror, its surface reflecting images of Jing Qian slaughtering ghosts.
The bride in red answered:
"Such a treasure must follow fate. Today, it wasn't ours.
"But that boy has slain too many of my sea's great ghosts. The mark upon him will not fade for a hundred years. Should he ever dare wander my Sea of Resentful Souls again, I'll sense him instantly. Perhaps we'll meet once more."
The ghost maiden named Pin'er bowed her head.
"Thank you, Grandmother. Once I finish my final cultivation and ascend to the star above, I'll share your burden."
Their conversation was witnessed in full by a hidden Marker Ghost in the void. When the ghost dissipated with a pop, it carried the news back.
Thus, the turmoil in the Sea of Resentful Souls quietly ended.
...
Back in the Buddha Tower's yamen, Jing Qian re-summoned the Marker Ghost and combed through its memories frame by frame.
The harvest was significant.
Two great ghosts had set their sights on him. Had he reacted a moment slower, they might truly have opened a gate and forced their way into Sumeru.
He glanced at the blood-bead brand revealed in his Worldly Insight and shook his head.
That mark had to be erased quickly lest he remain at the mercy of pursuing ghosts.
From this, he deduced another truth: if a true powerhouse ever planted a brand on him, even hiding in Sumeru might not keep him safe.
For his own survival, he resolved to forge a new Life Pattern
A Yanfu secret mark, refined to obscure traces and veil perception, perfectly compatible with his Sumeru path of space:
Life Pattern: Ghost Wall
Rank: Blue-Blood
"Winding paths, ghostly eyes deceived."
Once refined, it would open a ghostly domain around him, cloaking all prying eyes and twisting every connection.
Without delay, he slipped into the Void Realm, drew forth a Seventh-Rank Yin Bone, and with a Seventh-Rank Fate Fire, began the refinement.
With his Revolving Heavenly Son Seal ascended, his Life Measure had ample room; carrying another Heavenly Life Pattern posed no issue.
And with over ten seventh-rank Yin Bones in reserve, he had enough fuel to push Ghost Wall straight to its peak.
All was prepared. In just a day, the new mark was fully integrated into his system.
A Life Pattern woven of both space and reincarnation, bridging his powers and binding his cultivation path together in flawless unity.
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