Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 135

“Stop!” Gu Suihan couldn’t help but exclaim. He almost wanted to run up to Xi Ran to stop him from doing what he was about to do, but given the distance between them, it was faster to yell.

“You know what that thing is?” Wan Xin suddenly spun around to stare at Gu Suihan. The others also looked strangely at him. After all, Gu Suihan had proven to be correct in his predictions so far, which meant that he knew a lot more than what an ordinary cultivator at their level did.

“That is a Heavenly Yin Murderous Rock, and that creature is a Huangquan Evil Ghost,” Gu Suihan squeezed the words out of his mouth as he stared in disbelief at the claw that Xi Ran was fighting with.

Zou Kai was about to ask more when they heard Xi Ran wail, “And it can swallow my king of ghosts and all those vengeful souls? How can it be?!”

They turned to look back at Xi Ran and gasped as their hair all stood on end. A chill instantly ran down their spines.

They watched as the ghost flag brightened and turned into a huge net as the ghost king commanded countless vengeful spirits to unleash all the yin and murderous qi they contained. The army of vengeful spirits instantly attacked the two arms that had emerged from the platform.

But the next thing that happened was what frightened them all. The innumerable spirit army seemed enough in number to fill the entire hall, yet once they came into contact with those arms, they were sucked into the cracks in the platform and disappeared completely. The army of spirits was like a mud sculpture that had been thrown into the sea. They disappeared completely without a trace.

“If you don’t want to die, then kill Xi Ran right now and stop letting him fill that creature’s stomach with more vengeful spirits.” Gu Suihan’s expression was so icy, you could shave a layer of ice off it. The bloodied symbol in his eyes suddenly shone brightly to unleash a violent qi that came from massacring thousands.

The hall was suddenly filled with a murderous qi that was a hundred times more sinister and concentrated as compared to the warring puppets they fought earlier. It was as though the entire hall had become a bloody battlefield.

“I’m going to take revenge in this lifetime!” Gu Suihan nearly gnashed his teeth to powder. He really wished Xi Ran had not dashed onto the platform so rashly. Now that this had happened, never mind surviving this ordeal – staying alive for another two hours was already a blessing from heaven.

He held up his sword, which sucked in the thick layer of murderous Qi from Gu Suihan like a whale sucking in water. The blade trembled and rang loudly. Gu Suihan raised it with a determination to kill Xi Ran and hacked it toward Xi Ran’s head.

“How dare you!!” Xi Ran stared in disbelief at Gu Suihan’s threatening glare as alarm bells went off in his head. He gave a loud shout and raised his ghost flag. The pole made from human bones became like the sting of a venomous scorpion. It gleamed frostily and howled as it flew toward Gu Suihan’s chest.

“Tsk!” Gu Suihan snorted. His sword hilt trembled as he climbed onto it. His deadened eyes which resembled rubies lit up instantly as he slammed the end of his sword and bit down on Xi Ran’s immobile wrist.

At the same time, he rotated his sword in order to deflect the flag pole that was just inches away.

“How dare you do this to me!” Xi Ran’s eyes bulged as he turned his qi into a cloak. It was now a qi cloak with a greenish glow and gave off a slight fragrance. As it slowly covered his wrist, he used the qi from the cloak to force the blackish blood out.

“Dragon Roar of a Warrior!” bellowed Zou Kai. He swung both fists with the illusion of a jiaolong around them toward Xi Ran’s weakest point, which was the back of his waist. Xi Ran was now too focused on forcing out the poison from his body and watching Gu Suihan warily, so he did not notice Zou Kai coming for him.

“Why, you!” Pfft! Xi Ran was both shocked and angered, his face pale as he spewed a mouthful of blood. He glared venomously at Zou Kai and wanted to fight back, but he couldn’t move either hand at all.

ROAR! The sound of a ghost howling filled the air. Gu Suihan and the rest exchanged glances in horror and stumbled backward from the soundwaves of the loud roaring sound. They looked up to see that the platform was covered in more and more cracks now.

Tiny pieces of rocks the size of raindrops hit Li Xiaoyao and the rest. Their protective shield kept seeing ripples as it got hit repeatedly, then it started flickering. It was clearly not going to hold up for long.

“Cover me!” roared the top senior of the Vast Sky Sect, Zhou Haoqi. His face was flushed as he used all his strength to raise his ancient sword. A surge of righteous qi instantly burst forth from the blade.

“Uphold Righteousness! Return to dust, you ghosts!”

The dazzling white light was like a holy sword that could cleanse the world. It flickered brightly as it swept through the hall from Zhou Haoqi’s hand.

“SCREEEEE!” The vengeful spirits wailed and the ghosts howled fiercely. In that instant, the sounds of grieving filled the hall. Everywhere that the light touched made any trace of the non-living disappear, leaving behind the stench of decay to prove that they once existed.

Before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, something from within the cracked rock platform suddenly let out an earth-shattering roar.

ROAAARRRR! Rock fragments flew in all directions and yin qi gathered. All of them instinctively moved backward and looked at the greenish-gray giant head that was slowly peeking out from the rock platform.

“What…in the world…is this thing?!” Zou Kai’s teeth chattered as he felt his insides churn.

“This is the Huangquan Evil Ghost that I was talking about earlier.” Gu Suihan gripped Questioning Heaven so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He glared fiercely at the struggling and howling Xi Ran with much hatred as he said, “If Xi Ran hadn’t unleashed all those ghosts from his flag and fed this fellow, we might have stood a chance of surviving.”

“A Huangquan Evil Ghost is a vengeful ghost from ancient times who forcibly climbed out from the Huangquan river instead of going through reincarnation. After spending centuries inside the waters of the Huangquan river, its spirit and soul have been refined and become a physical entity. When it was born out from that rock, it was weak and hungry, so all it could do was grab Xi Ran with its claws and it couldn’t move any further than that. But now? Hoho!”

“We’re doomed!” Gu Suihan had an indignant look in his eyes and a depressed look on his face.

“What’s going on with the warring puppets?” asked Zhang Yan as he quietly turned around to see that the seven warring puppets behind them had a conflicted look in their blood-red eyes.

“Them? They’re scared too. They came after us because that was their duty. But now that the Huangquan Evil Ghost has been set free, then even if we die, they won’t escape death. A warring spirit is a lot more powerful than the soul of an ordinary cultivator after all,” said Gu Suihan after he threw a glance at the warring puppets.

“Is there really no other way out? Isn’t this supposed to be where a great Divine Soul senior left a legacy? He couldn’t possibly have designed it such that we would all end up dead here, right?” said Wan Xin in a trembling voice and tense brows. Her face was pale as she watched the giant Huangquan Evil Ghost slowly emerge before them.

“What is it trying to do?” wondered Gu Suihan. His eyes lit up as he observed the ghost’s movements carefully.

The ghost’s huge nose suddenly went close to Xi Ran, who was not far from it, and took a deep sniff. Its dim yellow eyes immediately lit up greedily.

Another claw broke through the platform and reached for Xi Ran’s collar as the man watched on with a deathly pale face. It grabbed a glowing pearl right out.

“That’s his secret key!” Gu Suihan and the rest watched without even daring to blink, afraid that they might miss anything.

ROARRR! The ghost roared loudly again, its ugly face suddenly covered with a smile that looked more like it was going to gobble someone up. Its sinister eyes looked away from Xi Ran and turned to look at the other stunned cultivators some distance away.

“Why does it want the secret keys? Is it merely another security guard?” Gu Suihan moved past the rest of them with light footsteps, choosing to advance instead of retreat as he held his sword up and dashed toward the Huangquan Evil Ghost.

ROARR! The ghost bellowed and its claws slashed through the air like two long and thin chains, aiming them at the young man coming toward it.

“He’s a cultivator of ghosts, so it’s easy for you to do whatever you want to him. Did you think I’m as useless as him?” Gu Suihan snorted. After seeing that the ghost had merely taken Xi Ran’s key and did not try to kill him after that, Gu Suihan was certain that as long as he handed over his secret key, he would live. The ghost was attacking him now only because the last time it did that to Xi Ran, it got a tasty meal of vengeful ghosts. It was hoping to achieve the same thing with Gu Suihan.

“Rolling Cloud Hand of Destruction!” Gu Suihan put in all his energy and the lines on his palm began to spin wildly to slowly turn into a spurt of gray qi. The will to destroy all things in the world suddenly appeared in Gu Suihan, making him seem like a high and mighty king who could decide on one’s life and death. A whirlpool appeared in his bloodshot eyes, as though countless nebulas were swirling at once, as he stared at the rather shocked eyes of the ghost.

In that instant, the Huangquan Evil Ghost felt like his entire world was spinning. Gu Suihan was at a much higher level of power than it was, but it won by being much bigger. So, even though it had gone into a daze for a moment, it quickly snapped out of it and glared murderously at Gu Suihan. It bared its teeth as it howled loudly and opened its huge and hungry mouth.

“Now!” muttered Gu Suihan as he had already taken that short moment where the ghost was in shock to cover the area between the ghost’s brows gently with his fair palm.