Chapter 107: Entering the Banner
Although Lu Yang had swindled the Earth Vein from Patriarch Nether Whisper, he had no intention of stopping there. After all, the other party still held a batch of his shaman ghosts.
As it happened, the Myriad Spirits Banner was currently short of manpower.
“The Myriad Spirits Banner Talisman Industrial Assembly Line was restarted recently, and some Banner Spirits have already exhausted their spirituality and self-destructed. It’s about time to recruit the next batch.”
Anyway, they were essentially the same batch of shaman ghosts.
Instead of wasting time letting those shaman ghosts, who couldn’t work due to excessive consumption of spirituality, rest, it was better to directly iterate them with new shaman ghosts.
Moreover, the replaced shaman ghosts could be directly fed to the new shaman ghosts, completing waste utilization and resource recycling. This would allow the new shaman ghosts to devote themselves to work in a better state, increasing the production efficiency of talismans, completing the upgrade of industrial scale, and achieving sustainable fishing by draining the pond.
The subsequent developments were basically the same as in Lu Yang’s life before last.
Without him, Perfected One Yin Shan indeed chose Zhao Xuhe. After a chaotic battle, the Shaman-Ghost Secret Realm was successfully triggered by Perfected One Yin Shan and chose to emerge.
Then, the Golden Core Sword Qi dissipated, and the [Heavenly Corpse Baleful Qi] was taken away by Perfected One Yin Shan.
As a return, Zhao Xuhe received an Ascension Token granted by Perfected One Yin Shan, becoming increasingly smug, as if he could already see the day of his future Foundation Establishment.
However, Lu Yang paid no attention to any of this.
In this life, he remained hidden in the dark from start to finish. Only after Perfected One Yin Shan had left did he come to the depths of Skull Mountain and release the aura of the [Yama Hall].
After a moment, a black shadow quietly emerged.
“Greetings, Patriarch!”
While revealing a look of excitement and bowing deeply in greeting, Lu Yang silently sensed Patriarch Nether Whisper’s aura, poised and ready to turn hostile at any moment.
“…Rise.”
After possession, Patriarch Nether Whisper appeared at first glance to be a handsome youth with red lips and white teeth. Although his tone was mature, his voice was extremely tender.
He looked at Lu Yang with a solemn expression, seeming to be pondering something.
After a long time, he sighed faintly. “Call out your Protector God.”
Lu Yang was stunned upon hearing this, but he didn’t hesitate. He immediately took out the Myriad Spirits Banner and summoned Su Nü, while simultaneously preparing to strike if anything seemed wrong.
“Mm.”
Patriarch Nether Whisper seemed unaware of Lu Yang’s strangeness. His gaze fell upon Lu Yang’s Myriad Spirits Banner immediately. After examining it for a moment, he couldn’t help but praise, “What a rare treasure. Not a Spirit Treasure, yet better than a Spirit Treasure. It matches perfectly with the Dao lineage of my Shaman Ghost Dao. It can be said to be like adding wings to a tiger!”
“Patriarch flatters me. This object is called the Myriad Spirits Banner.”
Lu Yang smiled faintly upon hearing this. “This junior obtained it through a stroke of luck. It is also thanks to this rare treasure that this junior was able to pass down the sect’s inheritance.”
Patriarch Nether Whisper nodded upon hearing this:
“It is just as well. I was originally worried about how you would accommodate the thousands of shaman ghosts of this sect and thought to give you a hand. Now it seems I don’t need to trouble myself.”
Then he looked at Su Nü again, frowning slightly. “Also, this Protector God of yours is refined quite well, but unfortunately, it is merely skillful without knowing how to adapt. The [Yama Hall] of the past was custom-made for myself. Since you rely mainly on this Protector God, you should learn to adapt to local conditions.”
After speaking, he formed a seal with his right hand and silently calculated for a moment.
Not long after, Patriarch Nether Whisper opened his eyes again and struck out a spiritual seal with his hand, which landed directly on Su Nü and her [Yama Hall].
Rumble!
In the next second, the spiritual light of a Divine Ability rose from beneath Su Nü’s feet. Within the spiritual light, seven seal characters for [Yama Heaven Mysterious Nether Lord-Commander of the Ghost Wardens] emerged one after another.
However, as Patriarch Nether Whisper’s spiritual seal changed, the appearance of this line of seal characters gradually transformed:
[Imperial Edict: Nine Nethers Su Yin Primordial Maiden]!
With the change of the seal characters, the Divine Ability was completed. Su Nü’s aura skyrocketed abruptly, actually recovering to fifty percent of her previous life’s level without the Earth Vein enhancement!
If she had the Earth Vein enhancement again, she could even surpass her previous life!
“Now it is good.”
Patriarch Nether Whisper smiled with satisfaction upon seeing this. “With such a Foundation Establishment Protector God present, there is more hope for you to advance to Foundation Establishment and reopen the mountain gate in the future.”
After speaking, he took out a transparent black sphere. Inside were shockingly the thousands of shaman ghosts from within the Shaman-Ghost Secret Realm. Lu Yang even saw a muddy little river flowing slowly within it. As the master of Skull Mountain in his previous life, he immediately recognized what this was.
“[Heavenly Corpse Baleful Qi]!?”
Perfected One Yin Shan didn’t take it away—no, that’s not right. He took away one of them, but there was more than one Heavenly Corpse Baleful Qi in the Earth Veins of Skull Mountain!
“This baleful qi is an object of the Yin soil. The Earthly Fiend position belongs to [Zhixu]. It can gather fire and moisten metal. If you have the intention, you can borrow this Earthly Fiend to charge at the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment in the future. If a strong enemy invades, you can also detonate it, destroying the eight hundred li of Skull Mountain Earth Veins to perish together with the enemy.”
Lu Yang knew all of this.
It was just that in the previous life, Patriarch Nether Whisper had merely left these words in his soul thoughts, whereas in this life, he explained them to him in detail personally.
Is he trying to… entrust his orphan to me?
Lu Yang was somewhat confused. To be honest, he originally thought Patriarch Nether Whisper wouldn’t have a particularly good attitude towards a so-called “successor” like him who had popped out of nowhere.
After all, he was the Sect Master of the Shaman Ghost Dao.
Now that he lived a fifth life and had high hopes of returning to Foundation Establishment, he should be ambitious and unwilling to see anything beyond his control.
But looking at it now, it seemed that was not the case.
Just then, Patriarch Nether Whisper suddenly stopped speaking, turned to look at Lu Yang, and then smiled. “If you want to say something, just say it.”
Lu Yang hurriedly denied it: “Patriarch has misunderstood…”
Patriarch Nether Whisper waved his hand. “You managed to make a name for yourself in the Saint Sect, do you think I can’t guess what you’re thinking? It would be truly strange if you actually believed me!”
After speaking, he shook his head with a bitter expression:
“I don’t have much lifespan in this life. My original intention was to flee to the overseas regions after escaping the secret realm, find an isolated island, and pass down the lineage of my Shaman Ghost Dao.”
“If there could be another Foundation Establishment cultivator overseeing it, that would be even better.”
“Now that there is you, it actually saves me a lot of effort. Since you were able to cultivate to this stage in the Saint Sect without dying, I am reassured about your ability.”
“After all, what I seek in the latter half of my life is solely the sect’s inheritance.”
As his voice fell, Patriarch Nether Whisper’s expression gradually returned to calm. He looked at Lu Yang and said indifferently, “Alright, send me into that Myriad Spirits Banner of yours.”
Lu Yang was instantly stunned upon hearing this: “…Patriarch, you want to enter the banner?”
“I am a sinner of the sect. If I hadn’t acted willfully back then, the sect wouldn’t have encountered such a great calamity.”
“For the rest of my life, I have actually been making up for the mistakes I made in the past. Since that is the case, I should also exert my last bit of strength for the sect.”
After speaking, Patriarch Nether Whisper smiled again. “Besides, you’ll be more reassured this way, right?”
“…Then this junior will respectfully obey.”
Lu Yang didn’t object. He immediately urged the Myriad Spirits Banner, opening a chaotic hole. Patriarch Nether Whisper nodded upon seeing this and stepped in without hesitation.
Whoosh—!
In the next second, Lu Yang raised the flagstaff and slammed it heavily onto the ground. A dull, loud sound expanded rapidly in all directions along with the shadows.
“Thud!”
Wherever the shadows passed, the [Yama Hall] opened again. Countless armored ghost soldiers and generals walked out from within, clustering around Lu Yang like stars surrounding the moon.
The shaman ghosts varied in strength, and their ranks were clearly distinguished from the Initial Stage of Qi Refining to the Middle Stage, then to the Late Stage, and even the Great Perfection level. They were lined up in order, like a true legion, not to mention the super-standard Banner Spirits like the Peak Master of Heaven-Mending Peak’s divided spirit, Patriarch Nether Whisper, and the Protector God Su Nü.
Undoubtedly, this Spirit Treasure had become even more terrifying!
Even better, after being cleansed by [The Book of a Hundred Lifetimes], Lu Yang didn’t have to worry about any troublesome karma entanglements attached to it and could use it boldly and confidently!
“…It is time.”
In the next second, Lu Yang no longer concealed it. Baleful qi shot straight into the clouds, instantly alerting the entire Skull Mountain!
Almost simultaneously, Perfected One Yin Shan, who had just collected the [Heavenly Corpse Baleful Qi] and intended to leave, turned his head in astonishment, looking in the direction where the baleful qi soared into the sky.
However, at this moment, he couldn’t see a single human figure.
All he saw was a [Yama Hall], majestic as a mountain, sitting in the dome of heaven, swallowing and spitting Earthly Baleful Qi, and amidst those thousands of shaman ghosts, flags and banners fluttered in the wind!
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