Chapter 28: A Visitor Brings Old Ties (Second Update)

At once, people leapt and scattered, while all manner of things were thrown across the ground. The Southern City, which had been bustling with pedestrians, was emptied in the space of a few moments.

Ghosts and monsters were famed throughout the Immortal Spirit Realm, and there were no fewer legends about them than about the gods. Yet whereas the gods enjoyed a reputation for benevolence, ghosts and monsters were far more likely to inspire fear.

At the same time, unlike the elusive gods, ghosts and monsters left traces of their existence. They were real, and not so few people had seen them. But what, exactly, were such beings?

The existence of souls could be proven. After forming one’s divine core, a cultivator could send his spirit out of his body. Although there were many restrictions, the existence of the soul itself was beyond doubt. What remained in dispute was its precise definition.

The debate had roughly divided into two schools. One held that the soul governed the inner self while the physical body existed without, and that the two complemented each other. The other claimed that the soul was transformed from spiritual consciousness. The two great schools had argued without end for many years. Each possessed countless minor pieces of evidence, yet neither had found the crucial proof capable of settling the matter once and for all.

As for ghosts, however, opinions were even more divided.

The first theory claimed that they were formed from the obsessions a person held before death; the deeper the obsession, the greater the chance of becoming a ghost.

The second said that they were an extremely rare kind of living being, born on unusual dates.

The third proposed that souls absorbed the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth and consequently underwent a mutation.

In short, there were all sorts of explanations, each more fanciful than the last. Yet they shared one characteristic: ghosts were extraordinarily rare, and seemed exceptionally difficult to discover.

But here they were—today, in broad daylight, beneath a clear and brilliant sky. A hundred ghosts were on the march!

The sunlight did little more than make them appear somewhat indistinct. In fact, as they approached, gusts of frigid wind began to rise. Though it was summer, the air had turned chilling.

Two or three hundred ghosts came forward. Some walked, others drifted. All had human forms, though certain features were grotesquely exaggerated: several arms, perhaps, or no legs at all, only wisps of smoke—or even several heads.

Their destination was unmistakably Wu Yue. Their expressions appeared dull and vacant, and they murmured softly beneath their breath. Apart from their frightening appearances, they seemed to possess no inclination toward violence.

Yet earlier, two cultivators in the crowd had relied on their cultivation to try to drive the creatures away. Their divine techniques struck the ghosts without the slightest effect. Several ghosts simply passed through the two cultivators as though they were invisible. In an instant, the cultivators’ faces turned gray and lifeless. They had died without the slightest power to resist.

As he watched the ghosts slowly gather here, Hou Baiyu experienced a genuine mixture of terror and delight.

I really am a man of great fortune. I knew I wouldn’t die.

Though somewhat frightened, Hou Baiyu found these ghosts utterly adorable. Once they killed Wu Yue, he would be free to soar wherever he pleased beneath the vast heavens. He swore that he would never come back here again.

Every ghost was facing Wu Yue, leaving Hou Baiyu certain that they had chosen the correct target. In the face of creatures so mysterious in origin and so bizarre in their methods, Hou Baiyu remained confident. They would certainly kill Wu Yue, and he would surely escape this disaster once more.

As for Monkey, he had long since panicked. He had missed the best opportunity to flee, and now the encircling ghosts were growing more numerous by the moment. How he wished he could simply faint, then wake to find the world at peace and everything reduced to a nightmare.

But the crow-shaped mark on his arm occasionally sent a thread of icy sensation through him, keeping his consciousness painfully clear.

Wu Yue felt no fear when he saw the ghosts. There was only a faint sorrow in his heart.

He knew where they had come from. These were the people of Chang’an—the pitiful beings who had nowhere to return. Before they died, they had watched helplessly as their homeland was slowly destroyed. After death, they still had no place to go.

Chang’an had bestowed them upon him. There had originally been a full hundred thousand, but now only three hundred remained. When faced with a powerful enemy, Wu Yue had been helpless and had been forced to detonate those hundred thousand remnant souls.

He had never expected three hundred to survive. Nor did he know why the remnants had changed. Compared with before, they were vastly different. Not only had they grown much stronger, they also seemed somewhat more real.

Wu Yue could hear clearly what they were murmuring.

They were saying, “Going home.”

But where was their home?

Wu Yue could not find it. He had personally witnessed the disappearance of the Longevity Garden. The Longevity Garden would one day appear again, but their home was truly gone.

The three hundred ghosts surrounded the area completely. Their eyes were filled with bewilderment. Only when they looked toward Wu Yue did something seem to change within them—a mixture of familiarity and fear.

Outside Black Curtain City, the weather in the Southern City suddenly changed.

The sunlight remained, but it could no longer bring warmth. Gust after gust of wind howled through the streets, carrying the wails of ghosts and the cries of spirits. Sand and stones flew through the air. An ordinary person struck by such winds would likely fall seriously ill, while even a cultivator could expect nothing pleasant from the experience.

The sky itself had begun to darken.

Yet Wu Yue and the others standing at the center felt no discomfort at all. Even the horses pulling the carriage merely stared blankly at their surroundings, apparently unaware of the slightest danger.

Hou Baiyu and Monkey had unconsciously pressed themselves against the carriage. Their faces were filled with utter terror.

Hou Baiyu was thinking, Why haven’t you attacked yet? Hurry, hurry! Please! Your power must be stronger than his, but control it carefully. Just don’t injure me by mistake. I swear I’ll repay this great kindness someday.

Monkey’s thoughts were simpler still.

Just let me go.

Wu Yue sighed.

He had accepted a charge from another. These homeless, pitiful beings were the gift entrusted to him—given to him so that the remaining members of their race might retain a thread of hope.

They were tools. They were expendable.

And yet they felt no sorrow.

“Come back.”

Wu Yue knew that, in their eyes, he was the place they were meant to return to. He closed his eyes.

“Come back.”

Wu Yue sighed softly. Even in death, these people deserved reverence.

To the three hundred ghosts, those three simple words sounded like a pardon from Heaven, like the call of one’s homeland.

There was no gratitude, no speech. They possessed no thoughts, only the instincts they had carried from the beginning. Perhaps they did not even know what they were now.

One by one, the ghosts dissolved into wisps of smoke and drifted into the center of Wu Yue’s brow.

Wu Yue could “see” them. Deep within his brow—whether in his sea of consciousness or the place where his soul resided—each ghost floated over and quietly sat down in meditation.

Then Wu Yue felt waves of power. They resembled spiritual consciousness, yet were somehow different.

With this power, Wu Yue could see that within his body there was a golden figure.

What was it? His divine soul?

He could also see Chang’an, sitting cross-legged in meditation. In the region of his energy sea, three streams of spiritual energy revolved around a green core.

The power brought by these ghosts felt utterly unfamiliar to Wu Yue. After some thought, he named it soul force.

Such power was probably something almost unheard-of even in the Immortal Spirit Realm. There had never been a legend of anyone using the power of ghosts.

How it could truly be used would require careful study.

But for now, Wu Yue felt only a profound lightness.

The three hundred ghosts had finally found a place of rest.

They were truly at peace.