Inside the temple, everyone hastily reversed the circulation of the Detailed Explanation of Daoist Truth and the Xuanji Mechanism back to its normal forward direction. Feeling their connection to the grand temple rapidly weaken, they rushed outside in a frantic bid to escape.
Behind them, the white-robed Nuo immortal came slaughtering his way forward.
A woman looked back and saw the white-robed Nuo immortal with his back turned to her. His back split open to both sides, as though transforming into an impossibly cavernous mouth.
The woman screamed, and in the next instant, she was swallowed whole by the white-robed Nuo immortal!
Inside the white-robed Nuo immortal's skin sack, something squirmed for a brief moment. The next time it opened, it spat out a clean skeleton before lunging toward the others. Light and graceful, drifting like the wind, he floated to and fro throughout the grand temple, his back splitting open to swallow down every person he caught.
Even so, many managed to flee outside. Xu Ying gathered his strength and leaped out with Yuan Qi, landing atop a colossal boulder. Yuan Qi was about to jump to the next boulder when Xu Ying blocked him. "Don't move!"
He abruptly surged his sword qi and struck downward with a sword blow, cleaving the boulder in two.
The boulder beneath them could not bear their weight and slowly began to sink downward, like a stone sinking through water.
The people rushing out behind them followed suit. They too jumped onto boulders and cleaved them in two, but with far too many people crowded on a single rock, it plunged straight down, accelerating faster and faster.
Atop the rock, the crowd clung to one another, screaming in terror.
Yuan Qi lay by the edge of their boulder and looked down. "Falling at that speed, they probably won't survive."
The others grew far more cautious, not daring to cut away too much rock at once.
Suddenly, the grand temple rumbled and shook violently. As though it had sprouted countless legs, it tore itself from the ground and lunged after the people fleeing from it.
The white-robed Nuo immortal's voice rang out, roaring with laughter. "I must have been so furious that I lost my head! I forgot that while I cannot leave the temple gates to seize you, I can make the temple chase after you! Sword-wielding brat and scoundrel snake, where have you gone?"
The temple gates chased behind the fleeing crowd like a heaven-devouring maw.
"Merge into me! Become me! I shall grant you supreme glory and eternal life!"
Xu Ying looked up. Cultivators plunged continuously from the sky, unable to hit the ground anytime soon, their miserable shrieks echoing without end.
In the air, some treaded on emptiness, while others rode on clouds of mist. Still, many more could not fly; copying Xu Ying, they leaped onto giant boulders, using their body weight to force the rocks downward.
However, gigantic deities leaped out from the edges of the immortal mountains. These deities took myriad forms, treading upon clouds of incense to intercept and slaughter them. There were also colossal boulders that had transformed into living flesh and blood, waving tentacle-like blood vessels as they grabbed people left and right.
In an instant, the dead piled up.
"Ah Ying, that thing on your back—is it a Nuo master treasure?" Yuan Qi asked suddenly, noticing the mask strapped behind Xu Ying.
Surprised and delighted, Xu Ying hurriedly took down the impermanence mask and smiled. "Little Qi, you really are knowledgeable. This is a mask I obtained by chance. An official from the Yongzhou prefectural yamen put it on and transformed into an impermanence ghost. It was quite bizarre."
Yuan Qi said, "I read in books that when Nuo masters refine magic treasures, they often capture powerful beings such as monster deities and ghost deities, flay their faces, and refine their essence into the masks. Once complete, anyone who dons the mask can transform into that powerful being's original form and wield its corresponding abilities. This mask of yours is most likely the face of an impermanence ghost."
Xu Ying jumped in fright and almost tossed the mask away, but stopped himself after a second thought.
The boulder beneath their feet was still descending when lightning suddenly flashed and thunder crashed across the sky. Xu Ying looked up to see Yongzhou Regional Inspector Zhou Heng and Vice Prefect Ling joining forces to lay siege to the grand temple!
Light blossomed behind Zhou Heng's head, revealing a vast chaotic sea. Within the chaotic sea lay an unfathomably deep cave-heaven, its outer perimeter marked with spiral patterns that rotated as they extended into the dark void.
Inside that cave-heaven lay a second cave-heaven, where clouds surged and swirled to form its outer structure, delving even deeper into the chaotic sea.
Inside the second cave-heaven lay a third, sinking deeper into the chaotic sea than the second, an astonishing sight.
Xu Ying peered closer and was shocked to see five layers of cave-heavens nested within cave-heavens, heavens beyond heavens, hovering behind the portly Yongzhou Regional Inspector's head!
"Fishing out the Mud Pill from the chaotic sea! This Yongzhou Regional Inspector is a formidable expert—he has already opened the fifth tier of the Mud Pill secret depository!"
Xu Ying was filled with envy. The half-burnt ancient manual from the stone chamber of Qinyan Cave had stated that opening the Mud Pill secret depository required the aid of a Grand Nuo, who would strike the chaotic primordial egg of the Mud Pill with their strongest blow to blast open a cave-heaven in the chaos, allowing one to fish out the Mud Pill vitality from within!
In the past, Xu Ying had never quite understood how one was supposed to fish out the Mud Pill vitality, but watching Regional Inspector Zhou Heng confront the white-robed Nuo immortal, he finally understood.
"The brain is a chaotic sea harboring boundless energy. A cave-heaven is like a deep well plunging into the chaos of the brain, drawing up energy from the chaotic sea without end, like hauling water from a well," he thought to himself.
Vice Prefect Ling Youdao of the Yongzhou Ghost Office, who fought alongside Regional Inspector Zhou Heng, was also astoundingly powerful. Wielding a Judge's Brush and a scroll of the Book of Life and Death, the ghost vice prefect possessed peerless divine power, sending countless golden characters flying from the book to bombard the grand temple.
He was a vice prefect of the Nether Court and enjoyed the incense offerings of Yongzhou Prefecture. Not only did commoners worship him, but all the deities of Yongzhou's mountains, rivers, villages, and towns had to bow before him as well!
He had operated in Yongzhou for so long that his incense qi was unimaginably potent, far surpassing even those stone deities among the five immortal mountains!
Yet even with these two great masters joining forces, they were in perilous straits before the grand temple.
The grand temple was the white-robed Nuo immortal's realm of Hidden Scenery latent transformation. Countless images of the Great Dao composed the shrine, waterfalls, and flora, and every single feature of the scenery was a divine power of terrifying might!
Standing behind the temple gates, the white-robed Nuo immortal gently waved a hand or lightly tapped a finger, sending one terrifying divine power after another flying from the waterfalls. He battered the two great masters until they coughed up blood and retreated repeatedly.
Suddenly, an aftershock of divine power descended from the sky and slammed with a metallic clang onto the boulder Xu Ying and Yuan Qi occupied. A corner of the boulder sheared off and drifted up into the sky.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi froze. The rock under their feet immediately accelerated, plummeting toward the ground below.
They were still several li from the ground. At this speed, they would undoubtedly be smashed to pieces!
Xu Ying hastily launched himself off the boulder and shouted, "Yuan Qi, wait for me at the temple entrance!"
Yuan Qi wrapped his massive body—over a dozen zhang long—around the boulder, shivering in fright. Only after plunging a hundred-odd zhang did the boulder's fall gradually slow, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.
Looking up, he saw lightning flash and thunder roll through the sky like a surging torrent—the catastrophic phenomena unleashed by the divine powers of the white-robed Nuo immortal, Regional Inspector Zhou Heng, and Vice Prefect Ling!
In that chaotic expanse, one could faintly glimpse a tiny figure riding a bronze-colored bell as it darted through the lightning. Then a surging deluge swept in, engulfing the bell rider and the bell and carrying them off to parts unknown.
"Ah Ying is blessed; heaven will surely protect him," Yuan Qi thought silently.
Surrounded by the raging tempest and surging flood, Xu Ying rode the bell forward. Jolted by wind and rain like a skiff tossing on a stormy sea, he suddenly saw a streak of lightning strike, hitting the wall of the bronze bell dead-on.
The bronze bell rang with a deafening clang! Countless intricate, profound patterns surfaced across its bronze wall, forming a dense barrier of light that hummed as it spun, deflecting the aftershocks of the divine powers around them!
Though the bell unleashed its might, the blast still knocked it off balance, sending it tumbling along with Xu Ying straight into an immortal mountain nearby.
A huge swathe of the mountain forest was instantly leveled. The bronze bell bounced up and crashed down again, its clanging reverberating through the valley, startling the revived statues in the mountain into looking up and turning toward the noise.
Xu Ying staggered to his feet, feeling agony in every bone and joint. Beside him, smoke billowed from the bronze bell, the patterns on its surface jumbled and disordered.
Suddenly, shockwaves and whooshing roars echoed through the forest as powerful experts clashed. Xu Ying crept forward until he reached the edge of the clearing, ducking behind a boulder to peek out. His heart leaped.
A ghost-faced deity swung a sword, lopping off the head of a violent ape!
The ape's headless body rapidly shrank, transforming into a middle-aged man. His severed head rolled across the ground, returning from an ape head to a human face, eyes wide open in unresigned death.
"Zhou Zheng, the Judicial Administrator of Yongzhou!" Xu Ying's heart pounded violently behind the rock.
Zhou Zheng possessed extraordinary strength, yet even an expert like him had fallen to the ghost-faced deity. One could easily imagine how terrifying this deity's power must be!
The ghost-faced deity suddenly turned, sweeping a sharp, piercing gaze in his direction.
Xu Ying hastily ducked his head back.
The bronze bell hurriedly said, "Ah Ying, this is bad! The ghost-faced deity is heading this way!"
From the other side of the rock came heavy footsteps. Clearly, the ghost-faced deity had caught wind of his presence!
Forcing his frantic heartbeat under control, Xu Ying said, "Brother Bell, raise a bell for a thousand days, use it for an hour! Can you be as valiant as you were just now?"
"Raise my ass!"
The bronze bell cursed, fuming, "If you had truly nurtured me for a thousand days, Lord Bell could beat ten ghost-faced deities to death! The problem is you haven't kept me for nearly that long! This ghost-faced deity is far stronger than a City God. I'm no match for him right now!"
Cold sweat beaded on Xu Ying's forehead. "What about running?"
"We'd definitely never outrun him!"
...
Having faintly heard voices behind the rock, the ghost-faced deity approached with a ferocious snarl, thrusting its head around the boulder with savage ferocity.
Upon catching sight of the "person" hiding behind the rock, the deity froze. It let out a low snarl of dissatisfaction, though its murderous aura gradually dissipated.
There was no human behind the rock—only an impermanence ghost deity over a zhang tall.
The impermanence was skin and bones, its face dead white without a speck of blood, and a long crimson tongue dangled from its mouth.
Impermanences were common ghost deities in the Netherworld, familiar enough to the ghost-faced deity. Only, this particular impermanence looked even skinnier, as though severely malnourished, and its courage seemed pitifully small as it cowered behind the boulder, trembling all over.
The ghost-faced deity said to the impermanence ghost, "Hahu hulu (Take this)!" With that, it thrust a bloody cloth pouch toward the ghost.
The impermanence ghost nodded frantically, reaching out to take the pouch. It had been looted from Zhou Zheng's corpse.
The ghost-faced deity walked ahead, saying without looking back, "Boye hulu (Follow me)!"
The impermanence ghost was very obedient, hobbling along after it with uneven steps.
Suddenly, the ghost-faced deity surged with murderous aura and pounced ahead. The impermanence ghost poked his head out to see dozens of sect disciples besieging another deity. That deity had the body of a man and the head of an ox, covered in wounds and hanging on by a thread.
Yet with the outrageously powerful ghost-faced deity stepping in, the dozens of Nuo masters were slaughtered to the last in no time!
Drenched in blood, the ghost-faced deity beckoned to the impermanence ghost.
The impermanence ghost trotted over meekly, holding up the cloth pouch with both hands.
The ox-headed deity carefully pinched two Myriad Spirits Pills from the pool of blood and barked at the impermanence ghost, "Souha hulu (Open it)!"
The impermanence ghost hurriedly opened the pouch. The ox-headed deity dropped the Myriad Spirits Pills inside, then grunted to the ghost-faced deity, "Bose bose hulu (This fellow looks awfully sneaky)!"
The ghost-faced deity replied, "Hongbodan hulu (A coward)!"
The ox-headed deity snorted with laughter and reached out to tug on the impermanence ghost's long tongue.
Xu Ying nearly cried out. That impermanence ghost was, of course, him.
Earlier, backed into a corner with nowhere to run behind that boulder, a flash of inspiration had hit him, and he had taken out the impermanence mask and strapped it onto his face.
It was Xu Ying's first time wearing such a Nuo master treasure, and he had not known whether he could truly transform into an impermanence ghost. Luckily, once the mask adhered to his face, he had indeed become a Netherworld ghost deity and bluffed his way through.
Strangely enough, after donning the mask and turning into an impermanence ghost, he comprehended the words of these two ghost deities without any instruction, making perfect sense of their endless ghost talk.
Yet when the ox-headed deity yanked his tongue, it had nearly pulled the impermanence mask right off, scaring him half to death and almost making him bolt.
The ox-headed deity let go of his tongue, and the two towering deities walked side by side, flanking Xu Ying between them as they ascended toward the mountain summit.
In Xu Ying's mind, the bronze bell's worried voice echoed, "Ah Ying, how long can this mask hold? What if there's a time limit..."
"Then we're dead!" Xu Ying whispered back.
The ox-headed deity and the ghost-faced deity snapped their heads around simultaneously to glare at him with suspicious eyes, having clearly caught the sound of his voice.
Xu Ying maintained a calm expression and said, "Boha boha, namo boha (I died recently, so I still speak human)!"
The two ghost deities suspected nothing more and continued trudging up the mountain.
Flanked between them, Xu Ying secretly peeked into the cloth pouch, his heart pounding. Inside lay seven or eight Myriad Spirits Pills—some of which had likely been collected by Zhou Zheng!
They arrived before another altar. The ghost-faced deity opened its mouth and spat out several souls for the statue before the altar to absorb.
The statue revived, exchanged a few lines of ghost talk with them, and joined the group.
As they proceeded, the ghost-faced deity revived one statue after another, until thirteen deities walked alongside Xu Ying. In addition to the statues they had awakened, deities from other immortal mountains joined them along the way.
Transformed into an impermanence ghost, Xu Ying stood over a zhang tall. Yet compared to these deities, he was still a tiny runt, appearing thoroughly diminutive amid a crowd of gods that easily reached five or six zhang in height.
Whenever a deity had Myriad Spirits Pills on hand, they would have Xu Ying open the pouch and drop them inside.
Before long, there were a full fifteen Myriad Spirits Pills in the pouch!
"With so many Myriad Spirits Pills, if I pocketed them and took off running..."
Xu Ying's eyes darted around as he thought, "...I'd definitely die a horrible death, wouldn't I?"
The Myriad Spirits Pills were likely meant as offerings for the white-robed Nuo immortal. The reason these deities gathered together was almost certainly to march toward the grand temple, pay homage to the white-robed Nuo immortal, and offer up the spirit pills!
Thus, this was a pilgrimage!
"But for me, it's a funeral procession to my own death!" he thought glumly.
Chapter 38