Kang Qiandeng remembered how, in his childhood, enamored with the Startled Swan Sword, he had often sneaked into the sword pavilion just to flick the blade and listen to its pleasing ring.
Unable to resist imitating Qian Chen, he drew the Startled Swan Sword from his waist, flicked the blade, and began to sing:
"I look upon the heroes of antiquity,
Whose generous vows were sealed over cups of wine.
Holding honor dear and life light, dying for their confidants—
Thus did they achieve great deeds alongside men!
I look upon you gentlemen today:
Pride written upon your faces, yet shame harbored in your breasts.
A hero's noble ambition—the blood is not yet cold,
Yet before the blade even strikes, the heart already quails..."
"Gentlemen... let us fight!" Kang Qiandeng bounded up as he flicked the blade, the sword's note ringing clear and melodious, rousing everyone present.
Hong Sihai looked up toward the outside as well. Before Five Lakes Hall, shadows flickered indistinctly. In front of the pavilions, beneath the archway of the main gate, several silhouettes stood in dead silence.
The figure standing at the very center was exceptionally tall. His hulking frame resembled an upright, rearing tiger. Beneath the moonlight, his silhouette blurred like a phantasm; only the mask upon his face, depicting a ghost-devouring divine tiger, was startlingly clear and soul-stirring.
Beside him was a diminutive silhouette draped in a golden cloak and wearing a golden rooster mask, eerie and grotesque.
The last was an obese, hulking fat man wearing a greedy pig mask, vicious and menacing.
"Never Entering the Netherworld, Ghost-Devouring Lord!"
"All Under Heaven Made Bright, Dawn-Crowing Lord!"
"Jaws Swallowing Heaven, Big-Bellied Lord!"
Hong Sihai's voice was low and his expression grave. His fists hung at his sides as his voice rumbled through the darkness like rolling thunder: "Of the Twelve Yuan Chen, are there only a few of you here?"
"Naturally, they are all here..." The sharp, screeching voice of the Dawn-Crowing Lord grated on the nerves from the bottom of one's heart, clanging like a cracked bronze gong. "They are in the heavens, beneath the earth, haunting the depths of the Netherworld as ghosts—perhaps even right beside you. Who knows when they will come to claim your life!"
Hearing this, Chan Master Kongming could not help casting a worried glance behind him. Only then did he realize that, at some unknown point, that successor of the Medicine King had arrived beside him, calmly observing everything in the courtyard. And Kang Qiandeng, the rising star of the jianghu whom he so admired, was following closely on the heels of this Medicine King successor... like an... er... little lackey?
Ghost-Devouring Lord withdrew his right hand from behind his back. Upon it was a tiger-head gauntlet, its feline visage ferocious, looking as though it would devour a man whole.
He swept his right fist across. In an instant, an invisible, piercing shriek ripped through the air, surging in all directions... Countless blurred phantom shapes rose and fell, weaving around Ghost-Devouring Lord, eerie as malevolent ghosts.
"A peerless divine weapon... A great grandmaster!"
Hong Sihai's countenance turned increasingly grim, and Chan Master Kongming looked equally somber. A suffocating heaviness blanketed all of Five Lakes Hall. This Palace Master of the Netherworld, the Ghost-Devouring Lord, had shockingly reached the great grandmaster realm, equal to Hong Sihai; even Daoist Wanshi of Wudang and Eminent Monk Kongming of Shaolin fell slightly short.
The tiger-head gauntlet on his hand had merely emitted a faint screech, yet it was already enough to make eighty percent of the martial artists in Five Lakes Hall clutch their heads with both hands, desperate to vent the agony.
Such power had already reached the level of a legendary peerless divine weapon.
It was the first peerless divine weapon to appear in the jianghu in nearly fifty years... and was worn right in the hands of its first master.
Divine weapon—Wind God's Howl!
As Ghost-Devouring Lord gradually gathered his true qi, the wind howling around him blew with even greater fury. A vast, boundless gale swept down in a mighty surge from the high heavens, merging with the aura of the Netherworld Palace Master, the Ghost-Devouring Lord. Like a heavenly dragon lowering its tail, the clouds in the sky churned into an immense vortex, descending from the heavens to probe the earth.
The roaring tornado plunged into the ground between Five Lakes Hall and the main gate of Four Seas Hall.
Countless blurred phantom shapes around Ghost-Devouring Lord took flight upon the gale, turning into dark streaks that swept into the vortex. The furious wind assailed the assembled heroes before Five Lakes Hall; for a time, most people could barely open their eyes against the raging gale.
Just then, a cold glint flashed within the wind.
The head of a martial artist hiding in the back suddenly tumbled off, rolling across the ground.
Then came a second, a third...
Severed heads tumbled haphazardly across the ground, driven by the wind, rolling past the feet of the heroes with gruesome thuds. Amid the soul-reaping gale, a hundred ghosts walked the night. The ghostly throngs of Netherworld Palace had borrowed the roaring tornado whipped up by their master, blending into the tempest to flit back and forth within the vortex, reaping heads one after another.
At last, someone cracked under the immense pressure. A well-known expert burst into weeping and laughter: "The heads are off! Our heads are coming off! Ghosts... there are ghosts!"
He shrieked and turned to flee... Running with his back to the wind, he got quite far away. Many watched his retreating figure, and unable to endure the terror in their hearts any longer, quietly followed after him.
Just when that figure had dwindled into a distant speck, his head fell off and rolled away!
A headless silhouette stood at the farthest edge of their vision... an agonizing sight that drove men to the brink of madness.
Ghost-Devouring Lord looked on with cold indifference. Leaning on his nine-ringed monk's staff, Chan Master Kongming braced against the howling wind, stabilizing the air for dozens of zhang around them. Luminous true qi laden with wondrous fragrance, Buddhist chants, and holy light enveloped the area, resembling a fragile glass dome amid the black tempest.
Hong Sihai thrust his fists upward against the heavens, trading blow after blow with Dawn-Crowing Lord, who rode the furious winds using his divine weapon cloak to dart across the sky, diving down with endless thunder and fire. Hong Sihai's iron fists smashed through countless bursts of thunder and flame...
Daoist Wanshi of Wudang slashed out with his Pine Wind Sword, engaging in ferocious combat with Big-Bellied Lord...
The three great grandmasters of the righteous path were actually held at bay by a single great grandmaster of the Twelve Yuan Chen, the Ghost-Devouring Lord, through the might of heaven and earth summoned by his peerless divine weapon!
In the raging wind, ghosts laughed wildly!
Just then, within the tempest, a silhouette holding an umbrella appeared.
Who would hold an umbrella in this storm that upheaved heaven and earth, muddling the pure and the turbid?
Eminent Monk Kongming's eyes went wide...
Holding the Heavenly Net Umbrella, spiritual light cascading down, Qian Chen kept all the raging wind three feet away. He strolled through the tornado as though taking a leisurely walk in a courtyard, while countless phantom shapes rode the gale to strike at him from every direction.
The Heavenly Net Umbrella gave a light twirl... Its razor-sharp canopy slit the throats of the ghostly figures flitting past in midair.
Black blood spattered, inciting the countless phantoms to even wilder frenzy...
Qian Chen let out a hearty laugh. "Brother Kang, lend me your sword!"
Kang Qiandeng drew the Startled Swan Sword from his waist. A flash of sword light tore through the murky black wind and arrived before Qian Chen. Qian Chen caught the incoming flexible sword casually. Holding the umbrella in one hand and the sword in the other, he danced wildly in the wind...
Sword light blossomed from his hand, tearing through the dim, wind-swept world, as countless ghosts shrieked in agony within the radiance.
The silvery-white sword light leaped through the wind like lightning—nimble, carrying an arcane rhythm. With each leap, it drew forth a streak of blood from the gale. Black blood stretched into threads around Qian Chen, countless dark ribbons churning in the wind with a touch of uncanny splendor.
Qian Chen crossed the long distance and arrived before Ghost-Devouring Lord.
By now, the ghosts in the sky had been slaughtered to the point of utter terror, driven mad by the massacre! They shrieked in fear, they screamed curses... yet this only served to accentuate the man holding the umbrella in the storm, majestic and awe-inspiring as an immortal or god.
Eminent Monk Kongming was so shocked he could no longer maintain the reserved poise of a monk, his mouth gaping wide with none of an eminent monk's decorum.
"Very good... To think this pack of useless weaklings from the righteous path had a hidden trump card. Such a young great grandmaster, and such a marvelous umbrella." Ghost-Devouring Lord raised his right hand, adorned with Wind God's Howl, and said in a low voice, "You are worthy of my strike... and worthy of having your name remembered by me."
Yet Qian Chen answered calmly, "No need. Only if you survive will you be qualified to know my name.
"Still, you did guess right about one thing! Among the Twelve Yuan Chen, someone indeed lingers as a ghost in the Netherworld."
Qian Chen casually tossed out a severed head. Like the others, it tumbled in the wind, spinning around and around. When its face rolled right-side up, it met the eyes of Dawn-Crowing Lord, who had been about to wheel around in midair and pounce down alongside Ghost-Devouring Lord in a pincer attack on Qian Chen. Dawn-Crowing Lord let out an ear-piercing shriek... and fled without looking back!
He would rather face the combined might of Hong Sihai and Kongming than linger here a moment longer.
"So it was that brute, the Gladiatorial God-Lord!"
Ghost-Devouring Lord let out a cold snort through his nostrils.
Wind God's Howl tore through the storm as countless blades of compressed air ripped from the gale surged toward Qian Chen. With a spin of the Heavenly Net Umbrella, Qian Chen dissolved them into nothingness. These lethal strikes, potent enough to tear apart any martial artist below the grandmaster realm, were merely a probing feint between the two.
Ghost-Devouring Lord curled his right hand into a claw, ripping apart everything before him. Countless chaotic, disordered, terribly vicious wind-blade fragments surged forward, threatening to shred everything within to pieces...
High above, the ghosts shrieked in terror.
Qian Chen vaulted forward with a streak of sword light...
The sword light twisted through the myriad chaotic wind blades, and with a single stroke, cleaved the wind blades shredded by Wind God's Howl into two separate worlds. Qian Chen passed through the rift between those two worlds. Wherever the sword light swept, ghosts fell en masse, and he strolled unhurriedly right up before Ghost-Devouring Lord.
Chapter 23