Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: [Unnumbered]
Chapter Title: Piercing the Ghost Clouds
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Amid the vast sea, within endless stretches of bleak clouds and miserable mists that stretched beyond sight, a golden ship gleamed brilliantly as it flattened the waves and surged through freely.
No matter the thunderbolts crashing from the sky or the waves surging from the depths, nothing could shake the great vessel in the slightest.
The mid-grade spirit treasure, Void-Crossing Golden Ship!
This spirit treasure bestowed by Perfected Being Heavy Light was perfectly suited for the harsh spiritual environment overseas. It cleaved through waves and storms with effortless supremacy.
At the bow, Lu Yang stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing into the distance.
"Such violent spiritual energy..."
With his cultivation, he could naturally discern that this boundless expanse of bleak clouds and miserable mists—even the resulting waves and thunder—were all manifestations of spiritual energy.
"Unlike the mainland seas, the spiritual energy overseas is extremely chaotic and violent. Ordinary cultivators can't even contain it within themselves. This rampaging energy then gives birth to even more ferocious heavenly phenomena, amplified by the ocean's natural environment, ultimately forming this impassable boundary."
Not just anyone could venture overseas.
The mere ten-thousand-mile thunderclouds born from this violent spiritual energy alone rivaled the might of his Twelve Capital Heavens Divine Baleful Secret Devil Calamity Light—and they never ceased.
Even at peak Qi Refining, one would face near-certain death amid them.
Fortunately, though these thunderclouds boasted immense power, they lacked true rank, allowing Foundation Establishment cultivators to cross. Otherwise, even they would struggle.
"My opportunity..."
Lu Yang pinched his fingers to divine while activating the Heaven-Scrutinizing Instrument. His third eye opened at his brow, casting down a beam of radiant golden treasure light that swiftly revealed the direction.
At the end of the treasure light, he spotted a ship much smaller than the Void-Crossing Golden Ship.
"...An overseas cultivator?"
Lu Yang's eyes lit up at the sight.
Rumble!
Myriad golden serpents of lightning crackled in the sky, while churning undercurrents and towering waves roiled below. A three-masted galleon struggled desperately against the might of heaven and earth.
"Hold steady! Hold the fuck steady!"
At that moment, Chen Xinghai, the helmsman of the Azure Quill Dragon Ship, gripped the rudder with both hands at the stern, staring in despair at the howling winds and waves surrounding them.
He never imagined that a routine border salvage operation would encounter the legendary "Ghost Clouds" just as they neared home. The dragon ship couldn't evade in time and plunged straight in. No matter his efforts since, they couldn't find a way out.
With that thought, Chen Xinghai couldn't help glancing skyward.
As a lifelong seafarer, he'd heard his father speak of what lay beyond the "Ghost Clouds": a paradise of gold and endless bounty.
Back then, he'd dismissed it as bullshit.
After all, no one who'd entered the "Ghost Clouds" ever returned alive. Wasn't that just paradise? Kid-stuff nonsense to scare children.
Yet in this moment, Chen Xinghai sincerely hoped his father had been right.
Hold on. Just hold out until they crossed the "Ghost Clouds," and he'd survive... As for whether paradise truly awaited on the other side, he no longer cared.
Crack!
Then came an ominous shattering sound to Chen Xinghai's ears. Glancing back, he saw one of the boatmen looking at him with a mournful face.
"Boss, we're done for..."
"Shut your mouth!"
Chen Xinghai felt a bone-chilling dread too. At the stern, the Sea-Patrolling Immortal Register—drawn by an Immortal Alliance immortal master—had just developed faint cracks. The protective treasure light enveloping the entire dragon ship began to dim, on the verge of collapse.
Trapped in the "Ghost Clouds," the consequences of the talisman's failure didn't bear thinking.
"Send the guest elder to repair it!"
Chen Xinghai made his final gambit. His ship hosted an immortal master hired at great expense from the Immortal Alliance—perhaps he could mend the talisman.
But when the guest elder appeared before him, Chen Xinghai's faint hopes shattered utterly. The immortal master's face bore a slack, idiotic grin, his eyes vacant as if his soul had fled to the heavens, utterly unresponsive to the world.
"He's possessed!"
Seeing this, Chen Xinghai's heart plummeted. This was the most terrifying aspect of the "Ghost Clouds"—the origin of its name.
Legends spoke of an epochal war.
The realm's great cultivators united against otherworldly heavenly demons that suddenly appeared at sea. Their battlefield turned the sky blood-red and waves to a sea of blood.
In the end, the cultivators triumphed but at great cost. The "Ghost Clouds" shrouded their ancient battlefield, where fallen souls wandered the dark clouds as lightning serpents, their obsessions churning the ocean into ceaseless waves.
The higher one's cultivation, the more susceptible to these souls' influence.
Once ensnared too deeply, one drowned in their memories, unable to escape. Seafarers called it "possession."
The heavenly demons, though defeated, weren't eradicated.
Thus, surviving cultivators set aside grudges to stand united against them, eventually forming today's unified Immortal Alliance.
"Boss! What do we do!?"
The voice pulled Chen Xinghai from his escapist reverie back to grim reality, forcing him to confront their doom.
But what could he do?
He was merely a seafarer under the Immortal Alliance. Without the dragon ship, he'd have scattered to ash in the "Ghost Clouds" long ago.
With a bitter laugh, Chen Xinghai slumped to the deck.
"No saving us. Just wait for death."
"Not like there's anything left to fear."
After all, at this point, what could be worse than death?
Then he saw the "Ghost Clouds," which should never dissipate, suddenly roil violently. Infinite golden light tore them asunder.
From the golden light emerged a colossal ship, void-crossing through the air. Thirty-six decks high, each more majestic than the last—like thirty-six layers of astral clouds. Amid the "Ghost Clouds," it loomed like a towering divine mountain, flattening waves in its wake, unshakable by myriad thunderbolts.
Chen Xinghai blinked.
He was wrong. Something even fiercer had come from beyond the "Ghost Clouds"!
In the next instant, he sprang up with agile grace, shouting skyward:
"Immortal! Immortal, save us!"
His cry drew a response.
In a whirl, the world spun. When he looked again, the "Ghost Clouds" were a distant backdrop.
Calm waves surrounded him now, under clear skies.
The mountain-like golden ship had vanished into thin air.
He'd escaped?
For a moment, he wondered if it was all a nightmare—until he spotted a handsome, godlike figure aboard.
"Commoner Chen Xinghai pays respects to the exalted master!"
Without hesitation, Chen Xinghai dashed to Lu Yang and bowed deeply.
"Many thanks to the master for saving us from peril!"
At those words, Lu Yang raised a brow.
He'd rescued Chen Xinghai mainly to inquire about his origins, gaining some insight into overseas matters to avoid trouble.
But Chen Xinghai's first words rang false.
‘Same language?’
Different regions had distinct languages and accents—a given. Jiangbei alone had dozens, by his knowledge.
Yet the language from Chen Xinghai's mouth was impeccably standard: the "True Speech" unanimously recognized by the Primal Saint Sect, Sword Pavilion, Pure Land, and Dao Lineage—the official tongue. No ordinary overseas cultivator would speak it. Either he had mainland ties...
Or the overseas faction behind him did!