Chapter 274
Chapter 274
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: [Unnumbered]
Chapter Title: Pursuit by Zhong Kui
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"Boat Aunt and her daughter, two bad seeds!"
Blackie Pot's back. Granny Sha flew into a towering rage, but immediately she could no longer jump. Her injuries were severe. In the state of primal spirit-body fusion, she had been struck to separate spirit from flesh, and her Eight Trigrams Furnace had been shattered. She needed to focus on healing right away, lest lingering effects remain.
Qingyang's injuries were even heavier than hers. Hu Xiaoliang's were somewhat lighter, but not by much.
Zhong Kui was simply too powerful. The three of them were wounded in a single exchange. Even the carefully prepared iron caltrops had failed to harm him in the slightest.
Blackie Pot's speed was incredibly fast. Its paws treading the underworld's earth in flashes of light and shadow, it charged into the distance. Yet Zhong Kui's face above their heads dogged them relentlessly, its movement no slower than Blackie Pot's. His face was enormous, blotting out the sky, several times larger than Blackie Pot's body. Gazing up from below brought a crushing sense of despair.
Coarse features sprouting dragon-like curved horns, a beard thick as black trees, flames burning around his face—his palm descended from the sky, able to seize them all in one grasp and crush them to pulp!
His power in the underworld surpassed even that in the mortal world! Giant hand versus...
Blackie Pot fled for its life, zigzagging wildly across the wasteland to evade the palm pressing down from above. When escape proved impossible, Granny Sha and the others mustered every last scrap of strength to resist that hand. But the three of them were spent, able to hold out for only moments before Zhong Kui's power overwhelmed them.
Blackie Pot fled thousands of li, but Zhong Kui pursued without cease. Just then, the earth beneath Blackie Pot's paws quaked and split open. Earth-lung qi erupted outward, a blast of scalding air surging skyward.
The ground cracked with resounding snaps. Blackie Pot leaped into the air, only to see a massive chasm yawning beneath its paws, crimson magma and terrestrial fire spewing forth from the rift.
Blackie Pot bounded to the opposite bank. Chen Shi stood atop Blackie Pot's head and glanced back, beholding a towering ghost god emerging from the earth's fissure and the roiling magma. Its body dwarfed the mountains. It seized the river of magma, refined it in an instant, then lashed out at Zhong Kui's airborne visage with the crimson magma river as its whip.
Before the stones could settle, they leaped up, transforming into lava imps one after another—each over ten feet tall, rampaging across the ground with savage ferocity.
The whip lash scattered countless globs of magma. Wherever they struck the ground, they hardened into massive black boulders that rumbled as they rolled.
Blackie Pot trampled countless lava imps too slow to evade along the way. Many more imps clutched at its fur, clambering swiftly up its legs toward its back, intent on slaying the riders.
Chen Shi unleashed the Nether Spring Soaring Dragon Sword, skewering imp after imp.
Granny Sha and the others likewise rallied their scant remaining strength to bat the lava imps away.
At the same moment,阴 winds howled around them, banks of mist surging inward. The fog roiled thick. Only when it drew near did they realize it was no mist, but countless white-bone skeletons entwined
together, scuttling forward at terrifying speed. Their sheer numbers made them resemble surging mist from afar.
They advanced too swiftly for Blackie Pot to change course.
Boom!
The skeletal tide engulfed Blackie Pot's form. The demonic flames cloaking Blackie Pot incinerated the skeletons that closed in, but those were mere blooms of fire around its body, not a full shroud. Countless bony limbs still flailed from the air, lunging at them.
White-bone jaws gaped and snapped in frenzied anticipation of tearing flesh.
Chen Shi drove the Soaring Dragon Sword. Sword-light flickered like a coiling dragon, whirling and dancing around them. Skeletons grazed by the blade burst apart with bangs.
Zhuge Jian invoked the Wind-Thunder Yu Step Divine Incantation, battling fiercely. From time to time, he drew the bowl-mouthed blunderbuss from behind his back. Boom—a thunderous roar pulverized dozens of incoming aerial skeletons to dust.
Yet the bowl-mouthed blunderbuss could fire only once before its barrel required cleaning and repacking with powder.
In this dire moment, there was no chance to halt and reload.
Just as the skeletal tide threatened to drown them, in the nick of time, the shrine behind Chen Shi's head materialized. He summoned the big-headed woman. At once, the onrushing white-bone skeletons shattered to pieces with clattering crashes, crumbling to powder.
Her body was that of a normal woman, but her head was the size of a dining table—grotesquely mismatched. Now absorbing thousands upon thousands of bones, her form swelled once more.
Stone Islet Niangniang brimmed with excitement. To others, these white-bone skeletons spelled mortal peril, but to her, they were peerless nourishment. She devoured the stone essence within the bones without restraint. Suddenly, skeleton after skeleton flew backward with flailing limbs, bony arms thrashing and clawing in a desperate bid to seize hold of something.
The skeletal tide had previously blinded Chen Shi and the others. Blackie Pot could only forge ahead with difficulty through the mass. Now the bones took flight, and their view cleared at once. Beside them loomed a ghost god many times Blackie Pot's size, wielding a long whip of white bone as it lashed toward Zhong Kui's face in the sky!
"The underworld's Fire and Earth Judges!" Granny Sha cried in astonishment.
She kept to the law in the mortal world but had racked up crimes aplenty in the underworld over the years, giving her keen knowledge of its ghost gods. These two judges were the Fire Judge and Earth Judge of the underworld, inseparable companions. She never dreamed they'd cross paths here.
The Earth Judge brandished its white-bone whip, eyes flicking toward Granny Sha. Yet the felon Granny Sha paled in interest beside the felon Zhong Kui.
These two underworld judges were elites of the Yin Law Division. One wielded a river of magma as its whip, the other a tide of white bone. They coiled about Zhong Kui's hands, intent on dragging him from the mortal realm into the underworld. The Fire and Earth Judges heaved, yanking half of Zhong Kui's body into the underworld.
Zhong Kui bellowed in fury and surged with power, dragging the two judges toward him instead.
Each judge roared in outrage. The hells under their dominion erupted into view. Blackie Pot raced madly onward while Chen Shi peered behind the judges, eyes going wide. Boundless space unfurled, birthing the horrific vista of two hell-layers where countless souls writhed in torment, doomed to perdition!
The ghost-god domains of the hells expanded outward, their reach ever-growing! Yet Blackie Pot's pace outstripped even those two hells.
Chen Shi had no chance to discern the hells' identities before Blackie Pot fled another thousand li.
He looked up to see Zhong Kui haul the Earth Judge close, jaws yawning to cram it inside!
Zhong Kui slurped the Earth Judge's long whip like noodles, devouring more than half. A remnant clung to the judge's arm—thick as a mountain peak. The Earth Judge's hands wedged against Zhong Kui's upper teeth, legs against the lower, straining mightily to avoid being swallowed.
"So unstoppable?" Despair gripped the onlookers at the sight.
Far off, the ground heaved and mountains quaked, yin qi billowing. More underworld ghost gods surged forth, lunging at Zhong Kui in the sky. Blackie Pot accelerated, the majestic clash blurring into the distance.
"Blackie Pot, ease up—no need to push so hard!" Chen Shi shouted.
"You can slow down now!"
Blackie Pot gradually decelerated. The riders on its back sighed in relief. Granny Sha relaxed, only for her wounds to flare. She quickly suppressed them and gave a wry smile.
"We got done in this time—outplayed by Boat Aunt and her daughter! Once I'm healed, we'll settle the score!"
Hu Xiaoliang said,
"How? Even healed, Zhong Kui's beyond us."
Granny Sha replied,
"I don't mean settling with Zhong Kui. Obviously, we thrash Boat Aunt and her daughter!"
Zhuge Jian steadied his breathing, then cried out in alarm,
"Senior Qingyang's dead!"
Chen Shi's heart lurched. He rushed forward to check. Sure enough, Qingyang lay rigid, lifeless!
Grief welled in him, tears welling up—until Granny Sha spoke.
"Don't bother with him. A moonlit soak and he'll revive. He was dead from the start anyway."
Chen Shi's tears halted.
Granny Sha sighed, muttering,
"This time's wounds... who knows when they'll heal."
Hu Xiaoliang recalled their clash with Zhong Kui and shook his head.
"No contest. Utterly outmatched!"
Zhuge Jian asked,
"Increase the payload? Tenfold the powder in those iron caltrops—could that topple Zhong Kui? The Ministry of Works has talisman masters from Red Mountain Hall and craftsmen of the Luban Sect. They could craft such massive iron caltrops."
Hu Xiaoliang shook his head.
"Zhong Kui's cultivation's too profound—no fear of thunderfire anymore. Tenfold won't cut it. Needs twentyfold."
Zhuge Jian blanched.
Heavenly tribulation-grade powder?
Just then, a colossal iron pillar loomed into view.
Jet-black from end to end, it dangled from the sky like a stake piercing the yin-yang divide, etched with bizarre ancient markings—textlike, or perhaps talismans. Chen Shi knew countless talismans cold, yet these eluded him.
"We've reached the outskirts of West Capital now."
Granny Sha consulted a yin-yang realm map, brow furrowing.
"No black iron pillar like this near West Capital. A remnant?"
Remnants: the catchall for the incomprehensible megastructures left by pre-True King civilizations across West Ox New Continent.
Vast and eternal, they bestrode heaven and earth, defying comprehension, purpose unknown. Remnants in the underworld, too.
They skirted the black iron pillar, brushing against the previous age's aura.
Chen Shi studied it, thinking,
"Back in the mortal world, seek this spot—see if its counterpart exists up there."
Then, radiant halos bloomed into view—large and small, abruptly manifest in the underworld, their glow soft and clustered. Around each swarmed tens of thousands of ghosts on guard, as if the halos held priceless worth.
Beyond the halos stood vast palace complexes like immortal abodes, inverted and towering in the firmament.
Deities sat enthroned above, their flesh spans immense, enigmatic halos wreathing their heads. Eyes cracked open now and then, peering downward.
"This is West Capital City."
Granny Sha noted Chen Shi and Zhuge Jian's bafflement.
"Those treasures suppress the capital's destiny—nine halls of supreme might. Literary Glory, Martial Radiance, Canopy of Glory, Literary Depths, Eastern Pavilion, Uprightness, Central Pinnacle, Self-Cultivation, Establishing the Pole. True King-era relics, all nine. With them, no mere demonic upheaval can prevail—not even calamity or cataclysm!"
Chen Shi gazed at the palaces. From the mortal world, their power was undetectable. Only here did West Capital's dread foundations reveal themselves!
"And those deities?"
"Primal spirits from the Void Great Realm."
Granny Sha explained,
"Still Void Realm and Great Vehicle Realm powerhouses. Their spirits pierce yin and yang; traces linger here. They see you, too. Those head-halos? Void Great Realm's underworld echo."
Chen Shi beheld the peerless deities, awe-struck.
West Capital brimmed with titans!
Fifty or sixty Still Void and Great Vehicle existences!
"And the halos?"
"Six Paths of Reincarnation. Masters? Pregnant women—not just human. Livestock, too."
Granny Sha caught her breath, mastering the pain.
"In late pregnancy, wombs project here as Six Paths halos. At each center: the placenta, an innate cushion harboring primordial qi."
Chen Shi peered. Placenta cradled within each cycle, birthing innate primordial qi.
"Ghost gods shun the Six Paths. Near ones risk suction into rebirth."
Granny Sha warned,
"You Nascent Soul cultivators—never let your core leave body near a pregnant woman. Easy to get trapped in the cycle. Force free? Mother and child perish; you likely follow, dead without recourse."
She chuckled.
"See the ghosts? Guarding for maturity, first dibs on rebirth. West Capital's pregnant? All nobility. Hence the crush at every Path, scrapping for slots.
"But nobility raise dogs, cats, beasts aplenty. Underworld can't tell human womb from beast. Ghosts brawl for 'prime' rebirths, wake as livestock. Luck rules reincarnation."
Chen Shi knew the basics dimly.
"So a dying cultivator can cycle through for rebirth?"
Granny Sha nodded.
"Yes. But fleeting."
Chen Shi frowned, uncomprehending.
"Profound as your arts may be, the womb brings fetal oblivion. First cry leaks your final breath; past-life memories fade, scatter. Hold silent? First cycle holds memories. Die then? Third cycle dims the first further."
Granny Sha spoke measuredly.
"Three cycles in—even Great Vehicle adepts lose the origin life wholly. No 'you' remains; fused with successor selves—are you still you?
Chen Shi pondered deeply.
Granny Sha continued,
"My stalled cultivation? I sought the Three Lives Stone to awaken tripled memories, reclaim prior lives' arts, shatter the bottleneck."
Her face shadowed. Silence fell.
Blackie Pot bore them onward, departing. Slowed, yet swift.
Chen Shi spotted dozens of clustered Six Paths halos, great and small. To pierce the quiet, draw Granny Sha from sorrow and regret, he grinned.
"Sister Sha—spot any mischief?"
Granny Sha, lost in thoughts of her son Xiang Tianyu—trapped here—glanced over and smiled.
"Pregnant women aplenty. Or livestock. Clumped like this? Someone's scheming ambushes via wombs or beasts."
Chen Shi grinned.
"Targets a Nascent Soul cultivator. I've pulled that trick myself."
Granny Sha cross-referenced mortal geography.
"Ambush site: West Capital outskirts. Near Guangji Arsenal."
Chen Shi's interest piqued. Arsenals brimmed with fireweapons—perilous to casual folk. Who waylaid whom there?
Granny Sha guided Blackie Pot through underworld paths toward High Mountain County.
Zhong Kui never reappeared. Chen Shi eased at last, musing,
"Granny Sha's crew wounded—no sending them after Zhong Kui again. Who, then, to counter him?"
A figure flashed in his mind. He smiled.
"I've got Zhong Kui handled!"