A Pawn’s Passage

Plants withered, and corpse qi blanketed the sky.

As Master Wan's arm emerged from the yin-yang rift, the shinkan halted their pursuit, formed a formation, and jointly summoned a pillar of sunlight that descended from the sky under the lead of a jokai-rank shinkan. It pierced through the overwhelming corpse qi, illuminated the darkened world, and continually purified the foul air before finally landing on the fist, instantly transforming into blazing golden flames.

The human faces on Master Wan's arm began wailing in pain as they burned away under the flames. But Master Wan paid no mind to the fire or the faces. His fist pressed forward unwaveringly, clearly intent on annihilating the gathered shinkan with a single blow.

One major reason Qi Xuansu waited until now to summon Master Wan was that he intended to frame the incident on the Westerners. From beginning to end, only the Wuliang-stage shinkan and the miko had seen Qi Xuansu and Little Yin's true faces. The shinkan was killed by them and had his soul devoured by Little Yin, while his body was dissolved by corpse qi. The other pursuers had only been tracking their aura and never saw their faces, let alone knew their age, gender, or ethnicity.

If Master Wan showed up within the forbidden grounds, it would have drawn too much attention. The fact that a Yin Being conveniently hindered the pursuers right after someone broke the seal and escaped would be too suspicious. It would lead the Jingu to conclude a connection between the Yin Being and the intruder. Besides, the Holy Court was not known for controlling the undead.

By waiting until now to unleash Master Wan, Qi Xuansu could not completely erase suspicion, but at least he introduced doubt. The shinkan might think the arm's owner was not an accomplice but a terrifying monster born in Ise Province itself. After all, Master Wan's grotesque body was pieced together from countless corpses, and there was no shortage of unburied dead within the war-ravaged Ise Province.

This way, the setup involving the miko would not go to waste. At the very least, it would sow doubt and confuse the Jingu's decision-making, buying much-needed time.

No matter what, this was Ise-jingu's territory. Qi Xuansu could not fight a full-scale battle alone unless he summoned all Three Yin Beings, which would certainly alarm the first-rank Spirit Guard stationed at the Ghost Pass.

After all, Qi Xuansu was not given the authority to command the Three Yin Beings. He could summon them in secret, but doing so openly was another matter, and it would be difficult to contain the consequences.

Qi Xuansu began to suspect that Sage Qingwei already knew of his link with the Three Yin Beings and had deliberately sent him to Ise Province to give him the freedom to use them to their fullest.

Facing Master Wan's punch, the Zaohua-stage shinkan stopped casting joint spells and instead had the other shinkan channel their power into him. His aura surged, and a 30-meter-tall Spiritual Statue materialized. It was a male figure wielding a sword, none other than Susanoo-no-Mikoto, one of the Three Great Kami.

The Spiritual Statue met Master Wan's punch head-on and shuddered violently. Countless cracks spread across its entire form, and moments later, the Spiritual Statue shattered into golden dust that scattered with the wind.

The shinkan also suffered a severe blow, his body crashing to the ground, and his face visibly aging by several years in an instant.

The next moment, five towering pillars of varying heights suddenly rose around him. Upon closer inspection, they were not pillars at all but five massive fingers.

A colossal palm slowly rose from underground like Buddha's Five Fingers, continuing its ascension until it clasped the shinkan in its grip. At the same time, the overwhelming corpse qi from the palm sealed off the shinkan's chance of escape.

The shinkan could only deploy a special formation around himself. It was spherical and reflective from every angle, mimicking the legendary Yata Mirror, one of the Three Divine Artifacts. It prevented the five fingers from closing in, making it look like the massive palm was holding a crystal orb.

Meanwhile, the yin-yang rift tore open until half of Master Wan's body was exposed.

Unlike Madam Bai's delicate frame, Master Wan was a colossal giant. The shinkan, Qi Xuansu, and Little Yin all appeared no larger than ants before him.

Master Wan was also known as the Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses because his entire body was composed of corpses. The more corpses used, the greater his size. To reach such a monstrous form, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of corpses must have been used.

In the past, when the Golden Horde ravaged the Central Plains, the corpses numbered in the millions. Beimang Mountain rose to prominence during that time, and three first-generation Mighty Lords of Ten Thousand Corpses were created. Countless masters perished during the Daoist sects' combined campaign to purge Beimang Mountain.

During the final years of the Wei Dynasty, when famine and chaos spread like wildfire, the Gezao Sect once again refined a second-generation Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses within the Ghost Kingdom of Beimang Mountain, who was the current Master Wan.

After emerging halfway into this foreign land, Master Wan revealed his form for the first time. Though his appearance resembled an ordinary man, his size was gargantuan. Yet what made him terrifying were the countless eyes and mouths all over his skin that were endlessly spewing corpse qi and black blood.

As Master Wan's body emerged, fully rotten limbs and remains dropped from him continuously. With every movement, pus and blackened blood splattered in all directions, releasing waves of stench. It was a literal bloody and putrid rainstorm of filth and rot.

It was truly a revolting scene!

Once half of Master Wan's body had emerged, the previously purified corpse qi once again surged across the land with an overpowering stench. Everywhere it passed, plant life withered, and living creatures and corpses turned into zombies. Even inanimate objects like soil and stone were tinged with an ominous shade of grayish black.

Back then, the master who created the Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses was once questioned if he was afraid of divine retribution for crafting such a peerless monstrosity.

The master replied, "In the eyes of heaven and earth, all beings are treated equally. There is no difference between humans, plants, or ants. If ants, grass, and trees can die, why can't humans? Throughout history, countless cities have been slaughtered and lands destroyed, yet how many of those who committed such acts truly met a tragic end? Divine retribution is nothing but a comforting lie. If I die, it will be at the hands of man, not heaven's judgment."

Indeed, it came true. That master was first suppressed and sealed in the Demon Vanquishing Cave by the ancestors of the Zhang and Li families. During the upheaval of the deposed Heavenly Preceptor, this master escaped, but was ultimately killed by the Holy Xuan. So it was true that the master had died at human hands and not by divine punishment.

Later, when the Daoist Order reclaimed the Ghost Kingdom, their greatest resistance came from the Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses, who was eventually half-destroyed and severely weakened. Meanwhile, Master Yin, the Nine-Yin Lord of the Netherworld, acted wisely. Learning from the second-generation Mystical Lord of White Bones, he did not confront the Daoist Order directly but submitted to the Holy Xuan. That was how Master Yin preserved his strength and rose to surpass Master Wan as the strongest among the Three Yin Beings.

Fortunately, over the years, Master Wan had been tasked with disposing of the Ghost Kingdom's accumulated corpses, greatly restoring his strength and returning to the Pseudo-Immortal level.

Above these Three Yin Beings was the Sakka, reputedly the pinnacle of Daoist creation. However, the Sakka did not reside in the Ghost Kingdom but slumbered in Jianxiu Mountain. Only the Grand Master had the authority to awaken the Sakka. Yet, since the Daoist Order had yet to appoint a Grand Master, awakening the Sakka was out of the question.

Qi Xuansu had long suspected that if the three Deputy Grand Masters were not about to ascend, they would have kept delaying the appointment. After all, no one liked having another above them. Rotational leadership as the Great Sage Lunzhi held more power than being mere Deputy Grand Masters. In a way, these three might be the most powerful Deputy Grand Masters in nearly 200 years.

Master Wan brought his massive hands together, sandwiching the shinkan's spherical formation between them. As his palms pressed inward, cracks spread rapidly across the orb, seemingly on the verge of shattering.

His mighty force coupled with the overwhelming corpse qi from his body could counter divine power like water extinguishing fire. Though divine power could purify filth, the amount was so immense that the former became polluted. The shinkan now found himself at the edge of utter defeat.

The shinkan could only channel all his divine power, transforming it into the golden sunlight of Himiko, another Great Kami. It shone from the mirror, landing upon Master Wan's palms and erupting into fire. The corpse qi turned into rolling black smoke, like storm clouds pressing down on a city.

Within the Tenmon Sect's system, Himiko was the sun deity, symbolizing light. This reflected an early stage of religious development rooted in nature worship, where the sun naturally held the central place, like Vairocana in Buddhism and True Lord Taiyang in early Daoism. However, as religions evolved, they moved away from nature worship. Daoism now revered the Primordial Daoist Ancestor, and Buddhism focused on the Buddha, with all other deities viewed as manifestations. The Holy Court went even further, defeating all pantheons to become monotheistic, proclaiming only one true God.

This showed that the Tenmon Sect was still at a rather early stage of religious development.

Though Master Wan had his palms scorched, he showed no reaction. He simply continued squeezing, intent on crushing the shinkan into a bloody pulp.