Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

Gu Suihan and his companions had quietly come close to the center of the city, hidden from sight by Gu Suihan. When they saw how the Nascent Change cultivators had really started fighting each other, Chamu couldn’t help but comment, “My, my, it’s really a party of ghouls!”

“Not just that! That old man, Duanmu, actually turned out to be a scum sent here by those damned baldies.” Tang Xiaoyun had a scowl on his face and a sinister look in his eyes as he said this. It was clear that he had a very poor impression of Buddhist monks. Or perhaps he had some feud with them.

“There are also demons and ghosts among them.” Gu Suihan narrowed his eyes and pointed at the white-haired young man who was controlling the ghost army and giving them orders. “That fellow is a ghost. And he’s a high-level ghost who’s on par with a Nascent Change human cultivator. That old man Li is actually a demon in a very good human disguise. My, my. It’s worth speculating who Rou Lingyun really is.”

“What do you mean?” asked Xia Yun curiously. She was interested now.

“She’s a mix between a human and a demon. Her father is that old man Li, who’s a fox that’s cultivated for more than a thousand years. Gosh, this ancient thing really knows how to seduce a woman,” said Gu Suihan with a mischievous chuckle.

“Oh? That’s…rather interesting, alright.” Xia Yun’s gaze flickered, and there was a strange glint in her eyes.

While they were speaking, the illusion of a bodhisattva unleashed a brilliant light that caused most of the soldiers to disappear. Only a few dozen ghosts were still struggling to fight back.

The white-haired young man had also transformed back into his original form. He was now a ghost standing at three meters in height, with nasty and twisted facial features and black, fiendish qi swirling around his body like a mist. He raised his hand to bring darkness down once more. Fiendish qi rose rapidly to form layer after layer without stopping, pressing down hard on the brilliance from the bead. It let out a long, bloodcurdling howl and rushed toward Duanmu at high speed, leaving behind nothing but afterimages.

“Explode!” The young man sneered as he fought off the spell attacks from the other cultivators head-on without bothering to dodge them. He kept his gaze firmly on Duanmu. “Since things have come to this, let’s all die together!”

“Get lost!” Duanmu panicked and summoned the bead before flinging it at the young man. The illusion of the bodhisattva appeared again and gave off a holy, brilliant glow accompanied by the sounds of chanting. The young man reacted like he was facing his natural enemy. More than half the fiendish qi around his body disappeared in an instant.

But a mere illusion of a bodhisattva was clearly insufficient to defeat the young man. Duanmu gritted his teeth as he thrust a seal out in order to cause the bead to explode and take the life of the young man along with it.

“It’s too late! Whoever gets in the way shall die!” The young man glared nastily at the other cultivators, and the murderous look in his eyes made their hearts pound with fear. They instinctively slowed down and actually started giving way to him.

It was very clear what was happening. The young man was definitely going to die, but it was hard to say if he would bring anybody down with him. If they got in his way and he happened to grab hold of any of them, they would end up dying for nothing.

At the same time, the young man was making it very clear that his target was Duanmu, so there was no reason for the other cultivators to join in the fight. It was best that both of them died, anyway.

“Come with me to die.” The young man howled as he met with the attack of the exploding bead head-on, his white hair flapped in the wind formed by his sinister ghostly qi. He grabbed hold of the horrified Duanmu, and his qi turned into chains that chained them to each other and pushed them toward the fading pillar of light.

“Nooooo…” roared Duanmu in horror as he struggled with all his might to break free. Unfortunately, he was too severely injured to fight the white-haired young man who was determined to kill him.

He could only keep screaming until he was absorbed by the pillar of light, and his voice could be heard no more.

Once charged with the souls of two Nascent Change cultivators, the pillar of light instantly shone brilliantly once more. It shot into the sky with a burst of energy and crashed heavily into the barrier, causing several cracks to reappear in the freshly repaired barrier.

“Let’s gooooo!”

The rest of the cultivators were finally convinced that they could make it out and began to pull out everything they had, including their most prized possessions. They did everything they could to unleash all the internal energy within their bodies. Rou Lingyun did her best to guide all of this toward the altar, which gave off a low hum. The cracks in the barrier widened a little more as a result.

“Now!” Gu Suihan’s eyes flew open as he ran forward with his saber in hand. The laws of nature around him that were as vast as the ocean and as thunderous as a river turned into a boundless sea of blood. He stepped on the waves and flew up from the ground. He raised his saber, gathering qi and creating a rainbow of murderous qi as he flew over the head of one Nascent Change cultivator. He thrust a seal out with his left hand, smashing the cultivator’s head to mush before extending his nails into the head to grab hold of the cultivator’s nascent soul before the cultivator even realized what was happening.

The spirit within Gu Suihan’s consciousness trembled as it unleashed a mighty power that swallowed the cultivator’s nascent soul without leaving any traces behind.

After getting what he wanted with just one move, he moved on. The bloody waves sprayed high into the air and shook the entire place. The blood was like a leech that quickly filled the surrounding area and covered a 20-kilometer radius in the blink of an eye.

“Next one!” said Gu Suihan calmly as he put his saber away and swallowed the powerless nascent soul he had taken from that cultivator. After he took a while to enjoy the refreshing and comforting feeling that came from his consciousness, his eyes shone like lightning as he targeted another person. He raised his saber and leaped up again as his left hand secretly prepared the seal required to kill his target inside his sleeve.

“The wind arises!” The scholar waved his folding fan, and a nasty wind that felt like knives to the skin turned into a mighty storm in the blink of an eye and whooshed toward his target. At the same time, the temperature of their surroundings dropped dramatically, so large amounts of snow and ice came falling from the sky, freezing the cultivator immediately. The cultivator used his internal energy to force his nascent soul out of his body, but it got trapped in the freezing surroundings as well.

The scholar chuckled quietly and raised his hand to trap the soul inside his folding fan. Qi moved through the fan, and soon enough, amidst the luscious mountains, rivers, lakes, and icy moon drawn on the fan, a small and realistic drawing of a baby with a terrified look on its face appeared as well.

“Bitch, I’m not dead yet.”

Xia Yun scoffed as she gave the already badly injured Rou Lingyun a hard blow. As Rou Lingyun stared at her in disbelief, Xia Yun spat fiercely into her face.

Finally, after the group had taken down several Nascent Change cultivators, the rest had finally noticed something amiss. Their expressions fell, and they quickly abandoned their efforts to break through the barrier to protect themselves instead. With just a thought, the laws of nature changed to become layers or barriers in front of themselves to prevent the corrosive sea of blood from getting to them. They gave a loud and angry shout as they launched a counterattack.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Gu Suihan consumed the nascent soul of the fourth cultivator he had killed and sensed the joyfulness of the spirit within him. He did an internal scan and found that the deep cracks covering it had become a lot shallower now. It was obvious that these cultivators were of way higher quality than those undernourished fellows on Earth.

“You’re just at Origin Core? Pathetic little ant, prepare to die!” yelled the old man in purple robes as he brandished his long sword. It shone brightly, and runes appeared on its sharp blade. The glow of the blade alone covered an area spanning several kilometers.

“Pathetic little ant? If you were in a better condition, you might be able to say that. But now, your capabilities have been greatly reduced, and you’ve already given away all your items. Yet, you still say such boastful and arrogant things? You really don’t know what’s good for you.”

Gu Suihan mocked the old man harshly and disappeared suddenly as he walked into the sea of blood, then reappeared behind the old man like a ghost. His spirit suddenly unleashed a light that covered tens of kilometers from his consciousness, making his vast spiritual sense crash down and incapacitate the opponent for a moment. He used that moment to bring his saber down on the old man’s head, breaking it into two and causing brain juice to splatter and blood to spray out like a fountain.

“This works every time!” Gu Suihan gobbled up the old man’s nascent soul and licked the blood on his lips. A bloodthirsty look slowly filled his eyes.

“Kill!” Tang Xiaoyun swung his halberd hard and slashed a cultivator in half horizontally, but the impact alone made his qi and blood go into turmoil, and his body felt numb all over.

“What despicable people you are!” yelled another cultivator sorrowfully as Gu Suihan’s claws stabbed into his head.

“Does a cultivator have the right to call others despicable? We’re all the same, aren’t we,” muttered Gu Suihan as he wiped away the blood left on his lips.