“I guess that’s why I’m here and not there,” Bear One muttered. “Best to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond.” At least here, he could get more resources. At least here, he could grow without other blood-awakening cultivators trying to stop him.
What in the seven heavens is going on? Cha Ming thought, looking out to the city. He’d just gone into the monastery for a few minutes, but already the city was falling apart. He recognized that roar, or at least recognized its nature if not its ferocity. It was the Life-Leaching Monarch, and it had already launched its attack.
That came as a surprise to Cha Ming. The next step in his plan had been to eliminate the Spirit Temple. After that, he’d planned on smashing a gouge in the wall with his Clear Sky Staff, then using the chaos that ensued from the pincer beast tide and the Taotie to make his escape.
It seemed someone had done that for him. And he had a pretty good idea how. The defective Breaker, which wouldn’t operate as planned but would catastrophically self-destruct, hopefully killing the crown prince and a few close associates, had already gone off. He hadn’t been counting on it. Rather, that was just one last goodbye present, another nail in the coffin for both the Wang family and for the Ji Kingdom. It seemed that someone had thought it a great idea to activate it where it lay, obliterating a third of the palace and carving a deep gouge in the wall. Cha Ming thanked his lucky stars he’d aimed it northward, or the loss of innocent life would have been even more devastating.
Now, spiders crawled throughout the northern streets. Guards were busy repelling them, and he felt two powerful figures clashing with the Life-Leaching Monarch and fighting it to a standstill. In the west, a strong but familiar aura was busy fighting dozens of cultivators in a brutal clash. Likely, it was a body cultivator causing havoc. In the east, the Taotie was looming ever closer. Unlike the northern beast tide, it made no sound. It simply walked as quickly as it could while dozens of cultivators executed one technique after another to slow it down and buy the city time.
I should have time for one more, Cha Ming thought. He slipped through the streets in Pai Xiao’s guise, ignoring shocked gasps as people saw him disappear. He appeared moments later above the Spirit Temple. Unceremoniously, he clicked the Space-Time Camera. It charged up for three seconds, then formed a complete barrier. Cha Ming flew into it. He wasn’t welcomed by swords and staves but eerie silence. They were hiding, and with good reason. He saw faint outlines of ghosts taking refuge nearby. Other, more powerful ghosts surrounded him.
“Hiding is futile,” Cha Ming said softly. His eyes glowed three colors as he activated his fused Devil-Sealing, Demon-Subduing, Spirit-Banishing Eyes. He glared at his surroundings, his eyes burning with what he now clearly saw as hatred. His eyes hated and wanted nothing more than to sear themselves out, to never see those things that offended them again.
He saw them clearly now, crimson ghosts that monitored Bastion Temple, and acolytes who cowered behind them, along with their companion spirits. Spectral Assassins, half human, half ghosts, swarmed toward him. They thought themselves invisible, but to Cha Ming, finding them was an easy task.
“Die,” Cha Ming whispered. His combat sigils flew outward like before, filled with fire, though now they were filled with Spirit-Banishing Intent. They burned through people, buildings, and ghosts alike. Unlike the Blood Master Monastery, the Spirit Temple was a public place. Many hundreds of innocents were here, paying respects or inquiring for services. Clerks were especially prominent here, as producing and enforcing contracts was the Spirit Temple’s main duty in the South.
Unfortunately, to destroy the temple, these lives had to be sacrificed. His heart wept as they died, and with each death, he felt a chain of sin lay down on his soul, tainting it ever so slightly beneath the brilliant jade glow.
Hundreds of thousands of spirits were banished in an instant. And with their deaths, his eyes burned with power unlike any he’d ever experienced. He glanced at oncoming Spectral Assassins that had survived his attack, but the moment he looked at them, they vanished. They couldn’t bear his glare, which sent them directly to the Yellow River they’d evaded for so long.
In the main temple, a man howled. An especially large column of souls was oozing out form there and plunging into a yellow river that seemed so vivid and lifelike. He’d banished so many at once that the Underworld and the mortal realm were now intersecting, and they were visible to each other. Above the yellow river, he caught sight of an old man in black robes holding a reaper’s scythe. He had a timeless look in his black eyes, and his face bore the hint of a smile. He looked down to the man’s hands and was surprised to discover Yama himself giving him a thumbs-up for a job well done. It seemed the keeper of the Underworld had been eyeing this place for quite some time.
“I will end you!” the man who’d howled earlier said. A half-step-transcendent soul erupted with power as it began voraciously absorbing the escaping souls. Its pressure mounted until it broke through to transcendence. Clouds above manifested white lightning many times stronger than he’d witnessed with the blood master before. Last time, the heavens had been
