Bai Xiaochun’s eyes flickered with cold light and killing intent. The fact that this person knew who he was would actually make certain matters easier to handle.
Narrowing his eyes, the Giant Ghost King said, “Where are you from?!”
Knowing who Bai Xiaochun was, the deva could already begin to speculate who this old man was that kept him company, although he couldn’t be certain. In any case, considering that he was a demigod, there was no way to conceal anything from him. The deva knew that if he didn’t talk quickly enough, the man would have plenty of ways of making him talk.
When he saw Bai Xiaochun frown in response to what he had just said, his heart began to pound, and he added, “Junior’s name is Li Hai. I am a subordinate of the preceptor of Crosspeak Prefecture, the seventeenth prefecture of the third immortal domain of the Vile-Emperor Dynasty.
“There are a total of six celestials in the Vile-Emperor Dynasty, who rotate leadership of the second and third immortal domains. Currently overseeing the third immortal domain is Celestial Ghostmother.”
In response to the man’s words, Bai Xiaochun’s eyes narrowed, and the Giant Ghost King’s heart began to pound. Both of them were familiar with the name Ghostmother. The huge fight between the gravekeeper and Gongsun Wan’er in the Wildlands was something the Giant Ghost King could never forget.
“Ghostmother?” Bai Xiaochun asked. “Not Celestial Virūpāk?a?” [1]
The divine abilities and Daoist magics of Ghostmother were of the same line of cultivation as the Giant Ghost King’s. Despite how down-and-out both he and Bai Xiaochun had been during the past several months, they had still come to know a lot about the third immortal domain. For example, the celestial in charge of it should not have been Ghostmother, but someone with the Daoist name of Virūpāk?a, which meant all-seeing.
Upon hearing different information from this Li Hai, the Giant Ghost King frowned, walked over, and clamped his hand down onto the top of the man’s head. Instead of wasting time speaking, he decided to simply resort to a soulsearch.
Screams erupted from Li Hai, but none of them went beyond the confines of the temple. He twitched, blood oozing out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It wasn’t that he didn’t think to end the pain by self-detonating, but rather, he couldn’t. In much the same fashion as the numerous Heavenspan cultivators that he himself had soulsearched in recent days, he eventually began to lose consciousness.
Eventually, the Giant Ghost King removed his hand, whereupon Li Hai coughed up a mouthful of blood and then flopped down onto his back, dead.
“Any information about Hou Xiaomei, Big Fatty Zhang, or any of the others?” Bai Xiaochun asked quietly.
“No. I just know that Ghostmother took over for Celestial Virūpāk?a last month.” The Giant Ghost King actually didn't know Hou Xiaomei or Big Fatty Zhang, but hadn’t seen any information about them in Li Hai’s mind.
“Ghostmother is in charge now. She has seventeen demigod preceptors, who in turn oversee seventeen prefectures here in the third immortal domain. Every preceptor has numerous devas under their command….
“The Vile-Emperor has ordered a full-scale manhunt to track down everyone from the Heavenspan Realm, and Ghostmother is going all out to scour the third immortal domain.
“They’re even trying to bring in all the corpses….
“One reason for the search is that the Vile-Emperor Dynasty wants to bolster their own forces. But even more importantly… they figured out that we people from the Heavenspan Realm have something special about us. We have a type of Daoist magic that no one from the Vile-Emperor Dynasty or the Saint-Emperor Dynasty can match. And that is… spirit enhancement!
“Only Heavenspan cultivators can perform spirit enhancements. No amount of research by cultivators from either of the other two dynasties provide any help in that regard. The only way it can be accomplished is with Heavenspan blood!
“Therefore, all three of the immortal domains controlled by the Vile-Emperor Dynasty are being searched, and it’s the same in the Saint-Emperor Dynasty. The main difference is that the Vile-Emperor Dynasty is openly revealing their intent to enslave the Heavenspan cultivators. The Saint-Emperor Dynasty is at least proclaiming a desire to offer help.” Having finished his analysis from the soulsearch, the Giant Ghost King looked at Bai Xiaochun with sparkling eyes.
“Xiaochun, the time has come to stop sitting around wasting time!”
1. The “real life” Virūpāk?a is (ironically) one of the four heavenly kings of Buddhism.
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Chapter
1037: Hope Arises
It was a dark night, and the winter wind only continued to grow stronger.
The wind sobbed, growing colder as it scraped over the lands, the towns, and the millions upon millions of residents in the land. As the wind rose into the sky, it met the black clouds above… and thunder rumbled.
Based on the thunder, anyone could tell… that rain would fall soon, or perhaps snow.
And so it did. It was either rain mixed with snow, or snow mixed with rain. In this, the beginnings of winter, it was difficult to tell….
The dilapidated temple could do nothing to keep out rain or snow, and before long, it began to drip down onto Bai Xiaochun and the Giant Ghost King.
The precipitation caused the withered leaves to rustle, as if they wished the falling snow would simply become rainwater, having forgotten that oftentimes freezing rain is colder than snow.
Bai Xiaochun reacted to the Giant Ghost King’s words in similar fashion. Although he didn’t shiver, it was hard to say whether his heart became as cold as falling snow, or as cold as freezing rain.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “We can’t let things go on like this. The time has come to attack. Kill as many as we can….” Out of reflex, he reached out, grabbed the nearby jug of alcohol, and prepared to take a drink. However, the Giant Ghost King stepped forward, eyes blazing with anger as he slapped the jug out of Bai Xiaochun’s hand.
It spun off to the side, where it shattered, the alcohol quickly mingling with the rain and snow.
“Drinking?!” the Giant Ghost King said, nearly shouting. “Is that all you know how to do?!
“I know you’ve been through a lot, but so what? Did nobody else lose people? Who lost the most? You? Me? What about everyone else? Everybody from the Heavenspan Realm lost friends and loved ones!
“If these Eternal Lands were completely filled with malice and evil, then you could drink yourself to death and I wouldn’t care. But that’s not the case!
“Did you ever think about Zimo? Did you ever think about the elder generation from your River-Defying Sect? What about all your friends? What about everybody who looks up to you?!” Although the Giant Ghost King was yelling at Bai Xiaochun, to some extent, he was also speaking to himself. He too had become somewhat lost.
“Attack them?! What, you and me? How many do you think we can kill? Don’t you remember what you used to be like back in Arch-Emperor City in the Wildlands? Where did that Bai Xiaochun go? Remember your clever plots? Remember the Proclamation of Universal Grace? Remember how you made a Foundation Establishment-level soul into a deva soul? You got the Grand Heavenmaster to back you, and then you forced all of the nobility and aristocracy to cower in front of you!
“Slaughter should always be the last part of the plan. That’s what you do when you go crazy and have nothing else to lose. You don’t go around attacking people as your opening move!” The Giant Ghost King looked truly disappointed. He had long since come to the realization that, at this point, Bai Xiaochun was not the same old Bai Xiaochun who feared death. It was like he had gone crazy, shifting from one extreme to the other!