Chapter 333: Breaking Out of the Underworld 38 |
In the Immortal Capital, squads of underworld officers flowed toward the Young Master’s Primordial Palace, each urging a wooden boat forward, charging into the darkness.
The Immortal Capital was vast, full of ghost gods handling all sorts of affairs. This governance system had been left from the True King Era. Even though most of the Ten Kings of Hell had been replaced, the system itself had never collapsed and still ran efficiently.
Facing the fierce tide of underworld officers, even Du Yiran at his peak, even Black Pot, even the Boat Girl occupying Red-Haired Ghost’s body, even the three great judges—all were struggling.
They were forced to retreat toward the Primordial Palace. Only Du Yiran remained, guarding the forehead of the Huo Dog, preventing anyone from peeling off the talisman stuck to its brow.
After all, he was a Great Ascension Realm cultivator, tremendously powerful. Surrounded by so many underworld officers, he could still hold them off and would not yield an inch!
But the pressure on him mounted. Earlier he had been full of vigor, feeling like he had returned to twenty years old, able to deal with any expert in the world, even underworld ghost gods and judges. Now he felt like an old skeleton lying beneath a mountain waterfall, watching the sunset and waiting to die.
By now he was exhausted. His arms felt like two mountains, unbearably heavy. Blood and qi surged through him like rivers, and when he tried to drive them, everything felt stuck. The Realm of Emptiness he had previously cultivated with ease no longer responded as smoothly.
His Primordial Spirit and flesh had once been tightly bound; now the underworld officers’ attacks had loosened them.
He had always thought himself invincible, convinced his flesh, Primordial Spirit, and Realm of Emptiness were flawless, and that only age had slowed him. Surrounded and attacked by underworld officers, he realized there were many gaps he had not refined.
Wang Fu used his judge’s brush to hook and pull souls; the large pen was like a pole, and when he touched an underworld officer or underworld marshal, he could force their soul out through the brush!
Jia Yuan’s great pen burned the karmic flames of sin. The karmic fire clung and would not be extinguished. Those who fought him had their flesh and Primordial Spirit continuously consumed by the flames, emitting agonized screams and suffering immense power loss.
Zhu Shun called on the brush to channel the Knife-Mountain hell’s power; in a clamor, countless blades whirled like a storm.
The three great judges each possessed a nearly thousand-li ghost-and-god domain. Entering their domain meant life and death were in their hands.
Any one of them placed in the mortal world would be an unbelievable powerhouse. But in the underworld, teeming with ghost gods, even judges could not endure endless assaults forever!
Moreover, there were the Fire Judge and Earth Judge. In life they had been Great Ascension cultivators from the Yan Family, and after death they had enjoyed thousands of years of incense offerings. Over a thousand years ago they rose up, replaced two underworld judges, and took on the judge positions, holding enormous authority in the bureaucracy.
Their combat power was also terrifying. Against any one of the three judges they were in no way inferior.
Added to that were more than a dozen underworld marshals attacking, leaving the three judges under intense pressure.
The three judges stood at the front and bore most of the attacks, while Black Pot and Red-Haired Ghost countered the underworld officers who charged through.
Suddenly, long rivers sliced through the sky, winding through the Immortal Capital. They skirted the Celestial Streets and the Primordial Palace and surged this way.
On those rivers floated many wooden boats, each carrying long-limbed horse-faced underworld officers. From afar they lit their bronze lanterns; beams of light pierced the darkness as the rivers flowed in with the boats bearing the underworld officers.
These underworld officers were from areas near the Immortal Capital. Hearing of the disturbance, they rushed back from neighboring regions.
Seeing the dark flotilla approaching, everyone felt despair.
This was the underworld’s army; it could not be resisted!
“Has Top Scholar not come out yet?” Red-Haired Ghost shouted.
At that moment Chen Shi burst out from behind them.
Heartened at first, the crowd instantly frowned.
Chen Shi had found his mother’s soul; getting out of the encirclement alive was now the real problem.
Black Pot’s body swayed, black wind rising as he tried to sweep his allies up and send them back to the living world. But the wind barely stirred before stopping.
In the darkness, wave after wave of underworld deities pinned the wind in place; it could not manifest divine power.
Black Pot’s heart dropped.
Just then Chen Shi surged forward. The small temple behind his head flared, and he invoked a stone goddess statue, shouting loudly, “Protect me!”
It was a stone beauty roughly ten feet in head and ten feet in body. The moment she flew out, a strange ghost-and-god domain spread.
This stone beauty was Stone Ji Your Ladyship, and Chen Shi had poured everything into invoking her.
Stone Ji Your Ladyship knew the saying “train soldiers for a thousand days to use them for a single hour.” Now was the time to act. She unleashed a towering divine might!
At that time the Earth Judge’s white-bone long whip whipped and rolled over with a rattle, lashing toward them. Countless bones clambered along the whip; it was composed of skulls and skeletons.
When the whip lashed into Stone Ji Your Ladyship’s domain, innumerable bones shrieked and instantly crumbled to dust!
Stone Ji Your Ladyship’s body grew at a visible rate. The white-bone long whip’s force was tremendous and nearly struck her when Wang Fu suddenly reached up and grabbed it. The two judges exerted themselves; Wang Fu gritted his teeth and dragged the Earth Judge into Stone Ji Your Ladyship’s domain.
The white-bone long whip was massive, forged from countless corpses hammered and refined into a treasure. Normally the whip transformed into a troop of skeletons herding across the underworld’s wastelands, devouring other bones and wandering spirits, feeding its power to incredible levels.
Otherwise it could not contend with the Judges’ Brush.
Yet at this moment the treasure encountered a nemesis.
In a short moment, that item comparable to a judge’s brush lost all its power and fell into the darkness as dust.
The Earth Judge was shocked and enraged as his strength drained rapidly.
His Golden Body differed from others. Forming a Golden Body normally required an exceedingly long time, years of incense-offering support to condense extraordinary power. He had taken a shortcut, refining a Golden Body from white bones—becoming like a skeleton that drew power from other bones.
Now he felt his amassed power of thousands of years being absorbed by that statue!
Horrified, he tried to slay the statue but was blocked by Wang Fu. He tried to retreat but Wang Fu bound him and he could not break free.
“I will die, I will become Jian!”
He had just thought this when a magma whip swung, ensnared him, and dragged him out of Stone Ji Your Ladyship’s domain.
The Earth Judge fell behind the Fire Judge with the magma whip around him. He breathed a sigh of relief and shouted, “That big-headed woman will swallow my power!”
Chen Shi sprinted along the skybridge.
Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and Zhu Shun opened the way ahead. Stone Ji Your Ladyship was invoked before Chen Shi.
Red-Haired Ghost and Black Pot covered the rear as Chen Shi and his group charged along the skybridge.
Stone Ji Your Ladyship had absorbed nearly half the power from the white-bone long whip and the Earth Judge; her body shot up in size, now over five zhang tall, though her head still appeared a bit oversized.
Her ghost-and-god domain grew stronger: any contact with even a little bone would be dissolved. Even ghost gods felt the stone essence in their divine bones drain rapidly!
The Fire Judge’s Golden Body, composed of magma, also feared her domain and was forced to retreat step by step.
“Da—da—da—da—da!” Chen Shi cried, summoning the Heaven-Measuring Iron Ruler with a whoosh and lunging forward. With a shout the ruler instantaneously became an enormously thick iron column, hundreds of li long, hurtling straight for the Fire and Earth Judges.
The two judges lifted their hands together to halt the iron ruler.
Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and Zhu Shun roared and braced their hands on the other end, pushing with all their strength.
The Fire and Earth Judges could not hold and staggered backward.
Everyone shouted, faces contorted, and sprinted madly along the skybridge.
Chen Shi invoked Stone Ji Your Ladyship and commanded, “Your Ladyship, take them down!”
Stone Ji Your Ladyship rose and landed on the iron ruler, running forward along it to absorb the Fire and Earth Judges.
Suddenly, beams of light lit her, as many underworld officers simultaneously ignited their Heavenly-Aperture Lamps, bombarding her soul.
Stone Ji Your Ladyship screamed and fell.
Chen Shi hastily retracted the iron ruler, preventing her from tumbling into the darkness.
He rushed to Stone Ji Your Ladyship and saw her clench her teeth, shaken and immobilized by the Heavenly-Aperture Lamps’ strikes.
Chen Shi’s small temple lit up and he took Stone Ji Your Ladyship into the temple’s miniature shrine to recuperate.
Beams from many underworld officers continued to shine. Black Pot charged forward, demonic flames leaping around him, blocking most of the lights, but many still struck him and unsettled his soul.
Black Pot howled, pressing on against the light to escort everyone forward.
Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and Zhu Shun fought with all their might, beating the marshals and underworld officers off the bridge and forcing the Fire and Earth Judges to fall back.
Inside the second small temple behind Chen Shi’s head, his mother sat within the shrine. From the temple she could see outside: her son leading people into battle, fighting desperately. For the first time she felt an unprecedented calm.
He had found his son. Joy swelled within her.
At this instant, the pain that had entangled her seemed to vanish.
In its place came relief.
Even in such danger she felt an unprecedented loosening of tension.
Suddenly, Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and the others felt their pressure lighten and realized they had broken out of the skybridge.
The skybridge had been crafted by Yama to trap Chen Shi for capture: standing on it incurred attacks from all sides. Once off the bridge and onto the true Celestial Street, attacks could only come from the front and rear. No one could enter someone else’s Primordial Palace without the owner’s permission.
Seeing this, Du Yiran breathed easier, immediately driving back the underworld officers around him and sprinting toward the stone house.
As many underworld officers surged, divine powers hammered from all sides. Du Yiran ran into the house, slammed the door, and the stone house vanished.
Outside the skybridge, Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and Zhu Shun forced the marshals and the Fire and Earth Judges further back, then, taking Chen Shi and Black Pot, leaped into the air and sped away!
Red-Haired Ghost hesitated, then turned aside. He did not follow the others; instead he darted into the Celestial Street, leaping to shake off pursuing officers, and vanished among the ghostly crowd.
They broke out of the ring of ghost gods. Black Pot let out a long howl. Wind howled around them and swept them up.
As the wind passed, Black Pot and Chen Shi disappeared without a trace, leaving only Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, and Zhu Shun, the three great judges.
Black Pot could carry people across the barrier between yin and yang, but the judges’ Golden Bodies were too strong to pass through the worldly divide!
The Fire and Earth Judges led their forces in pursuit. The three judges had already retreated into the Celestial Street, shrank into three little ghosts, blended into the throng, and vanished into the bustling Immortal Capital.
“Wake the Huo Dog!” the Fire Judge said grimly. “Quick, awaken the Huo Dog!”
At this moment, some underworld officers had climbed onto the enormous creature encircling Chen Shi’s mother’s Primordial Palace and, trembling, dared to peel the talisman off the Huo Dog’s forehead.
A terrifying aura surged and flung that officer outward.
As the officer fell into the dark, a pair of enormous eyes slowly opened.
The monster finally awakened.
The Huo Dog saw the woman imprisoned in the Primordial Palace being rescued and flew into a rage. It rose to its feet, shaking off the underworld officers clinging to it.
“Aoooh—!”
It let out an earth-shaking roar. Hundreds of underworld officers, each on a boat, grabbed its chains and pulled with all their strength, but the Huo Dog dragged them along as it slid forward.
On the northern borderlands’ ice plain, a cold wind blew; Chen Shi and Black Pot tumbled and rolled out of the underworld.
Chen Shi leapt up and shouted, “Black Pot, hurry back to Xinxiang!”
Black Pot sped forward, barking, “Woof woof!”
“The Boat Girl?” Chen Shi said, “She went to rescue her father in the chaos!”
Man and dog raced across the swirling snowfield, leaving no trace.
Black Pot frowned slightly, uneasy in a way he could not pinpoint.
In the underworld, hundreds of underworld officers clutched the chains and leaped onto the vast Huo Dog’s back.
The Huo Dog raced through the underworld, pursuing Chen Shi into the living world with a roar.
In the Immortal Capital, Red-Haired Ghost arrived at the great prison where major offenders were detained. The guarding ghost gods bowed and said, “Lord Red!”
“I’ve come to interrogate a prisoner,” Red-Haired Ghost said as two yakshas led him in. He strolled to a cell containing an old horse-faced underworld officer and looked at the prisoner.
“How has the old thing been doing these days?” Red-Haired Ghost asked.
“Replying to Lord Red,” one yaksha said with a forced smile, “we whip him twenty times a day with the Divine Whip, beat him to death and then wake him, never letting him die.”
Another yaksha laughed, “Once we catch another female horse-face, we’ll hang her opposite him so the two can suffer together.”
“Good, good! You’ve done well.” Red-Haired Ghost clapped, then suddenly snapped one yaksha’s neck, and slammed the other yaksha’s head into the wall until it cracked open.
From inside the cage, the Boatman strained to lift his head and saw Red-Haired Ghost’s grin.
“Father, with the outside in such chaos, I’ll rescue you!”
Not long after, Red-Haired Ghost woke groggy to find himself bound tightly, kneeling on the Execution Platform. The lively ghostly crowd below craned their necks to watch the beheading.
Young Master Wei Yue sat on the execution seat, face bruised and dark.
“You traitor!” Wei Yue shouted. “The time is set—behead this beast!”
The Warrior swung the Ghost-Head Blade; light flashed and Red-Haired Ghost’s head rolled to the ground as the crowd cheered.
“What happened?” Red-Haired Ghost’s mind went blank with bewilderment.
Meanwhile in the living world, the northern ice plain’s wind was keen. A painted pleasure boat floated in the sky and vanished into the distance.
The Boatman asked, “You mean you accompanied Top Scholar to storm the prison and risked everything to rescue the master’s mother’s soul, and beside you were the Soul-Pursuit Judge, the Karmic Judge, and Knife-Mountain Judge?”
“Yes.” The Boat Girl’s eyes sparkled.
“Haha, doesn’t that mean we both did a great deed before the Righteous Official?” The Boatman could not hide his excitement. “We’ll have great merit before Blue Sky the Righteous Official and before the three judges. With Top Scholar and his mother as fugitives, won’t we be set?”
The Boat Girl chirped, “Father, we struck gold!”
Laughter of joy floated through the sky.