Altar

018 Altar

When Old Zhao tried to interrogate the barbarian scouts, they somehow used a secret technique. Once they confirmed that even their leader had been defeated and captured, they all committed suicide.

Moreover, the bodies of those who killed themselves rapidly dispersed, turning into a cloud of black vapor that swept toward the door. It passed through the cracks and pounced onto the thugs outside.

Those people quickly devoured the black vapor, then turned completely blackened and began desperately ramming the gate.

After witnessing this brief change, Ming Shu and Old Zhao no longer hesitated. They charged deeper into the gambling den, found the entrance to the underground passage, and sealed the doors and windows along the way, piling up obstacles in the middle of the route.

They did their best to slow down the completely blackened thugs.

The scouts who had been killed outright underwent no changes, but those who had committed suicide all turned into black smoke.

This made Ming Shu secretly resolve that the next time he encountered barbarian scouts, he absolutely could not hold back from the start.

Killing them all was what mattered most.

After surviving the initial crisis, Ming Shu first withdrew the Demon Spirit's power back into the Stone Pagoda.

I have to conserve it.

The main gate outside should already have been broken through. Before they chased them inside, they had to descend into the forbidden area underground and see what hidden dangers were present—dangers that had required several experts to guard the entrance.

At first, the tunnel was lit by torches and oil lamps. As they gradually went deeper, only eerie green, icy glimmers remained in the dim surroundings. They came from gemstones, Treasure Orbs, and Spirit Stones, which emitted a faint glow.

In the cramped underground space, they found a stone chamber. An ancient-looking altar had been arranged inside, and clusters of faint Ghost Spirits were gestating there.

They could not even be called Ghost Spirits yet. They were merely Soul Spirits that had been seized from people after their deaths.

Every one of them looked extremely weak.

Some had been badly wounded in the earlier battle, while others had only recently been captured. In the short term, none of these Ghost Spirits could form any effective combat strength.

Ming Shu and Old Zhao had neither the knowledge nor the ability to deal with this. They did not know how to shut down or seal the altar, but simply standing by and watching was no solution either.

The sounds coming from above were drawing closer and closer. Ming Shu also did not dare destroy the arrangements directly. What if an even worse disaster occurred?

While he hesitated, he tried drawing the altar onto the Life Book, adding the surrounding arrangements as well.

Old Zhao went outside the stone chamber's entrance to set up some defenses in preparation for the battle ahead.

Ming Shu soon finished copying the altar. Although the drawing was not very realistic, he discovered that, with the Demon Spirit's power reinforcing it, his soul had become slightly stronger.

His memory, as well as his ability to copy scenes from the outside world into the Life Book, had also improved.

At the very least, compared with when he had never practiced sketching before and had tried to draw this, his progress was enormous.

After Ming Shu finished drawing the position of the final Spirit Stone around the altar, the Life Book finally reacted.

He did not know whether this was a record left behind by one of his past lives or an extraordinary ability inherent to the Life Book.

This altar was used for Ghost Raising. It had been invented by the predecessors of the Dao Sect. Some powerful seniors had lost their bodies in battle, but their Primordial Spirits were strong enough to wander back to the sect.

For their sake, the sect had spared no expense in developing this soul-nurturing formation. It had eventually been solidified and simplified into an altar and a ritual.

As long as some Spirit Stones and Spirit Orbs were consumed—and they had to possess Yin attributes—their Soul Bodies could be gently nourished.

This achieved an alternative Path to Longevity. The altar before them had been modified yet again, lowering the cost and allowing it to cultivate some low-level Ghost Spirits.

Within it, these Ghost Spirits devoured one another, gradually nurturing Ghost Spirits that advanced to the second or third level.

It took many years to nurture a fourth-level Ghost Spirit, and that was already their limit.

Under normal circumstances, mortals found it very difficult to see these Ghost Spirits. That made it convenient to control them and have them perform covert deeds.

After the Dao Sect moved north, it developed Ghost-Driving spells as well. With the aid of rituals, they could command these Ghost Spirits to work.

After reading the explanation, Ming Shu felt a headache coming on. Destroying the altar directly would only release the Ghost Spirits within. Once they lost the cultivators who had driven them, the Ghost Spirits would attack any living creature indiscriminately.

These were Ghost Spirits cultivated through secret techniques, making them fiercer and more combative than ordinary Ghost Spirits.

Ming Shu was not afraid of them, but he was worried they would affect the battle to come.

He did not want to waste his strength on this first.

Instead, the dozen or so thugs outside who had eaten the black vapor and undergone mutations needed to be dealt with first.

The thugs had also drawn in even more ordinary thugs behind them.

This could only be considered hard physical labor.

For tonight's sudden, prematurely launched operation, Ming Shu and Old Zhao had not received any further details of the plan.

The people who had come to notify them to evacuate earlier had not met with them either. They had merely shot a small note over from far away, leaving behind little useful information.

Ming Shu had no choice. After confirming that the altar would not cause trouble in the short term, he decided to guard the entrance for now and wait for a turn in the situation.

On the other side, Chong Li and Ren Yuan had already dealt with the secret chamber beneath the brothel. They had found an altar there as well, only that one was larger and contained even more Ghost Spirits.

Perhaps the brothel possessed heavier Yin energy. Moreover, more living beings could be thrown in each day to feed them.

It was not only the Soul Spirits of dead humans that could be put inside. Those of other creatures could be used as well.

Only human Soul Spirits were worth cultivating and most in need of cultivation. The spirits of other creatures could serve only as nourishment.

Over the past dozen years, no one knew how many lives they had devoured beneath this county town.

The county magistrate led people in handling the aftermath outside and arrested a large number of individuals. Then the spellcasters from the Sky-Toppling Observatory entered and sealed the altar.

For now, that was all they could do.

Chong Li led the Demon Hunters onward to the next marked location where an altar might exist.

It was the gambling den where Ming Shu and the others were.

By the time Chong Li and Ren Yuan arrived, the gambling den's main gate had already been completely smashed through.

They charged inside and soon found the entrance to the underground passage deep within the gambling den. That was where they encountered the thugs. One after another, they knocked them unconscious, left them for the people behind to bind, and hauled them away.

Because the passage was relatively narrow, Ren Yuan's combat power could not truly be brought to bear. Chong Li had to lead the other Demon Hunters deeper inside.

Ren Yuan remained behind to guard the entrance above.

As they gradually went deeper, Chong Li sensed Ming Shu, who was relying on the Demon Spirit to fight.

She finally understood why so many thugs had gathered here.

It was because Ming Shu was hiding inside.

The others also intensified their assault, striving to break through as quickly as possible.