Bao Ruijie held his blade as he walked step by step toward Mortal.
"Hungry Ghost Path! Manifest!"
With a furious shout, Hanyu swept his hand, and a massive Hungry Ghost Diagram gradually appeared behind him.
Seeing Mortal and Cousin both in danger, with Ran Shiqing still watching him like a hawk, Hanyu could no longer afford to worry about anything else.
Across the mountainside, countless Skeleton Hungry Ghosts slowly rose to their feet, then surged toward the edge of the diagram, trying to crawl out.
"Divine ability!"
Ran Shiqing, who had been about to approach, retreated several steps. His face was a complicated mix of wariness and envy.
Divine abilities stood above secret arts!
Secret arts were techniques created by cultivators after gaining some insight during their cultivation. They could expend vast amounts of True Essence to unleash tremendous power, but there was another kind of power beyond them: divine abilities.
They possessed all manner of wondrous, unfathomable powers and could even wield terrifying destructive force.
Without understanding the nature of a divine ability, no one was willing to act rashly.
What made Ran Shiqing especially envious was that most divine abilities were innate gifts bestowed upon a tiny number of cultivators at birth, gradually emerging after they embarked on the path of cultivation. Only a very few could develop one through acquired cultivation, and those were all peerless talents who had spent decades honing their abilities.
"Damn it."
Ran Shiqing gritted his teeth and spat the words out, his face twisted with jealousy.
Even Cousin, half-dead nearby, had completely forgotten his injuries. He stared at Hanyu in stunned disbelief.
"He only looked at the diagram once, and he learned it?"
He had assumed Hanyu had learned it by studying the visualization diagram in the tomb.
At that moment, the first hundred or so skeletons to crawl out swept toward the Zhu You Sect. Some swung their Bone Blades, while others clawed and snapped at them...
Bao Ruijie's face was grave as he steadily retreated, with no thought left for bothering Mortal.
"Get out of here! The Medicine Master's Hungry Ghost Path doesn't have eyes. It can't tell friend from foe!" Cousin shouted weakly at Mortal.
But Mortal seemed not to hear him. Instead, he gritted his teeth and limped over, struggling to haul Cousin to his feet.
"I wonder if I can manage with only one leg."
Mortal joked with a bitter smile. Afterward, he grabbed Cousin and sprang into the air. He laboriously kicked off three times with his one leg, then crashed heavily back down.
Luckily, they landed not far behind Hanyu.
The Valley Mouth rang with the sounds of fighting and endless screams.
The Zhu You Sect disciples stood back to back, yet they still couldn't withstand the Bone Horde's onslaught. Whenever a Bone Hungry Ghost dragged someone out of the circle, countless more skeletons pounced on him in an instant.
The Corpse King relied on his powerful physique to hold out, but that only drew even more Hungry Ghosts. One after another, they threw themselves at him until they finally tore off all four of his limbs...
In just a moment, every remaining disciple had been killed. The Bone Hungry Ghosts began searching for new targets, and soon fixed their gaze on Bao Ruijie and Ran Shiqing.
Their teeth clacked together as if they were saying something. Then the Hungry Ghosts turned around and charged as one.
Bao Ruijie's face had gone pale. He edged closer to Ran Shiqing, unable to help thinking he would be safer that way.
The sect disciples had died so horribly, their flesh mangled. Some had their arms stripped down to bone, others their legs. The worst had half the flesh peeled from their bodies.
As the Hungry Ghosts surged toward him like a tide, Ran Shiqing waved his hand and grasped a Three-Foot Long Blade. He swung it fiercely at the Bone Tide. A mighty aura surged and swept forth, instantly blasting most of the horde to pieces.
It worked! Ran Shiqing's brow relaxed, and Bao Ruijie's eyes lit up. He drew his blade to defend himself, but before he could enjoy the relief for long, another wave of Hungry Ghosts emerged.
"Why do only so few come out each time?"
Hanyu furrowed his brows. Behind him, the Hungry Ghost Path was clearly filled with endless skeletons across the mountainside. A mere hundred or so Hungry Ghosts could only hold them off, and in the time it took to speak, Ran Shiqing had already cleared out the third wave.
"Your Sea of Consciousness doesn't have enough spiritual power to unleash the full Hungry Ghost Path. A hundred or so is already your limit. Also, you're running out of strength," Little Glazed said urgently inside his mind.
As soon as she finished speaking, a deep exhaustion swept over him. Hanyu felt a sharp pain in his mind, and the Hungry Ghost Diagram behind him instantly disintegrated. The skeletons that had been charging forward froze in place, then vanished in the blink of an eye.
"Looks like your power isn't enough to unleash your divine ability."
Ran Shiqing smiled, his gaze icy.
Hanyu panicked, his thoughts racing as he spoke to Little Glazed in his mind.
"Think of something, quick! Is there any pill with mild side effects?"
"I'm thinking. Don't panic."
Hanyu was exasperated. How could he not panic when his life was on the line?
Hah~ Ptooey~
All of a sudden, the Glazed Bottle shook, then spat out a pill.
"At a time like this, Bottle, don't mess around!" Little Glazed scolded it, a little angry.
Hanyu, however, suddenly froze. Then his face lit up with wild joy!
"Bottle, you're the best!"
God-Exploding Pill: The user's Sea of Consciousness will erupt for fifteen minutes, unleashing an endless stream of spiritual power that must be released promptly. Otherwise, the Sea of Consciousness will explode, leaving the user a mindless walking corpse. Side effect: The Sea of Consciousness will be depleted for three days, leaving the user with the mind of a young child.
Three days? No problem!
Hanyu gritted his teeth, swiftly took the God-Exploding Pill from his mind, and hurriedly swallowed it.
"Don't let him recover! Go stop him!"
Seeing Hanyu swallow a pill, Ran Shiqing assumed it was meant to restore his strength and immediately ordered Bao Ruijie to attack.
Bao Ruijie hesitated, but didn't dare disobey. He took a step, then lunged forward.
As soon as Hanyu swallowed the pill, a scorching sensation erupted through his entire body. An unending torrent of energy churned in his mind.
"Hungry Ghost Path! Manifest again!"
Hanyu let out a roar, and the massive Hungry Ghost Diagram reappeared behind him. Bao Ruijie had barely leaped in front of him when the surging Bone Horde swept him away. He struggled to steady himself, horrified, then suddenly felt a sharp pain in his foot.
Without him realizing it, several skeletons had already gnawed the flesh off one of his legs.
"Ah!"
Bao Ruijie screamed and kicked out with his only remaining leg. He was sent flying backward, hit the ground, and scrambled back to Ran Shiqing on all fours.
This time, the Hungry Ghosts across the mountainside fought to claw their way out of the diagram. Endless waves of skeletons surged toward the two men.
Golden light flashed around Ran Shiqing's body. After True Essence forcefully shielded him from head to toe, Blade Qi burst forth. He slashed several times in succession, then realized in horror that this wave of Hungry Ghosts seemed endless.
Soon, the entire Valley Mouth was packed with Hungry Ghosts, layer upon layer of them. It was a terrifying sight.
In the blink of an eye, Ran Shiqing was swallowed by the white sea. Only flashes of light occasionally showed through the bones, along with Bao Ruijie's agonized screams.
"Is he really that terrifying?"
Mortal was horrified, and Cousin was no less shaken.
"I don't know where Yixian found such a freak."
Cousin shook his head over and over, dumbfounded.
"Oh no."
Mortal's expression suddenly changed. There were more and more Hungry Ghosts, so many that there was nowhere left to stand, and they were now closing in on the two of them.
A group of Hungry Ghosts had already set their sights on them.
"Hold on tight."
Mortal gritted his teeth, supporting Cousin as he leaped into the air again on one leg. He poured True Essence into his foot and kicked off against empty air, shooting several meters diagonally before kicking off again and crashing into the rocky cliff face.
The two clung tightly to a rocky outcropping before finally letting out a slow breath.
Looking down from above, they saw Hanyu standing alone in the center, surrounded on all sides by a sea of white.
Fifteen minutes later, the bones scattered away. A figure stood there, gasping, his flesh mangled. One half of his face could still just be recognized as Ran Shiqing's, while the flesh had been torn from the other half, leaving it horribly grotesque.
The hand that had held his blade was now nothing but bone, and Bao Ruijie had vanished entirely. Only a pile of bones flecked with scraps of flesh remained at his feet.
"Hungry Ghost Path!"
Hanyu waved his hand and shouted again. Ran Shiqing looked terrified and didn't dare linger any longer. In his panic, he summoned his long blade and fled on it in a streak of light...
Pian Shi Gang!
Ran Shiqing rolled onto the ground. He staggered to his feet and stumbled toward his farmhouse.
What he needed most now was to heal as quickly as possible. He had lost so much flesh that he could barely stay upright and might faint at any moment.
He struggled to open the gate of a small courtyard. The moment he stepped inside, his expression changed.
A dark figure stood silently in the courtyard, its face completely hidden beneath a Black Cloak.
"V-Venerable."
Ran Shiqing stammered out the address.
"You failed to get the job done?"
The shadow's voice was utterly cold, and Ran Shiqing's heart began pounding with terror.
"There was a troublesome young man with a tough body who also possessed the Hungry Ghost Path divine ability. This subordinate was careless for a moment..." Ran Shiqing hurried to explain.
"But Bao Ruijie is dead, and not a single person over there was left alive."
The shadow lowered its head in silence, then slowly raised it.
"No. There's still one survivor."
Despair filled Ran Shiqing's eyes as he kept backing away...
Before you continue