Ghostly Shadows in the Tomb

The third watch of the night.

A waning moon hung from the branches. The wilderness lay silent, save for the occasional cawing of black crows echoing through the forest.

"Why haven't they come yet?"

Zhu Zihua muttered irritably. He took out his ritual sword and laid it across his knees. Xu Yuan sat to his left and Nan Yun to his right. The three of them had already left the village and arrived before the woods known as Soul-Severing Forest.

Xu Yuan was far calmer. Though this was his first mission, he felt no frustration at the yin ghosts' prolonged failure to appear.

Nan Yun, meanwhile, seemed to be fiddling with something. A moment later, a strange fragrance suddenly wafted from her hands.

"This is incense medicine made from a little jade spirit root mixed with heart-clearing grass. It can calm the mind and brighten the eyes, and it can also offer some protection against the erosion of ghostly qi."

Nan Yun explained with a smile, then raised the small wooden basin in her hands for the other two to see.

"Hmph. All style and no substance. Utterly pointless."

Zhu Zihua sneered disdainfully and turned his head away. Hearing that, Nan Yun stuck out her tongue at Xu Yuan, who was still looking at her. Her girlish manner brought a smile to his face.

She's quite an interesting one.

Xu Yuan likewise withdrew his gaze and fixed it ahead. As time passed, strands of moonlight filtered through gaps in the leaves and fell into the clearing. At last, Soul-Severing Forest began to change.

Thick fog rose among the countless stone graves in the woods. Faintly, one could hear fingernails scraping against stone slabs, along with unwilling, anguished wails.

"I don't want to die! I want to live—I want to live!"

The wails grew louder and louder, gradually turning into roars. At that moment, Zhu Zihua abruptly rose to his feet, his ritual sword already out of its sheath.

"Hmph! Mere yin ghosts dare play tricks before this Daoist master? Give me your lives!"

With a thunderous shout, he formed hand seals in rapid succession. At his command, the Kwai Water Heavenly Yin Sword suddenly flew from his hand and shot forward like lightning, striking a massive tree that would have taken three men linking arms to encircle with a bang.

The next instant, accompanied by a miserable whimper, an old man in a burial shroud appeared pinned beneath the sword. He writhed his limbs in agony, seemingly trying to pull the ritual sword from his abdomen. But when Zhu Zihua jolted his spiritual power, he immediately scattered into ash and smoke.

"A ghost from a Class C mid-grade mission only has this much skill? This Daoist is deeply disappointed."

Swaying his head, he walked over to the tree where the old man in the burial shroud had been nailed. Though he spoke of disappointment, the smugness in his voice practically rushed at them.

"Was it really that easy?" Xu Yuan muttered in surprise. Then he swept his gaze across the clearing and found that the fog had not dispersed. On the contrary, it had grown even thicker, nearly enveloping all three of them. He hurriedly warned, "Fellow Daoists, be careful. There should be something else strange here."

"What else could there be? The ghost has already been slain by my ritual sword... Hm?"

The smugness vanished from Zhu Zihua's face. Just as he finished speaking, a ghostly claw suddenly reached out from his left.

Its owner was an old woman, likewise dressed in a burial shroud. Apart from the hand reaching for Zhu Zihua, both her legs and her other arm were bent at grotesque angles, as though she had suffered some form of violence while alive.

"You're courting death!"

Zhu Zihua flew into a rage. His ritual sword flashed through the air, beheading this yin ghost in an instant as well.

Yet when the other two saw Zhu Zihua display his might again, neither showed the slightest joy. For countless ghosts had already gathered densely around them.

These elderly ghosts all bore varying degrees of deformation, most of it in their lower limbs, as if they had been forcibly broken.

At that moment, Xu Yuan could not help recalling certain things. If a person were trapped in a living tomb, they would die after a hundred days. Driven by the instinct to survive, how could they possibly not try to escape?

But where could an old person run to? And once they were discovered, what kind of ending would await them?

The densely packed ghostly figures before them gave Xu Yuan and the other two their answer.

Hmph. This is reaping what they sowed.

With a cold laugh in his heart, Xu Yuan's blood and qi surged throughout his body. His hair ribbon drifted loose on its own, and with his long hair flying, he stepped forward to meet the vicious ghosts rushing at him.

Red and white energies still twined around his fist. With one punch, he blasted apart the ghost claw reaching toward him. Then he seized the other's head and twisted hard. A vicious ghost immediately scattered in soul and spirit.

On the other two sides, Nan Yun and Zhu Zihua were likewise slaughtering the vicious ghosts. Zhu Zihua in particular—every sweep of his ritual sword caused a ghost to dissipate.

However, after the three of them rampaged through the ghosts for a while, the vicious ghosts did not diminish in number. Instead, they only grew more numerous, sealing off the surroundings so tightly that not even wind could pass through.

Amitabha Daode Tianzun, did this village really have so many people die?

Cursing inwardly, Xu Yuan stared at the surrounding fog. Remembering that the mist had risen before the ghosts appeared, he immediately warned, "Ignore these yin ghosts! Destroy the graves where the fog is coming from!"

With that, Xu Yuan rammed forward with his powerful physique, forcing open a path and arriving before a stone grave.

He kicked the stone grave open. Inside lay the corpse of an elderly person, blackish-gray in color and apparently dead for many years. Its hands still clutched the stone slabs tightly, refusing to let go.

At that moment, white mist was rising from the skeleton, forming a short old woman before Xu Yuan.

The old woman spread her arms and lunged at Xu Yuan, but he did not even spare her a glance. He simply grabbed the skeleton's skull and crushed it in his hand.

In an instant, the old woman beside him vanished without a trace.

Nan Yun and Zhu Zihua saw this as well. The latter still stubbornly said, "I thought of it long ago. I merely wanted to see what you two were made of."

After saying that, the two of them also headed toward graves emitting white mist.

As the three of them destroyed the stone graves together, the fog around them gradually began to thin after several rounds. The endless ghostly figures from before had now diminished by more than half.

Knowing this method worked, the three hurried to quicken their pace. When Zhu Zihua used one slash to shatter the skeleton in another grave, the white mist finally dispersed completely, and the surroundings cleared at once.

"Finally solved."

Zhu Zihua spat on the ground. He had expended quite a bit this time. Though these yin ghosts were not particularly powerful, there were indeed enough of them, and his ritual sword consumed an especially large amount of spiritual power. If not for the pills he had prepared beforehand, he would not have been able to keep going.

"You two, go check again for anything we missed."

After ordering the two below, he saw that neither Xu Yuan nor Nan Yun paid any heed to his commands. His brows furrowed, and just as he was about to rebuke them, both their expressions abruptly changed. The next moment, an intense, icy chill enveloped him.

The last wisp of mist that had lingered beside him gathered together, taking the form of a robust old man in an official's robes. The thing gripped a broadsword in one hand and slashed straight for his neck.

At the critical moment, an ancient jade pendant he carried shattered in half with a bang. A layer of clear light formed a shield, barely blocking the strike, but the creature's five fingers followed through and still plunged into his waist, lifting him into the air.

"Heh."

Under the moonlight, the old man turned around, revealing an unblemished face and clear, lucid eyes.

When a Yin Ghost absorbed vast amounts of resentment and, by a stroke of fortune, swallowed a great deal of the essence of sun and moon, it would give rise to such a thing.

It was an Evil Baleful Intent.