The Daoist of the Southern River took out a talisman. With a flick of his fingers, he set it alight. It sank into the ground and vanished without a trace.
About fifteen minutes later, three figures arrived together.
Pan Long had met two of them on a wooden raft on the Heaven-Reaching River: Ghost Nod Gu Qingfeng and the Weeping Scholar Yan Zhongqing. He did not know the third, but the man was so gaunt he looked like a skeleton draped in human skin. Pan Long could guess who he was.
One of Paijiao's four chief masters, Yang Tong, known as the Ninefold Abyss.
All four were renowned experts. Even Yan Zhongqing, the youngest, had been famous for more than a century. As for the oldest, the Daoist of the Southern River, Pan Long would not even have known what era the senior expert called Puppet Show came from if Paijiao members had not mentioned it earlier.
Yet the most mysterious of the four was not the Daoist of the Southern River, but Yang Tong.
Yang Tong's origins were extraordinary. He was said to be a descendant of the Sky Hero Dynasty. While traveling the Martial World, he had been murdered and died unjustly. But his spirit refused to disperse. It took possession of his corpse and brought him back as an uncanny being, half human and half ghost.
That alone would have been nothing remarkable. The world was vast and full of wonders; Mountain Spirits, River Demons, demons, and ghosts were hardly rare. The strange part was that becoming half human and half ghost had awakened Yang Tong's ancient Sky Hero Dynasty bloodline, sending his strength soaring.
But how, exactly, had his strength soared? Had he devoured others and evolved, or was it something else? No one knew.
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