Ghost Artifact

The Suppressing-Death Art? So this Daoist was the junior disciple of the man who had used it to harm him!

Interesting. Very interesting. What were they doing hiding in the Primordial Yang Abbey? Why had they plotted against me when we had no quarrel? Could they be like Master Chengyang?

Those thoughts flashed through Tang Changsheng's mind, then he cast them aside.

Forget it. I won't have any more dealings with the Primordial Yang Abbey anyway.

If that box can still take me back, I'd much rather return to the General's Temple!

By then, darkness had fallen completely. Tang Changsheng tossed the corpse into a stand of wormwood half as tall as a man.

Wolves howled faintly in the distance. Out in this wilderness, he was sure they would have the corpse cleaned up for him within days.

Tang Changsheng walked on for a while, then circled back onto the mountain path. Only after entering a grove did he carefully take out the Bagua Mirror.

Moonlight shone on its surface, but nothing happened. Tang Changsheng lit his Heavenly Heart, and a divine radiance shone from his eyes onto the Bagua Mirror.

Faint ripples of light flickered across the Bagua Mirror, but it showed no sign of activating.

Tang Changsheng had expected as much...

He had a Yin Soldier in his possession, and a rather formidable one at that. Tang Changsheng wanted to refine it into a guardian. Using it as "fuel" would be far too wasteful...

As Tang Changsheng considered this, clusters of ghostly green will-o'-the-wisps rose in the distance.

Delighted, he hurried toward them.

Among the wild grass, beneath the ghost lights, a mass of gray-white mist danced through the air.

This world truly deserves to be called the Immortal Realm. It's rich in spiritual energy, but there are plenty of ghosts here too...

He flipped his hand and thrust the Bagua Mirror toward the mist.

A beam of light caught the gray-white mist. It scarcely had the strength to struggle before the vortex swallowed it.

Light swept across the Bagua Mirror, and the familiar vortex appeared before him. Tang Changsheng stepped through without hesitation.

The portal vanished. No one was nearby; only the wind whispered through the pines. No one would ever know that, just moments ago, a living man had disappeared on the spot.

But Tang Changsheng did not see what happened almost as soon as he vanished. As though something had been disturbed, clusters of mist drifted out beneath the moonlight.

They became indistinct white figures, all gathering around the place where he had disappeared...

By then, Tang Changsheng had returned to the General's Temple.

Breathing in the scent of the century-old Peach Heartwood in the Quiet Room, Tang Changsheng gradually grew calm.

The Sky-Net Canopy and Azure Jade Four Symbols Diagram protecting the meditation chamber at the Primordial Yang Abbey could be broken by magic, leaving a cultivator inside vulnerable to a secret attack.

But here in the General's Temple, while he cultivated inside this Quiet Room of century-old Peach Heartwood, harming him would not be so easy!

May the ancestors protect me!

Besides, he now had a Yin Soldier in his possession!

This was the Yin Soldier the black-robed Daoist had refined with his own lifeblood. The red stains on the Yin Soldier Command were blood.

That meant the black-robed Daoist had been nourishing this ghostly Yin Soldier with his own blood...

At the thought, Tang Changsheng gave a cold laugh!

This was the lowest form of ghost-raising. Although it could produce a fiercer Yin Soldier, it offered cultivators no benefit at all. Worse, it greatly drained their vital essence.

Only folk mages who had never received a true transmission, or members of deviant schools, would do such a thing!

The General's Temple naturally had methods for refining and sustaining Yin Soldiers, which were countless times better than this blood sacrifice!

A Yin Soldier refined this way

would not only be more obedient, but also more powerful, becoming a true guardian and assistant in cultivation... With centuries of painstaking work across several generations, it could even be refined into a ghostly deity, like the Guardian Divine General of the General's Temple!

But that was a matter for the distant future!

His plan to return to the Primordial Yang Abbey to cultivate had come to nothing, but the trip had not been entirely without reward!

At that thought, Tang Changsheng suddenly bared his teeth in pain.

He had dodged quickly, but the Yin Soldier had still wounded his back!

He took off his clothes and found a mirror. A livid mark ran across his back, horrifying to look at. It resembled a sword cut, yet the skin was unbroken; it also looked somewhat like a blow from a club...

Only Tang Changsheng knew that the bruised color meant the yin energy had injured the yang energy around the wound!

Seeing this, Tang Changsheng looked pleased instead.

A ghost that had yet to amount to much would not even dare approach an outlaw who had slaughtered countless people.

But judging by his wound, this Yin Soldier was at least at the level of a Grudge Ghost, and already very close to becoming a Vicious Ghost. Otherwise, it could not have wounded him with a mere brush!

That's right. A Grudge Ghost can only harm people through illusions, and even then, only those with weak fortune fall victim. To wound a person directly, a ghost must at least be a Vicious Ghost...

No. This Yin Soldier clearly hasn't been refined to the level of a Vicious Ghost. I know—it used a Ghost Artifact!

Tang Changsheng broke into a delighted smile!

A Ghost Artifact was a kind of magical implement, but one used only by Yin Soldiers. Such things were quite rare.

This Yin Soldier had not yet reached the level of a Vicious Ghost, yet it could wound a person directly. It must have a Ghost Artifact!

Tang Changsheng smiled at the thought. Now that the Yin Soldier was in his hands, the stronger it was, the better!

Fortunately, the General's Temple had medicinal wine... Tang Changsheng had used it before.

He hastily tended his wound, then Tang Changsheng quickly got busy. He began preparing everything he needed.

Refining a Yin Soldier was not something he could do in the temple's main hall, much less in the Quiet Room. The General's Temple had other empty rooms, but none had been cleaned in ages.

So Tang Changsheng simply carried the ritual altar out into the courtyard.

He lit a stick of specially prepared incense. Before long, its smoke gathered into a dense cloud before him instead of dispersing. Even the night wind could not stir it.

Tang Changsheng nodded, satisfied!

Then he touched the Yin Soldier Command. As he opened its apertures, a gust of cold wind flew from the nine apertures drawn on the human figure upon the command.

In the blink of an eye, it became a gray, human-shaped cloud of mist. As if sensing something, it rushed to the incense and inhaled deeply.

The smoke that had gathered without dispersing immediately became a flowing stream and poured into the gray figure, making its form a little more solid.