It was Qu Zan's first visit to the Evil-Subduing Institute.
No colorful auspicious prayer flags hung from the walls here. Instead, black yak-hide prayer banners hung in uniform rows, their surfaces painted with twisted red esoteric script.
Four waist-high Beast-Faced Sculptures stood at the four corners. The lion, tiger, vulture, and wolf glared outward, their black stone eye sockets filled with red clay, symbolizing an enduring watch against sinister forces from all directions.
Qu Zan felt that the atmosphere here was darker than in the other courts, especially around the middle-aged monk opposite him, who carried a heavy scent of blood.
"Gyatso, this is Elder Jiamo of the Evil-Subduing Institute. Your request for handling this incident needs his approval!" Nyepa said.
Hearing this, Qu Zan invoked the Buddha's name, pressed his palms together, and bowed:
"May you have good fortune and all go as you wish, Elder!"
Whoosh!
A gust of cold wind swept past, seemingly laden with eeriness and terror.
As the wind swept over Qu Zan, a layer of cold sweat immediately broke out across his back.
The darkness behind Elder Jiamo grew deeper, as thick as ink.
"Gyatso, go and choose whichever ritual implement suits you," Nyepa said quietly.
Qu Zan walked forward as instructed.
An enormous Vengeful Ghost stepped out of the dense darkness behind Elder Jiamo.
The Vengeful Ghost had a twisted, furious buffalo face, and its body was a gigantic skeletal dried corpse, with blood-red flesh still clinging to its bones.
Fifty human faces were piled in overlapping layers around his neck. Every face writhed and wailed, its blood-red eyes bulging, the whites webbed with blood vessels...
A complete human skin, its hair still attached, draped his upper body, while a striped tiger pelt wrapped his waist.
Dense ghostly energy and shadows poured from