The Bizarre Courtyard
"According to the Bright Lamp Spirit Kindling Art, Night Wandering came after Shell Leaving. It was roughly equivalent to level three in a spellcasting class, and was also the threshold for becoming an inner disciple..."
Xuanwei Monastery had a strict hierarchy. The privileges and treatment of outer and inner disciples were worlds apart, and the gap between inner disciples and true disciples was just as vast.
The night passed without incident.
Early in the morning, Lin Xu hurried through breakfast, then took Liu Jiayao to the village chief's house. The militiamen assigned to patrol were already prepared.
Xuanwei Monastery's disciples naturally wouldn't be sent alone on a village patrol. The villagers served as both guides and soldiers—or, to put it more bluntly, cannon fodder.
He had already checked the villagers' attributes. They differed little from those of the menial worker Zhang San, except that their constitution and strength were a little higher, reaching 10-11 points, while their intelligence and spirit were generally below 6.
After a quick glance, Lin Xu led the five-man militia squad toward the assignment location.
Peach Tree Village was already east of Xuanwei Monastery, but the patrol area lay even farther east, in the wilderness beyond the village.
A few hundred meters outside the village, a thin mist blanketed the land. Only the radiance of the Source Fire around Lin Xu dispelled the surrounding chill, leaving a patch of light.
His Spirit Eye swept through the mist, revealing twisted black shadows roaming indistinctly within it. Whispers seemed to echo on the wind.
Beyond the village, the dangers of the wilderness were plainly many times greater.
According to the forum, the monsters of the Spirit Realm were territorial too. The stronger the being, the more territory it occupied.
Xuanwei Monastery was the greatest power in the area. Though many monsters and beasts lurked within its territory, it was a rare pure land compared to the rest of the primeval Spirit Realm.
A rustling of disturbed, rotting leaves came from deep in the mist. An evil creature resembling a jackal of dry bones, its eyes flickering with ghostly fire, suddenly sprang out.
The skeletal jackal opened a bloody maw split to its ears and lunged straight at the villager at the rear of the group.
Swish!
Several dim shadows flashed past. The gaunt jackal let out a wail and fell to the ground. It struggled twice, then went still.
Yin soldiers!
After leaving the village, Lin Xu had summoned the yin soldier corporal and all the yin soldiers he had subdued. Five yin soldiers clad in battered armor guarded the front of the group in a fan formation.
The ghosts were exceedingly fast. The moment the group came under attack, they intercepted and killed the enemy.
Lin Xu stood in the middle of the group, the Bright Light Lamp in his hand giving off a faint candlelight. He glanced at the dead jackal, then looked around.
Something seemed a little off...
The mist had stopped moving, and the noisy whispers had vanished. A deathly stillness gripped their surroundings.
Only the faint crunch of rotting leaves underfoot sent ripples through the silence.
Lin Xu's pupils contracted sharply, and he quietly stopped walking.
The villagers and yin soldiers around him stopped in turn, looking around warily.
His Spirit Eye pierced the mist. Forty or fifty meters straight ahead, a dilapidated courtyard stood in the fog. A string of pitch-black bells hung beneath its eaves, swaying without wind.
The bells rocked gently, producing a low metallic scraping sound that carried across the dozens of meters between them.
Lin Xu's breath caught slightly, and he fixed his spiritual sense on the courtyard. Its doorframe was crooked, its door half collapsed, and the interior was as black as ink. Yet not a wisp of putrid air escaped it—a heart-stopping abnormality.
He slowly raised his hand, signaling the group to retreat slowly.
Seemingly unaware that anything was amiss, the courtyard stood silently in the mist, as though one with the deathly stillness.
Only after they had retreated a hundred meters and the bizarre courtyard was no longer visible did Lin Xu slowly ease his taut nerves.
Excessive curiosity was the greatest taboo when exploring the Spirit Realm. This bizarre courtyard was hidden in the mist, yet it stood squarely on the patrol's only route. Had none of the disciples who patrolled before noticed it?
Lin Xu had no intention of investigating, much less taking the risk. He changed routes, circling around toward the assignment area.
But two minutes later, he stared grimly ahead.
Dozens of meters away, the dilapidated courtyard stood silently in the dense fog. Beyond its battered wooden door was a darkness with no visible bottom.
"Damn it, it's set its sights on us!" Lin Xu drew a deep breath. The candle flame in the Bright Light Lamp in his hand trembled slightly.
He didn't dare go any farther. He had cultivated the Bright Lamp Spirit Kindling Art to grandmaster level, and with the cultivation art's boost, he was himself a master of illusions of the highest order. Yet his mind had been bewitched without him noticing a thing. No one could say what lay inside that bizarre courtyard.
Lin Xu closed his eyes and focused. The wick of the Bright Light Lamp in his hand flared explosively, and its flame suddenly blazed bright. It turned into a beam of light that descended into the depths of his sea of consciousness. The already brilliant sun became a blazing one, illuminating his spiritual platform completely.
His spiritual platform was clear and bright; nothing could hide from sight.
A subtle, alien force had nowhere to hide in his clear sea of consciousness. It wound around his soul body like a strand of hair, quietly drawing on his soul power to grow stronger.
"When did this happen?" Lin Xu was shocked. His thoughts went into overdrive, and the scorching flames instantly burned that thread of alien force into nothingness.
"Aah!"
A scream rang out abruptly and vanished in an instant. Pure soul power surged into his sea of consciousness, and the boundary between spiritual light and darkness quietly spread outward a short distance.
When he opened his eyes again, the mist ahead was still roiling, but the courtyard had vanished without a trace.
Lin Xu's heart was still racing, and cold sweat had silently soaked his back. "Follow me!"
The group quickly withdrew. Not daring to linger for even a moment, Lin Xu led them through the bizarre area.
Luckily, I noticed it in time. Otherwise, I might not even have known when my soul had been hollowed out...
He silently counted himself lucky. That scream just now had been no hallucination. If he hadn't broken through the bewitchment in time, he might have entered that bizarre courtyard today.
After that encounter, Lin Xu became even more cautious. He was still weak, and the slightest carelessness in the face of such bizarre beings could doom him beyond redemption.
"Wooo..."
A whimper rose, like a young child sobbing, drifting intermittently through the fog and making their hair stand on end.
Lin Xu paused and swept his gaze around. It fell on a burial ground dozens of meters away, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
The Spirit Realm was a world formed from the consciousness and emotions of intelligent life. Fantasies and fears of death were among its most common manifestations.
This burial ground, for example, was probably an image formed in the Spirit Realm from many people's perception of the fear of death. Such images were spread throughout the Spirit Realm, making them one of the types of terrain adventurers were most likely to encounter.
The burial ground did not cover much ground, only a little over a hundred square meters. Its grave mounds leaned every which way, and its broken tombstones were covered in slick green moss. A dark red liquid like blood seeped from some of the cracks.
A putrid stench filled the air, mingling with the dense fog in a deathly stillness.
Lin Xu ordered the yin soldiers forward slowly. They spread out in a fan formation, their rust-spotted weapons pointed toward the depths of the burial ground.
"Wooo..."
Seemingly sensing the presence of intruders, the whimpering abruptly turned into a piercing shriek. Ghostly shapes darted out of the graves, becoming shadows wreathed in black Qi.
Name: Vengeful Soul · Azure Race: Ghost Level: 3 Strength: 0 Agility: 11 Constitution: 0 Spirit: 13 Intelligence: 3 Health: 14/14 Skills: Spirit Bewilderment · White (beginner), Grudge Curse · White (beginner) Evaluation: Weak but numerous; adept at group harassment and curses