Chapter 365: Ghasts
The rain in autumn is inherently cold. When it lands on your face, your chest, and your arms, it fills you with an indescribable coldness that’s somehow very difficult to get rid of. It makes you shiver, and freezes you down to your bones.
The song imparted that same feeling. Xu Qing felt himself shivering uncontrollably, and suddenly found himself thinking back to that time in the forbidden region when he and Sergeant Thunder had encountered that blood mist and the women’s boots. [1]
Back then he was a rogue cultivator in the Qi Condensation level, yet the cold he felt now was the same as back then. It felt like it would freeze his soul and ice over his body. Even with his extraordinary cultivation base, the sensation felt the same.
The soft, feminine voice seemed to grow more substantive, and the song became like a funeral dirge tugging at the soul. Of the more than 1,000 cultivators clinging to the walls, a few dozen went limp and started falling down. Within moments, the darkness below swallowed them up.
Those who remained were shaken, and couldn’t stop the horror and amazement from showing on their faces. And that was because the voice seemed to be profoundly tremulous. Every word sung seemed to contain infinite trembling, as though the singer was full of fear and foreboding. Almost as if the song were being sung to a dead person.
As the song echoed about in the massive, pit-like tunnel, not even blocking one's ears could prevent one from hearing it. It filled the listener’s souls, becoming pure mutagen that flourished in their hearts. In fact, the mutagen levels in the tunnel were soaring, and at the same time, the singing faded, until it was little more than a murmured hum.
But then, numerous cultivators gasped when another voice started singing.
“In past lives you’re forlorn, I’m always reborn, who severs lovesickness and who endlessly mourns…?”
It was obviously a different singer. This voice was not as disturbing, and did not contain that shrill coldness. And yet, somehow, this singer seemed even more eerie. Shaken, everyone looked in Xu Qing’s general direction. And that was because the singing was coming from there.
Xu Qing turned to look at the Captain. The Captain looked back at him with wide eyes.
Xu Qing could see that, right behind the Captain... floated a figure in a white garment.
That was the person who was singing.
The Captain’s eyes narrowed, and his expression turned vicious. A face appeared within his pupils, and a cold aura suddenly erupted from within him. Opening his mouth wide to bare his teeth, he turned and viciously took a bite out of the figure behind him. The sound of teeth snapping against teeth bore evidence of how viciously he had bitten down.
However, the singing continued.
This time, though, it came from behind a different cultivator. That cultivator shivered as he experienced a sudden sensation of deadly crisis. Before he could snap the teleportation jade slip in his hand... his eyes went blank and he started singing. Then his expression turned vicious.
All of a sudden, mutagen exploded within him, so violently that he instantly mutated! Fleshy tumors rose up on his back. His arms grew many times thicker than before. Bone spikes stabbed out of his skin and through his clothing, ripping it. His legs also grew thicker, until his thighs exploded and eight blood-soaked tentacles writhed out. The biggest change, however, was to his head. His head... turned into a gigantic blue eyeball.
The eye blinked, and the cultivator vanished. He reappeared an instant later in front of a cultivator from a small sect. That cultivator was an extraordinary individual, and immediately performed an incantation gesture, causing flames to spring up around him. It didn’t do any good. One of the tentacles snaked through the flames, and burrowed into his mouth.
The cultivator whimpered chokingly as he was lifted up, his neck swelling rapidly until it exploded. The tentacle emerged from the exploded section, whipping back and forth, spraying gore everywhere. The sight caused numerous surrounding disciples to gasp.
Next, the mutated cultivator blurred into motion, heading toward another person at blinding speed.
A moment later, more shrill screaming echoed out.
A few breaths of time passed during which the mutated cultivator moved from victim to victim. Then he appeared right in front of Xu Qing.
The mutated cultivator threw his arms out to grab Xu Qing, and at the same time, a gaping maw appeared on his belly.
Meanwhile, the selfish nature of humanity was on display. It wouldn’t even require all 1,000 of the cultivators present to deal with the mutated cultivator. If even seven or eight of them joined forces, he wouldn’t be fast enough to escape them. But no one did that. Some people took advantage of the chaos to drop further down into the tunnel. Some of them, a few hundred, took out their jade slips and snapped them. Obviously they didn’t want to continue.
Everything was pure chaos.
Xu Qing wasn’t paying any attention to that, though. As the vicious, mutated cultivator closed in, his eyes flashed with cold light. Instead of falling back, he accelerated, heading right toward the mutated cultivator. Clenching his hand into a fist, he unleashed the power of three heavenly palaces and his golden crow. The fist landed, and the mutated cultivator shrieked in agony as he was thrown backward.
Before he could move very far, a cold aura erupted behind him, and the Captain silently appeared. Grabbing the mutated cultivator, the Captain took a huge bite out of his blue eyeball. Another agonized shriek erupted from the mouth on the mutated cultivator’s abdomen.
That was when Xu Qing arrived with another fist strike. With a boom, the mutated cultivator exploded into pieces that fell down into the depths of the pit.
There weren’t many cultivators left in this area, only a few dozen. The others had either teleported away or gone deeper down into the tunnel.
The Captain spat off to the side, as if he’d eaten something nasty. “Okay, little Ah Qing. Let’s split up and make the best of our time.”
Xu Qing nodded, and the two of them started moving downward.
Before long, Xu Qing spotted some of the disciples who had been the first to leave the area above. They were engaged in fierce fighting. Some fought the same white-garbed figure who had appeared above, and others fought mutated cultivators. Everyone who had come to this event came prepared, so it was no surprise to Xu Qing that in the majority of cases, the human cultivators were coming out victorious. However, there were still some disciples who ended up dead before they could teleport to safety. The fight to reach the second phase was obviously going to be a very dangerous one.
Xu Qing flew down, avoiding the fighting. The further down he got, the colder it became, and the stifling sensation of pressure grew stronger. Soon, he was panting for breath, and his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it.
Even his vision was starting to dim a bit.
However, after a bit of time passed, he acclimated. Looking around, he saw that there were openings in the walls leading to passageways that went in different directions. It seemed like some sort of labyrinth. The odor of rotten flesh was not growing any fainter. Instead, it was growing stronger.
So far, he hadn’t spotted a single one of the pillar fragments that were required to move onto the second phase. Given how many people had gone on ahead, it made sense that they would have taken any they spotted on the way.
After mulling the matter over, he looked around and spotted an area where the soil protruded from the wall to create a ledge. Moving over, he stood on it and looked up.
He could hear the sound of fighting, and occasionally some blood would fall down. Meanwhile, the area below seemed just as cold as before, and the strange singing was still present.
The Captain was nowhere to be seen, but that was fine. It made more sense to split up and look for pillar fragments separately.
I’m not going to take any side paths. I’m just going to keep going deeper and see what’s there.
Taking a look further down, he jumped and started moving again. As he got deeper, it got darker and darker. The sense of claustrophobia grew more intense. Eventually, Xu Qing stopped in place, then backed up a bit.
Right below him was an area where smaller tunnels branched out. And standing in one of the openings was an old man in a black robe. He didn’t emanate any aura whatsoever, as if he were part of the surrounding darkness. Because of that, he would be easy to miss. His hands rested at his side, and if you looked closely, he had black fingernails so long and sharp they were like claws. His back was to Xu Qing, making it impossible to see his face.
Xu Qing could see the old man trembling, almost as if he were carefully listening to the singing coming from deeper in the tunnel.
Of course, this was a ghast hollow, so Xu Qing was going to remain on guard no matter what he ran into. What attracted Xu Qing’s attention was that, just past the eerie old man, there were three pillar fragments stuck in the soil.
Xu Qing thought the matter over. It seemed completely impossible that nobody had encountered this already. Yet the pillar fragments were still right there. That meant that the disciples who had seen them were either dead, hadn’t tried to take them, or had tried and failed. After more consideration, Xu Qing inspected the area to make sure it wasn’t an ambush, then sent a message to his shadow via divine will. The shadow surreptitiously stretched out, passed the old man, and wrapped around one of the fragments.
Right then, the old man suddenly reached out and put his hand on the fragment, moving so fast that the soil vibrated. Then he looked expressionlessly over his shoulder and right into Xu Qing’s eyes. He looked like a zombie. His eye sockets were empty, and glowed with red light. And his lips curved into a smile, revealing a host of sharp teeth. Without any warning, he burst into motion, heading right toward Xu Qing. His hands reached out, and he seemed to pierce through space, causing a shrieking whistle as he clawed toward Xu Qing.
Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed as a foul wind brushed against him ahead of the incoming old zombie.
As the old zombie’s right hand closed in, Xu Qing suddenly flipped backward, his right foot flying up, backed by all the power of his fleshly body and cultivation base. It smashed right into the zombie’s chin!
CRACK!
The zombie’s head snapped back at an unnatural angle, and he tumbled backward about thirty meters.
At the same time, Xu Qing’s shadow grabbed all three pillar fragments and then raced back toward Xu Qing.
The old zombie’s head twisted back into place. His eye sockets glowed bright red, and he pulsed with a perverse energy as well as explosive mutagen. Then he howled like an animal as he raced back in Xu Qing’s direction, his face a mask of ferocity. As he closed in, he lunged toward Xu Qing’s neck, his mouth opened wide.
1. The incident with the Singing was in chapter 16. ☜