Chapter 191: The Peerless Advent of the Ghost God

In the Spirit Sprout Realm, Qin Haoxuan had killed the Twelfth-Leaf Yan Dong. Now, at the Fourth-Leaf, his physical strength had increased considerably, and with Xing’s help, although it looked much easier than before, the danger was far greater. The initial attacks from Yan Dong had been merciful, but this person had been aiming to kill from the very beginning.

Seeing the enemy immortal killed by their own, the soldiers who had been watching from the shadows ran out excitedly and knelt on the ground in adoration. “Thank you, High Immortal, for saving our lives! Thank you, High Immortal, for saving our lives!”

“Without the High Immortal, we would have all been dead. Thank you for your life-saving grace. When I return, I will surely erect a longevity monument for you.”

…

The soldiers were moved to tears, singing his praises. The heavily injured Su Wu also struggled to his feet and, supported by several of his personal guards, came before Qin Haoxuan and prostrated himself on the ground. “Thank you, High Immortal, for saving my life. Without you, I and my thousands of brothers would have certainly been finished!”

Qin Haoxuan was secretly relieved. If not for Xing’s help, to kill that man, he would have had to use the Formless Sword. If he had been forced to that point… and if there had been other rogue cultivators nearby, he would have been a dead man.

“The enemy immortal has been eliminated. All of you, continue to strengthen your guard to prevent another raid. If anything happens, come and find me,” Qin Haoxuan said, doing his best to put on the lofty air of an immortal. He then said to Su Wu, “By the way, send a few men to bring the corpse of this traitorous immortal to my tent.”

“Yes!” Su Wu quickly complied. He had originally wanted to hang the enemy immortal’s body on the camp gate as a display, to warn the enemy that they also had a powerful cultivator on their side and to reverse the recent trend of defeats. But Qin Haoxuan was a High Immortal, a being he could not afford to offend. Since he had given the order, he could only obey.

After giving his instructions, Qin Haoxuan pulled Xing, who had reverted to his human form, and returned to his own tent, leaving behind the sounds of gratitude and thanks. Now that they had caused such a commotion, the two of them certainly couldn’t go to the nearby battlefield to collect souls in front of so many soldiers. They could only return to the tent first and wait for things to calm down.

Before long, Su Wu personally delivered the corpse of the enemy immortal.

Qin Haoxuan took out a spirit stone and asked, “I asked you to find this kind of spirit stone. Have you found any?”

“Not yet. Please wait a little longer, High Immortal,” Su Wu replied hastily. “I have already sent out many soldiers who are familiar with the terrain to search.”

“Find them quickly,” Qin Haoxuan said. He was running low on spirit stones, and thinking of the future pursuit by Master Chi Lian, his desire for them grew even greater. Although he knew the hope of these mortals finding spirit stones was slim, it was better than no hope at all.

Qin Haoxuan dismissed Su Wu and sat cross-legged to recover his strength. The physical combat just now had consumed a great deal of his spiritual energy.

In the enemy camp, the main general’s tent was brightly lit. A general sitting in the main seat looked anxious. He spoke cautiously to a cultivator sitting to his side, “High Immortal Gumu, why has your esteemed junior brother not yet returned? Could something have happened?”

This cultivator, named Gumu, let out a cold snort. “My Junior Brother Gutu is a dignified High Immortal. What danger could there be in assassinating a mortal in a camp of commoners? Could it be that General Zhao Pu suspects a mortal can harm a High Immortal? Or do you doubt our abilities?”

“I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare!” General Zhao Pu repeatedly denied.

“There is certainly no problem. You need not worry so much,” Gumu said with a cold snort, full of confidence. “Su Wu is a dead man.”

Just then, a pigeon flew into the main tent. It was a message from the spy they had planted in Su Wu’s camp. Zhao Pu immediately took the message tube, read the contents, and his face instantly darkened.

Seeing his expression, a bad feeling rose in Gumu’s heart. “What is it?” he asked.

“High Immortal Gutu has failed, and he was killed by a High Immortal in the enemy camp,” Zhao Pu said with a bitter expression.

“What? How is that possible? My junior brother was an expert at the Fourteenth-Leaf of the Spirit Sprout Realm! In the territory of the Soaring Dragon Nation, there are not many rogue cultivators stronger than him! And since when did Su Wu’s camp have a cultivator? There wasn’t one before!”

Faced with this string of questions, Zhao Pu naturally had no answer and could only hand the letter to Gumu.

Gumu took the letter and glanced at it. A domineering spiritual energy erupted from his body in a fit of extreme rage, and the paper in his hand was instantly turned to dust. “Son of a bitch! To dare to kill my junior brother, I will make you pay the price!”

After his outburst, Gumu quickly calmed down and thought to himself, What realm is this cultivator at? Gutu was at the Fourteenth-Leaf and he was still killed. And he had a defensive talisman equivalent to a Twentieth-Leaf cultivator. To be killed even under those circumstances, what if this person is stronger than me? I am only at the Fifteenth-Leaf. It seems I must not be rash. I’ll find out his background first. I must hurry to the battlefield and capture more resentful souls. Once I have perfected the Advent of the Ghost God, I will have nothing to fear, no matter how powerful you are.

While a gloomy cloud hung over Zhao Pu’s camp, Qin Haoxuan had finished his meditation. He began to go through the belongings of the enemy cultivator. An ordinary cultivator would always have some valuables on them. However, this Gutu had very little: six low-grade spirit stones and a few minor materials. All together, the total value was less than a hundred stones. Qin Haoxuan carefully examined these items and saw no markings from any other sect. He concluded that he was a rogue cultivator. He sighed to himself. It seemed that the life of these unaffiliated cultivators was very difficult.

After searching the body, Xing said to Qin Haoxuan, “The people outside have dispersed. We should hurry to the battlefield. In another two hours, it will be dawn.” If it was daylight, they certainly wouldn’t be able to collect any souls. Qin Haoxuan readily agreed, and the two of them went to the battlefield together.

They were both cultivators, so it was an easy matter to avoid the mortal soldiers. They soon arrived at the battlefield and found many wandering, lonely ghosts. These were the soldiers who had died in the past few days, their bodies filled with heavy resentment. Each one was a fierce ghost capable of bringing disaster upon the mortal world.

Following Xing’s instructions, Qin Haoxuan took out the Soul-Guiding Talisman and infused it with a trace of his spiritual energy. With the infusion, the talisman became like a bottomless pit with a huge suction force, madly pulling in the nearby wandering souls. It took a full two incense sticks’ worth of time for him to seal all of them into the talisman. He was very pleased, but Xing said thoughtfully, “There seem to be a lot of souls here, but I did a rough count of the bodies on the ground. The number of souls here is much less than the actual number of dead.”

“Could they have gone somewhere else?”

Xing calculated on his fingers, counting as he did so with a very serious expression. After a long while, he said, “Theoretically, these souls would not easily leave the place where they died unjustly. And even if they did, only a small number would leave. It’s impossible for so many to be missing. I just calculated it again. There are a full fifty percent fewer souls than there should be. Something is not right.”

Qin Haoxuan remembered that when he had first arrived yesterday, there had been a bone-chilling yin wind, a result of the resentful souls. But tonight, that feeling was much weaker. From this, he could tell that the number of souls had indeed decreased significantly.

“Fifty percent of the souls are missing. Could someone else be capturing them?” Qin Haoxuan and Xing exchanged a look. If not for the raid tonight, they might not have been suspicious. But now, they grew more and more certain that the enemy cultivator was also capturing the souls from the battlefield. Otherwise, even if they were poor rogue cultivators, they wouldn’t have any interest in the belongings of these mortals. Could it be that they were here for the souls?

“Could it be that the cultivators in the enemy camp are also capturing the souls from the battlefield?” Qin Haoxuan asked. “Or perhaps they are participating in this mortal war for the very purpose of capturing these souls?”

Xing unhesitatingly refuted his words. “Impossible. Even for the weakest cultivator, collecting a few souls is a simple matter. They could just go to any town and start a plague, and they’d have thousands.”

Xing’s words made a lot of sense. In the eyes of a cultivator, mortals were as weak as ants. There was no need to go to such trouble to collect a few souls. Then why were these rogue cultivators helping the mortals? For them, time was especially important. Why waste their precious cultivation time meddling in mortal disputes? It was very strange. Inexplicably strange.

Qin Haoxuan and Xing looked at each other, both seeing the doubt in the other’s eyes. It seemed that even Xing couldn’t figure it out. Finally, he said, “It’s quite strange. I can’t guess the reason either.”

As Qin Haoxuan was using the Soul-Guiding Talisman to capture the souls, a dark shadow also slipped onto the battlefield. This shadow was the cultivator Gumu. He hid in the darkness, holding his breath as he stared at Qin Haoxuan. He saw him and Xing and immediately determined that this fellow was the one who had killed his junior brother. But when he saw the strength Qin Haoxuan displayed as he collected the souls, his face was filled with disbelief. This fellow was only at the Fourth-Leaf of the Spirit Sprout Realm. How could a cultivator this weak possibly have killed his Fourteenth-Leaf junior brother? He suspected that Qin Haoxuan must have used a sneak attack. It couldn’t possibly be his own combat strength.

But for this fellow to be able to kill his junior brother, he was definitely not simple. He quietly crept closer to Qin Haoxuan, preparing to ambush him. Although he was certain of victory, he still acted with great caution. One could never be too careful.

If Qin Haoxuan had been alone, he would never have been discovered. But Xing, who was beside him, quickly sensed his presence. He said quietly, “Be careful. Someone’s here. Fifteenth-Leaf.”

Qin Haoxuan put the Soul-Guiding Talisman in his robes and said nonchalantly, “It must be the enemy. Let’s not alert him. Be careful.”