Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 427
Chapter 427: Thousand Ghost Shadows
The battle continued on the walls of Joymount City.
There were heaven-shaking roars, the odor of sweat and blood, and flashes of water and fire.
Flying back to the city wall, Tang Jie casually grabbed a Faceless Serpent that was shooting toward Shen Ningming and crushed it. He shouted, “What’s the situation?”
“It’s you?” Shen Ningming was surprised when he saw Tang Jie. “Why did you come back?”
“Why wouldn’t I come back?” Tang Jie countered. “I said that I was only leaving for a bit to take a piss.”
“……”
“……”
“……”
Everyone was speechless.
He really had gone to take a piss!
“Why are we wasting time talking? Kill these beasts!” a Spirit Master shouted. He chopped a palm down, killing several Faceless Serpents.
But a moment later, a Faceless Serpent that had grown larger from eating many people broke into several snakes, thus replenishing the losses.
There was just no end to these damned things.
This single fiend was holding down all the cultivators and soldiers.
Meanwhile, the turtle, the crab, the school of Shuttlefish, and the other countless fiends were surging at the walls.
The loss of Joymount City was imminent, and everyone began to despair.
At this moment, an invisible existence began to approach the battlefield.
It did not immediately enter the battle, instead finding a human corpse.
It dragged the corpse into a nearby hut, and then it plunged its claws into the corpse.
The flesh began to drop from the corpse, and at the same time, flesh began to grow from the black bones of the Heptademon Ghost Guard. Countless nerves emerged, and blood began to flow. Even organs began to form.
The flesh moved up to the ghost guard’s face, gradually forming a young and handsome face. It appeared rather similar to Mei Huaping’s face in life.
Finally, hair sprouted from the skull, and a handsome man was born.
The Flesh Attire!
This was the first spell Tang Jie had added to the Heptademon Ghost Guard when he was refining it.
The Nine Executions Immortal Formation had only solved the problem of the Heptademon Ghost Guard’s refinement. The Flesh Attire resolved the problems that might crop up when the Heptademon Ghost Guard was in battle.
The Flesh Attire was the best solution that Tang Jie had been able to find. It could not only let the ghost guard take a different form, it added another defensive layer. It was essentially a defensive spell art, all of the flesh acting like a suit of armor.
But in order to better conceal the ghost guard, Tang Jie had decided to sacrifice some defensive power for authenticity. He had even had the ghost guard grow useless organs so that someone wouldn’t see an empty cavity if the ghost guard were to be wounded.
At the same time, so that observation spell arts wouldn’t be able to see through the Flesh Attire, Tang Jie had strengthened the spell art so that Divine Wills couldn’t tell if it was real or fake unless they observed from a close distance. Of course, this increased the side effects of the Flesh Attire, greatly affecting the ghost guard’s speed and casting ability when it was in the Flesh Attire—a decrease of about 30%. But for Tang Jie, it was all worth it.
Even if it was 30% weaker, a Celestial Heart ghost guard was still at Celestial Heart. At worst, it could be considering a Celestial Heart wandering cultivator.
After using the Flesh Attire, the ghost guard put on the clothes of the deceased.
And then it charged out of the hut.
On the wall, the sea fiends were starting a massacre.
A tiger shark fiercely swam through the air as if it was the ocean, its sharp teeth like two rows of giant sickles, coldly gleaming in the sunlight. A soldier ended up slamming into the side of its mouth and was torn into two.
This savagery made everyone’s hearts turn cold.
At this moment, a person suddenly appeared and rushed at the tiger shark. A hand grabbed the tiger shark’s head, the fingers penetrating its skull like it was made of tofu.
The tiger shark madly struggled, trying to bite the arm of its attacker, but a moment later, a powerful energy exploded in its brain, and then the tiger shark’s vision went dark, and it knew nothing.
A moment later, the tiger shark exploded into little tiny bits. The Heptademon Ghost Guard coldly drew back its hand, and then its right hand reached out behind it, grabbing a black spike that had been shot at it. It threw out the black spike, which made a whistling sound as it pierced through a large stone, as well as through the sea urchin hiding behind the stone.
A school of Shuttlefish flew over, apparently attracted by the smell of blood.
Looking at the school of fish, the ghost guard shook its head and thrust out a palm.
A tongue of flame spat out from the center of the palm.
The Flame of Refinement!
Most of the Heptademon Ghost Guard’s abilities were based on what the creator gave it, but there was one ability that it would always have: the Flame of Refinement. In the refinement process, the Heptademon Ghost Guard would automatically absorb the refining flames and develop an ability to control fire, thus forming the Heptademon Ghost Guard’s only guaranteed ability. One could create conditions where it would not have this ability, but there would be nothing to replace it.
But not all Flames of Refinement were the same.
The flame Tang Jie had used for his Heptademon Ghost Guard was the Southern Divine Fire, with some of Lan Yu’s Jail Demon Flame added later on. Thus, The Flame of Refinement was of an extremely high level and also inflicted immense pain. It made enemies lose the ability to resist, and when used against the Shuttlefish, it was positively lethal.
Blue flames filled the sky, engulfing the Shuttlefish and instantly causing them to scream in misery.
Swaths of Shuttlefish dropped from the sky like dumplings. These fish that had been so savage and arrogant were now nothing more than roast fish, filling the air with their fragrance.
Against this Flame of Refinement that had the Southern Divine Fire as its foundation, these fiend fish couldn’t even last a second.
Yun Danqi and Shen Ningming saw all this, and they were very curious as to where this cultivator had come from. It was probably someone who was passing by, saw Joymount Island in trouble, and chose to lend a hand.
But the momentum of the battle was unstoppable, so what could one or two cultivators do?
Everyone mentally sighed.
After destroying the school of fiend fish, the ghost guard began to advance along the wall.
A fiend shrimp that didn’t know what was good for it rushed up, and the ghost guard extended an arm and snapped the shrimp’s neck, all while still moving forward.
It continued forward, exterminating all the sea fiends in its path. The immense gap in strength meant that most sea fiends didn’t need a second attack. One strike was enough to take their lives.
Besides the school of Shuttlefish, which had required the use of a spell, these sea fiends did not require any spell arts to eliminate.
It walked the battlefield of blood and fire like it was strolling through a garden.
This arrogant attitude soon drew the attention of the great fiends.
A deepsea giant crab waved its claws at the ghost guard. This fiend had a tough shell covered in barbs. Even when it was just moving through an area, it could take the lives of countless people.
And as a fiend, the giant crab didn’t only fight based on instinct.
As it rushed at the ghost guard, its two claws began to stretch, launching at the ghost guard’s waist as if they were spring-powered.
The two claws seemed about to pinch the ghost guard into pieces when the ghost guard abruptly flickered out of existence, dodging the crab’s claw. It then flew up to the giant crab and thrust a claw at the crab’s shell.
The Ghostshadow Traceless Step!
Guards were meant to protect.
How could one protect without speed?
Thus, when Tang Jie was making the Heptademon Ghost Guard, besides giving it the Flesh Attire to disguise it, he prioritized speed. The Ghostshadow Traceless Step was a powerful foot technique that Tang Jie had picked from the Divine Firmament Sword Classic just for the Heptademon Ghost Guard. This foot technique emphasized light and nimble movement. Its speed was on par with the Violet Lightning Lunge, and it was even better at evasion. Its flaw was that it couldn’t be used with most defensive spell arts, as a classic example of lightweight equipment not making for good defense.
The ghost guard relied on its tough demon bones for defense, and the Flesh Attire was a rare protective spell art that could be used with the Ghostshadow Traceless Step. Thus, Tang Jie had chosen it.
The giant crab was an upper-grade Mind Opening fiend and had superb reaction speed. As the ghost guard approached, the crab pushed with its hindlegs, defying the rule that crabs had to move sideways by moving backward. All the barbs on its body erupted outward, turning it into a porcupine. It then raised its other six legs, thrusting them at the ghost guard like sharp spears.
Given how strong the ghost guard was, it could naturally charge through, but it did not want to damage the Flesh Attire by doing this.
It quickly turned around, avoiding the crab leg strikes, and then it shot a black juice at the crab.
This black juice didn’t seem to do anything to the crab at first, but the shell quickly began to rot away, and the area of decay began to expand. As a large chunk of the crab’s shell rotted away, it hissed in pain.
It flailed its claws around to try and kill the ghost guard, but with the Ghostshadow Traceless Step, the ghost guard avoided everything. Meanwhile, the black liquid continued to eat away at the giant crab’s body until it was nothing more than a pool of black water.
Bone-eating Corpse Poison.
Ghosts were Yin creatures, infused with the energy of decay and endowed with a natural disposition for poisons.
The Bone-eating Corpse Poison was a poison art that was noted in the Ghost Classic to be ideal for ghosts to have. Its corroding powers were very formidable, but it required time to accumulate this poison. As the ghost guard had only just been born, it had only this single drop, which it had just used.
Even so, this sight was enough to leave Yun Danqi and his companions dumbfounded.
The giant crab had been a great fiend of the ocean, and while it was only at the upper grade of Mind Opening, its strength was truly impressive. Its tough and barbed shell was extremely difficult to deal with, and even Yun Danqi working with his fellow disciples was unable to break through it. But this stranger had killed the crab in only two exchanges. All of them sighed in wonder, and though they internally trembled at the viciousness of this attack, they also couldn’t help but see a little hope.
At this moment, Shen Ningming suddenly shouted, “Watch out!”
A massive turtle came out of nowhere to ram at the ghost guard.
The ghost guard didn’t turn around, but it instantly blinked away, leaving behind a trail of afterimages.
The fierce collision sent dust and debris flying from the wall.
In the cloud of dust, a person descended from the wall and landed on the body of that turtle.
“Don’t be rash!” Yun Danqi shouted.
The walls were the strongest barrier between the humans and sea fiends. It was precisely because of the walls that the weak but more numerous sea fiends couldn’t easily get through. Even when they used the tide, they couldn’t all get onto the walls.
Now that this person had descended from the walls, he would have to face hundreds of fiends, which was nothing short of suicide.
As that ghost guard charged down, countless spell arts surged toward it. These spell arts individually didn’t seem impressive, but when concentrated, they were so powerful that even a Celestial Heart True Person would not dare to take the blow directly.
The ghost guard spun in the air, leaving behind many afterimages as it charged at the turtle.
The turtle was the most annoying of all the fiends. Its iron head was constantly ramming at the walls, dealing immense damage. If it weren’t for an Earth cultivator using up all their spiritual energy to repair the walls, Joymount City would have been destroyed a hundred times by now. But for this reason, all of that cultivator’s strength was being used on the wall.
Agilely dodging and swiftly charging, the ghost guard reached maximum speed. It pushed through the torrent of spell arts and landed on the turtle’s back. It thrust a hand at the turtle’s back, a light shining on the edge of the palm.
Ghost Slice!
This was a wind blade slicing spell that could make the hand a sharp edge. But its power was limited, and its only advantage was that it used very little spiritual energy.
This was the worst and lowest-level spell art the ghost guard knew, and its power was even weaker than that of a spell used by a middle-tier Spirit Platform cultivator. The sole advantage it had was that it applied the spell to the person’s hand, making it useful at any tier.
But as this was all, there were far too many replacements for it.
There was a massive boom, but the old turtle didn’t move an inch.
Turtle fiends were famous for their formidable defenses. While their speed might not even match that of a Spirit Sensing fiend, their defenses were on the Celestial Heart level, perhaps even stronger.
Like that giant crab, the turtle was also at upper-grade Mind Opening, and it was more intelligent, as it had truly opened its mind. In the face of the ghost guard’s attack, it actually laughed and said, “Pointless!”
The large turtle turned its head around and bit at the ghost guard on its back.
While its body wasn’t very mobile, its neck could lengthen and shorten as it wished, so there was no such thing as a blind spot in its defense. If anyone thought that it couldn’t do anything once they got onto its back, they would be gravely mistaken.
As that turtle’s head bit at the ghost guard like a snake, the ghost guard suddenly cocked its head to the side and shifted over. This sudden movement made it so that the turtle head just brushed past its body and slammed into its own shell, leaving it rather dizzy.
At this moment, the ghost guard once more thrust its left hand at the turtle’s back.
But this time was different. Its left hand appeared ethereal, flickering in and out.
A moment later, its left hand collided with the shell, but then it passed through as if there was nothing there, plunging into the turtle’s back. The turtle suddenly raised its long neck and let out an earth-shaking cry.
The Nether Ghost Claw!
Ghosts were ethereal creatures, and they used their powers to create bodies for themselves. The body was just a shell while the soul was the actual thing, so they had a natural ability to pass through objects.
The Nether Ghost Claw was actually an application of a ghost’s natural talent, going from solid to ethereal, converting the corporeal body they had condensed into a virtual body that could pass through all physical defenses. It was the natural counter to such things.
There was no doubt that this was targeted at Godhead Armor. Tang Jie had prepared the Grotto Metal Mantra and the Jade Shattering Finger for Godhead Palace, and the Nether Ghost Claw was the same. It was just that this turtle was unfortunate enough to taste the ghost’s claw before Tang Jie’s war against Godhead Palace had begun.
Once the claw had reached through the shell, it unleashed the Flame of Refinement, burning up the organs from the inside!
“Release me!” the turtle pleaded.
The ghost guard gave the fiend an emotionless look.
The ghost guard was intelligent but cold, carrying out its duty without any empathy.
Tang Jie had ordered it to kill all the sea fiends, and so, unless Tang Jie changed his order, it would show no mercy. All of its intelligence was devoted to completing the mission!
The searing flames burned the turtle from the inside out. No matter how the turtle howled or how tenacious its lifeforce was, it slowly reached its breaking point.
The smell of roast turtle drifted over the battlefield and shook the hearts of all the participants in this battle.
Who was this person?
Killing the crab and turtle with only a few moves?
These were great fiends inferior only to the Faceless Serpent in power!
While Yun Danqi and the others were sighing in shock and disbelief, Tang Jie slightly frowned.
He lightly coughed.
The cough reached the ghost guard’s ears, and it sensed its master’s emotions.
Tang Jie was growing impatient!
With each passing minute, another person, or even many more, would die.
The battle needed to be ended as quickly as possible!
Upon sensing Tang Jie’s will, the ghost guard raised its head.
Two red lights flashed within its eyes.
And then it charged into the fiends on the coast.
The flames of spell arts continued to rain down, and it faced these spell arts and fiends head-on!
Its body blurred as it ran, once more producing afterimages.
But this time, the afterimages didn’t disappear!
Whoosh!
As the ghost guard ran, the afterimages solidified and also began to charge at the fiends. As they swiped their claws at these fiends, a rain of blood instantly engulfed the shoreline.
The humans realized to their glee that the shore was instantly full of these illusions. There were several dozen ghost guards jumping around and crazily attacking the fiends.
The attacks of these illusions were all real, each time causing fiends to moan and blood to splatter. The only difference between them and the real body was that they would break apart and disperse when they were attacked.
But the ghost guard would swiftly create more illusions.
The Thousand Ghost Shadows!
This was a special ability that Tang Jie had added to the ghost guard after being inspired by Qi Shaoming’s Passing Shadow Phantom Clone Slash. For this purpose, Tang Jie had asked Qi Shaoming about this skill more than once. If it weren’t for the Violet Temple Radiance and Tang Jie’s oath that he wouldn’t cultivate it himself, Qi Shaoming would have never taught Tang Jie his strongest technique. 6444
But he could have never imagined that Tang Jie would teach it to his ghost guard, and that the ghost guard would demonstrate a stronger grasp of it!
Ghosts were originally ethereal beings, concentrated resentment made real, and so they were innately skilled in going between real and unreal.
The Nether Ghost Claw followed this principle, as did the Thousand Ghost Shadows, though the Thousand Ghost Shadows had higher requirements, as it also required the Ghostshadow Traceless Step. But when it was used, its effect was several times better than the Passing Shadow Phantom Clone Slash. Not only did it break Qi Shaoming’s limit of nine illusions, creating as many as thirty-six, they could also last for longer. But this also meant that they used more energy. This move was the ghost guard’s strongest card.
Moreover, during the Thousand Ghost Shadows, all the illusions could not use any spell arts except the Ghost Slice.
The Ghost Slice had been meant to be paired with the Thousand Ghost Shadows from the very beginning.
At this moment, the 36 illusions howled out, their 72 hands shining with a metallic luster and slicing through the fiends like they were made of butter. A massacre commenced, blood spurting into the air.
This cruel and horrifying slaughter didn’t just leave the humans shocked. Even the Faceless Serpents were dumbfounded.
Even though they were essentially unkillable, they felt as if their deaths were imminent.
They suddenly understood that they would die if they stayed around.
No matter how powerful the temptation on this island was, it wasn’t worth their lives.
At that moment, all the Faceless Serpents flew into the air and merged together. This time, it was now only a hundred-some meters long.
“It’s running! Don’t let it escape! Horizon Lotus Blossom Hand!” Yun Danqi shouted.
That giant lotus flower appeared in the sky again, spinning toward the Faceless Serpent and grinding away thirty-some meters of its body. The Faceless Serpent howled in pain. Its mouth quickly moved, shifting all the way to the tail. In this way, it had no need to turn its body around. With its tail now its head, it flew toward the ocean.
With this fiend’s unkillable properties, it was truly difficult to actually slay it. Everyone could only watch it run.
Even so, everyone still cheered, “We won!”
“We won!” The cheers resounded across the island, raising everyone’s morale.
The battle was still ongoing, but the rising morale restored some of their exhausted strength, and the strength of the counterattack rose.
On the shore, the ghost guard’s illusions continued with their slaughter, but as time passed and its spiritual energy ran out, the number of illusions began to dwindle. But this no longer had an effect on the balance of the battle.
People began to laugh and smile. Yun Danqi, Shen Ningming, and the others began to weep tears of happiness.
Tang Jie remained cool and composed.
He looked at that Faceless Serpent that could freely switch around its tail and head as it disappeared into the ocean and commented, “I say, if it can do that, doesn’t that mean its mouth and butthole are the same?”
