Chapter 31 - Setting Off
One wanted it, one wouldn't give.
Luo Hongyu clutched the red jade; that armored figure held out her hand; Gu Jing, holding her sword, watched both sides.
For a moment, they were actually at a stalemate.
Even that figure was slightly puzzled; she tilted her head, but wasn't annoyed, and withdrew her hand.
"You living people, for what reason are you here?"
Her voice, coming from beneath the helmet, sounded exceptionally muffled; however, one could still discern the clear beauty, neatness, and graceful ease of her vocal tone.
But before Luo Hongyu could answer, the armored woman glanced at Luo Hongyu, her phantom-blue pupils flashed, and then she nodded thoughtfully.
"So that's how it is. There aren't many people who can connect to the Netherworld territory; you all are truly unlucky."
"May I venture to ask, Your Excellency is..."
She glanced at Gu Jing who had asked and said faintly:
"My name is Rakshasa. I am the gatekeeper of this bronze sarcophagus, responsible for guarding against evil spirits and suppressing evil ghosts."
"Without my command, whether living people or undead spirits, none may pass this gate."
Bronze sarcophagus...
That is to say, this space where countless evil spirits and malevolent ghosts survive is essentially a giant coffin.
And those between heaven and earth capable of achieving such a feat have probably long since far surpassed the realm of terrestrial cultivators like them.
Rakshasa, chosen as the gatekeeper here... definitely wouldn't be weak either.
But fortunately, the other party didn't seem to have much hostility and could be communicated with; perhaps there was still a chance for things to turn around.
Luo Hongyu tightened her grip on the red jade in her hand.
It had still led them the right way.
"If you have any doubts, you may inform me of them all at once."
Rakshasa took in Luo Hongyu's small movements and simply found a stone by the river and sat down.
"This place... what exactly is it?"
Luo Hongyu also sheathed her Lu Lan Sword, stood to one side, and meticulously sized up Rakshasa, who was exuding an aura of blood qi.
"This place is called the Netherworld. It is a chaotic realm between the mortal world and the underworld; in ancient times, it was contained within the bronze coffin by the Lord of Yin."
"Evil ghosts from the mortal world that could not be ferried to salvation, and lingering resentments that could not be resolved, are all imprisoned here and suppressed for eternity."
After a pause, Rakshasa continued:
"Besides this, nowadays, Underworld officials also come here to select evil spirits and prepare them into ghost soldiers and ghost generals."
After Rakshasa's two sentences, Luo Hongyu and Gu Jing finally understood what kind of situation this place was.
A prison, and even more so, a Gu cultivation ground.
Luo Hongyu frowned and continued to speak:
"Just now, up above, we encountered an existence calling himself the Master of the Netherworld.”
"Merely a mortal who luckily eked out a miserable existence, presumptuously calling himself master—a leaping clown on the beam."
Rakshasa replied nonchalantly; clearly, that Master of the Netherworld had always been within her surveillance range.
"He gathers ghosts to cause disaster. Taking advantage of today's opportunity, it's just right to kill him."
As Rakshasa spoke, she stood up, took out the long saber from her back, and held it with both hands.
A phantom-blue soul banner was seen to extend out from the body of the saber; what appeared on that banner were, strikingly, one head after another.
"Arise, Netherworld! Headless and no return!"
Afterwards, Rakshasa swung her long saber, and the river surface surged once more.
A group of headless armored soldiers walked out from the river. Although they were also ghost creatures, they did not have that bizarre and yin-cold qi; instead, they inspired a degree of awe and respect.
A total of three hundred headless armored soldiers lined up neatly in front. They held long halberds, their armor imposing; the only terrifying thing was, their abdomens all had an opening shaped like a giant mouth.
"The skulls of the armored soldiers here were all severed by me; they were incorporated by me into the Headless Army."
Rakshasa walked to the front of the Headless Army's ranks while speaking to Luo Hongyu and Gu Jing.
Afterwards, she pointed her long saber towards the area above where they had fallen from.
"Headless Army, emerge from the river!"
The army behind her began to advance silently, moving upstream from the river, and disappeared from where they were.
"You two might as well come and see together."
"How I guard this group of fierce and wronged souls."
...
"Zhia——"
At this moment, above the bronze gate, was already a scene of slaughter.
Facing the Headless Army, those innumerable evil ghosts were like locusts encountering fire, hurriedly shrieking mournfully and retreating backwards.
After the long halberds in the hands of the Headless Army hooked a ghost soul, they would drag it into the giant mouths on their abdomens to be chewed and eaten; one could even hear the sound of flesh being torn and bones being crunched.
And around Rakshasa, in the center of the chaotic battlefield, it was even more of a dead silence.
Every time she swung her saber, it was like mowing grass; she could actually slash those evil ghosts, which originally had no physical bodies, making them bleed invisible blood.
The phantom-blue long saber in Rakshasa's hand was clearly not an ordinary magical art weapon, as it could directly inflict harm on non-corporeal ghost souls.
Under her harvesting, which was like flowing water, a vacuum zone was forcibly cleared out around her.
The remnant thoughts of the evil ghosts, hacked into pieces, splattered onto her armor, emitting a barely perceptible sizzling sound of corrosion.
This also made Luo Hongyu understand how those mottled marks on her armor had come to be.
This unprecedented and unparalleled slaughter of ghost killing ghost greatly shocked Luo Hongyu as well.
She tightly gripped the Lu Lan Sword in her hand. Perhaps feeling something in her heart, the shackles of her cultivation realm actually loosened slightly...
No.
Luo Hongyu forcefully suppressed this sign of a breakthrough.
Besides her father having very sternly instructed her that her Nascent Soul breakthrough must not occur outside the Immortal Ascension Assembly, she herself was also somewhat puzzled.
She, who cultivated the Purifying the Origin and Tempering the Heart sword art, why, upon seeing such a scene of slaughter, would she actually feel as if the clouds had been dispelled and the sun seen...
This was clearly not the same path as the one she cultivated...
The tragic slaughter did not last too long; the ground was soon covered with the scattered fragments of ghost souls.
The Headless Army was clearing the battlefield—using their own bodies. While Rakshasa walked straight in one direction, reached out into the void and pinched, and lifted out a stooped human figure.
Rakshasa slammed him heavily onto the ground. He seemed extremely sensitive to the ghostly qi on the long saber in Rakshasa's hand at this moment, unable to stop himself from screaming miserably when it came near.
This voice belonged to the Master of the Netherworld who had been chasing the two of them not long ago.
"Fei Yun, you deserve to die."
Rakshasa, ignoring this figure's miserable screams, placed the long saber straight across his neck.
"Fei Yun..."
Gu Jing, upon hearing this name, however, fell into deep thought.
"Senior Sister Gu, have you heard this name before?"
"A hundred years ago, there was indeed a long-famous Spirit Transformation wandering cultivator named Fei Yun whom I had also heard of, but he had been missing for a very long time..."
Gu Jing looked at the curled up, stooped, and short figure on the ground, completely unable to connect it with that genius cultivator from a hundred years ago who was full of vigor and vitality.
"I deserve to die? Haha, you ghost creature, there are others who deserve to die..."
Before he could finish speaking, a flash of bloody light suddenly appeared.
A head then appeared in Rakshasa's hand.
"Within the bronze coffin, evil ghosts devouring each other were originally for balance. But Fei Yun, however, managed to gather this band of evil ghosts, colluded with mortal realm methods, and ferried over living people for him to devour for cultivation."
"You two, presumably, also came here because of this."
Rakshasa tossed Fei Yun's corpse into the midst of the Headless Army. Afterwards, carrying her long saber, she walked towards Luo Hongyu's side.
She suddenly changed the subject, looked at the two of them, and said faintly:
"Do you two know how my Headless Army came to be?"
"...We do not know."
"The Headless Army were not originally undead spirits; they are the living people who have drifted into this Netherworld territory up to this day."
"I sever their heads, erase their mortal identities and names for them, and transform them into members of the Headless Army, without exception. Including that Fei Yun, he too will soon become a member of the Headless Army."
"The matter of Fei Yun is settled. Next, it's also time to send you two on your way.”