Chapter 550: Horrors of Myriad Ghosts Grotto

These ghosts then infected the realm stone, causing the entire world to become corrupted. Only after every living being in the world had perished did it become the vast secret realm they saw today, filled with ghosts and an overwhelming sea of ghostly energy.

There were no particularly valuable specialties inside, only some rare and rather useless resources, such as extremely yin stones, extremely yin flowers and herbs, materials, and ores.

Of course, that was only true for orthodox cultivators and confucian cultivators. To ghost cultivators, the place was practically a treasure trove.

Another advantage was that the ghostly energy filling the environment was extremely beneficial to confucian cultivation. It allowed confucian cultivators to advance rapidly through their cultivation stages.

For these reasons, the Murong Kingdom opened the secret realm to the public soon after exploring it. Since then, many confucian cultivators and ghost cultivators had enjoyed entering the realm to explore and practice cultivation. Over the past ten thousand years, it had indeed produced numerous experts in both the Confucian Dao and the Ghost Dao. Quite a few had successfully survived their heavenly tribulations and ascended, while others had become rogue immortals.

As the three talked, they continued flying. Even without using spatial movement techniques, they soon reached their destination.

They landed before a massive stone stele engraved with the three imposing words, Myriad Ghosts Grotto. After paying the entrance fee to the attendant responsible for managing the secret realm, purchasing a jade slip containing information about the place, and obtaining a transmission token that would allow them to teleport out of the secret realm once, they finally stepped into the enormous swirling vortex of blue black energy.

The moment they entered the vortex, Xiao Shou felt an intensely cold sensation trying to seep through his protective spiritual barrier and erode his spiritual energy.

His entire body shuddered. He was just about to circulate his spiritual energy to drive away the chilling sensation when he felt a strange and indescribably special power surge from his beloved disciple, who was holding his hand.

The power spread over the protective spiritual barrier surrounding Xiao Shou. Instantly, the icy sensation vanished like snow melting in a fire.

In the next moment, the blue black haze before his eyes dispersed, revealing a world shrouded in blue mist. Everything in his field of vision was hazy and indistinct.

The ground was bloodred, while dark blue black mountain ridges rose and fell in the distance. Strange plants grew sparsely across the landscape, their colors equally eerie: blue black, deep blue, and dark red.

There wasn’t a single warm color anywhere in sight. Everything seemed shrouded in darkness and gloom.

This was the Myriad Ghosts Grotto.

"Hiss!"

Just then, a wisp of blue smoke suddenly rose from Xiao Shou’s protective spiritual barrier with a sharp sizzling sound. A transparent shadow shot out from within the smoke and vanished into the surrounding blue mist.

Xiao Shou stared blankly for a moment, stunned by what he had just witnessed.

Seeing him freeze, Fu Young gently shook their joined hands to get his attention.

"Master, gather your spiritual energy into the meridians connected to your eyes and look again."

"Oh!"

Following his beloved disciple’s advice, Xiao Shou hurriedly gathered his spiritual energy and directed it into the nerves connected to his eyes.

The scene that appeared before him in the next instant made his entire body tremble. Forcing himself to maintain his composure, he asked in a slightly trembling voice, "Is this... the true appearance of the Myriad Ghosts Grotto?"

"Yes!" Fu Young replied with a brief answer.

Beyond the protective spiritual barriers surrounding them, countless ghostly shadows filled the area just three steps away. There were all kinds of fragmented souls drifting in the air. Some belonged to strange, incomplete creatures, while others were fragments of human souls with missing limbs and shattered skulls. There were also demonic beast souls with bizarre appearances and only a third of their original size, along with strange souls that could only crawl along the ground, their origins impossible to identify.

These countless fragments of various shapes and sizes had originally drifted aimlessly with the wind.

Now, having sensed the presence of living beings, they swarmed toward the three of them from every direction, lunging, clawing, and biting at them. However, they were repelled by the protective spiritual barriers.

Some of the larger fragments could turn into wisps of blue smoke and vanish into the distance after being knocked away. The weaker ones, however, were directly shattered by the force of the seemingly fragile barriers, disappearing without a trace.

Strangely enough, the vast majority of these countless ghostly shadows were weak. The larger ones were comparatively rare.

These mindless ghosts possessed only the instinct to seize the life force of living beings. They had no awareness of their own weakness or fear. Like moths flying into a flame, they continued to throw themselves at the three of them, only to be destroyed or knocked away as wisps of blue smoke before charging back again. They repeated this until they vanished completely.

Although the three of them had done nothing to attack these ghosts, they had already destroyed countless numbers of them simply by standing there. Yet Xiao Shou couldn’t help feeling a sense of pity.

"If dying means becoming such a pitiful existence, I’d rather have my soul scattered completely."

"Master, what nonsense are you talking about? You’re a cultivator who can live forever. Something like that will never happen to you."

And I won’t let it happen, either.

Fu Young’s resolve grew even stronger as he looked at the countless ghostly shadows surrounding them. He wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate every existence that harbored ill intentions toward his master.

Nearby, Tushan Shanhe watched the master and disciple flirting with each other despite their surroundings. The corner of his mouth twitched before he snorted coldly.

"What a nuisance. If only those bald monks were here. These things would be best left to them to deal with."