Legend of the Great Sage

Chapter 1521: The Next Layer

As such, the large, blue ghost scooped Li Qingshan out from the oil pot, setting off towards the depths of hell.

As soon as he emerged from the oil pot, he entered a mountain of blades. Thousands of blades were clustered together, shimmering coldly.

Seeing this, Li Qingshan smiled. “A fine place!” Then he let out a deep sigh. It reminded him of the Frenzy Flower Blade of Path’s End.

“Are you afraid now?” The large, blue ghost smiled viciously and shoved Li Qingshan onto the mountain of blades. Afterwards, he widened his eyes. All he saw was Li Qingshan strolling around the top of the mountain leisurely with his hands behind his back. He bore no resemblance to a wretched fiend that had been sent to hell for punishment, instead resembling a travelling tourist. The blades did absolutely nothing to him.

The blue ghost rushed back again to report this, which left adjudicator Lu even more furious. He slammed the desk. “Piece of trash!” He grabbed a tablet and threw it at the blue ghost’s head. “Keep going! There’s no need to report back. If he’s not suffering, just head down further.”

The blue ghost picked up the tablet and returned to the Minor Hell of Blade Mountains. He felt extremely frustrated as well, but how could he resent a mighty adjudicator? He picked up Li Qingshan and set off immediately, saying viciously, “Kid, do you really think you can avoid punishment just because you’ve done some good deeds?”

Li Qingshan smiled. “Just as I had suspected. I didn’t expect hell to have some fairness!”

“Fairness?” The blue ghost smiled viciously. “I’ll let you know that this is the most unfair place in the world!”

Li Qingshan glanced at him and saw the mark left behind by the tablet on his face. “Looks like you were unlucky too!”

The blue ghost flew into a rage. “Shut up!”

Afterwards, Li Qingshan strolled through the Hell of Bronze Axes and the Hell of Sword Forests. He was invulnerable to the bronze axes, and the sword forests were harmless to him.

The Hell of Hunger made him feel full. The Hell of Thirst made him salivate.

In the Minor Hell of Black Sand, there were only gentle breezes. In the Minor Hell of Excrement, all he saw was clear, flowing water.

The wasps left him alone, and the snakes refused to disturb him. He did not fear disembowelment and did not worry about having crows feast on his organs.

In the beginning, the blue ghost’s expression became more and more twisted, but towards the end, he gradually became solemn, demonstrating a hint of respect.

He had spent all these years in his role in hell and had witnessed countless vicious spirits and fiends. When they were in utter pain, there had even been a fair handful that openly cursed the adjudicators, Hell Guards, or even the kings of hell and Kṣitigarbha, the bodhisattva of hell. He had never seen such an unfazed prisoner before. It was like he was not making his way towards the depths of hell but entering paradise. From beginning to end, he did not see any resentment or despair.

Having entered such a deep hell without facing any punishment, he had clearly accumulated tremendous good karma.

“Who are you exactly?”

Li Qingshan replied like he was showing off, “Is it important?”

“Don’t get too cocky! Even if you have tremendous good karma, do you really think you’re without any sins?”

Li Qingshan sighed. “My sins are so plentiful that they cannot be listed. Even ten thousand deaths are not enough to redeem me!”

Under his will, the space-devouring beast had devoured countless worlds, leaving countless people homeless and rendering countless species extinct.

As for the World of the Five Continents, he allowed everyone to practise martial arts and cultivate, but that had instead brought forth several centuries of turmoil. Countless martial arts practitioners and cultivators sprang forth, competing against one another throughout the world. They definitely did not just bring legendary stories with them.

The blue ghost was taken aback, studying him closely. He felt like he could not read him. If he was a demonic cultivator of heinous deeds, how had he accumulated so much good karma?

“If that really is true, then you’re done for. If you keep going, as long as you have just a hint of sin, you won’t be able to escape punishment. By then, the deeper your sins are, the greater the pain will be!”

Before he knew it, there was no delight left in his voice, looking forward to his suffering. Instead, he felt rather in awe.

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“I have no grievances with you, so why would I want that? I just find it to be a pity. Your good karma far outweighs your bad karma. You’re different from those damned demonic cultivators and vicious fiends. You just had to cough up some money, and you’d be fine. Why did you have to do this?”

“Who said there’s no fairness here? Isn’t there fairness in your heart?” Li Qingshan smiled. “Perhaps I might spare your life in the future, seeing how that’s how you feel!”

“You’ll spare my life!?”

The blue ghost laughed aloud. With his circumstances, was he still thinking about escaping in hell? But under Li Qingshan’s gaze, he gradually stopped laughing. Instead, he found it rather frightening.

Li Qingshan urged him. “Cut the crap. Hurry up and lead the way!”

He soon arrived in the sixth layer of hell, in the Minor Hell of Gnawing Ants.

Li Qingshan furrowed his eyebrows. He began feeling some pain. The pain was not very deep, but it was numbing, itching, and irritating. It made it difficult to sit still.

For some reason, he recalled his time in Crouching Ox village. It was not some wonderful childhood, but being trapped in the body of a child, constantly abused by his elder brother and sister-in-law in the tiny village. He spent all year round sleeping within the pile of hay in the cowshed, regularly bitten by insects, preventing him from getting a wink of sleep. He felt anxious and unbearable all the time, only able to mutter away to the black ox.

“Do you finally feel something now?”

“Yeah, it feels absolutely terrible.”

“Then you better enjoy it.”

The blue ghost arrived in one corner and sat down. He had received orders from adjudicator Lu to specially make things difficult for Li Qingshan.

Originally, he directed all of his anger towards Li Qingshan after being scolded by adjudicator Lu. He was ready to properly vent on him in the depths of hell, but before he knew it, he had changed his mind. He felt like it was enough if he handled this half-mindedly. There was no need for him to remain angry at that Lu person.

Li Qingshan nodded and shut his eyes, silently enduring the gnawing.

He knew very well that the test had only just begun! He was already lucky enough to make it through the previous few layers without much difficulty, but his luck had run out now.

There were no good people before the Mirror of Retribution, and there was no paradise within the Hell realm. If he did not go through all those hardships and suffering, how was he supposed to meet the Great Sage in the depths of hell? How was he supposed to make it beyond the Nine Heavens and see brother ox?

He suspected that granny Meng’s soup actually had the opposite effect, not to make people forget, but to make people remember, hundreds of times more potent than the Water of Recollection.

In a daze, he was still in the same pile of hay in the cowshed, talking to the black ox with a broken horn that looked towards him with its moist eyes, silently waiting for him to make his choice.

To regular Human Sovereigns, their Yang Souls were basically their everything. It was a condensation of their soul, spirit, powers, and cultivation, yet as someone who practised the Nine Transformations of the Demon and Divine, he could simply abandon his Yang Soul before condensing a new one in the small world.

He still had a choice before him. He could choose not to endure this pain and choose another path.

He was not without a path of retreat. The World of the Five Continent was his best path of retreat.

The World of the Five Continents had already grown to an enormous world. Before long, it would be able to sustain existences at the fifth heavenly tribulation. As the god of the world, his lifespan was basically the world’s as long as he fled back there. Even gods and immortals would be powerless over him. He truly had an entire world available to him if he took a step back.

He had everything, so why did he have to endure this pain in hell?

At this moment, an ant crawled onto his eyelid, which he suddenly grabbed.

The blue ghost thought, Is he finally finding it unbearable?

This was already the sixth layer of hell. Unlike the mountains of blades and the pot of oil in the beginning, the laws involved here were much deeper. There was no longer any need for lesser ghosts to stoke the flames or sharpen the blades. Appearances arose from the heart, and the mirror was formed from the heart. It was completely impossible to avoid or kill these ants. No matter how he struggled, he would be gnawed at.

Li Qingshan set down the ant gently and opened his eyes. “Let’s keep going!”

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“What did you say!?”

“Let’s go to the next layer. There’s not much here!”

“Is there something wrong with your head!?”

“Thank you for your kind intentions, but let’s keep going!”

Li Qingshan’s eyes shone brightly with a stubborn expression.

From the moment he set foot beyond Crouching Ox village, he had decided to never turn around. There was no such thing as a path of retreat, whether it was a village or a world.

Even if he really ended up in Avīci, never to be reborn, he had no complaints or regrets.