Chapter 334: Biyao’s Wall

Song Min led his army. With all his best talents with him and a few to babysit his precious guests, he would launch an attack on a new moon’s night, where ghosts were at their most powerful.

Their target? The Mystical Qilin Sect.

Why strike at the front door when the back door was left wide open? If there was one thing he liked about the living sage coming out of seclusion, it was the opportunity to cripple the biggest pain in his neck.

If not for the silent support of the Mystical Qilin Sect, Song Min could have concluded the war decades ago when he first started it. Back then, it was no Zhao Mingfeng who ended it. It was the blind sage prophet who gave him the weapon needed to cripple Song Min’s operation enough that he had to enter hiding and rebuild his strength.

Back then, the ghost general had no idea about the existence of such a powerful silent supporter. The Mystical Qilin Sect was never mentioned anywhere. They just suddenly seemed to appear and ruin everything. Every move he made, Yan Ping was always a few steps ahead.

It was not until much later, after the war was over, that he learned about the Mystical Qilin Sect and the clairvoyance ability. The Rainbow Alliance revealed their existence and gave him the cards he needed to work with.

Anji’s birth and affiliation with such a dangerous interference made more sense after he understood what the Mystical Qilin Sect did. If he wanted to take down the Emperor, he needed someone capable of tampering with the array there.

After a long time searching for useful pawns, Song Min finally met Pu Jianming. He worked for years to gain the trust of a talented spell caster and even introduced spirit symbols in hopes that someone else could give him a way into Zhong Kui’s ancient spell. He even sent a corrupting poison to weaken it. Yet, the spell held on as stubbornly as Zhong Kui clung to his righteous beliefs.

If Song Min had more time, his plan would succeed in a hundred years. However, the blind prophet would not give him those hundred years. He was also not her match at his cultivation level. Unlike Anji who had her true abilities suppressed because of her weak body, Yan Ping was a true titan who could crush his soul out of existence easily from the Divine realm.

Song Min had to be smart about his cards. Although Yan Ping’s appearance in Chang’an was not something he had accounted for, it was an excellent opportunity to remove the thorn in his flesh.

"Tonight, we strike at their heart. Feast to your content, those cultivators have no combat talent," he told his army.

Cheers and howls or hungry ghosts in the void echoed, and Song Min waited in the shadows. The sun was still high, but it would not be long until night fell.

Unlike humans, ghosts had the advantage of inter-dimensional travel. Using spiritual coordinates and gateways, he knew an entrance that led past the Mystical Qilin Sect’s flag array. And should it fail, Song Min already knew another gateway that would appear, leading right back to the central plains.

Time passed quickly, and night fell. Leading the march, Song Min watched as the gate opened.

Thrilled, the ghosts swarmed the gateway, and Song Min let them. The main boss did not need to appear first. From the sounds of screams and chaos in the physical realm, his plans were going well.

When the army had finally gone through the gateway, Song Min stepped through it and felt a dizzying shift in energy.

Strangely enough, the space he entered was not the main grounds of the Mystical Qilin Sect. Puzzled, he thought the gateway coordinates had shifted. The energy of the spiritual realm sometimes fluctuated like that. However, all contact with his army was cut off. That was when Song Min realised something else had happened.

"Welcome to my personal world," a lady’s voice greeted. "It’s been forever since I had visitors."

Although Song Min had never met this lady before, something about her felt familiar.

"Who are you?" he asked after sensing no hostility.

Biyao merely smiled. Of course, Song Min would not recognise her. This was her last memory fragment, a portion of her original soul.

"I’m Biyao, the first sect leader and founder of this Mystical Qilin Sect. Or you could say, one of Zhong Kui’s many reincarnations."

Ah, that would explain the familiar energy. Song Min smirked. It was very like Zhong Kui to foil every plan he had.

"I see you’ve implemented a trap to annoy me at every step," he commented dryly. "If you thought I had the time to sit and chat over tea with something that’s not even real, I’m leaving."

Even if this was merely a fragment of memory of Zhong Kui’s previous reincarnation, it was still as annoying as the living reincarnation.

"Aren’t you curious about why the prophets exist?" Biyao blinked. "I thought you were a curious scholar. Maybe I was wrong. Time does change a person."

Pausing, Song Min wondered if he should bite the obvious bait. He was curious. After all, before everything, the prophets did not exist. Nobody even knew about them until he started the war.

"I’m not foolish enough to listen to idle talk meant to derail by goals," he explained and froze the air into ice crystals, attempting to break out of this inner world. "I might be curious, but I’ve always been more cautious than curious."

Smiling, Biyao seemed to have expected the answer. She did nothing to stop Song Min from attempting to break out of her inner world. After all, she was never meant to be the one to stop him. Biyao was a wall and a foundation. Too bad, Song Min was not curious enough to find out more.

That alone would be his undoing, even if the final piece of her existence were erased here.

"You will come to regret everything," she told him as her inner world prison started to crack. "When you lose the one person left in this cruel world who truly remembers you, the real you... Song Min, you’re pitiful."

Angered, Song Min demonstrated why he was hailed as the Ghost General.

"Save your pity for the afterlife," he hissed. "Not even the Goddess of Mercy thinks I’m pitiful. I don’t need the pity of a fallen hypocrite who speaks of justice but turns a blind eye to it. Be gone, Zhong Kui... Biyao... whatever you call yourself. You’re nothing more than an ancient relic forgotten by everyone else, with no temples in your name. This puny divinity can’t stop simple attacks. At the end of the day, you’re a failure who cannot save anyone."

Biyao did not deny anything. She simply smiled sadly.

"It’s true," she agreed as the mirage of her physical form started to show cracks. Song Min continued his barrage, freezing everything he could find.

"But it was not my job to save anyone," she explained. "That role belongs to someone else. I’m just a wall in your way, the final one to speak caution before you truly lose everything. Turn back, Song Min. There’s still time."

Confused by the message, Song Min wanted to know more, but already, he had gone too far. Biyao’s final fragment had already disintegrated.

"Time for what?" he laughed emptily. "I’ve already lost everything."

Song Min counted the things he lost.

His life. His family. His career. His trust. His faith in God. His innocence. His naivety. His goodness. His friends. His very soul was also on mortgage. What was there left to lose?

Finally returning to the chaos of plundering the Mystical Qilin Sect, Song Min stood unmoving in the centre of it all. Cultivators battled with strange spells, and ghosts terrorised the living. The night was already half gone, and soon it would be dawn. The ghost army had been feeding well all while he was trapped in Biyao’s inner world.

Yet, despite the landslide victory, he felt strangely hollow, as if he had lost something important.