Chapter 851: A Frenzied Battle

In principle, the hand seals he formed should have been enough to forcibly summon the ghost beast.

Hé Jing was so angry he ground his teeth.

Of the four ghost beasts, this one was the strongest. If it came out to help, the pressure on the Heavenly Palace party would be greatly reduced.

Yet it had actually curled up inside and refused to emerge! Hé Jing had no idea what had gone wrong.

He was no expert on raising ghost beasts, but when he took these four creatures with him, the specialist had sworn up and down that they would definitely respond to the summons!

If he made it out of the secret realm alive, Hé Jing was going to beat that fellow so badly his own mother would not recognize him!

Wait... Curled up inside?

A thought suddenly struck him. Noticing that the child-keeper’s lips had turned slightly black, Hé Jing snapped, “Did you secretly take some medicine?”

“I...” The child-keeper shrank back in fright, sweat pouring down his forehead. “I heard that when the ghost children descend, we suffer terribly, so just now I... I took some sesame vine.”

Sesame vine was poisonous, but its strongest effects were sedation and pain relief.

This child-keeper had been prepared to offer himself to the gods. He knew that after his sacrifice, his family far away in Beijia would be able to live in wealth and comfort, and his elder and younger brothers would have much better prospects... Yet when faced with such horrific pain, he still harbored an instinctive fear deep down.

“Idiot!” Hé Jing’s face twitched with fury, but he immediately said, “Forget it. I’ll give you a hand.”

That kind of pain was enough to make even bystanders recoil, but there was a reason the Heavenly Palace required hosts of the ghost children to remain conscious when the ghost beasts emerged and forbade them from using drugs.

Ghost beasts were not suited to inhabiting human bodies in the first place, and once they fell asleep, they were even harder to awaken. Using child-keepers was merely a compromise for transporting them over long distances.

And now this fool had gone and taken a powerful sedative like sesame vine!

The ghost beast inside him would naturally absorb the drug’s effects as well.

Wonderful, now it can’t be awakened.

Hé Jing struck the child-keeper on the back of the neck and knocked him unconscious, then pulled out a pale-gold candle from his robes.

A tiny pale flame appeared on its wick. Hé Jing pinched the flame off, turned his hand over, and pressed it against the child-keeper’s eyelid.

He Lingchuan could not hear their conversation, but judging from Hé Jing’s movements, he could tell that something had gone badly wrong with the summoning of the final ghost beast and Hé Jing was desperately trying to salvage the situation.

Unfortunately for him, Hé Jing’s most useful lamp spirit had already been erased by the shadow-piercing lamp. The tiny flame entered the child-keeper’s body, but even after a long while, nothing happened.

Hé Jing continued fighting while waiting, but in the end he had no choice but to give up.

What a waste of such excellent combat power!

Fortunately, the scaled red tiger was still obeying commands and went straight to draw the attention of the king of the que beasts. Its hide was thick and tough, and it was almost unaffected by ice. The king of the que beasts swatted it back twice, but only tore open its own palm on the tiger’s spikes, roaring repeatedly in pain. A few more faint lights drifted from the wound and entered the Generous Pot inside the tomb.

He Lingchuan narrowed his eyes.

Did I see that correctly?

The king of the que beasts seemed to have shrunk slightly.

Is it because the ghostly light left its body?

Then just how enormous had this king of the que beasts originally been? How powerful was it originally? And who had even managed to badly injure it?

The Heavenly Palace guards were already formidable fighters in their own right. With these three ghost children assisting them, they actually managed to withstand the que beasts’ assault and establish a combat array.

The array was called the Northern Guard Kuixing Array and consisted of sixteen kuixing stones[1]. Whenever an enemy was wounded, the array could siphon off its essence, qi, and spirit to replenish those from the Heavenly Palace, weakening the enemy while strengthening its own side and allowing the fighters to keep going for longer and grow more vigorous as the battle continued.

At irregular intervals, the array also released “kuixing spirits,” humanoid battle puppets hidden inside the kuixing stones that could attack enemies on their own. They knew neither pain nor fear, making them excellent helpers in battle.

With both the combat array and the ghost children in action, the pressure on the Heavenly Palace party eased considerably.

But soon afterward, the distant tide of que beasts also heard the commotion and poured in to join the battle.

The area around the Red General’s cenotaph had originally been wide and open, but now it was packed with humans and beasts, while all manner of divine techniques flew wildly through the air.

He Lingchuan was actually glad he had slipped away early. The density of divine techniques there was simply too high. Even with Mountain Monarch Bo’s hide, he would still have been at serious risk of being struck by accident.

The king of the que beasts completely ignored him, probably because the Heavenly Palace party was doing everything in its power to seize the Generous Pot, drawing all of its attention.

Watching both sides fight from a distance, He Lingchuan began forming a few theories of his own.

Hé Jing was highly cultivated and seemed to have some battlefield experience as well. Whether fighting alone or commanding a group, his actions were structured and disciplined, and he directed the entire party’s advance and retreat with clear judgment.

He had first been ambushed by He Lingchuan, and then he suffered backlash from the destruction of his lamp spirit. Anyone else might have collapsed after coughing up liters of blood, yet Hé Jing still fought on the front line and took a great deal of pressure off the rest of the party.

At a moment when life and death were at stake, even the leader had no choice but to personally enter the fray.

He Lingchuan watched him kill more than a dozen que beasts in succession before he finally planted his mace against the ground and swallowed medicine to regulate his breathing.

With that physique and endurance, if Hé Jing had not already been injured, He Lingchuan would not have wanted to fight him head-on at all.

Then there were the que beasts. Whenever these creatures were severely wounded or killed, ghostly light would leave their bodies and be absorbed by the Generous Pot.

To He Lingchuan, that looked much more like “refining.”

There had never been any such beasts inside the Generous Pot before, yet now they were rampaging everywhere throughout the Panlong Secret Realm. The only explanation He Lingchuan could think of was that these monsters had actually come from the lid of the Generous Pot.

If the Generous Pot could collect Panlong City’s heroic spirits, then it did not seem unreasonable for the matching lid to contain aberrant creatures of its own.

While the lid had been hidden inside the Star-Plucking Tower on Mount Xu, supposedly being worshiped but in truth also sealed away, the aberrant creatures within it probably had no chance to escape.

Thinking of the towering red light, then looking at the chaotic battle before him and the beasts’ hatred toward every human they encountered, He Lingchuan could only speculate that the other end of the pool in the Temple of Mitian actually connected directly to the lid of the Generous Pot, allowing the aberrant creatures inside the lid to rush into the Panlong Secret Realm.

Every que beast killed by one of the adventuring parties inside the secret realm was equivalent to helping the Generous Pot weaken the lid’s resistance by one part. The more they killed, the faster the Generous Pot could refine and assimilate its lid.

In short, the Generous Pot was thoroughly exploiting all these outside parties and making them work themselves to death on its behalf.

How sinister and calculating! He Lingchuan cursed inwardly. His original purpose in entering the Panlong Secret Realm had been simple: lure Naluotian’s avatar down into the mortal realm and eliminate the danger posed by the divine seal mark in his mind. Yet somehow, by the end of it all, he had once again been roped into helping this damned pot accomplish some ulterior purpose of its own.

The Generous Pot’s exploitation of him and of everyone else was utterly shameless and completely guilt-free.

But for the moment, he and the Generous Pot were tied together by fate. The stronger the Generous Pot became, the better it was for him. And besides, He Lingchuan had never wanted the Heavenly Palace party to leave alive in the first place.

He sighed and rubbed his temple.

How can I get every human and beast here killed? Is letting them slaughter each other really going to be enough?

* * *

The battle at the Red General’s cenotaph grew increasingly intense.

Que beasts large and small were converging from every corner of the Panlong Secret Realm, their numbers gradually rising from two hundred to four hundred, then five hundred, then eight hundred...

And still there was no end in sight.

The spectators wandering around the outskirts had no choice but to retreat farther and farther away from the fighting to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

Everyone also had to admire the Heavenly Palace party.

If the Heishui City army had been in their place, it would have been overrun long ago. Yet amid such a terrifying tide of que beasts, the Heavenly Palace party not only held its ground, but was even able to withstand the pressure of the horde and advance step by step toward the tomb.

They had one goal and one goal alone: seize the Generous Pot inside the cenotaph.

However, the Heavenly Palace party knew their own suffering best. There were simply too many enemies, and every single person in the array was under tremendous pressure.

Why had the agile ghost children not taken advantage of the chaos to retrieve the Generous Pot?

Because the king of the que beasts had protected it far too thoroughly. Not only had it assigned several little ghost-faced monkeys specifically to watch the pot, but it had also thrown several fist-sized ice seeds into the burial pit.

Once the ice seeds landed, they began growing on their own, progressing from ice trees to ice rocks and then to ice walls.

In just a little over ten breaths, the Red General’s armor and the Generous Pot had both been frozen inside an enormous block of ice more than three meters tall and three meters wide!

That was downright unethical.

The heart-piercing mantis had tried several times, but the ice was extraordinarily thick and solid, and any holes it did manage to punch into it repaired themselves within a few breaths. And if it did try to drill into the block, it would probably just end up frozen within.

The ghost children alone did not possess enough strength to drag the entire block of ice back.

Fu Liang fired several explosive arrows and shouted, “Lord Cloud Envoy, the combat array isn’t absorbing any essence or qi! It can’t replenish us!”

Three arrows became more than twenty after being fired, and if lightning talismans were added, chains of lightning could be seen arcing back and forth through the beast herd with excellent killing power.

The battle had already lasted more than fifteen minutes. Everyone inside the array was panting heavily, and several were so exhausted their hands had begun to tremble.

The bow in Fu Liang’s hands felt heavier and heavier.

The Northern Guard Kuixing Array was an ingenious creation, combining offense, defense, and replenishment in one. Besides allowing its users to attack and defend, it could drain the enemy’s essence, qi, and blood, transferring that strength to the Heavenly Palace guards and enabling prolonged combat while weakening the opposing side. However, this special effect had not activated at all. No one had received even the slightest replenishment.

Was the array laid out incorrectly?

The Heavenly Palace party hurriedly checked.

No, the kuixing stones were functioning perfectly.

Then is the problem with the que beasts themselves?

Another dead que beast released a ghostly light that flew toward the Generous Pot, even passing straight through the massive block of ice.

Hé Jing’s mouth was full of the taste of rust. Several times, sweetness rose in his throat as though he were about to cough up blood, but he forcibly swallowed it back down. He was the pillar holding the entire party together. If he started vomiting blood and collapsed now, the morale of the rest of the party would shatter along with him.

“These que beasts aren’t living things to begin with. How could they possess essence, qi, or blood for us to absorb?”

Fu Liang was startled. “W-what?”

“What kind of living creature could survive inside the lid of the Generous Pot for all those years?” Hé Jing gave a bitter smile. “These que beasts were probably manifested by the lid itself! They just look very convincing... Damn it!” Every one of us has been deceived. He then ordered decisively, “Pull up the array and move forward! Advance to the edge of the cenotaph. I’ll retrieve the Generous Pot myself!”

The combat array was only thirty meters from the tomb. But amid this furious battle, those thirty meters might as well have been an impassable chasm. For Hé Jing to move the entire array forward, he first had to force the beast herd back. And that meant advancing under the pressure of the king of the que beasts!

Everyone was already exerting everything they had just to maintain the current situation.

Moving forward would be extraordinarily difficult.

Yet the Heavenly Palace attendants answered “Yes!” in unison. Several who had fought until their strength was almost exhausted took black pills from their robes and swallowed them. Within a few breaths, they were vigorous again. Their calves stopped trembling; they regained the strength to control their magical artifacts, and they fought even more fiercely than when they had first entered the secret realm.

1. Kuixing are the stars of the Big Dipper that constitute the rectangular body of the dipper, namely Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, and Megrez. ☜