Chapter 7: Nether Abyss Soul Lamp
Indigo mist seeped from the cracked bronze casket. The moment Lu Qingyang’s fingertips touched the casket’s surface, the entire Nether Abyss trembled as if a Dragon had turned over. The Restriction branded on Su Li’s collarbone shattered inch by inch, transforming into golden-red quicksand that flowed into the qingmu spirit pearl. The blood Dragon phantom within the pearl actually opened its third vertical pupil. The Three-Headed Flood Dragon’s frozen venom crystal wall exploded, and magma, carrying ancient inscriptions, poured back into the dark river, sweeping both of them into a bronze tunnel deep within the earth’s pulse.
“This is the work of a Fengdu Ghost Craftsman!” Su Li clutched half a bronze fragment and collided with the rock wall, her thumb caressing the thunder patterns of the tunnel’s murals. Lu Qingyang’s spirit pearl space vibrated violently, and the hourglass phantom, in its reversal, solidified into blood-colored ice crystals—the nine-headed snake holding candles in the mural suddenly twisted its neck, its stony eyes turning towards their crawling direction.
The azure light emanating from the qingmu spirit pearl swept across the snake’s pupils. Lu Qingyang heard an ancient sneer in his Sea of Consciousness: “Five hundred years have passed, and Taiyi Pavilion’s dog noses are still as keen.” The mural peeled off in response, revealing a hundred-zhang-high bronze ghost-faced door behind it. The chains wrapped around the door knocker suddenly came alive, and the sound of colliding links was mixed with the wails of myriad resentful souls.
Su Li’s skirt flapped loudly in the Yin Qi wind. She suddenly bit her fingertip and drew a Talismanic Incantation in the Void Realm: “Heaven and Earth borrow the Dao, illuminate the Nether Abyss!” The moment the blood Talismanic Incantation touched the ghost-faced door’s fangs, thick black mist seeped from the door crack. Lu Qingyang’s spirit pearl flew uncontrollably towards the door knocker’s recess, the rust on the pearl’s surface fitting perfectly with the corrosion on the door knocker.
“So you were the key…” Before Su Li could finish her sentence, the ghost-faced door burst open. The foul Qi of the Underworld rushed out, and Lu Qingyang’s protective spiritual light flickered like a candle in the wind. He glimpsed the half of a judge’s brush that slipped from Su Li’s sleeve; the words “Cui Jue” on the brush handle were blackened by bloodstains—it was precisely the soul-reaping brush that had been missing for a thousand years from the Yama’s Palace’s Book of Life and Death.
The sound of iron chains dragging on the ground came from the end of the tunnel. Twelve headless corpses, holding soul-guiding banners, stumbled closer. A muffled chanting sound came from their abdominal cavities, and each step they took left a scorched footprint on the rock surface. Lu Qingyang grabbed a handful of phosphorus powder and scattered it towards the corpses, but the flames followed the banner cloth and backfired, scorching his temples and curling his hair.
“These are Yin soldiers borrowing the Dao!” Su Li tore off the jade pendant from her neck and crushed it. The clear light that burst forth barely opened a three-zhang pure land. “Use the spirit pearl to illuminate their Dantian!” Lu Qingyang rolled over and passed under the corpses’ crotches, the qingmu spirit pearl sweeping across the ground. Twelve suspended sariras appeared in the dark green halo, each embedded with Taiyi Pavilion’s lotus seal.
The spirit pearl suddenly burst with suction, and the sariras successively sank into the pearl’s medicine field. The corpses crashed to the ground and turned into pus and blood, but the Talismanic Incantations on the soul-guiding banners soared into the air, forming a blood-colored star map on the dome. Su Li’s soul-reaping brush flew uncontrollably to the center of the star map, its tip dipped in pus and blood, writing the three characters “Lu Qingyang.” Each stroke caused the earth to shake.
“Quickly destroy the projection of the Book of Life and Death!” Black blood seeped from Su Li’s seven orifices, and the judge’s brush scorched her palm. Lu Qingyang leaped towards the star map. The dragon blood grass in the spirit pearl space suddenly grew wildly, its vines breaking through his meridians. Blood-colored branches entangled a corner of the star map and tore fiercely. A bronze lamp stand fell from the Void Realm crack, its lamp oil solidified soul fire.
The qingmu spirit pearl automatically embedded itself into the lamp base, and the Nether Abyss ghost fire ignited with a “hiss.” Lu Qingyang’s Sea of Consciousness was forcibly dragged into the lamp’s shadow, where he saw the Old Drunkard scooping soup at the head of the Bridge of Helplessness—the spoon clearly contained memories of his three-year-old self that had been erased. The water of the Forgetfulness River under the bridge suddenly flowed backward, and countless pale arms climbed onto the lamp stand, making a sizzling sound like roasting meat the moment their fingertips touched the soul fire.
“Burn the star map with the lamp oil!” Su Li’s scream was mixed with sobs; her right arm had been frozen purple by the backfiring Yin Qi. Lu Qingyang swung the lamp stand at the blood-colored runes, and the soul fire, encountering the Evil Qi, surged into a fiery Dragon. The star map twisted into Taiyi Pavilion’s emblem in the flames, and the Taiyi Pavilion Master’s phantom emerged from the firelight, raising his hand for a Sky-Cutting Finger.
At a critical moment, the medicine field within the qingmu spirit pearl suddenly collapsed into a black hole. Lu Qingyang felt his Lifespan being frantically drained, his originally black temples instantly turning gray. After the black hole completely swallowed the Sky-Cutting Finger force, it spewed out Chaos airflow. The Taiyi Pavilion Master’s phantom dissipated like smoke, leaving only a cold laugh echoing in the tunnel: “So the core of the Jianmu is with you…”
Su Li slumped in a pool of blood, her soul-reaping brush broken into two pieces. She stared blankly at the Nether Abyss lamp in Lu Qingyang’s hand, then suddenly gave a desolate laugh: “I’ve been searching for this thing for twenty years, never expecting it had already found its master.” Tiny, fly-head-sized characters slowly appeared on the lamp’s base, recording the secret history of Taiyi Pavilion’s first Pavilion Master killing his master to seize treasure.
Lu Qingyang’s vision began to blur, the spirit pearl’s backlash making his insides feel like they were on fire. The last image he saw before losing consciousness was Su Li trembling as she cut her wrist, letting drops of blood with golden patterns fall into his mouth. Her sighing, almost sobbing whisper echoed in his ears: “Phoenix Nirvana blood for ten years of your Lifespan, Lu Qingyang, you owe me a life…”