The Nether Domain.
Tang Jie traveled alone through a black plain.
In this world of ghosts, he could find no companion, so he could only wander these plains alone.
The Ghost Illusion spell gave him a way to conceal his vitality and avoid being disturbed by ghosts, but there were also a few particularly perceptive ghosts, as well as other various strange incidents that caused him trouble.
The Nether Domain was just too big, bursting to the seams with mysteries. There were many things that Tang Jie had never seen before, and reading a few books simply wasn’t enough to understand it all. As a result, he ended up suffering a few setbacks in this journey. Fortunately, he was able to react swiftly enough to escape before things became unsalvageable.
But the real problem was still Maraju.
So long as this guy had the Yama Ghosthead Seal, Tang Jie would never be able to escape his pursuit. And once Maraju caught up, he definitely wouldn’t repeat his mistake.
Thus, Tang Jie had to keep running.
He wasn’t afraid. He simply hoped to buy more time so as to better understand that black substance in his Sea of Cognition.
After letting Tang Jie escape, Maraju had realized that even if he caught up, it would be no use. He had lost two Nether Attendants and nearly twenty ghost generals, which was a heavy blow to his force. And his foe had also shown formidable moves that countered him.
Even Maraju had felt a deep fear when confronting the intense light Tang Jie had given off. This sort of power that targeted ghosts was still very intimidating, even to Yakshas, who possessed formidable bodies and souls.
This was why Maraju had chosen to not give chase, instead notifying the Nether city so that they could send reinforcements to bolster his forces.
What had been a hunting game for his own amusement was now a battle of vengeance. Maraju wanted to find Tang Jie and flay him alive.
But this gave Tang Jie time to rest and research the black grain.
Unlike the golden grain, the black grain was a purely spiritual substance. It existed between illusion and reality, and it could best be described as a special material meant specifically for the soul. Thus, it could repair the Divine Soul or strengthen it, which led to countless other benefits…
Today, Tang Jie had reached a valley.
Most of the Nether Domain’s mountains were black stinking piles of decay, with the occasional one being desiccated piles of sand. A handful of it would fall through one’s fingers without leaving any dirt or mud clinging to them.
Tang Jie had come across one of these desiccated mountains.
He had stopped because a kind of blue flower was growing on it.
It wasn’t a particularly pretty flower, having four petals of light blue and lacking any aroma. But in this world where black was the primary color, it was ever so enchanting and dazzling.
Tang Jie had noticed its color, and as his eyes fell upon the flower, they let out a sharp light.
“Corpsespirit Flower! It’s a Corpsespirit Flower!” His voice was full of shock, delight, and disbelief.
Corpsespirit Flowers were an extremely rare kind of flower that grew in lands of decay, growing by absorbing the poison and fumes of corpses, which also made them extremely poisonous. But after a thousand years of growth, the poison would dissipate, and the Corpsespirit Flower would become an Immortal herb that could be used to make many kinds of medicines.
In the mortal plane, the Corpsespirit Flower was too rare, owing to the unique environment it needed to grow. No one except those of the Ghost Dao would go out of their way to develop burial mounds to raise them. As for natural areas, unless the area was particularly dangerous, it was difficult for any plant to survive for one thousand years, as even its potent poison wouldn’t be enough to fend off avaricious cultivators.
It had to be understood that a Corpsespirit Flower that had not reached one thousand years was still extremely valuable for refining into poison.
Thus, in all his years cultivating, Tang Jie had never before seen a Corpsespirit Flower in the wild.
But Tang Jie was now seeing them speckled across the mountain like twinkling stars, and all of them were more than a thousand years old.
As these were spirit plants so reliant on the energy from corpses, it was most common to find only one in a single area. These flowers speckled across the mountain could be considered a very dense concentration of Corpsespirit Flowers. It was no wonder the entire mountain had been turned to sand. The Corpsespirit Flowers had sucked it dry of all the nutrition it had.
Now, these rare flowers were spread out before him, and with no one to fight him for them.
After all, there were no humans here, and ghosts had no need for it.
Tang Jie wanted to burst out in laughter.
Who said the Nether Domain had no resources?
It was just that they were lacking in variety. However, each kind was difficult to find in the mortal plane, and to get hands on one would produce a vast fortune.
He immediately thought of countless uses for the Corpsespirit Flower, one of which was perfect for the occasion.
He immediately rushed over and began to pluck out the flowers, mashing them in his mouth, spitting out the juices, and then refining them with alchemical fire.
Anyone who saw this would definitely have cursed at him for wasting such a valuable resource.
This sort of primitive processing method would maximize the loss, losing seventy to eighty percent of the medicinal effect. Normally, spirit plants were chopped with an art relic and then taken to a secret chamber to be refined in a pill furnace, which would preserve the most medicinal effect.
But Tang Jie didn’t have any of this. The fact that there was no one to fight with him over the resources of the Nether Domain meant that there was also nobody he could steal these objects of the mortal plane from. Until Little Three came back with some of these things, he could only use this primitive method.
The waste was inevitable, and anyway, he had plenty of Corpsespirit Flowers.
The fire caused the juice to solidify, and then Tang Jie squeezed out a few drops of his own blood and a little ghost essence, the only other resource he could get in the Nether Domain. Finally, a small blue pill began to form.
This pill consisted of almost entirely Corpsespirit Flower juice, lacking any kind of complementary ingredient that could bolster the effects. This was a medicine that cost one hundred times more but had only a hundredth of the effect.
But that was fine. If one wasn’t enough, he could just make more.
Tang Jie had never been so wasteful before, and as he refined hundreds of Corpsespirit Flowers, even his heart started to ache.
Finally, he refined the last needed flower, and as he gazed at the ball-sized pill he had ended up with, he fell silent.
Then…
He cut into his body and tore off a chunk of his skin.
Refining it in fire, he turned his own skin into a talisman.
Finally, he dipped the pill in blood and began to write on the talisman, covering the talisman in light blue words until it was done.
He made a total of three talismans before the pill was used up.
Thus, all those Corpsespirit Flowers became just three talismans. Tang Jie had been wasteful to a terrifying extent.
But these three talismans and the black grains would give Maraju a wonderful surprise.
Tang Jie proceeded to wait for Maraju. Since Corpsespirit Flowers were impossible to preserve and would wither seventy-two hours after being picked, Tang Jie had decided to just wait in the area for Maraju to come to him. Perhaps he would be able to find what he needed from him.
He ended up waiting for three days.
Maraju was much slower than expected, perhaps taking his time because the seal on Tang Jie meant that he couldn’t escape.
On the third day, Tang Jie finally spotted the Ghost March Ship.
It was just as majestic as before, ghost hands carrying it aloft over land, accompanied by the wailing of ghosts and howling winds.
Upon it was a throne of white bone, Maraju still seated upon it. But his dog-headed attendants were no more, replaced by several dozen tough-looking ghost generals. In addition, a large ghost eagle was perched on the main sail, its eyes holding flickering ghost flames as it gazed at Tang Jie. From this gaze, Tang Jie sensed that this ghost eagle was just as strong as Maraju.
“That’s what makes it exciting.” Tang Jie smiled, not afraid in the slightest.
Maraju’s eyes turned red the moment he spotted Tang Jie.
He pointed the fork in his hand at Tang Jie and ordered, “Seize that human!”
There were no wasted words this time, as he immediately ordered his subordinates to take Tang Jie down. After suffering such a huge loss, Maraju had put aside his pride.
The ghosts flooded out of the ship in a black tide, a mighty force of several dozen ghost generals and a thousand soldiers. However, they came in loose formation, keeping distance from each other.
Knowing that Tang Jie possessed a formidable move, Maraju had dispersed his forces so that they wouldn’t be wiped out in a single strike.
Tang Jie chuckled. He had no need to hide his power this time and immediately unleashed a Hundred Ghost Slaughter at the ghosts. In a white wave of light, a ghost general was heavily injured. But this ghost general had reacted quickly, retreating in time to avoid a lethal blow, though the ten-some ghost soldiers behind it hadn’t been so lucky, and wailed as they perished.
Maraju sternly ordered, “Disperse more!”
The ghosts hadn’t been convinced of Tang Jie’s “fiendish art” before, despite hearing of its power, but after seeing one ghost general heavily injured, they knew how terrifying it really was and chose to distance themselves even more.
In the end, the Hundred Ghost Slaughter wasn’t a Divine Connection, so its range was limited. With these ghosts dispersed, one strike would only kill a few ghost soldiers.
But by scattering themselves so, they couldn’t concentrate their power on Tang Jie, which weakened their advantage in numbers.
Laughing, Tang Jie stopped using the Hundred Ghost Slaughter and simply began chopping and punching, engaging in a melee with the ghosts.