A massive ghost ship traveled across a bleak plain.
Numerous ghosts manned the deck—floating resentful souls, ugly and misshapen spirits, savage ghosts, and also quite a few savage armored corpses. These ghosts were arranged in an orderly fashion, without the slightest hint of chaos.
On the prow, seated upon the white throne, was Tang Jie in Maraju’s form. Above him, the ghost eagle Saros was perched on the main mast, looking at Tang Jie with a complicated expression.
Tang Jie had been gathering up ghosts all this time, and Saros had been able to witness Tang Jie’s ways. As it realized how frightening Tang Jie was, it had gradually lost any desire to rebel.
With the ghost eagle’s help and the Yaksha identity, Tang Jie had had a much easier time subduing ghosts.
But ghost generals were much harder to come by than soldiers.
Nether cities didn’t ask much of ghost soldiers, only that they could understand orders, which was doable even for those which had very basic minds. Ghost generals were another matter entirely. This required strength, but also a greater intelligence, and those with the sufficient strength but not the intelligence were not considered generals.
This was why there were many powerful ghosts in the wilds of the Nether Domain that didn’t belong to any Nether city. These ghosts were still in their primitive state, possessing a low intelligence that had them acting entirely on instinct, which made them unsuitable for serving as ghost generals. Even those as strong as Ghost Kings wouldn’t be taken in. After all, no intelligence meant being impossible to control, and bringing them into a city would only cause trouble. Of course, there were also some ghosts who had gained intelligence but were unwilling to join the Nether cities, which was another matter entirely.
With Saros’s help, Tang Jie had recruited enough ghost soldiers, but he had only gotten two ghost generals. One was an ice ghost born from thousand-year ice, while the other was a solitary ghost that had wandered over from an extremely distant land.
Tang Jie did some quick math and found that if he wanted to come back with the several dozen generals that Maraju had brought, it would take seven to eight years.
Tang Jie naturally couldn’t wait that long to return to Nightdark City, but he didn’t plan to go back with Maraju’s full complement. It was just that he had learned from Maraju’s memories that a competitive pressure existed within Yaksha cities. If he returned like this, he would immediately be swept out through the front gate, which was why he needed to rustle up an army in such short order. The moment he gathered up a force that was enough to survive, he would go back.
But this most basic force required three ghost generals.
“I’ve already been through here, so let’s go over there,” Tang Jie said, pointing at a dark silhouette in the distance.
“Young Lord, it’s best if you don’t go there,” the ghost eagle urgently said.
“Oh? Why?” Tang Jie asked.
“That’s the Yin Severing Mountain, one of the danger zones of the Nether Domain. Nine out of ten ghosts that go in won’t come out.”
“So some ghosts do come out,” Tang Jie indifferently said. “Let’s go and take a look. I love dangerous areas. The more dangerous they are, the more opportunities found within. Besides…”
He didn’t go on, but the ghost eagle understood what he meant. What was dangerous for ghosts wasn’t necessarily dangerous for humans.
Saros didn’t dare to persist, and it ordered the ghost ship forward.
As they advanced, the ghost mountain in the distance became more distinct.
It was a tall solitary mountain, its surface pitch-black with exposed areas showing gray stone. A valley had been cleaved through the mountain, an arched stone bridge crossing the valley. Rising outcrops of stone even formed the strange image of a skeleton.
The summit was shrouded in a white fog, but the lower parts of the mountain could clearly be seen. From a distance, it seemed calm and peaceful without any danger.
But when they arrived at the base of the mountain, the Ghost March Ship stopped, refusing to go forward no matter what Tang Jie did.
The ghost eagle explained that the ghost ship sensed danger and didn’t dare to go forward. Although the soul of the Ghost March Ship was a sliver of the avatar Tang Jie, there were also many resentful souls along with it. After all, this was the Ghost March Ship, so it needed ghosts to keep marching, real ghosts. And these ghosts could sense something frightening up ahead.
Tang Jie didn’t try to force the Ghost March Ship anymore, sitting up on his throne and gazing ahead.
Suddenly, he grabbed a ghost soldier and threw it out.
The flailing ghost soldier landed on the mountain and clambered to its feet. It looked around, seeming confused, and began to walk deeper into the mountain.
While throwing out the ghost, Tang Jie had also split off part of his will onto it. Using this, he determined that everything with the ghost was normal.
It kept on walking, and after it entered the fog, it persisted for a few moments.
Just when Tang Jie thought everything was going to be fine, the connection was severed.
Tang Jie could no longer sense anything within the fog.
Tang Jie knew that the ghost soldier was probably doomed. Alas, the fog obstructed all senses, and his sliver of will was incapable of sending back any information.
Unwilling to give up, Tang Jie grabbed another ghost soldier and threw it in—this time, an armored corpse, which was famed for its survivability.
Alas, it also disappeared.
Tang Jie threw in a fog ghost next, hoping that fog could deal with fog, but it also disappeared.
Tang Jie threw in ghost soldier after ghost soldier, but none of them came back. By the end, the ghosts were so afraid that they didn’t dare to approach him, so when Tang Jie reached behind him, he ended up grabbing nothing.
Tang Jie was wondering what to do when a ghost soldier suddenly emerged from the fog.
Upon close examination, he found that it was the armored corpse, the second ghost soldier he had thrown in.
Armored corpses were corpses that had absorbed Yin energy and not decayed, a ghost condensing on their flesh. They possessed extremely tough bodies, and got even tougher with age.
Tang Jie had thrown out the most basic kind of armored corpse, having lived only a few decades. It had been lucky enough to develop a little intelligence such that it could follow orders, but it had been unlucky enough to be caught by Tang Jie and then thrown into this danger zone. Miraculously, it had walked out alive.
But as it staggered forward, its flesh began to slough off, and as it hit the ground, it became liquid that seeped into the soil. In the end, all that was left was a skeleton, which also collapsed to the ground, the bones turning to liquid.
As the bones dissolved, Tang Jie saw a black mote.
“That’s…” Tang Jie tensed up.
The moment the black mote appeared, Tang Jie began to recall everything he knew related to black motes in the Nether Domain, whether it was a treasure, resource, or ghost, and which could produce this kind of phenomenon. It was only because he had the Ghost Classic and Yellow Springs Scripture and also devoured Maraju’s memories that he understood the Nether Domain enough to do this.
In a split second, Tang Jie had considered and discarded several dozen possibilities.
When he was down to five potential explanations, his eyes began to brighten.
After some more thought, Tang Jie thought up a few countermeasures. He grabbed a ghost soldier and then cut into his own arm, slicing through the Yaksha disguise and making a wound in his flesh. He applied a drop of his blood to the ghost soldier, transforming it into a fog that covered it.
As he was seated on the throne, his actions were concealed from the other ghosts, but the moment his flesh was exposed, the thick human aura made the ghosts restless. They couldn’t but wonder why their master had a human’s aura.
This odor made some hungry and filled others with hatred, but both kinds were baffled and shocked. If Tang Jie hadn’t still appeared as a Yaksha and been their master, they might have already dismembered him.
Tang Jie indifferently said, “This is human flesh that I went to great lengths to gather. I’ve been unwilling to use it all this time, but now, it is finally time.”
This was to answer the questions of the ghosts.
Ghost soldiers were so simple-minded that any explanation would have convinced them, but the two ghost generals were doubtful.
Tang Jie didn’t mind. Once he seized their Life Flames as he had done with the ghost eagle, they would know their place.
He threw that ghost soldier covered in his blood fog into the mountain and forced it to head into the mountain. Through his blood, he was able to clearly sense what was happening in the fog, and as the ghost ventured deeper, Tang Jie’s eyes grew brighter and brighter.
He muttered, “Still four possibilities…”
After that, he was able to rule out one more.
There were now just three possibilities that could explain what was happening in the mountain.
Alas, just when he was about to gather more information, his connection was severed.
This meant that the protection offered by his blood had lost effect.
There was no means of gathering more information from this soldier.
But at least Tang Jie had confirmed that the danger in the mountain primarily targeted the spirits of the dead and had little effect on physical flesh and blood. This was why his drop of blood was able to protect the ghost soldier and let it go deeper.
But this clearly wasn’t enough to get too far.
“It seems like I’ll have to risk it myself,” Tang Jie sighed.
There were still three possibilities, and Tang Jie couldn’t be sure which one it was, but each one was very dangerous to him. If he made the wrong call, he didn’t have the ability to deal with the consequences.
But Tang Jie still needed to take the risk, for no matter which possibility it was, it indicated that there was something in the mountain that he needed.
For the current Tang Jie, resources were of utmost importance, and if his luck was good, he could even solve the problem of ghost generals.
Tang Jie picked out a group of ghost soldiers, and then he headed into the mountain with them as well as Saros and the two ghost generals. The ghosts were unwilling, but none of them dared to oppose Tang Jie.