“Maraju, I’ll remember you!!!”
A miserable scream resounded through the heavens—the last cry of a Ghost King.
Tang Jie casually said, “If you can remember it after reincarnation.”
With a palm strike, sacred flames burned the Ghost King into smoke.
The death of the Ghost King left the remaining ghosts on the ship leaderless, so Tang Jie didn’t even need to intervene, letting the ghosts from the Ghost March Ship crush them. Only when one ghost emissary tried to leave did Tang Jie unleash a punch and activate the Weapon Mantra, adding a black grain to his reserve. Through all this killing, he had killed more than ten ghost emissaries, increasing the size of that small black sphere in his mind.
But this was still far from what Tang Jie wanted.
Deep in his heart, Tang Jie sensed that a great disaster was coming, and he needed to prepare as much as he could.
Drawing back his fist, Tang Jie glanced up at the sky.
The black curtain still dominated the heavens, thick Yin energy replacing the heat of the Flame Yang Domain and turning everything to decay and death.
The real onslaught only began now.
Will the humans be able to hold on? Tang Jie inwardly wondered as he let out a sigh.
No matter how much he did, the main character in this war would always be the Flame Yang Domain. All he could do was save a few people and exterminate some ghosts.
As he was thinking, he heard whistling from behind him.
He looked back and saw a Ghost March Ship approaching.
The Yaksha seated on this ship was the eldest of the seven Mara brothers, Marasheng.
Marasheng was clearly surprised to see Tang Jie as well, but rather than slowing down, he drove his ghost ship over, stopping it near Tang Jie’s. “Old Third, long time no see.”
As the eldest, he spoke like it, but he lacked the savagery and wildness usually found in Yakshas.
Tang Jie smiled. “Greetings, Eldest Brother.”
Marasheng was unaccustomed to Tang Jie calling him “Eldest Brother”, so it took a second for him to respond. He nodded and said, “It’s been a long time since you last called me ‘Eldest Brother’. It seems that you’ve been doing rather well these past few days.”
Tang Jie smiled. “Thanks to Old Fifth, I was able to have a good harvest.”
Marasheng knew that he was referring to how Maraji had interfered when Maraju had entered the Nine Nethers River while the other brothers had done nothing. He chuckled and said, “Old Fifth was wrong for what he did, but it was ultimately no big deal, so don’t hold a grudge.”
“Of course,” Tang Jie replied, mentally adding, I won’t hold a grudge against someone who’s already dead.
Maraji was dead, and the Yakshas had separated and gone their own ways.
Marasheng seemed to have his own plans. After all, all of them wanted to become the successor of Nightdark City. Thus, after this exchange, he set off.
Seeing him go, Tang Jie said, “Right, Eldest Brother, you seem in a rush to leave. Where are you going?”
Marasheng casually replied, “I have some business to the south.”
He then left.
“‘The south’… ‘Business’…” Tang Jie lowered his head and began to think.
To the south was the ocean, and there were few humans living there.
Ghosts regarded humans as the greatest resources. Whether it was to consume their flesh and blood, harvest their souls to turn into ghosts, or to use them as fuel for the Death God weapon formations, large numbers of humans were required. For Marasheng to run off to the sparsely inhabited seas to the south when he should be taking cities and seizing humans was very suspicious.
Tang Jie gave the matter some deep thought.
He finally made up his mind and said, “Saros!”
The ghost eagle stepped forward. “Master!”
“You are now in command of the Ghost March Ship. Do as we planned beforehand and do your utmost to stop the other ghost ships from capturing humans, slowing them. But most important of all is that if you find any weapon refining formations, you must notify the humans. Do you understand?”
“Saros understands!” the ghost eagle dutifully replied. It had gradually grasped its master’s personality and knew that it could not be careless when it came to this particular question.
Tang Jie nodded in satisfaction, and then he took off in pursuit of Marasheng’s ghost ship.
He wanted to see what exactly Marasheng was up to.
He followed him for more than half a day, past a mountain range, over some plains, through a swamp, and right into the sea. After a long voyage, they finally reached a large island.
It seemed like a wild place, still covered in jungle, with nothing special about it except that nearly twenty ghost ships had gathered there, two of them also being Ghost March Ships.
Tang Jie was startled to see so many ghost ships gathered here.
What sort of secret could have attracted so many ghosts?
As Marasheng’s ship approached, the two Ghost March Ships came out to meet him. Tang Jie saw that they belonged to the sixth and seventh brothers, Marasha and Marafeng.
Marasheng first exchanged words with his brothers, and then he greeted the other ghost ship masters. Finally, he turned his head and said, “Old Third, aren’t you going to come out?”
Tang Jie was surprised, but he didn’t move.
Marasheng chuckled. “Old Third, don’t think I’m trying to trick you. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to not watch my words? With your head, you definitely would have figured out the meaning behind my words and would have followed me to see what was going on.”
After some thought, Tang Jie finally revealed himself and coolly said, “Eldest Brother is truly skilled, to fool me into coming over like this.”
Maraji proudly laughed. “I watched you grow up, so I know exactly the kind of person you are. So long as you stand to gain something, you’ll always try and come along.”
Tang Jie realized that Marasheng was right on the mark.
When Maraju heard from Maraji of a possible human sighting, he had doggedly chased this clue down, leading to his downfall. And Tang Jie’s own actions were exactly in line with Maraju’s, so it was no wonder he fell for Marasheng’s trap.
He smiled. “If that’s the case, then, Eldest Brother, please take along your little brother, so I can see what I stand to gain from this place.”
A voice rang out: “Maraju, you were brazenly raiding other ghost ships on the Nine Nethers River, and you still have the face to talk about gain?”
Tang Jie didn’t even look at the Ghost King that had spoken, simply saying to Marasheng, “You lured me here because you needed me, so we might as well drop all the formalities, right?”
Marasheng chuckled. “True, but I don’t call the shots here. I have to offer up an explanation to the others.”
“‘An explanation’?” Tang Jie sneered. “What’s there to explain? The strong eating the weak is the rule of the Nether Domain. Those useless things would have died regardless, and by cleaning them up beforehand, I saved everyone a lot of trouble. What’s the problem with that?”
“Hahahaha, that’s the way! Those weak ghosts ought to have been killed. There’s no need to care about them!” There was a screech as a ghost floated over. Its chest was completely emptied out, but it gripped a still-beating heart in its hand, presumably extracted from some human.
“The Heartless Ghost King…” Tang Jie muttered.
The Heartless Ghost King was a rather famous high-tier Ghost King, both strong and cruel. It had a preference for human hearts, and the Nine Nethers Feast was a grand banquet for it. While Tang Jie could disregard middle-tier Ghost Kings after advancing to Celestial Heart, he didn’t dare to treat high-tier Ghost Kings the same way, particularly the stronger ones like the Heartless Ghost King.
“Killing them was fine, and no one will quibble with you over it, but if you act the same way here, we won’t be so kind,” a ghost sinisterly said.
Tang Jie turned to the voice and saw a Yellow Springs Revenant, its body dark green with two fangs protruding out of its mouth. It was just that its left arm was missing below the elbow. The stump was covered in a layer of golden Buddhist light, countless characters circling the wound and preventing it from healing.
This golden Buddhist light had clearly been left by some human cultivator, and Tang Jie was amazed that this ghost could be standing there as if it was completely fine. Putting it together with the fact that this was a Yellow Springs Revenant, Tang Jie realized who this ghost was and said, “So it was you, Greenghost King.”
The Greenghost King chuckled, but said nothing, silently acknowledging that Tang Jie had guessed correctly.
The Greenghost King was also an infamous Ghost King, and it seemed like it had joined forces with the Heartless Ghost King.
Tang Jie looked around and quickly realized that there were several other famous Ghost Kings, and even those he didn’t recognize were quite powerful. Seven or eight of these Ghost Kings were high-tier, and most of the remainder were middle-tier. Few of them were low-tier like Tang Jie.
Fortunately, Maraju had been a low-tier Ghost King, or else Tang Jie was afraid that he might have been exposed in front of so many high-level ghosts.
“What exactly is on this island that would draw Your Highnesses here?”
He glared at Marasheng, clearly resentful over being lured here. This was the reaction the real Maraju would have had.
Marasheng smiled. “It’s nothing, only the mausoleum of a human emperor.”
“‘A human emperor’s mausoleum’?” Tang Jie was taken aback.
“That emperor was a cultivator,” a ghost added.
“Oh?” Tang Jie raised an eyebrow.
If they was a cultivator, then things were interesting. But it also might signify nothing. Most cultivators became Returned Remnants on death, leaving only an empty shell. As for their status as emperor of a mortal realm, there was nothing there that a ghost could want, so there had to be something else within.
Sure enough, Marasheng said, “There’s nothing special about a human cultivator who was also an emperor. What’s really rare is that… when he died, his soul didn’t enter the Nether Domain.”
This piqued Tang Jie’s interest.