When Marasheng and the others saw that the first movers had managed to safely enter the mausoleum, they went from celebration to regret.
If the traps were this weak, they had no need to worry.
Now, their rivals had managed to get a step ahead of them.
They looked at Tang Jie, who seemed to know what they were thinking and replied, “If you think it’s fine, then you all can go, but I want to keep watching.”
He remained standing where he was.
The majority of the ghosts had yet to enter the mausoleum, and once they had absorbed the lesson of their predecessors, some Ghost Kings finally began to enter the plaza, though with fewer ghost soldiers this time. Some even tried to fly, avoiding stepping on the paving stones. However, they didn’t go far before being forced to land, for it took several dozen times the usual energy to fly here such that continuous flight was impossible.
It didn’t take long before the fire began to erupt again. This time, the prepared Ghost Kings immediately abandoned their soldiers and ran for the entrance. The process ended up being more harrowing than it was dangerous, for not even a single ghost general was lost this time.
Marasheng and Marasha finally lost their patience and joined the third wave.
Only Tang Jie continued to watch, mentally commenting, One out of every ten stones will fall away, and it seems intent on eliminating nine for every one survivor. To eliminate nine out of ten in just the opening—heh, the owner of this mausoleum really does have some incredible tricks.
But there was a method to his walk. He first stepped onto the seventh stone of the first row, then the ninth, and then he jumped to the third.
Strangely, with each step he took, some flames would go out, and none of them even so much as singed his body.
Tang Jie seemingly danced among the flames, easily making his way to the mausoleum.
While those Ghost Kings who had already gone into the mausoleum didn’t witness it, those outside were dumbfounded.
The smart ghosts mimicked his steps exactly, and they really did make it through safely, even their ghost soldiers getting through.
The Ghost Kings were delighted, and they came up to Tang Jie and said, “Young friend, I didn’t think you knew formations.”
Tang Jie modestly said, “Not at all. I just saw that when all those stones were shifting, only these didn’t move, so I guessed that there was some foundation under them. So long as I stick to those, I should be fine. And when I tried it out, it really did work.”
The ghosts looked back at the plaza and found that this really was the case. In truth, when something was explained, it ended up being simpler than expected. But Tang Jie had boiled things down to the simplest principle, leaving out all of the analysis he had done before reaching this conclusion. The ghosts were unaware of this and simply thought he had been lucky.
This was exactly what Tang Jie wanted. Few ghosts in the Nether Domain understood formations, and causing a stir would only draw suspicion. Moreover, he still needed to use this formation to exterminate all these ghosts, so he wasn’t going to help them get through it. He had revealed the trick just then primarily to give himself a way out—who knew what other dangers would be found within the formation? What if he screwed himself over while trying to screw over everyone else?
All was black within the mausoleum.
As ghost flames began to light up the area, Tang Jie found that they were in a large hall.
This hall was made from mountain stones, and there were eight giant pillars supporting the entire thing. A giant stone pit was dug out in the hall, within which were countless stone sculptures, clearly tomb soldiers.
There were stone spearmen, stone horses, and also stone chariots.
Tang Jie narrowed his eyes.
The ghosts who had gone in already were waiting up ahead. After the trapped plaza, they all knew to be cautious and no longer barged ahead without a care.
They were curious as to how everyone else had gotten in safely, and they learned that Maraju had “accidentally” found the correct path, after which they put the matter aside. For an amateur, just about any lie could do.
Experts always had an easy time fooling amateurs. This had nothing to do with intelligence, only experience.
With everyone gathered, the ghosts advanced. As they passed by the stone pit, a Ghost King joked, “These things aren’t going to come to life, right?”
“Hard to say. This is a strange place, so it’s better to be careful,” a Ghost King replied.
It was rather laughable for ghosts, who were known for being eerie and sinister, to call something strange. One could only say that the strange and bizarre came from the unknown, that the strange lost all its allure when it became normal.
For humans, the ghosts of the Nether Domain were creepy and difficult to handle, but the traps and formations of humans were equally as mystifying to ghosts.
If a human were here, they would definitely recognize those stone people and horses as puppets, but here, nobody except Tang Jie could see that. Instead, a joke had inadvertently revealed the truth, though no one took it seriously.
Tang Jie was really interested in what would trigger the puppets.
The answer was quickly revealed.
As one Ghost King was about to step out of the hall, there was a great rumbling, and a giant stone suddenly came down and sealed the passage. It flashed with the light of spell arts, indicating that it would not be broken quickly.
Meanwhile, the puppets in the pit began to open their eyes.
Countless red lights fell upon the ghosts, causing them to shriek, “Alive! Alive! The stones are alive!”
It was like a human seeing the dead coming back to life.
The puppets shook off the dust on their bodies, raised their weapons, and marched out of the pit to attack the ghosts.
Spell arts began to bombard the puppets.
Ghost normally used spell arts that targeted the soul, the flesh, or life force itself.
But these puppets had none of these things and were purely mechanical. As a result, more than half of the Nether Domain’s spell arts could be considered useless against them. In this aspect, puppets directly countered ghosts. Not only were spell arts no good against them, their stone weapons were special weapons that could deal real damage to ghosts, bursting with white light whenever they made impact.
Thus, the puppets began to massacre the ghosts. As ghosts already, they would either enter the cycle of reincarnation or become resentful spirits upon dying. But for some reason, all of them became resentful spirits, and then a gust blew them all away, leaving only their bitter screams.
Most of the ghosts were confused as to what was going on, but some of the older Ghost Kings thought of a possibility.
“Is it a Spirit Grinder Board?” a Ghost King said in a shaky voice.
“Who? Who would be so ruthless? Daring to enslave the denizens of the Nether Domain to use as an energy source!” another Ghost King roared.
The Spirit Grinder Board was a formation board developed by humans. It didn’t possess any special powers except that it was powered not by spirit stones, but by resentful spirits. It sucked resentful spirits into a space where they were squeezed and compressed so that they could power a formation. Resentful spirits would be in excruciating pain within this space, but there was no escape. They were worked until death, and even when they died, they would continue to be ground down until the last bit of energy had been extracted.
For ghosts, the Spirit Grinder Board was a torture device.
Ghost might not have understood formations, but they did understand the Spirit Grinder Board.
The scene just now was a sign that a Spirit Grinder Board had been activated, so it was no wonder they were so indignant.
One of them even howled, “Inhumane!”
As if ghosts were kindhearted saints.
Despite their anger, they still had puppets to deal with.
The ghosts were initially caught off guard by the puppet charge, but this was a force of more than a hundred Ghost Kings, a force that even a Nether Emperor would avoid. Thus, the ghosts were quickly able to adjust.
The Heartless Ghost King struck back first, seizing a puppet by the head and shattering it. The headless puppet tried to swing its sword, upon which the Heartless Ghost King thrust a claw into the chest, digging out its core. As the core was destroyed, the puppet collapsed. The Heartless Ghost King was a close combat expert, and it was completely unhindered by the nature of these puppets.
The Mara brothers also joined in, their forks shattering puppet after puppet. Yakshas were known for their physiques, so this sort of battle was nothing difficult for them.
The other Ghost Kings started to come around and stopped using their spell arts, turning to the more primitive methods to fight.
The sound of shattering stone filled the hall as puppet after puppet collapsed in clouds of dust. Though they felt no pain and feared no death, there were far too many ghosts for them to deal with, and all of them were ultimately destroyed.
Tang Jie also shattered a puppet, but he cared more about how it was made.
After studying the design of the puppet he had shattered, he couldn’t help but admire the skill of the creator. This wasn’t to say that it was particularly exquisite. On the contrary, the methods used were rather crude.
But it was these crude methods that had allowed the creator to make numerous puppets at a cheap cost to form a strong defensive line.
In this mausoleum, Tang Jie saw another perspective when it came to formations and puppets.
“I wonder what other surprises you can offer me,” Tang Jie muttered.
A Ghost King heard this and angrily shouted, “‘Surprises’? What ‘surprises’? All that awaits is darkness, death, and fear!”