BXBX NOVEL Chapter 160: 3,000
Chapter 160: 3,000
Chapter 160: 3,000
After taking a few Qi Gathering Pills and regulating his breathing for a while, Xu Disheng went to the edge of the platform above the mountain peak and surveyed the real scenery below.
The Malicious Spirits had all either been destroyed in the fallout of the fight earlier or had fled long ago. The view beneath the mountain peak was still an expanse of clouds and mist, looking exactly the same as it had in the illusion.
Although the ghosts being nurtured by the Zhao Territory had fled, they were only Malicious Spirit stage ghosts. The Dao Foundation stage Zhao Yan and the three Evil Spirit stage ghosts had all died. Now then, in the Zhao Territory…
Xu Disheng took out the affairs jade slip once more and looked at the description indicating ‘3,000’ of something as the mission objective. In his eyes, it was only looking more and more out-of-place.
After putting the Realm-Crossing Wooden Boat into the Yin Yang Diagram, Xu Disheng took out the Dharma Breaking Sword, the attack-type Magic Treasure that he had received as a reward from the tournament. He hopped onto the sword and flew down from the mountain peak, plunging into the hazy mist and clouds. Based on what he remembered from the illusion, he began to head in the direction of the Zhao Clan’s ancestral city.
Since the illusion had been made based on the real Zhao Territory, there shouldn’t be too much difference between it and the real Zhao Territory.
Sure enough, after traveling a few dozen kilometers, a clamorous, bustling city entered Xu Disheng’s vision. Exactly like the scene in the illusion, there was a magnificent great hall off in the distance, surrounded by a sprawling complex of pavilions and buildings as far as the eye could see.
With a light scoff, Xu Disheng reduced the speed of the sword light he was riding and carefully examined the people walking about in the city.
A little less than half of the citizens had ghost bodies, but there were many humans intermingling with them. The ghosts were being treated like equals, and some humans had even formed extremely close relationships with them.
As it turned out, the Zhao Territory really was special.
Above the ancestral city of the Zhao Clan, the Dharma Breaking Sword hacked downwards, splitting open the barrier surrounding the great hall. Clad in a black Daoist robe, Xu Disheng descended atop a sword light. “Where are the people of the Zhao Clan?” he asked loudly.
The Soul Suppressing Vestment had already been destroyed. For the time being, Xu Disheng had taken out a common Spirit Tool Daoist robe from his interspatial ring and put it on.
Although Zhao Jingyuan and the others had died, it wasn’t a given that the ordinary people of the Zhao Clan and the ghosts under their care would know about this. More than half of the ghosts who had participated in the scheme to kill Xu Disheng had died, and the dozen or so that remained didn’t dare to show their faces anymore. It wouldn’t be strange at all if the ordinary people of the Zhao Territory in the ancestral city didn’t know anything of their clan’s scheme to kill Xu Disheng.
“Who are you? How dare you trespass into the ancestral city!”
Several Zhao Clan descendants quickly flew out from the main palace, their expressions filled with displeasure. Each of them was accompanied by either one or a number of ghosts.
“I am an intermediary disciple of the Shangqing Sacred Sect from the Secret Realms Office of Wenyuan Mountain’s Affairs Hall,” Xu Disheng said, flashing the token. “I came here to claim tribute on behalf of Wooden Construct Spirit Master.”
The expression of one of the Zhao Clan descendants who seemed to be the leader among them changed. He seemed to know something and looked hesitant.
“Are you really an intermediary disciple from the Shangqing Sacred Sect?” the descendant of the Zhao Clan said hesitantly. After a while, he continued, “The people of the Sacred Sect haven’t come to our Zhao Clan in a long time now. Only people from the Zhao Clan have been regularly coming and going here. This tribute for Wooden Construct Spirit Master that you speak of… I have heard our ancestor speak about it before.”
“Where is it?” Xu Disheng asked.
“About that… Ancestor said he had to go out and do something important, so we should wait until he returns,” the Zhao Clan descendant replied. As it turned out, he wasn’t dumb. It had been a very long time since any people from the Sacred Sect had come to the Zhao Territory. He couldn’t confirm Xu Disheng’s identity at this moment, despite the Dharma Breaking Sword seeming to be a real Magic Treasure. Thus, he could only try to delay and wait for Zhao Jingyuan and the others to come back and handle this.
Zhao Jingyuan was originally a direct descendant of the Zhao Clan, and in the past, was a Rank 5 Spirit Root elite disciple. But after encountering an unexpected disaster, his soul was brought back to the Zhao Clan, and he was refined into a ghost. He had been living in a ghost body for the time being and was ruling over the Zhao Territory on behalf of the Zhao Clan. His position in the clan and his own capabilities were both high, which was why he was called ‘ancestor’ by all of the direct descendants of the Zhao Clan.
But little did he know that their ‘ancestor’, Zhao Jingyuan, already had his mind completely erased and was now confined in the Black Sky Yellow Earth Pagoda. He had even lost the right to be reincarnated, and in the end, he could only become nutrients for Xu Disheng’s soul-suppressing Evil Spirit skull to absorb.
“Hah? Could you bear the responsibility of holding up an intermediary disciple like me from completing his tasks?” Xu Disheng said, activating the Dharma Breaking Sword. Several streaks of sword light appeared in the air. They hovered there in the middle of the air, threatening to slice towards the people of the Zhao Clan at any moment.
“Intermediary disciple…”
These expressions of these direct descendants of the Zhao Clan changed dramatically when they felt the fierce, powerful aura coming from the Magic Treasure.
“Lord Intermediary Disciple, our ancestor seems to have prepared some tribute, but the amount is a bit insufficient,” the Zhao Clan descendant who spoke first earlier said, finally managing to muster up enough courage to speak in face of the enormous pressure coming from the three sword lights hovering menacingly in the air.
“Seems to have?” Xu Disheng repeated. After a bit of contemplation, he saw through the whole story.
In the plans the Zhao Clan had drawn up, they would kill him without fail when he came to the Zhao Territory, and they never planned on anything unexpected occurring. This task that he had taken on, which he wasn’t even sure at this point whether it was real or fake, might only end up being counted as a failure in the end.
But regardless of whether this task was real or fake, Xu Disheng absolutely had to complete it so he could have some way to explain himself once he left the Zhao Territory and returned to the Shangqing Sacred Sect.
“Bring all of it here.”
“Yes, Lord Intermediary Disciple,” that Zhao Clan descendant replied. His status in the Zhao Clan clearly wasn’t low, but after seeing Xu Disheng summon the three sword lights that were now hanging over his neck, his face turned pale and he even started to refer to Xu Disheng with honorifics.
“Hurry and bring the tribute for Wooden Construct Spirit Master here!”
“Yes, Young Master Zhao.”
After a while, someone came out of the hall with a wooden storage box in hand. It looked exactly the same as the one in the illusion, but this time, the life-threateningly dangerous aura on it was absent.
Xu Disheng received the wooden storage box and opened it. Drifting about aimlessly within were over 1,000 mortal souls that already had their consciousnesses wiped clean.
“Wooden Construct Spirit Master wanted 3,000 souls. These aren’t enough,” Xu Disheng said flatly, closing the wooden box.
Young Master Zhao’s expression changed. “Lord Intermediary Disciple, there really is nothing that we can do about this matter. We have to get our ancestor’s approval before we can arrest any mortals and extract their souls.”
He was very obviously saying this only to stall until Zhao Jingyuan and the others came back.
“If that’s how it is…” Xu Disheng said, the sword lights from the Dharma Breaking Sword glowing brighter, “Then you all are useless.”
The sword lights flashed. In the next moment, the few descendants of the Zhao Clan before him were cut down.
The expressions of the remaining people changed dramatically. Under the suppression of Xu Disheng’s Magic Treasure, they didn’t even dare to think about putting up a fight. They simply pulled out their Spirit Tools and attempted to flee.
The Demon Punishing Array Diagram appeared around Xu Disheng and began to eliminate all of the direct descendants of the Zhao Clan and Malicious Spirit stage ghosts. The four-colored swords zipped around and flashed several times until there wasn’t a single being left alive in the array.
Strangely enough, the wooden storage box in his hand then began to emit a strong attraction force. The souls of the people who had just died were sucked towards it, pulling them away from the cycle of reincarnation. Their consciousnesses were wiped away from their souls, and they were transformed into ordinary souls and stored in the wooden box.
However, these newly added souls weren’t souls originally belonging to mortals. Although their consciousnesses had been whittled away, what remained was a brutal, ferocious instinct. They began to gobble away and devour the souls near them. In the blink of an eye, several dozen souls were swallowed by them.
Xu Disheng’s brows furrowed in displeasure. He swept his hand out and the soul-suppressing Evil Spirit skull flew out, sucking in the dozen or so souls that were devouring the others. When Xu Disheng looked into the wooden box again, there were only a little over 1,000 souls left in the box.
Perhaps Wooden Construct Spirit Master only wanted souls belonging to mortals.
Xu Disheng got on the Dharma Breaking Sword and rose into the air. When he looked at the flourishing city off in the distance, his eyes narrowed.
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