Mythology

Chapter 466 When people die, they become ghosts; when ghosts die, they become vengeful spirits (Part 2)

Vision began to surge, exhibiting a fluctuating trend.

Yang He noticed that although the Great Incense Master had not yet descended to the mortal realm, he had already invisibly influenced this fragmented world.

"The ghost soldiers and ghost people of the Great Shang Dynasty in Guixu have lived for three thousand years. In essence, they are no longer human, nor are they of our kind. Their hearts must be different."

Click.

He twisted Qing Chanzi's neck and carried her head as he stepped into the air.

Because there were still unresolved questions, Qing Chanzi's life was spared for the time being. At the same time, he couldn't help but feel a little sad, because things were different now than before.

Who would have thought that a mere True Immortal is now nothing more than an ant?

Even though Yang He was about to face ghosts and gods, he was not as disheveled as when he first met the mother and Ajipizhuo.

"Immortal, this disciple is willing to serve under your tutelage!"

"Don't let this disciple face the Grand Master!!"

Qing Chanzi mumbled incessantly, terrified to the extreme, her features contorted, her once beautiful appearance now grotesque.

"Noisy."

Yang He arrived at the third level of hell, where the smell of incense intensified.

The black cat awoke from its slumber, perched on the shoulder, its fur bristling as it stared at the endless hell. In the eighth level of hell that the spiritual vision could currently perceive, thick smoke and dust were already swirling up and down.

Hakimi warily spat out the Hunyuan Golden Cauldron, and his whole body burst forth with five-colored divine light.

"Does the Heavenly Dao still exist in the main world? A ghost or god can change the rules of life and death?! Damn it!!"

Yang He turned back to look at the mortal realm, his expression turning extremely grim.

A chilling wind howled.

Most towns in the mortal realm have tried to avoid burial, but mass graves still exist, where unclaimed bodies are abandoned.

Yang He noticed that resentment was gathering at a mass grave on the outskirts of the capital.

Several stray dogs, who had been scavenging for carrion, now tucked their tails between their legs, let out low growls of fear, and turned to run away from the grave mound.

The soil is moving.

Snapped.

A rotting arm emerged from the ground, its five fingers twisted like withered branches, its fingernails filled with mud and grime, as the corpse struggled to crawl into the ground.

Immediately afterwards, the grave mounds were dug up one after another.

The corpse looked blank, as if driven by some kind of instinct, and slowly crawled to the nearest dead tree, curling up into a ball.

The rotting flesh clung tightly to the tree trunk, and the skin on the back suddenly tightened.

Eventually, a thin crack appeared.

Blood seeped from the crack, accompanied by a chilling squelching sound.

Yang He grabbed Qing Chanzi's head and asked, "How does your Chantan Temple recruit disciples? And how did you get here?"

Qing Chanzi felt Yang He's five fingers close together, and the unbearable weight on his skull.

"Ancient Immortal! Spare this disciple!!"

"If we want to be admitted to the Chantan Temple, we must be slaves for nine lifetimes before we have a chance to be enlightened by the Great Master in the tenth lifetime."

When Qing Chanzi mentioned the Great Incense Master, her pupils became cloudy.

"In the first life, flesh is cut off; in the second life, bones are taken; in the third life, the heart is gouged out; in the fourth life, skin is peeled off; in the fifth life, the soul is burned; in the sixth life, the marrow is eroded; in the seventh life, the pupils are offered; in the eighth life, the tongue is split open; in the ninth life, the lamp is turned into a lamp."

"If one does not become an immortal in ten lifetimes, one's life will be in vain, and one will have to endure nine more lifetimes as a slave."

Yang He watched as the skin of a corpse in the mass grave in the mortal realm broke open, and a living person who looked seven or eight parts similar to Jin Chanzi was born from it.

A living person imitated a cicada, climbing to a high place on a tree trunk and remaining motionless.

It seemed strange and inexplicable.

Yang He directly experienced the true terror of ghosts and gods.

Ghosts and spirits can change the rules of the mortal world.

The disciples of Chantan Temple were only fit to be resources in their previous nine lives. Only after suffering endless torment could they cultivate. In a sense, the Grand Master of Incense is the Heavenly Dao.

If the Great Incense Master were to descend to the mortal realm, the rules of life and death in the main world would be broken.

Being buried after death can bring you back to life!
"It's strange. In the original work, there seems to be a similar legend about Tang Sanzang. Jin Chanzi descended to the mortal world and went through ten lifetimes of cultivation before he got the opportunity to go on the pilgrimage."

Yang He immediately contacted his disciples to seal off all the people in the mass grave.

Before long, the Grand Court began to operate smoothly, and a large number of cultivators were dispatched from within the body of Elder Bigan to all the mass graves within the territory.

Yang He nodded in satisfaction, even though his disciples' strength could no longer keep up with his.

But it is enough to manage the Grand Court in an orderly manner.

Qing Chanzi was delirious and had unknowingly arrived at the eighth level of hell. The sky had faded in color, replaced by chaos.

Yang He stood still, with the Precious Bone Mausoleum hanging overhead.

Forty thousand peaches with human faces emerged and began to form a living stake around themselves.

Yang He wasn't good at many types of live stakes, so he chose the Yin-gathering technique, and soon mysterious patterns began to spread across the ground.

He made a hand seal with both hands.

In an instant, the ground trembled, and flesh and roots intertwined.

"rise!!"

With a low shout from Yang He, the earth within a radius of a thousand miles suddenly cracked!
Tender buds sprouted, and a large number of peach trees rose from the ground. The trunks were all made up of countless limbs pieced together, with arms as branches, leg bones as trunks, and heads hanging from the branches, guiding the yin energy to gather in the center.

The nearby evil spirits had no time to escape and were entangled by the roots, dragged into the ground.

They then became the buds of flowers on the treetops, ready to bloom.

When Qing Chanzi regained consciousness, he was terrified. Could it be that the ancient immortal... intended to ambush and kill the Great Incense Master?!
How can it be? ! !

Yang He was enveloped in a protective aura, with three Nuo flags behind him.

Qing Chanzi subconsciously looked at Nuoqi's handwriting.

One corpse, one puppet, and half of Fu.

The characters on the third Nuo flag are blurred, and only a small part of them are visible.

Qing Chanzi stared at the character "Puppet," and the scene of Yang He transforming into Ghost True Lord flashed through her mind. Could the other flags represent some kind of existence?

Yang He asked curiously, "There must be quite a few beings similar to Ghost True Lord, right? What do you call them?"

Qing Chanzi broke out in a cold sweat, “It’s called… Dao Shi.”

"I see, that makes sense."

As soon as Yang He finished speaking, a long, drawn-out cicada chirp came from the ninth level of hell.

The sound was unlike that of ordinary insects, mixed with the whispers of monks chanting scriptures.

Qing Chanzi was so frightened that her teeth chattered and blood flowed from her face.

"Ancient Immortal, please!"

"We, the Golden Cicada Masters, cannot look directly at the Great Master, much less get close to him. Please, I beg you, do not allow your disciples to..."

Before he could finish speaking, Qing Chanzi suddenly stopped talking, his eyes darting around frantically. He saw the true face of the Great Incense Master for the first time before he died.

It was just a piece of skin.

A giant human skin made of countless cicada skins stitched together, every inch of which is densely covered with Sanskrit characters, the characters twisted like crawling insects.

The Great Incense Master has no fixed form; sometimes he stretches out like a cicada's wing, and sometimes he curls up like a pupa, slowly crawling through the endless hell.

"The Great Incense Master..."

Qing Chanzi stared at the enormous creature with fascination.

The Great Incense Master's body trembled slightly, and the scales on his back unfolded like waves.

The scales remained attached to his back, but when they were unfolded, they turned out to be countless monks' faces, each retaining the expression they had in life.

Whether in pain, obsession, or madness.

Their mouths opened and closed, silently reciting scriptures.

Qing Chanzi's pupils suddenly contracted as she saw a familiar face in the skin—it was her own past nine incarnations.

In his previous nine lives, he harbored immense resentment and called out Qing Chanzi's Buddhist name.

Yang He remained completely calm, scrutinizing the Grand Master with meticulous attention to detail. He observed that so-called ghosts and gods could use their faces to continuously cultivate disciples.

Roar! ! !
The Great Incense Master hissed, spewing thick incense smoke from its stomach.

The so-called incense is also the yin energy absorbed by the disciples during their cultivation, so Qing Chanzi must use cicadas to transform the yin energy of the mortal world.

Ghostly cultivators are like freshwater fish; they cannot survive in seawater.

The Grand Master of Incense indeed embodies the characteristics of the Way of Heaven.

Yang He remained calm and collected. The Eight Trigrams Furnace and the Three-Legged Cauldron had already accumulated a massive amount of Yin energy to make up for the gap between him and the Grand Incense Master.

The chief incense master was unaware of Yang He's threat and continued crawling on his belly.

Because of the forced passage through the endless hell, the Grand Master was inevitably affected, and his strength was less than one-tenth or one-twelfth of what it was at its peak.

Buzz~~~
Yang He noticed that Qing Chanzi's soul had disappeared. After staring at the Great Incense Master for a long time, her soul could not resist the temptation and returned to the ghost god.

He casually crushed the head.

"Hehe, whether it's Qing Chanzi or Hui Chanzi, they are actually both parts of the Great Incense Master's body and soul, somewhat like..."

"Supernatural powers."

Yang He suddenly laughed. Yes, it was somewhat like a supernatural power.

All the Golden Cicadas are composed of supernatural powers. They cultivate each other and continuously strengthen their supernatural powers, which benefits the Great Incense Master at the source.

"Is this version 3.0? Allowing supernatural powers to be born with spirituality, transforming into a miniature world and growing on its own."

"Just right."

"Let's try to find out what's lacking before we go into seclusion for five hundred years."

Yang He could sense that the Great Incense Master's intelligence was limited, and it was likely just a test from the deeper realm of bliss. After all, in the grand scheme of Journey to the West, even Jin Chanzi was just a mass-produced product.

boom! ! !
The puppet flag swayed slightly.

Yang He's body disintegrated, turning into wisps of dark yin energy, like smoke and mist, drifting away in the eighth level of hell.

The Grand Incense Master's movements froze instantly. The Yin energy transformed from the Ghost True Lord was extremely pure, even a hundred times purer than the extracted incense. The faces on his backs all revealed greed, and 730,000 faces opened their mouths simultaneously, emitting a noisy and chaotic sound.

"Such pure Yin energy is extremely rare!" the aged man murmured, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"It's mine! It should all be ours!"

The young monk's face contorted in a ferocious roar, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

“Amitabha, this opportunity will allow 30,000 monks to break through their bottlenecks.”

Another face, with a kind and benevolent expression, was chanting Buddhist mantras, but its eyes were green with greed.

"Eat him! If we eat him, we can achieve enlightenment!"

Yang He glanced at the scene and saw that nearly 700,000 faces were screaming at the same time, while almost half of them were asleep, indicating that their souls had not yet returned to the spirit world.

He also heard Qing Chanzi's voice, "Be careful! This person is also a ghost!!"

Unfortunately, compared to the total number of 700,000, Qing Chanzi, this outlier, was completely overwhelmed and couldn't make a ripple at all.

"As it turns out, the wisdom of the crowd cannot be trusted."

With each opening and closing of its scales, it absorbs all the yin energy into its body.

Gulu.

The master swallowed the food hastily, and his breath, which had been affected, seemed to recover somewhat.

In the next instant, something unexpected happened!

The Great Incense Master's body shuddered violently, and hundreds of faces twisted and deformed simultaneously, with fleshy growths bulging under the skin to form numerous eyeballs.

With the help of the Ghost True Lord's possession of the Great Incense Master, Yang He attempted to turn the tables and take control.

If it succeeds, it can even absorb nutrients.

"Well."

Yang He grunted. He had just taken control of 736 faces when things started to go wrong.

"Got you!!"

Seven hundred thousand faces spoke at the same time, their voices overlapping.

boom!
The yin energy transformed from Yang He exploded from inside the large incense burner.

He reacted quickly, abandoning 90% of his Yin energy to escape, and used the Yin-Gathering and Life-Generating Pillar to infuse the accumulated Yin energy into his body. He could recover to his peak condition in just two breaths.

A flash of five-colored divine light, combined with the Hunyuan Golden Cauldron, formed a celestial canopy to block the Great Incense Master.

The Great Incense Master ignored the Five-Colored Divine Light, and the Black Cat's strength was ultimately a little lacking, only managing to injure a dozen or so facial skins on the back of the Ghost God.

Yang He transformed back into human form, preparing to activate the Qiankun Ruler to maneuver further.

The leader of the incense shuddered, and his face involuntarily opened his upper and lower jaws, from which cicadas crawled out of his throat, forming an overwhelming swarm of insects.

Amidst the piercing chirping of insects, the swarm of cicadas surged toward Yanghe like a tide.

Wherever they went, most of the peach trees were eaten.

"Well, the Corpse Immortal is not as agile as the Ghost True Monarch. His true body only has one life, and he can easily crash and burn if he is not careful."

Yang He narrowed his eyes. Ghost True Lord's supernatural powers tend to be possession. The Great Incense Master has no soul, and his consciousness is composed of 700,000 monks. Ghost True Lord has no way to deal with him. Why not try Ksitigarbha's methods?

The mist he transformed into suddenly cracked open.

Although the character was not deeply integrated, it still possessed some of the Ten Evil Deeds of the Hell Realm, and then felt the eyeballs in its body come alive.

"Fire!!"

Immediately afterwards, eyeballs began to roll out of the crack one after another.

Tiny baby hands and feet sprouted from its eyeballs, resembling a ladybug, and it frantically pounced on the cicada swarm, with the two devouring each other.

Yang He had already traded his injuries for injuries, so the pain from his shattered eyeball was nothing to worry about.

The leader of the incense burner felt the same way as the cicada, and all his faces showed pain.

"efficient!"

Yang He seized the opportunity, his five-colored divine light flowing around his body, and with the help of the Qiankun Ruler, he moved around the Great Incense Master, displaying a guerrilla-style maneuver.

Seeing that he was about to gain the upper hand, the Great Incense Master clearly began to adapt to the eighth level of hell.

Buzz~~~
The Great Incense Master let out a sharp screech that pierced through the eighth level of hell.

puff!
Yang He suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood and discovered that his body was covered with insect eggs. The eggs were rooted in the yin energy and were hatching into nymphs.

He wanted to get rid of the insect eggs, but found that he would have to sacrifice himself and abandon his yin energy.

"When? No, the Great Incense Master is imitating the Ghost True Lord's supernatural powers!!"

What does 700,000 consciousnesses mean?

The Grand Master may lack intelligence, but his comprehension is absolutely extraordinary. If he continues to make adjustments, Yang He will have absolutely no chance.

Buzz~~~
The Great Incense Master wouldn't give Yang He time to solve the problem, and another screech was heard.

Bang bang bang.

The resulting roar tore through the ground, creating a trench a hundred meters deep between the Great Incense Master and Yang He, with dust billowing everywhere.

Yang He barely managed to activate the Five-Colored Divine Light to cover the protective Xuan Light, but it was immediately drowned out by the sound waves.

The Grand Master's 700,000 faces simultaneously showed expressions of confusion, unable to sense Yang He's presence, like a drop of water disappearing into the ocean.

"Where are the offerings? Where are our offerings?!"

"We sacrificed three thousand five hundred comrades, only to be disappointed in vain!"

Countless cicadas emerged and spread in all directions, trying to find Yang He's whereabouts.

At the same time, ripples appeared in the sky above the eighth level of hell, and shadows thousands of feet long quietly emerged, seemingly spying on the lower levels and searching for Yang He.

Soon, the spying gazes focused on the southeast corner.

The head of the incense-burning ceremony became restless, and many faces chanted scriptures.

Amidst the smoke and dust, two Nuo flags appeared, one representing a corpse and the other a puppet, gradually merging into one due to their intertwining.

Buzz~~~
Without hesitation, the Great Incense Master roared again, the sound waves covering a radius of a hundred miles around the Nuo flag.

With a tooth-grinding tearing sound, a bloody, mangled object was blasted into dust, turning into minced meat and scattering in the air.

The Great Incense Master grew increasingly nervous, signaling the swarm of insects to devour all the remaining bits of meat.

however.

A single drop of blood landed precisely on the back of the Great Incense Master.

The moment blood comes into contact with the skin, it affects 200,000 facial skin cells, causing them to age rapidly regardless of age.

It was as if life had been drained by blood.

Yang He's figure reformed, but now it was unrecognizable.

Two heads and four arms.

Two heads stood side by side, their faces as pale as corpses, their blue faces and fangs like demons. The flag behind them was fully unfurled, the character '聻' clearly visible, exuding a suffocating aura of death.

"When a person dies, they become a ghost," the corpse slowly spoke.

"Ghosts die and become 'naughty spirits'," the ghost leader replied, his tone sinister and chilling.

This was the first time Yang He had activated two Nuo flags simultaneously, and the strain on his body and soul was within his tolerance.

The consciousness within Da Xiang felt a chill. Despite being of a higher realm than Yang He, he couldn't help but let out an almost pleading wail.

"come on."

Yang He could sense the terror of the Huayan, and without giving the Great Incense Master a chance to create distance, one of the corpse arms grabbed the Bagua Furnace.

boom!
The Eight Trigrams Furnace, carrying the Six Ding Divine Fire, landed heavily on the Great Incense Master.

His other arms were not idle; each punch was wrapped in a thick aura of corpse demons, and he rode the Great Incense Master wildly and randomly, without any strategy.

Yang He neither dodged nor avoided the cicadas, letting them devour him.

Roar!
The Great Incense Master was utterly enraged. His enormous skin split in two, and a net of human skin wrapped around Yang He layer by layer, each layer of skin contracting.

puff.

Yang He was brutally crushed, and the sound of his bones breaking could be clearly heard.

But just as the master of incense was laughing, the blood on his face seeped into his forehead.

A few more livid spots appeared on his forehead, followed by a second, and then it was like a plague spreading across his face until it covered tens of thousands of people.

"Hahaha."

Yang He continued to laugh wildly, his limbs and arms tearing through their skin.

"it's useless."

Yang He's two heads spoke simultaneously, "Every time you kill me, I will take root deeper inside you."

"Great Master, you are me; killing me is killing you!!!"

The head monk finally panicked, or rather, the hundreds of thousands of monks felt fear in the face of Yang Hesheng. The collective consciousness is most afraid of rumors spreading like wildfire.

Their faces were tearing at each other, trying to remove the lividity, but the aura of the corpse demon had seeped into their very bones.

Yang He fought with increasing ferocity, grabbing the Great Incense Master's skin with all four arms and tearing off a large piece, his face emitting a shrill wail.

scoff.

The Great Incense Master's skin cracked open again, leaving behind a layer like a cicada shedding its shell. The dark blue-green body inside transformed into a stream of light and plunged into the ninth level of hell without looking back.

Yang He stood there, clutching the discarded skin.

He slowly raised his head and met the gaze of the thousands of feet of shadow in the sky above.

"Have you seen enough?"

The shadow did not respond, but the yin energy began to boil unnaturally.

With a slight thought, Yang He summoned a third tattered flag, which fluttered close to the main flag. The blurred characters on the flag were a broken "弗".

His neck was torn open, and a mutilated third head slowly emerged.

The head has only half a Buddha face, with the corner of the mouth splitting all the way to the ear, forming a blood-red maw that is twenty or thirty meters long.

roll!!!!!!

The five-colored divine light gathered in his mouth into a dazzling Buddhist light, which shot into the ninth level of hell with a roar.

(End of this chapter)