Put away your magical powers now!.

Chapter 328 [Ghost Cloud Cliff]

[Sorry, I only got home late last night and didn't sleep a wink to finish this chapter. I got back late this time, a day longer than the leave I requested; it was my mistake.]

Chapter 322 [Ghost Cloud Cliff]

Ghost Cloud Cliff.

The common holy land, or rather, the forbidden land, of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Clan in Southern Xinjiang.

Among the demons, everyone fears them like the plague.

This place represents brutality, bloodshed, oppression, violence, and... torment among the demons!
Just as there was no ghost race in the past in the Southern Frontier, there was no so-called forbidden area like Ghost Cloud Cliff among the ghost race.

Since that sage created the cultivation methods of the Ghost Clan, uniting the mountain tribes of the Southern Frontier into a unified Ghost Clan, this newly formed nation experienced a period of prosperity and rapid development in its early stages.

Just like a newly sprouted sapling, it is always full of vitality at the beginning, growing vigorously and becoming strong...

Then, inevitably, just like the laws that all things in this world go through, after a period of vigorous development, a period of decline will inevitably follow.

Back then, the ancient ancestor of the Ghost Clan created the Ghost Clan's cultivation techniques and established the Ghost Clan's path of cultivation. At the same time, he also made contracts with all the people, sects, families, and even the saints of the heavens in the various realms.

In the southern borderlands, the area west of the City of No Return is the territory of the Ghost Clan.

This divided the vast land of southern Xinjiang in two, with the Ghost Clan occupying half of the Jiang region.

Subsequently, countless mountain tribes began to merge, first into eighteen tribes, and then the eighteen tribes became a unified "Ghost Clan" against external forces.

However, the word "integration" sounds easy, but in practice...

This process was not smooth sailing, nor was it calm and uneventful.

The process of integration may be rife with annexation, cunning acquisition, and plunder...

I am a tribe, and you are a tribe. So, after we merge, who will be the leader and who will be the follower? Why should I be subordinate to you? Or rather, why should I give up my independence, my people, my forests, and even my original beliefs to submit to another tribe, even sever my former faith, destroy my former sacred objects, or even abandon the name of my ancestors?
One tribe after another disappeared, were wiped out, and finally countless tribes merged into one of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Clan. During this time, countless lives were lost in unseen places.

It's unknown how much hatred and irreconcilable grudges were left behind.

So-called "integration" has never been peaceful!
It's not something that can be accomplished just by drinking tea and discussing business!
There was bleeding during that time, a lot of bleeding!

The Ghost Clan, by this name, presents a unified whole to the outside world.

But the demon race has never been a monolithic entity!
The eighteen departments are filled with deep-rooted grudges and hatreds.

Even within each department, between different tribes, and between different mountain peaks, there may be ancient feuds and grudges passed down from time immemorial!
That sage ancestor displayed an almost ruthless cruelty from the very beginning, crushing all forces and voices opposing the entire ghost race with thunderous suppression!

With absolute power and absolute violence, they crushed all those in the mountain tribes who tried to oppose and resist!
In this process, many mountain tribes that were once prominent in ancient times were directly wiped out and disappeared into the long river of history.

The "Helin Tribe," originally located in the southwestern mountains of southern Xinjiang, ruled over six hundred mountain peaks, covering an area of ​​eight thousand li. They even formed their own kingdom, worshipping the ancient stone forest as their tribal sacred object and the antlered deer in the forest as their tribal totem.

At its peak, their population exceeded one million!
However, during the process of the integration of the Ghost Clan, the Helin tribe refused to give up its own customs and beliefs, refused to abandon its sacred stone forest, refused to change its tribal totem, and refused to join the newly established "Ghost Clan" or become one of the eighteen tribes.

The price was that the sage ancestor performed a divine miracle, smashing their sacred stone forest into dust with a single palm strike!
The tribal totem, the forest antler deer, was slaughtered to death!

The million inhabitants were captured and divided up by the more than twenty tribes that besieged them!
At the end of the war of annexation, in the final battle to exterminate the tribe, more than 8,000 loyal people who guarded the sacred land of the Helin tribe were slaughtered. Their heads were cut off and used to build eight mounds of skulls!

The Helin tribe, a mountain tribe that once dominated the southwestern region of southern Xinjiang, was thus wiped out!

The Helin tribe even became a clown and a joke in the ancient myths passed down by the ghost tribe in later generations.

They could have accepted the ancestor's decree, and with the size and strength of the Helin tribe at the time, they could have become the cornerstone of one of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Clan, establishing one of the eighteen tribes with the Helin tribe as the main body, and becoming a member of the eighteen leaders of the Ghost Clan.

They refused.

The consequence was the complete annihilation of the tribe.

Their place was taken by a tribe that was the first to invade their holy land in the final battle.

That tribe was later ordered by the ancestor to form one of the eighteen tribes.

After more than a decade of "fusion," with enough blood flowing and enough people dying, the Oni race was born.

Born under the immense pressure of the ancestor's supreme will.

The eighteen factions, which were united by force, never truly eliminated hatred and conflict from the very beginning.

During the integration process, the bloodshed and hatred have never truly disappeared.

Fortunately, the newly formed demon race experienced a period of rapid development.

West of the City of No Return in Southern Xinjiang, the vast lands provided the Ghost Clan with a huge initial space for development.

The rapid development and expansion temporarily masked many of the underlying problems.

The enormous benefits brought about by rapid expansion have also led to the temporary setting aside of many hatreds and grudges.

New land, new hills, new forests, new territories, new expansion...

This positive and exciting process gradually led the Ghost Clan into a period of frenzied development.

Hatred and bloodshed were temporarily forgotten during this period.

but……

After a period of rapid and vigorous development, all development inevitably enters a period of stagnation.

Southern Xinjiang is vast.

But even the most vast regions eventually come to be fully developed.

Even the biggest cake will eventually be divided and eaten.

Even the highest ceiling eventually reaches its limit.

Before the first millennium of the Ghost Clan's existence had even passed, the Ghost Clan experienced a massive internal upheaval.

After the vast western part of southern Xinjiang was completely divided and developed, the eighteen tribes went through hundreds of years of maintaining their status and hundreds of years of internal development and construction...

Similarly, under the influence of unavoidable laws, some tribes prospered, some declined, some had wise leaders, and some encountered incompetent leaders.

There are natural disasters, man-made calamities, and fate...

After the cake was divided, as the eighteen members turned their gazes to each other, they were suddenly surprised to find that one of their neighbors looked rather weak, and resembled a delicious prey...

More than eight hundred years after the establishment of the Ghost Clan, an internal turmoil began with a tribe called the "Armored Bird Tribe".

It was once one of the eighteen tribes of the demon race!

Perhaps it had its eye on a patch of forest on a neighboring property, or on a particular product that it coveted.

Or perhaps, they discovered the weakness of a neighboring tribe and felt they had found an opportunity.

Or perhaps, at that time, the Armored Bird Tribe was at its peak. During the initial development of the eighteen tribes, it thrived due to good fortune, occupying the best mountains and forests, obtaining the best produce, and producing the most intelligent and wise leader...

In short, in that era, the Kou-Nori tribe was the strongest of the eighteen tribes, without exception!

Its strength even surpasses that of the Kuroki clan.

Ambition then takes root.

Within a few years, the Jia Niao tribe defeated five of the eighteen tribes, and even breached the sacred site of one of them, nearly wiping it out.

Finally, it even arrogantly demanded that more than ten other tribes submit to it and pay tribute every year.

They also demanded that the other tribes among the eighteen tribes relinquish their right to perform sacrifices—from then on, the right to communicate with the Ghost Clan's ancestral saint and to worship the ancestor could only be enjoyed by the Armored Bird tribe.

The list of Yama Kings of the Eighteen Divisions was determined by the Jia Niao Division, and then reported to the Holy Ancestor through sacrifices and prayers.

If the sage ancestor of the Ghost Clan is their god, then the Armored Bird Clan aspires to be the number one person below the true god, or even their representative.

But they forgot that their long-standing strength had made them forget that the rule established by the sage was that each of the eighteen Yama Kings worshipped the sage and that all eighteen tribes revered the ancestor.

They wanted to annex the eighteen tribes and merge them into one Jia Niao tribe.

They even arrogantly wanted to silence all eighteen tribes, and from then on, the ancestor could only listen to the sacrifices and prayers of the Jia Niao tribe.

This matter does not conform to the rules set by the sage ancestor.

Then, one day...

A blazing fire descended from the sky and landed in southern Xinjiang.

Three hundred mountain peaks in the territory of the Armored Bird Tribe were burned by heavenly fire overnight!

The fire burned for a full eighty days, scorching hundreds of mountains and leaving the land barren for miles!
The most elite tribal army of the Armored Bird tribe, numbering 80,000, was directly melted down into molten iron!
Three thousand cultivators were burned to ashes!

The armored bird clan plummeted directly from the clouds!

Their fate was the same as that of the former Helin tribe: they were subsequently attacked by other tribes, their sacred land was flattened, and their tribe was wiped out in the long river of history.

The leaders and high-ranking members of the Eight Hundred Armored Birds tribe, who were among the most guilty, were thrown into a cliff.

A heavy hammer fell from the sky, smashing their corpses, crushing their bones and flesh, and even before shattering their souls, it snatched away a trace of their remaining consciousness, imprisoning them forever on the cliff. This remaining trace of consciousness howled in the gale of the cliff for ten thousand years before exhausting its power and dissipating!

This is the punishment bestowed by our ancestral sage!
From then on, a rule was established among the Ghost Clan: whenever any tribe in later generations rebelled and disobeyed the rules of their ancestor, the other tribes would rise up against them and exterminate their entire clan!

The ringleader, just like the eight hundred criminals of the Jia Niao tribe back then, was thrown into that cliff, his flesh and blood were crushed, his bones were broken, and his soul was taken away, so that he would howl in the gale for ten thousand years!
Tens of thousands of years have passed, and many upheavals and wars have broken out in the history of the Ghost Clan.

Some old tribal names disappeared, and new tribal names were born.

Beneath that cliff, countless sinners were also buried.

And that cliff is called Ghost Cloud Cliff!

`
At this moment, the sky above Ghost Cloud Cliff was covered with dark clouds, which hung very low, as if one could reach them with a wave of their hand if standing on the mountaintop.

The dark clouds, as black as spilled ink, seemed to carry a thick, cold, damp air that sent chills down one's spine at the slightest touch.

On that towering cliff, surrounded by sheer cliffs, was a platform two hundred feet long and wide! There seemed to be no road coming down from the foot of the mountain; it was as if a piece of the mountain had been sheared off.

It's as smooth as if it had been cleaved by an axe or cut by a knife!
The cuts were so clean and sharp that they could even cut a person's finger.

The wind howled, as if countless mournful voices were howling.

The lingering souls of those sinners, some tens of thousands of years old, are still howling about their past suffering.

Such a sound of wind penetrates directly to one's soul; if an ordinary person were here, just hearing one sound would shatter their spirit!

Even cultivators, if their cultivation level is lower and they haven't reached the Celestial Realm, will have their spiritual foundation shaken and their mental state shattered if they stay here for too long, causing irreversible damage.

In the long run, it may even lead to the complete destruction of the path!
·
In the center of the cliff platform, a huge square boulder, more than ten meters high, stands like an ancient stone tablet.

At this moment, beneath this boulder, a woman is sitting cross-legged, her eyes closed and her hands resting flat on her knees.

The howling wind and mournful wails around her reached the woman's ears, but she seemed unmoved, simply closing her eyes and remaining indifferent.

Only when her eyelids twitched slightly, revealing the movement of her eyeballs beneath, did she reveal the fact that she was not at ease.

The magnificent robes she wore, made of the finest materials and imbued with some kind of magic, were now being torn apart by the relentless howling winds after several days.
The woman's face showed signs of dryness and cracking from the wind, and her lips were somewhat pale.

Suddenly, she slowly opened her eyes a crack, looked at the raging wind and dark clouds, a bitter smile appeared on her lips, and she sighed softly: "Sword Master, did the Ancestor send you here with some decree?"

Amidst the howling winds atop the mountain, a figure slowly emerged—it was Donghai, a sword cultivator dressed in a black long-sleeved robe.

With his short stature, childlike face, and the long sword he carried on his back, Donghai appeared amidst the raging wind, slowly walking step by step towards the woman.

"Greetings, Chief of the Ghost Clan." Donghai bowed respectfully.

The woman hesitated for a moment, then shook her head and said, "The ancestor has already removed me from the position of clan leader. It is inappropriate for the Sword Master to address me as such."

Donghai smiled and said, "Alright, although you have been removed from the position of clan leader, the ancestor has not removed you from the position of Yama King of the Blackwood Tribe. So, I will still call you Yama King."

“That’s not appropriate either.” The woman shook her head again: “Once I’m on Ghost Cloud Cliff, I’ll be a sinner of the Ghost Clan. Before the Ancestor pardons me, my identity will only be that of a criminal. I shouldn’t use the title ‘King of Hell’ anymore.”

After a pause, the woman even looked at the East Sea, her tone sincere and serious, and said, "Please inform the ancestor that I am aware of my sins and will reflect on my actions here for three years. However, the Blackwood Tribe cannot be without the Yama King's supervision for three years."

Please, Ancestor, consider that the Blackwood Tribe has always obeyed you without ever being negligent, and appoint another Yama King to govern the Blackwood Tribe so that no trouble will arise.

I, Luo Xiuqing, have no complaints in my heart, only guilt for failing my ancestor. I pray here every day, hoping to be spared the sins in my heart.

Donghai took a step forward, staring at the woman's face, especially her eyes, hoping to see even the slightest bit of pretense or insincerity in them.

To Donghai's disappointment, the woman's eyes were filled with sincerity.

Even the fluctuations in her spiritual consciousness were completely genuine, filled with sincere repentance.

Donghai sighed: "Luo Xiuqing, I really can't see through you anymore."

Luo Xiuqing pursed her lips and said with a wry smile, "The reason why the Sword Master can't see clearly is because the Sword Master thinks that I would harbor resentment and dissatisfaction after being severely punished by the Ancestor, and would never sincerely repent without the slightest dissatisfaction?"

"The dignified patriarch of the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Clan, the number one person in the Ghost Clan below the Ancestor Saint. In fact, for the past few decades, the Ancestor has not manifested his sainthood, and it was you alone who commanded the eighteen tribes of the Ghost Clan to fight against the Demon Clan in the Southern Frontier."

After decades of painstaking efforts, without the support of a sage ancestor, they managed to suppress various internal conflicts within the eighteen tribes and maintain a generally peaceful internal state. Externally, they were able to barely resist the gradual encroachment and pressure from the demon race.

Although the Ghost Clan had been suppressed by the Demon Clan in the Southern Frontier for decades, that was because the Demon Clan had an ancestor behind them, while the Ghost Clan's ancestor, the Sage, had not manifested his power for decades.

In this situation, although you are at a disadvantage in the fight against the demon race, you have done a great job of maintaining the situation for decades.

It's unlikely that anyone else could have done this.

From this perspective, you, Luo Xiuqing, have actually made contributions to the Ghost Clan.

So, Luo Xiuqing, you have made such great contributions, but this time, just because your disciple ruined the ancestor's plans, you have been punished again. Your contributions have not been considered, and you are being punished here to suffer...

"Do you truly feel not even the slightest bit of resentment in your heart?"

Luo Xiuqing seemed to smile. She took a deep breath, raised her hands to the East Sea, clasped them in front of her chest, and then bowed respectfully.

Her tone was even more meticulous: "Luo Xiuqing harbors absolutely no resentment!"

After a pause, she sighed softly, "However, I have a selfish reason, and I would like to ask the Sword Master to convey this to the Ancestor."

Donghai nodded: "...Go ahead and say it."

“I know that what angered the Ancestor was not just Zhanli’s act of acting on his own initiative this time. Rather, it was the things that I, along with some other members of the Ghost Clan, were planning this time—things that, in the Ancestor’s eyes, might truly be described as ‘acting on his own initiative.’”

Luo Xiuqing has already confessed and accepted punishment! But the others, including my good-for-nothing disciple Zhanli... I beg the Ancestor not to punish them too harshly.

because……"

"Why?" Donghai asked coldly.

"Because they didn't act on their own initiative!"

Luo Xiuqing gave a bitter laugh, her tone tinged with helplessness and bitterness: "An orphan who disobeys his parents and elders may not be doing it on purpose."

Rather, it's because she grew up away from her parents; she's used to relying on herself and having to plan and make decisions on her own when faced with problems...

She's just gotten used to life without her parents around.

·
(End of this chapter)