Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 398 Blood Talisman

A giant human head floats in the dark sky.

He had a bright smile, wore an official hat, and had a fat, comical face. His long, thin beard hung down, and his eyes, which were squinted into slits when he smiled, gave him a kind but also somewhat lewd and eerie look, in addition to his deathly pale skin.

The enormous head suspended in the darkness gives one a chilling feeling.

This thing may have been there from the beginning, or it may have been added later.

Ran Qing was certain that this thing was secretly helping those two ghost messengers; otherwise, those two ghost messengers would have been killed and suppressed by Ran Qing's [Bone-Slaying and Body-Cutting Technique] long ago.

As an extremely powerful evil technique within the lineage of Yin-Yang practitioners, the [Bone-Slaying and Body-Cutting Technique] possesses immense power.

Normally, those two ghost messengers wouldn't have been able to withstand three rounds of slaughter from Ran Qing.

However, each time they were killed by the ox bone knife, their wounds would heal rapidly, which was extremely unusual.

Now, with the appearance of that enormous head, the mystery has finally been solved.

Ran Qing coldly raised her head, staring at the enormous head that was faintly visible in the dark sky.

After careful examination, he confirmed that the object was indeed just a head.

He had no torso or body, and floated in the underworld like a giant balloon.

Is this thing also a ghost or spirit from the underworld?
In the legends about the underworld since ancient times, there doesn't seem to be such a righteous god...

Ran Qing's face was gloomy, but he did not act rashly.

The red talisman he held in his hand was one of the two most vicious and powerful forbidden talismans of the Yin-Yang lineage.

He doesn't want to use it lightly unless absolutely necessary.

The enormous human head that emerged from the darkness gazed at Ran Qing with a smile.

A sinister and eerie atmosphere permeated the air.

The city ruins beneath Ran Qing's feet were long since empty and silent.

Those crowded seas of wandering souls had already fled in terror and panic when Ran Qing fought with the ghost messengers earlier.

Now, Ran Qing stands alone on the ruins of the city gate, facing the three malevolent beings outside.

Upon seeing the giant human head appear, the two ghost messengers almost simultaneously lowered their mourning sticks and massive iron chains.

Then, in front of Ran Qing, two towering ghostly figures, each as large as a small mountain, bowed and prostrated themselves before the human head.

The giant head continued to gaze at Ran Qing with a smile, but its lips moved, emitting an incredibly loud sound.

"Get out of here, you scoundrel! You've crossed the line!"

The voice sounded like a female lead on a theatrical stage, and the intonation was clearly that of a theatrical singer—it was incredibly strange.

And as He spoke, a drumbeat reminiscent of stage background music began to play in the darkness.

The rapid, pounding drumbeats were accompanied by the theatrical, questioning vocals of the giant human head.

At this moment, Ran Qing felt as if she had arrived at an ancient stage and was watching a thrilling play about gods and ghosts.

And before Ran Qing could answer, the giant head floating in the darkness spoke again.

It was still the same operatic tone, so strange and odd that it made people frown.

"...The spirits of the underworld vanquish vengeful ghosts, and the ghost messengers suppress evil spirits; this is the ultimate truth of Heaven's way."

"You, the people of Zangke who walk the path of the dead, though you belong to the unorthodox sects, should not act against the will of Heaven~~~"

dong dong dong-

As the giant head finished reciting in a theatrical style, it was even accompanied by a rapid drumbeat to conclude the performance.

It really looked like a theatrical performance.

The theatrical commotion, mixed with the enormous, eerie human head floating in the darkness, gave Ran Qing an incredibly suffocating and irritating feeling.

The last time he saw a true god was in the Huaga Tiankeng, where he accidentally witnessed the Northern Emperor's Black Law being triggered and the true god of the Arctic Discipline Academy descending to earth to kill and drag away the Taoist ghost who had violated the taboo.

The righteous god she encountered that time was strange and evil, completely unlike the righteous god Ran Qing had imagined.

He even doubted whether that thing was truly a deity passed down from ancient times.

The records of the Yin-Yang practitioners regarding the righteous gods are also shrouded in secrecy and ambiguity.

The second aunt even said that in the future, one should not provoke the gods, and even if one sees or witnesses something, one should keep the secret to oneself and not tell anyone.

Ran Qing already harbored doubts due to the mysterious warnings from her elders.

Now, seeing the true god again, and such a strange one at that, Ran Qing's unease reached its peak.

But he merely narrowed his eyes, his expression remaining largely unchanged, showing no unusual reaction.

He still remembered the warning from the second aunt.

Even if you see anything unusual about the gods, pretend you didn't see it!
Staring at the giant human head floating in the darkness, Ran Qing said expressionlessly, "This Teacher Li is a vengeful ghost from Zangke, so naturally he is under the jurisdiction of Zangke."

"Since the underworld cannot help it reincarnate, please return it to me. I will dispel all its resentment and let it rest in peace."

The lineage of spirit mediums cannot perform rituals to help the souls of the dead find peace, nor can they help them reincarnate.

There is no place for reincarnation in the Wujiang Ghost Realm of Zangke.

However, the lineage of Yin-Yang practitioners can dispel the resentment of vengeful ghosts, allowing the deceased to rest in peace and return to the world.

The enormous head in front of them could actually speak, although its tone was strange and inexplicably creepy.

But since it could speak, Ran Qing tried to communicate with it.

As Ran Qing finished speaking, the enormous head spoke again.

His lips moved, and he made sounds like he was singing in a play.

"...Ridiculous~~~"

"A mere spirit medium dares to try and steal a soul from a righteous god~~~"

"Retreat immediately! Considering that your lineage are barbarians from the southwest, ignorant of etiquette, I will forgive your disrespect!"

After the giant head finished speaking, the drumbeats in the darkness became incredibly rapid and fierce, like the echoing of war drums.

He stared at Ran Qing, grinned, and let out a strange, sinister laugh.

He seemed quite pleased with his grand and authoritative speech.

As Ran Qing stared at the strange head, she vaguely understood something.

This thing doesn't seem to be really talking.

Its eerie singing style is less of a communication and more of a clumsy imitation.
It seemed unaware that Ran Qing could see its face clearly. After speaking, it grinned smugly, revealing a mouthful of sharp fangs, and its already limited divine majesty completely collapsed.

Between those fangs, one could even see many ghostly figures of the dead wailing and struggling.

Its mouth resembled a mass grave, echoing the wailing of countless lost souls.

Upon witnessing this scene, Ran Qing felt a chill run down her spine.

The intuition of a spirit medium sent chills down his spine as he keenly sensed an extremely cold and eerie aura that was difficult to describe.

The enormous head before me is definitely not a true god!

Rather, it's something akin to an evil lord!
Its unintentional leak of a faint aura was almost 90% similar to that of the evil lord in the Wujiang Ghost Realm!
Is this what the true gods of the outside world have always been?
Or was it not like that before?

Ran Qing's mind raced, her face stiff as she stared at the enormous human head in the darkness.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Ran Qing, having calmed down, finally spoke in a cold tone.

“...If they refuse to let go, then we can only follow the rules of the southwestern barbarians.”

The so-called "summoning souls and questioning ghosts" practiced by the Yin-Yang lineage is almost synonymous with coercion and inducement; they never compromise. Communicating with vengeful spirits or evil lords relies on being more brutal and malevolent than the other party, applying extreme pressure, and forcing them to cooperate.

As soon as Ran Qing finished speaking, she raised the blood talisman in her hand.

This blood talisman is incredibly powerful. The strange god before us must have known how terrifying it was, which is why he appeared just in time before Ran Qing activated it.

Sure enough, as Ran Qing raised the blood talisman again, the giant head in the darkness immediately spoke.

"...Wait a minute~~~"

Even in its anxious shouts, the giant head's singing voice trailed off like a theatrical performance.

He gazed down upon Ran Qing from his lofty position, and chanted in a drawn-out tone: "...Your blood talisman...while its power is immense, the price is also exorbitant..."

"Each time you use this technique, you must sacrifice a portion of your own flesh and blood. A slight misstep, and you'll be crippled for life!"

"Aiya ya ya ya ya ya~~~ Why go to such lengths for a mere vengeful ghost~~~"

"What if I end up disabled?"

The singing style of the giant human head became increasingly absurd and bizarre.

But it performed with great joy, grinning smugly and squinting its eyes, as if it were immersed in its perfect singing.

Only Ran Qing, standing on the ruins of the city gate, suddenly felt a twitch in her eyelids.

The pale incense ash scattered on the edge of the altar of the spirit medium beneath his feet suddenly jumped as if startled.

A long, dark shadow emerged awkwardly from underground.

It was a long, dark, and eerie braid that moved silently underground until it bumped into the edge of the spirit medium's altar. It was blocked by the spirit medium's incense and was then jolted out by the shock.

The moment Ran Qing saw those snake-like braids, her gaze turned cold.

"...Trying to frame me?"

So the reason this giant head kept talking was to buy time?

Ran Qing directly raised the blood talisman in her hand, holding it high above her head.

He was chanting a cold incantation.

In an instant, the blood talisman in his hand visibly melted and dripped, turning into thick, sticky blood that flowed continuously from his hands, which he held above his head.

Upon seeing this, the enormous head let out a strange scream.

"...a spirit medium~~~"

He seemed to be trying to make excuses.

However, Ran Qing did not give Him any further chance to delay. Without a moment's hesitation, he directly activated the blood talisman.

A steady stream of blood flowed from his palms, quickly pooling into a river in the ruins of the city gate.

Then, the crimson blood continued to spread endlessly towards the outside of the city gate.

That eerie, invisible wall of air only blocked the writhing blood for a few seconds.

These pulsating bloodstains spread and wriggled, as if alive, through the air wall and surged outwards.

Ran Qing, who was holding up the blood talisman, suddenly felt a sharp pain in her right eye. Her eyeball jumped out of its socket and merged into the blood below.

At the same time, his left index finger, which he was holding up, suddenly detached from his palm like melting ice cream, and merged with the blood below.

The enormous head, upon seeing this scene, let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

Its laughter was incredibly sinister and eerie, no longer the operatic singing style of a female role, but a terrifying murmur that no living person could understand.

Just hearing that strange, gloomy laugh made Ran Qing feel her head throb and her vision go black.

Fortunately, the evil lords behind the Nuo opera masks roared and screamed together, dispelling the discomfort from Ran Qing's eerie murmurs.

Moreover, the evil lords made Ran Qing vaguely understand the meaning behind that sinister laughter.

That enormous head was mocking him—

—He's disabled! Haha! He's disabled!
Ran Qing continued to hold up her hands expressionlessly, unmoved.

The first time I used the blood talisman, I lost an eyeball and a finger. My luck as a spirit medium is just too bad.

The sacrifice of this blood talisman is completely random.

But most of the time, a portion of flesh and blood will be randomly removed from the body, which is equivalent to being injured and needing to rest for a period of time.

For someone like him to be disabled and lose organs on his first attempt is indeed considered very unlucky.

However, he still has several ghost eyes on his arm, given by the Ghost Eye Goat God, which can heal him as long as he doesn't die on the spot.

Ran Qing coldly lowered her head, raised her hands, and kept chanting incantations.

A tall, blood-red figure quickly appeared in the blood that had crawled out of the city wall.

The blood-red shadow had sharp horns on its head, wore armor, and had long, thin, grotesque hands growing from its waist. Although it was a huge humanoid figure, it was eerily terrifying, resembling a monster.

From its mouth came the evil lord's eerie laughter.

"...I ate it! I ate it!"

The crimson shadow chuckled and charged toward the ghostly messengers ahead.

The sound it made echoed countless times in the blood beneath it.

It seems that there are other evil lords in the blood beneath it—or rather, there are indeed other evil lords!

On the eerie, windswept land of the underworld, the figures of the evil lords, who should have been lingering in the ghost realm of the Wujiang River, leaped out of the blood one by one.

They are excited and manic, greedy and vicious, and can be either the size of a normal person or three to five meters tall.

Although they are not large individually, they are numerous.

With their appearance, the arena-like cacophony around Ran Qing's ears became much quieter and emptier.

The evil spirits behind these Nuo opera masks briefly appeared in this underworld land, aided by the power of the blood talismans used by the spirit mediums.

They densely covered the two ghost messengers.

The ghostly figures, as large as small mountains, were originally enormous, sinister, terrifying, and unsettling.

But at this moment, they howled in agony, their bodies covered with blood-red evil spirits.

Those crazed and greedy evil lords were tearing at the flesh and blood of the two ghost messengers with ravenous gulps.

The ghost messengers howled in pain and struggled to attack, but they could not inflict any damage on these evil lords formed from blood.

In the sky, the enormous head saw this scene and seemed to want to escape.

However, having already broken off relations, how could Ran Qing let this thing escape?

He was unaware of the situation outside and knew nothing about these so-called "true gods".

We don't even know if there's a Heavenly Court behind this "righteous god," or if we can get reinforcements. We must eliminate them completely.

Ran Qing coldly lifted the blood talisman and chanted an incantation.

Just as the enormous human head was about to escape, the sea of ​​blood below suddenly rose up and transformed into a giant, blood-red spider.

The spider swallowed the entire head in one gulp.

A terrifying, eerie wind swept violently across the land.

Teacher Li's spirit closed its eyes and was so frightened that it instantly fainted, unable to withstand the terrifying aura.

—The spider that appeared in that instant was one of the most terrifying evil lords behind the Nuo opera mask, as large as a mountain!

(End of this chapter)