Chapter 31 Setting Off
Chapter 31: Setting Off
One wanted it, one wouldn’t give it up.
Luo Hongyu gripped the red jade, the armored figure extended her hand, and Gu Jing held her sword watching both sides.
They had reached a standoff.
Even the armored figure seemed slightly confused, tilting her head, but she wasn’t annoyed and withdrew her hand.
“You living people, why are you here?”
Her voice coming from beneath the helmet sounded particularly muffled, but her clear, crisp tone and straightforward manner were still audible.
But before Luo Hongyu could answer, the armored woman glanced at her, her deep blue pupils flashing, then nodded thoughtfully.
“I see. Those who can connect to the Netherworld aren’t many; you truly are unfortunate.”
“May I ask who you are…”
She looked at Gu Jing who had asked the question and said flatly:
“My name is Rakshasa, the gatekeeper of this bronze coffin, responsible for watching over evil spirits and suppressing malevolent ghosts.”
“Without my command, neither living nor dead may pass through this gate.”
Bronze coffin…
That meant this space inhabited by countless evil spirits and malevolent ghosts was essentially a giant coffin.
And those in the world with the power to accomplish something of this magnitude had likely long transcended the realm of earthbound cultivators like themselves.
Rakshasa, chosen as the gatekeeper of this place… must certainly be formidable.
Fortunately, she appeared to have no hostility and could communicate. Perhaps there was still a turning point.
Luo Hongyu squeezed the red jade in her hand.
It had led them to the right place after all.
“If you have any doubts, you may as well tell me.”
Rakshasa, having noticed Luo Hongyu’s small movement, simply sat down on a stone by the river.
“What exactly is this place?”
Luo Hongyu also put away the Lulan sword and stood to the side, carefully examining Rakshasa who exuded a bloody aura.
“This place is called the Netherworld, situated between the mortal world and the underworld, a chaotic realm that was contained within this bronze coffin by the Lord of the Underworld in ancient times.”
“Evil ghosts from the mortal world that couldn’t be purified, and unresolved grudges, are all imprisoned here, suppressed for eternity.”
After a pause, Rakshasa continued:
“Besides this, nowadays underworld officials also come here to select evil spirits to refine into ghost soldiers and ghost generals.”
With these two statements from Rakshasa, Luo Hongyu and Gu Jing finally understood what this place was.
A prison, and also a breeding ground for venomous insects.
Luo Hongyu frowned, then continued:
“Earlier, we encountered someone above who claimed to be the Lord of the Netherworld.”
“Merely a mortal who survived by luck, falsely claiming lordship, a mere clown.”
Rakshasa replied indifferently, clearly, this so-called Netherworld Lord had always been within her monitoring range.
“He gathered ghosts to cause havoc. Taking advantage of today’s opportunity, it’s good to kill him.”
As she spoke, Rakshasa stood up, took the long blade from her back, and held it with both hands.
From the blade extended a blue soul banner, upon which appeared one head after another.
“Rise, Netherworld, headless without return.”
Then, Rakshasa swung her blade, and the river surface surged again.
A group of headless warriors emerged from the river. Though they were also ghost creatures, they didn’t have that eerie, cold aura, but rather inspired a sense of awe.
A total of three hundred headless warriors lined up neatly in front. They held long spears, their armor imposing. The only terrifying thing was that each had a giant mouth-like opening in their abdomen.
“The heads of these warriors were all severed by me and incorporated into my Headless Army.”
Rakshasa walked to the front of the Headless Army while speaking to Luo Hongyu and Gu Jing.
Then, she pointed her long blade toward where they had fallen from.
“Headless Army, leave the river.”
The army behind her began to march silently, moving upstream through the river, and disappeared.
“You two might as well come see.”
“How I guard these fierce vengeful souls.”
…
“Screech—”
At this moment, above the bronze gate was a scene of slaughter.
Facing the Headless Army, those countless evil ghosts were like locusts encountering fire, shrieking miserably as they retreated.
When the long spears of the Headless Army caught a ghost soul, they would drag it into the giant mouths in their abdomens and devour it. The sounds of tearing flesh and crunching bones could be heard.
In the center of the chaotic battlefield, a deathly silence surrounded Rakshasa.
Each swing of her blade was like mowing grass; she could somehow make those formless evil ghosts bleed.
Rakshasa’s blue long blade was clearly no ordinary magical weapon—it could directly harm incorporeal ghost souls.
In her flowing water-like harvesting, she forcibly cleared a vacuum zone around herself.
The remnants of evil ghosts cut to pieces fell on her armor, making barely perceptible sizzling corrosive sounds.
This helped Luo Hongyu understand how the mottled marks on her armor came to be.
This unprecedented ghost-killing-ghost slaughter greatly shocked Luo Hongyu.
She gripped her Lulan sword tightly, feeling something in her heart—the shackles of her realm actually loosened slightly…
No.
Luo Hongyu forcibly suppressed this sign of breakthrough.
Besides her father’s very serious instruction that her Nascent Soul breakthrough must occur outside the Ascension Assembly, she herself was puzzled.
She practiced sword techniques that purified the mind, so why, upon seeing such a scene of slaughter, did she feel a sense of clouds parting to reveal the sun?
This clearly wasn’t aligned with her path of cultivation…
The brutal slaughter didn’t last long before the ground was littered with fragments of ghost souls.
The Headless Army was cleaning the battlefield—with their own bodies—while Rakshasa walked directly toward a particular direction, reached into the void, and grabbed a hunched figure.
Rakshasa threw him heavily to the ground. He seemed extremely sensitive to the ghost energy on her blade, screaming in agony when it approached him.
This voice belonged to the Netherworld Lord who had chased them not long ago.
“Feiyun, it’s time for you to die.”
Ignoring his screams, Rakshasa placed her blade across his neck.
“Feiyun…”
Hearing this name, Gu Jing fell into thought.
“Senior Sister Gu has heard this name before?”
“A hundred years ago, there was indeed a famous Core Formation wandering cultivator named Feiyun that I’ve heard of, but he disappeared for a long time…”
Gu Jing looked at the curled up, hunched small figure on the ground, completely unable to connect him with that brilliant talented cultivator from a hundred years ago.
“I deserve to die? Haha, you ghost creature, others deserve to—”
Before he could finish, a flash of blood appeared.
In Rakshasa’s hand was now a head.
“In the bronze coffin, evil ghosts devouring each other maintains balance, but Feiyun managed to gather these evil ghosts and conspired with the mortal world to bring living people here for him to devour and cultivate.”
“You two must have come because of this.”
Rakshasa threw Feiyun’s corpse among the Headless Army, then carried her blade and walked toward Luo Hongyu.
She suddenly changed the subject, looking at the two and said flatly:
“Do you know how my Headless Army came to be?”
“…No.”
“The Headless Army wasn’t originally dead spirits, but living people who strayed into this Netherworld.”
“I cut off their heads, erasing their mortal names, transforming them into members of the Headless Army without exception. Including that Feiyun, who will soon become a headless warrior.”
“The matter of Feiyun is settled. Next, it’s time to send you on your way as well.”
…