Chapter 104 Ten Thousand Ghosts Besiege the City
After crossing the Lake of Baleful Qi, the sight before them made Chen Chang'an raise his brows—
Xiao Ling'er even let out a heartfelt gasp of wonder.
This so-called "black market" was actually a colossal fortress of pitch black!
The city walls, towering over a hundred zhang, were engraved with ghost-suppressing runes. Every ten steps stood a bronze Ghost-Slaying Cannon, its barrel still stained with dried blood. At the gates, dozens of Ghost-Suppressing Army soldiers clad in dark armor conducted strict inspections, their movements swift and eyes sharp as blades—clearly hardened veterans of countless battles.
This was the strongest shield the Ghost-Suppressing Army had built over ten thousand years within the Cave of Ten Thousand Ghosts.
"Please, come with me."
Soon, an ordinary soldier approached, replacing the duties of the white-robed men.
He led them through the barbican.
The streets were surprisingly orderly: apothecaries briskly packed pills, blacksmiths pushed massive ballistae toward the walls, and even itinerant cultivators buying materials calmly folded up their stalls.
"Why are they so calm?" Xiao Ling'er could not help asking. The ghost tide earlier had still left her shaken.
Without turning his head, the soldier explained, "Though a ghost tide comes once every hundred years, through the ages that gate has sometimes opened a crack for no reason, bringing smaller ghost tides. Those who live here long enough all know of it, so they do not panic."
Before he finished speaking, a heart-wrenching horn blast split the sky!
"Woooo—"
The sound was ancient and desolate, as though from a battlefield of antiquity.
The street fell silent. All eyes turned to the city wall.
The cultivators who had been speaking casually now turned pale. Chen Chang'an even heard someone behind him drop a teacup—
"The Blood Wave Horn! It's the Blood Wave Horn!"
The soldier who led them muttered in shock.
Following his gaze, Chen Chang'an saw it—on the horizon surged a pitch-black "wave," rolling forward with terrifying speed!
It was not water.
It was a flood of millions of ghosts! They tore and piled upon each other, rotten bodies recombining as they ran. The ones at the front had even formed giant bone claws like battering rams!
"You call this a small ghost tide?" Xiao Ling'er exclaimed in disbelief.
"No!" The soldier shook his head quickly. "When the Blood Wave Horn sounds, it is the highest alert of the Ghost-Suppressing Army. And this scale… could it be the ghost tide has come early?!"
As though roused by that desolate horn, the entire fortress suddenly roared to life.
Shouts of the Ghost-Suppressing Army rose one after another:
"Ghost-Slaying Cannons, ready!"
"Activate the city-guarding formation!"
"All cultivators below the Profound Connection Realm, enter the bunkers immediately!"
Chen Chang'an narrowed his eyes—for in the depths of that ghost tide, he faintly saw a palanquin made of human bones. Its curtains swayed without wind, and from within stretched a pale, jade-like hand.
…
The Blood Wave Horn still echoed overhead. The black market fortress awoke like a startled behemoth, rumbling into motion.
Xiao Ling'er watched as the cultivators who had been retreating now surged like a tide toward the walls—an old man with white hair and a cane hurrying forward, young female cultivators clutching medicine chests as they flew, and even several teenagers gritting their teeth while carrying baskets of talismans on their shoulders.
"Why aren't they evacuating?" Xiao Ling'er asked aloud.
"Evacuate? Where to?" The soldier beside her rasped, "In over ten thousand years, the Blood Wave Horn has sounded six times, and in four of those the city stood on the edge of collapse! Now is no time for personal gain."
He pointed to the overwhelming tide of ghosts outside the wall, his voice trembling. "Those things feed on humans. If they break through the black market, it will be an open road. And behind us lies Ghost-Suppressing City, where their kin and families live…"
Before he could finish, Xiao Ling'er already understood.
They had no reason to retreat!
"Elder Mo!" she suddenly turned, her apricot eyes blazing with resolve. "Let's fight too!"
Before the gray-robed elder could respond, Chen Chang'an chuckled softly. "What's this? Not going to find your brother Xiao Chen first?"
Xiao Ling'er shook her head firmly. "No, it's because I must find him. If my brother Xiao Chen were here, he would never stand aside!"
High above, the protective formation of the black market fortress quaked violently. A web of cracks spread like a spider's web, then mended at once.
But in that instant, the ghostly wails became ten times clearer, stabbing into the eardrums like knives.
"What are you standing there for!" Xiao Ling'er shouted. "Take us up!"
"O-Of course!" The soldier leading them answered at once, his eyes already carrying a faint trace of respect.
Very soon, the three of them were brought to a high section of the city wall.
The sight before their eyes nearly robbed them of breath—
The ink-black ghost tide had already surged to the base of the walls. The corpses at the front climbed one over another like a human pyramid! Their rotting fingers dug into the seams of the stone, corroding them into curling black smoke. In midair, countless wraiths clustered into black clouds, madly battering against the protective array.
Every so often, blossoms of blood burst across the sky.
"Loose!"
At the defending general's command, tens of thousands of bronze arrows engraved with ghost-suppressing runes whistled outward.
The struck ghosts screamed miserably, exploding into foul blood. Yet gaps were quickly filled as more surged forward—some even devoured the corpses of their own kind, swelling into monstrous forms!
As time passed, the battle below the walls reached a fever pitch.
The barrels of the bronze Ghost-Slaying Cannons glowed red-hot, each roar ripping bloody whirlpools through the tide of ghosts.
Talismans from the cultivators poured down like a storm, shattering the corpses scrambling onto the wall in swathes.
But the ghosts were simply too many—severed limbs and shattered remains fell into the moat, only to be devoured by the tide behind and return in even more grotesque forms.
"Hold the line! Third squad, rotate!"
Ye Guhan's roar cut through the chaos.
The Ghost-Suppressing Army's commander now stood atop the city gate, his crimson battle robe snapping in the wind.
The ghostly flame in his right eye blazed, and behind him had formed a six-armed, three-headed Asura avatar.
A group of corpses broke through the layers of defense, finally surging onto the wall, bringing sheets of blood among the human cultivators—
Ye Guhan bellowed—
"All of you—"
Behind him, the Asura avatar swung all six arms, the overwhelming baleful qi condensing into six colossal blades.
"—die!"
As the blades fell, the battlefield seemed drowned in blood. Tens of thousands of ghosts were annihilated in the scarlet light, and even the waters of the moat split apart from the aftershock, exposing a riverbed of piled bones!
The Ghost-Suppressing Army erupted in thunderous cheers.
But just as the blade strike waned—
A hum!
From deep within the ghost tide, a pale jade-like hand emerged, casually halting the world-shattering blade light!
"What?!" Ye Guhan's pupils shrank.
The battlefield plunged into eerie silence.
The ghosts parted like receding waves, forming an open passage.
Out of the hazy ghost mist, a slender figure rose into the air—a veiled woman in red, barefoot, treading upon a lotus of ghost fire.
She radiated no baleful aura at all, instead exuding an ethereal immortal grace. Yet with each step, black cracks spread like spiderwebs through the void beneath her feet.
"How is this possible?!"
For the first time, Ye Guhan's voice trembled.
The Asura phantom of his right eye began to unravel uncontrollably, as though it had met its nemesis.
The veiled woman gently raised her hand.
Boom!
The entire battlefield collapsed three zhang downward! All cultivators shook as though struck by thunder, the weaker ones coughing blood and fainting outright.
Even Elder Mo grunted, forced to one knee to steady himself, his face pale with shock—
"A… Saint Realm?!"
…
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