Seventy-Nine, Gathered Together

Song Jiu was a Nascent Soul cultivator.

But he was human.

Only one who had attained godhood on the spot could truly be said to belong to a different species from mankind.

The moment he appeared, all the malign things present were stirred into frenzy.

Those foolish fiends who had only moments ago been barking about the Yellow-Skinned King and begging not to be eaten had all seemed to change at once.

Vicious. Cruel.

Even the surrounding temperature seemed to drop for no reason.

A chill seeped through the air.

Chen Huangpi said in astonishment, "There are so many of us fiends here. How dares he show himself?"

"With such abundant human vitality about him, why would he not dare?"

The brass oil lamp watched Song Jiu, who hovered in midair, with deep caution.

It saw the human vitality upon Song Jiu, and it also saw the small seal hanging at his waist.

With the blessing of the county seal's human vitality, this was not a Nascent Soul cultivator at all, but a deity on par with the city god of a county seat.

Only... was this man here for the Feng Shui divine disk?

"Chen Huangpi, that Feng Shui divine disk—I remember that slender fiend didn't even take a liking to it, did it? How is it on that thing's body?"

"It is on it. It gave me too many things, so I couldn't bring myself to take it back."

Chen Huangpi's voice was weak.

Back then, he had used the Feng Shui divine disk to trade with the slender fiend for the Ascension Token, thinking he had exchanged a useless piece of junk for a treasure and made a killing.

Who knew the slender fiend would scorn the disk and instead take a liking to his black smoke?

In the end, he watched as a wisp of black smoke hollowed the slender fiend out from within.

No matter how thick-skinned Chen Huangpi was, he could not bring himself to ask for the divine disk back.

"Tsk..."

The brass oil lamp sneered, "That slender fiend must have met you by the worst luck of eight lifetimes."

"It's probably finished."

"Still, that's fine. I've always felt something was off about it. Saves us from some new trouble later."

At that moment, Song Jiu fixed the slender fiend with an icy stare.

The Feng Shui divine disk could not pinpoint Chen Huangpi's exact location.

But it could sense the presence of another Feng Shui divine disk.

Originally, he had intended to kill Chen Huangpi first, then go seek out the other one.

But once the message reached Xu Prefecture City, Song Tiangang had without the slightest hesitation ordered him to go straight for the divine disk.

As for the matter of Chen Huangpi, the one who had killed the young lady, it seemed he was not even as important as a single divine disk.

Song Jiu did not know that Song Tiangang believed the mutated divine statue had devoured Lin Ye and the others, and that the Feng Shui divine disk must naturally be within its body as well.

What he was sent to find was not some mere dead object.

It was the secret of immortality rumored to lie within the mutated divine statue.

"City God of Qing'an County, make your move. Capture that fiend and bring it back, and you shall receive a handsome reward!"

"Yes, sir!"

How could the City God of Qing'an County hesitate?

The burly figure clad in green armor manifested at once.

A divine statue was merely a vessel for a god's will, not its true body. For the true body was immense; once manifested, it stood a hundred zhang tall, with surging incense burning all around it.

That incense seemed alive.

Faintly, one could see countless faces within it, men and women, old and young, all devout beyond measure.

"Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!"

The City God of Qing'an County opened its blood-red maw and uttered three commands to freeze.

Driven by divine power, a strange force instantly enveloped the surroundings.

All the fiends were pinned in place.

Even Chen Huangpi felt his body turn sluggish; every movement was as arduous as wading through mire.

But he was not truly frozen.

It was merely the skin of the Death-Claiming Ghost he wore that had been fixed in place.

"Are gods not all freeloaders? Why is it so powerful?"

Chen Huangpi was baffled. "Is there, then, a hierarchy among gods as well?"

"Of course there is."

The brass oil lamp said, "It is a county city god, the superior of the gods you killed. Above it are prefectural city gods. The more people under a city god's domain, the stronger it becomes!"

"Good thing it's not aimed at you. Otherwise we'd have had to flee whence we came!"

"Look, the county city god is making its move!"

As soon as the words fell, the City God of Qing'an County pressed down with its left arm. Threads of incense burned into clouds, lending the arm the appearance of one reaching down from the Nine Heavens. Thunder rumbled, fierce winds rose, and the difference between one god and another truly seemed greater than that between man and dog.

At such close range, Chen Huangpi could even make out the palm lines on the City God's enormous hand.

That hand blotted out the sky as it reached to seize the slender fiend.

But the next instant, a glimmer of black light suddenly flashed over the slender fiend's body.

The divine power that had pinned it was immediately dissolved.

Then the slender fiend drew open the black robe on its body, revealing the hollow occupying its entire lower abdomen.

Within that hollow lingered a faint, wispy trace of black smoke.

And then, in an instant, that wisp of black smoke swelled to the thickness of a finger.

The slender fiend's body, as though stripped of its vital essence, instantly withered away.

The black smoke swelled further, filling the entire hollow completely.

Then, a jet-black beam shot skyward from within that void.

The black beam was like a sword.

It stabbed straight toward the City God's sky-covering hand.

The latter seemed to sense something and tried to withdraw, but it was already too late.

"Aaaah!"

The City God of Qing'an County screamed as its hand was pierced through by the black beam, golden blood scattering like rain.

More strangely still, the black beam seemed venomous; black smoke immediately began to rise from the pierced hand.

"Cut it off!"

With a furious roar, the City God of Qing'an County severed the entire arm with its own hand.

Before that divine limb, as massive as a mountain, could even fall, it was already billowing with black smoke, every trace of essence and divine power devoured by the fumes.

"This..." The brass oil lamp cried out in horror, "This slender fiend has a major problem. How can it use your black smoke, and be even more terrible and formidable with it than you are?"

"It's only a fiend now. If it becomes a calamity, wouldn't it be even fiercer than the demon tree?"

Chen Huangpi groaned miserably. "How was I supposed to know a wisp of black smoke could turn it into this? If I'd known, I should've just taken it by force back then."

At this moment, Chen Huangpi regretted it bitterly.

No matter how pleasing the slender fiend might have seemed, once black smoke was involved, he could no longer remain as calm as before.

That was his black smoke.

How could he allow another fiend to use it?

But just then, Chen Huangpi's expression changed violently. "Wait—why is this black smoke coming for me?"

Black smoke surged wildly from the severed arm of the god.

In the blink of an eye, it swallowed it whole.

Then, as if sensing something, it rushed straight toward Chen Huangpi without the slightest hesitation.

It was fast beyond measure.

So fast that Chen Huangpi could not even react before it plunged directly into his body.

Yet the door to the Kidney Temple had already been shut.

These strands of black smoke could not return. They could only linger at the threshold of the Kidney Temple, like wanderers without a home, until in the end they had no choice but to seep back out through Chen Huangpi's pores and coil around him.

Chen Huangpi understood at once. "I see. The black smoke is mine, so of course it will not harm me."

This had happened too suddenly.

Neither Song Jiu nor the City God of Qing'an County could hide their astonishment.

On the other hand, the slender fiend seemed to have known this would happen all along. It nodded at Chen Huangpi, its purple-black mouth opening and closing as if trying to say something, but no words came out, and in the end it could only force out a strained smile.

The brass oil lamp cried out in alarm, "Chen Huangpi, don't tell me it knows you?"

Chen Huangpi frowned. "It made a deal with me. How could it not know me?"

"No, not now—before."

The brass oil lamp said urgently, "If it did not know you before, why would it act so strangely? Haven't you noticed that from the very start it was extremely polite to you? Even when the black smoke returned to your body, it did not get angry."

Chen Huangpi thought for a moment, then shook his head. "You and I are inseparable. If I had met it before, you should have seen it too."

Suddenly...

The Death-Claiming Ghost's voice rang out faintly, "Is it possible that this slender fiend used to be one of the Taoist priests from the old temple? Don't forget, it possesses the Ascension Token of Yi Qingzhou."

At these words, the brass oil lamp blurted, "Impossible. If it were Yi Qingzhou, it would be at least a tribulation, if not some calamity even more terrifying than a tribulation."

The priests brought by the temple master from the Great Qian Immortal Dynasty were not all immortals, but none of them were weak.

Otherwise, how could they have caught the temple master's eye?

In the sky, Song Jiu and the City God of Qing'an County exchanged a glance.

Both man and god looked exceedingly grim.

They had considered themselves mighty beyond the heavens, believing that dealing with a mere fiend would be as easy as a gale sweeping away fallen leaves.

Who would have thought that the moment they struck, they would hit a hard wall?

Most bizarre of all, no matter how the City God of Qing'an County urged its divine power and burned incense, the severed arm simply would not grow back.

"That black smoke has devoured my true aspect," the City God of Qing'an County said through gritted teeth. "My lord, let us strike together. So long as we do not let that black smoke touch us, this trifling fiend will not be able to do anything to us."

But the fiends below did not agree.

"Yellow-Skinned King, make your move!"

"Gods' flesh tastes the best!"

"Yellow-Skinned King, quickly burn them to death with black smoke!"

"So that's what it's called—the Yellow-Skinned King!"

Song Jiu stared fixedly at the fiend in the bamboo hat, its whole body wreathed in black smoke.

If the slender fiend was already so terrifying with only a wisp of black smoke, then the Yellow-Skinned King, with black smoke billowing all over its body, must be vastly more dreadful still.

"Go!"

Song Jiu made his decision at once. "This is no place to linger. Withdrawal first!"

With the Feng Shui divine disk in hand, the slender fiend would not escape.

At worst, they could remain in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains a few more days, waiting until it and the Yellow-Skinned King separated before moving in to capture it.

But just then, a shrill voice rang out.

"You've come to the Burial Gods' Grave and still want to leave? You mere mortal, how laughable!"

The words had barely fallen when a procession carrying a temple suddenly appeared out of thin air. The temple door swung open in a windless draft, and the figure of the Yellow Disaster, his whole body coated in dried mud, emerged from within.

Farther away, dust and debris flew in all directions as the earth shook and mountains trembled.

The towering body of the mutated divine statue came striding forth.

Song Jiu closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Then he looked down at the Yellow-Skinned King and said, "Burial Gods' Grave, Yellow-Skinned King... good, very good. I had truly taken you for a calamity, never imagining it was you all along."

"Just wait. I will come for you."

With that, Song Jiu threw back his head and gave a long cry to the heavens. The small seal hanging at his waist immediately burst into radiance.

With boundless human vitality surging around him, he seemed as majestic as a deity.

"A mere calamity dares to block my path?"

"Come, join me in cutting a way out!"

"Kill!"

The City God of Qing'an County roared.

Man and god shot upward together.

And then, they were driven back down from the sky.

Above, within the dark clouds, a vast shadow lurked half-seen. From within those clouds, a colossal eye covered in fleshy growths slowly opened.

Its aura was terrifying beyond words.

A tribulation.

The Yellow Disaster had persuaded a fiend worthy of being called a tribulation from the Ten Thousand Great Mountains to come to the Burial Gods' Grave.

And not just one.

Chen Huangpi's face turned deathly pale. He saw a black claw appear above Song Jiu's head.

The claw was shaped like a human hand, but it had only four fingers.

The moment it appeared, it pressed down upon Song Jiu's brow.

I am in especially good form today, so I'll write another chapter and settle the debt to the alliance leader!