Chapter 341: Shattered! The Earth Lord Got Drunk!? Breaking the Ghost Domain!

The old farmer’s eyes turned icy cold. Without even making a move, the skies above Yang Family Town ten li away were suddenly blanketed by dark clouds, forming a massive vortex. It looked like a single eerie, indifferent eye, gazing mercilessly down upon the town.

Just then, a crushing pressure instantly descended on Li Yanchu. Sensing it, Li Yanchu raised his head slightly.

He could clearly feel the ghostly energy around him surging at a terrifying speed, rushing together in a flood, as if the underworld itself were descending upon the earth.

A thought flickered through his mind.

At this level of intensity... could the Earth Lord Seal actually break under the strain?

Old Daoist Huang and Guo Wei were trembling uncontrollably, and their hands and feet were icy cold, while their entire bodies were overwhelmed by fear.

“Holy shit! This overwhelming ghostly qi... what the hell is going on!? Don’t tell me this place connects straight to the underworld itself!”

Old Daoist Huang’s scalp prickled, and his face was drained of all color.

That strange, indifferent eye turned its gaze toward the Earth Lord Seal floating in the air, devouring the yin qi.

Boom!

With a deafening blast, the eerie eye above Yang Family Town exploded into fragments.

The Earth Lord Seal radiated a surge of ancient, overwhelming power. The dense yin qi not only failed to damage the ancient seal, it even seemed to unlock a hidden restriction enhanced within it!

By the deathly pool, the old farmer’s face took on a look of shock[1].

“Impossible! What the hell is going on!?”

He stared toward Yang Family Town, ten li away, his expression filled with horror and disbelief. The ghostly energy of that vast land of ultimate yin was actually being drained dry!?

Who on earth is casting spells over there!?

The old farmer’s expression wavered between shock and suspicion. This had already gone far beyond anything he understood!

He rose slowly to his feet while staring long and hard in the direction of Yang Family Town, a venomous look flashing across his face. Countless emotions flickered through his features, until at last, he grit his teeth and drew three sticks of incense from his robes.

With solemn reverence, he planted them before the deathly pool that reeked of corpse-qi. As soon as they were lit, a thick, fetid stench of rot spread through the air.

Glug... glug...

The surface of the stagnant pool began to bubble, as if something deep within was about to emerge. A great black mass unfurled in the water, its sinister aura leaking outward.

Looking closer, one would feel their scalp go numb. It was unmistakably the long, black hair of a woman.

Meanwhile, the vast ghostly energy of the domain had already been completely devoured by the Earth Lord Seal, and not a trace remained. At this point, it was utterly clean.

The once-dense deathly corpse-qi had vanished, replaced instead by vibrant yang qi and the breath of life. The extreme of yin flipped to yang. The ghost domain was not merely shattered; it was transformed, birthing flourishing yang qi that repelled all evil.

Such a heaven-turning, earth-shaking feat left Old Daoist Huang utterly stunned! Even Guo Wei, a rough-and-tumble martial man of the

jianghu

, could keenly sense the change in this place.

Though all around them still lay broken walls and ruins, there was not the slightest trace of ghostly gloom remaining. Instead, the air felt open, upright, and righteous.

Both men gazed in disbelief at the young, handsome Daoist, their admiration overflowing so much that they could only prostrate themselves[2] in awe.

“This... this is straight-up the means of an immortal!”

Their shock and awe had already reached the limit. Especially now, with Li Yanchu standing there so calm and detached, his presence unfathomable, he seemed every bit the master who played among mortals yet stood far above them.

But what they didn’t know was Li Yanchu himself was a little dumbfounded. His original plan was to brute-force his way through this ghost domain and either incinerate it with a divine artifact of fire, or blast it into scorched earth with the Five-Lightning Talisman. Never did he expect the Earth Lord Seal gifted by the Earth Lord of Wei City to be this ridiculously powerful!

With a flick of his hand, the seal, still emanating its ancient, overwhelming aura, dropped back into his palm.

And all that world-shaking pressure? It didn’t affect him, the bearer, in the slightest.

Turning the seal over, he saw that the once-blurred inscription was now far clearer.

“Lord of Mount Tai!?” Li Yanchu’s eyes went wide.

What the hell!?

Wasn’t this thing supposed to be just a standard Earth Lord Seal, born of incense offerings and the approval of the local ley lines? That was what the Old Celestial Master himself had told him!

Yet staring carefully now, the archaic characters engraved on the base truly spelled out four unmistakable words:

Lord of Mount Tai.

His heart skipped a few beats for no reason, pounding hard in his chest.

“Lord of Mount Tai[3], that’s the overlord of the underworld, the direct boss above the Ten Kings of the Underworld! How in the world would such a terrifying treasure end up in the hands of some random Earth Lord of Wei City!?”

Li Yanchu was utterly baffled. In his mind, Earth Lords and Mountain Gods belonged to the bottom rung of Heaven’s bureaucracy, the absolute grassroots of the divine ranks.

And in the hierarchy of the underworld, the Lord of Mount Tai ranked above even the Ten Kings of the Underworld. That was the very top tier of authority!

“These two positions are worlds apart, how could they possibly be connected!?”

Li Yanchu’s breathing grew heavy, and all at once, the ancient seal in his hand felt as weighty as Mount Tai itself.

“Either the Earth Lord of Wei City has some special connection with the Lord of Mount Tai... Or... that Earth Lord got drunk on fake wine and carved the seal of the Lord of Mount Tai on his own!”

Li Yanchu immediately felt the latter was pure nonsense, unless the Wei City Earth Lord had completely lost his mind. In that instant, the image of the frail, dying Earth Lord, who had barely been able to manifest his golden body, suddenly loomed far larger in Li Yanchu’s heart.

As the saying went,

“Even a seventh-rank official at the gates of the prime minister holds real power.”

If this Earth Lord had really managed to get on the side of the Lord of Mount Tai, then he sure as hell wasn’t someone to be messed with!

Li Yanchu examined the seal more carefully. Aside from its aura being far more formidable than before, it didn’t seem to have gained any new, special abilities.

Still, while holding the Lord of Mount Tai's Seal, his sense of the earth veins grew sharper, and he had a strange and ineffable awareness. It wasn’t that his divine sense had expanded, but for a fleeting moment, he had the illusion his gaze pierced far into the distance to the stagnant pool.

A prickle of warning rose in his heart. But soon that sensation faded away. He tucked the Lord of Mount Tai's Seal back into his robes and strode forward to leave, when suddenly, a thought flashed across his mind.

The Earth Lord, before his fall, entrusted this seal to me... and this very seal turns out to be the Lord of Mount Tai's Seal.

Could it be... that even Lord of Mount Tai has fallen!?

Li Yanchu drew in a deep breath. The thought seemed absurd. What on earth had happened to the gods of this world!?

He quickly pressed that notion down. The urgent matter now was finding Fang Qinglan. Everything else had to be set aside.

He cupped his hands toward Old Daoist Huang and Guo Wei and said, “Gentlemen, the ghost domain has been broken. I have some pressing business, so I’ll take my leave first!”

Before either of them could react, Li Yanchu unleashed his ultimate footwork. His figure flickered into afterimages as he soared through the air and vanished without a trace.

The two men blinked, dazzled. That young Daoist, who seemed more like an immortal than a mortal, had already disappeared before their very eyes.

Guo Wei was still shaken to the core. He grabbed Old Daoist Huang by the arm, urgency in his voice as he said, “This place is too damn terrifying. Let’s get the hell out of here, fast!”

Old Daoist Huang nodded quickly, in full agreement. Then, the two of them fled as though their lives depended on it.

But Old Daoist Huang, on some strange impulse, glanced back and caught sight of a tall, straight-backed figure riding the clouds and soaring straight into the heavens before vanishing at the horizon in the blink of an eye.

“Holy shit! He’s riding the clouds, he really is a living immortal!”

1. This is another case of “face changed” which I have tweaked to sound more natural in English. ☜

2. A prostration is a gesture used in Buddhist practice to show reverence to the Triple Gem and other objects of veneration. Here is a reference

image

. ☜

3. This refers to Emperor Dongyue, a Daoist deity of the sacred mountain Mount Tai. He is also believed to be the leader of a large bureaucratic celestial ministry overseeing the maintenance of the Book of Life, a register of the due dates on which each and every human soul must be summoned before the Judges of Hell for judgement. Since ancient times, Mount Tai has been seen as a sacred place where the spirits of the dead gather, so the god of Mount Tai was thought to be the supreme deity of the underworld, who governed the lifespan and status of humans. He was reportedly the grandson of the Jade Emperor.

Here is a reference

image

. ☜