Chapter 426 – When the Map Runs Out, the Dagger Shows; Third Rank Revealed, Tigers and Wolves Swallow the Exotic Beasts - Part 3

Cloudpeak Province.

Li Yuan was gripping his Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token, and his first stop was the black market ghost domain.

There, Yan Yu in her blue robe, stood with her hair fixed with an old black pin, lips red as flame, and a brass mirror in her hand.

Husband and wife locked eyes and that was enough.

Li Yuan sketched out the situation in quick strokes, then said, “Yan Yu, let’s move.”

“Alright.” Yan Yu rolled her palm and reached into the void of the ghost domain, drawing out a cup of white bone.

It held a black liquid that, on a careful look, was the same stuff that had dribbled from the mouths of those villagers in Exotic Beast Park’s ancient village. It was also the same inky sheen that had streamed from the lotus hanging over the Jade Capital as the city fell.

This was a ghost item of the Exotic Beast Park.

Yan Yu raised the cup and downed the black draught.

That counted as a Exotic Beast Park ghost item acting on her, and by the rules it gave her license to strike across domains at the Exotic Beast Park.

She wasn’t a sprawling ghost domain like the Exotic Beast Park, so the ancient ghost street wouldn’t clamp down on her as hard.

In the next heartbeat, the entire black market ghost domain shivered, shadowy and wavering.

Then, with a soft whoosh, the black-and-white phantom realm vanished.

Li Yuan drew a deep breath, glanced at the Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token in his hand, and with a flicker of thought jumped to a place he’d been before.

In the next instant, he stood on a lone cliff deep in the mountains.

This was a hidden spot several hundred kilometers southwest of Gemhill County.

From the cliff, he could see an ancient village far off in the distance. A thin mist wrapped it, making it impossible to see from outside. From within came a soft rustling.

Then the village shuddered, hard, then harder, as if an earthquake had ripped through it.

On one side of the village, a black-and-white ghost domain shoved itself into being, forcing its way into the world.

Upon it, Yan Yu stood in blue, proud and still, lifting a finger to point the way.

On the ground behind her, ghost servants in white flickered into view one after another, then rushed the village.

Li Yuan perked up, mind flashing back to the day he helped Yan Yu take down the rouge shop.

The scene was the same, yet entirely different.

Back then, the ghost servants in her domain were all of one kind. Now they came in every shape. There were wild-haired female ghosts; ice-stiffened frost wights; hunchbacked fatties with swollen bellies; flayed specters dripping red... On and on, it was a whole menagerie of nightmares.

Li Yuan slipped down to land beside the black-and-white domain. He cocked his head.

At this moment, Yan Yu had more than a touch of a

Ghost Empress

vibe about her.

She looked back across the distance, a flicker of human warmth in her eyes. “Husband, be careful.”

“You too, Yan Yu,” Li Yuan said.

No more talk was needed. The Yang flame within bloomed, and his Heavenly Eye opened. It was like an ice-cold pupil growing in the heart of a roaring blaze.

That calm eye studied the ancient village for a flaw.

The village was the Exotic Beast Park. On a normal day, there’d be no openings. Today was different.

Li Yuan fixed on a weak point, and at a thought he slammed a breath of fire straight into it.

The Dragon’s Breath became a spear of pure flame that punched through the gap in Exotic Beast Park’s defenses.

Already straining to fend off Yan Yu’s sudden assault, the ancient village bucked even harder under Li Yuan’s strike.

On an ordinary day, Yan Yu would not be the Exotic Beast Park’s match.

But right now, half of the Exotic Beast Park was wedged in the bronze gate, its

backside

sticking out and unable to turn around. How could it handle Yan Yu, the owner of a multi-entity ghost domain anchored by one composite ghost and four individual ones?

Strike while the house was on fire, fish in muddy waters, reap the spoils...that was Li Yuan’s plan.

All at once, the ancient ghost street in Hidden River Province burst into commotion.

At the mouth of the street, a crowd of unfamiliar undying husks poured in.

Each one clutched ghost items that breathed a cutting, icy gloom. They gripped strange shackles in their left hands and small bronze mirrors in their right.

The mirrors were far inferior to the one in Yan Yu’s hand, but they carried the same aura.

At their head stood a short woman in black and a tall, gaunt man in white. Instead of mirrors, both clutched odd mourning staves.

Those staves were special ghost items forged by the composite snow mountain ghost. Day, night, or dusk, the snow mountain ghost produced patterns, and its items were brutally simple. Shake the stave once and the target was struck, their spirit jolted into terror and panic, control slipping from their grasp.

Production, sadly, was meager. Yan Yu had managed only two, and gave them to Fan Chouwan and Xie Qing’an.

On someone of Li Yuan’s caliber, they were probably useless. But against anyone below the sixth rank, they landed every time, and even fifth rank experts felt the bite. As for how deep, that depended on the strength of the fifth rank in question.

Naturally, these undying husks belonged to Yan Yu’s Court of Judges.

The moment Yan Yu’s undying husks entered the ancient ghost street, they collided with the street’s resident undying husks. Whenever one of the locals lunged from an alley, the judges didn’t waste breath; they just flashed a bronze mirror right in the poor wretch’s face.

One flash, and the one of the undying husks went vacant-eyed. In his head, memories unspooled backward—good deeds, bad deeds, all of it—flooding his mind so completely he forgot where he was. He even forgot how to think.

Seizing the moment, a judge snapped the shackle forward. It clamped onto the undying husk’s wrist.

In an instant, the undying husk came to. But his loyalties had been rewritten. He belonged to the Court of Judges now. He whirled and tore into his former allies.

The Clock Mansion undying husks had been meant to hold the line and lend support, but before they could even notice the Exotic Beast Park’s anomaly they were blindsided. They had their hands full just staying alive; support was out of the question.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A long while passed, then longer still.

The Exotic Beast Park stretched like a noodle.

One end was being yanked into the bronze gate by Apparel Atelier; the other was being hauled back by Yan Yu.

And because the Revival Tree God was still busy clearing out the Dragon Vein’s elites, the bronze gate kept on closing, clamping down hard on Exotic Beast Park as it did.

At last, when the Revival Tree God turned back—

A chorus of shrieks ripped through the ancient ghost street, human and beast voices mingled into a single, piercing wail that made the whole street quake.

All nine bronze gates shivered.

BOOM!

In the next heartbeat, the gates of Hidden River and Hidden Dragon Province—both previously open—slammed shut.

Off in the distance, the Revival Tree God paused mid-stride, then snapped his head around.

He froze, surprise flashing in his eyes.

Peng Mingyi stood there, blank and dazed, not sure what to do.

This wasn’t how anyone expected it to go.

From the Revival Tree God’s point of view, even without him tending the incense, once Peng Mingyi started eating peaches the bronze gate shouldn’t have closed so fast.

But it snapped shut anyway.

Under the push and pull of those tangled forces, the Exotic Beast Park was clamped clean in three.

The giant serpent was dragged off by Apparel Atelier.

The middle section, the exotic beasts, was trapped between the two bronze gates.

And the tail end, the boar, was yanked out by Yan Yu.

Inside the black market ghost domain, the giant boar’s flesh turned the color of a corpse. Black spots began to bubble up across its hide, and a closer look showed each

spot

was a gaping mouth. They were black because they opened onto a stomach with no bottom.

It was like a swarm of starving human faces, all mouths, blooming across the boar’s body.

Five ghosts had it half-surrounded. It backed up against the boundary of the ghost domain, ready to bolt.

But Li Yuan was behind it. He had become a ball of fire. A steady blaze scorched the boar’s hindquarters.

The boar, however, didn’t fear this flame. Those black mouths swallowed the fire whole and snuffed it out just as fast.

Even so, it slowed the beast. Not far off, a blue robed female ghost, frozen stiff head to toe, drifted forward to the boar’s side.

The boar reacted as if struck—head ducking, hooves scraping at the dirt, like it was trying to smear mud on its own face.

Yan Yu watched in silence. She kept the pressure on, waving her ghosts in.

The blood ghost from the blood pool soaked the earth; as the boar pawed, the earth turned to paste and smeared over its face.

The stone bearing fat ghost heaved up a boulder and pressed it down on the boar’s back, inch by inch.

The tall, gaunt ghost with iron tongs lunged and clamped the boar’s tongue.

Behind Yan Yu, a white-robed, wild-haired female ghost wafted out. It was Feng’er’s obsession, given monstrous shape. Perhaps because Yan Yu had advanced, Feng’er had, too. The new Feng’er carried a huge iron cage on her back. She swung it open and dropped it over the boar.

Li Yuan kept spitting his Yang flame. Worried his flames weren’t enough, he ditched any concern for dignity and swelled into a blazing sphere of flesh 30 feet across, belching fire.

The boar howled and howled, and with every howl Li Yuan felt a gnawing hunger rise in him. He wanted to eat something, anything. He shoved the urge down.

Seconds dragged by.

Even Li Yuan began to feel the strain.

In the distance, the boar still thrashed left and right, hunting for a way out.

Every so often, Li Yuan would notice one of Yan Yu’s ghosts suddenly flop to the ground and start eating dirt for no discernible reason.

Watching them, he couldn’t help it. He dropped to his belly too, grabbed a nearby rock, and stuffed it straight down. His stomach was long since tempered; a few stones were nothing. So he snacked on soil and stones at intervals. If there were bugs in there, well, down they went too.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Day turned to night; night wheeled back to day.

In between, a dozen cloudbursts hammered the earth.

Li Yuan grew exhausted, but he could feel he was keeping the balance. Without him, Yan Yu might well have failed. So he clenched his jaw and held on.

Another month slipped by in a blink.

The sun burned high and hot.

All at once, the boar stopped struggling.

Li Yuan’s strength gave out and he flopped onto his back, his flames drawing tight and quiet.

Inside the black-and-white ghost domain, the boar wriggled its bulk and slowly waddled up to Yan Yu.

She bent and raised a hand.

The boar stretched its head forward and let her stroke it.

Yan Yu glanced toward Li Yuan, who lay sprawled in a muddy pit, and smiled with real, human warmth. “Husband, tell me. Should I ride this boar, or hitch it to a cart?”

“Yan Yu, you see this pit?” Li Yuan said, ignoring the question.

“I see it,” she laughed.

“All me,” he said, proud. “I ate it!”

Her smile softened into pity tinged with joy. “You’ve worked hard, Husband.”

“Let’s get back to Cloudpeak Province,” Li Yuan said.

“Mhm.” Yan Yu took out a little item that breathed cold Yin energy, the sort of tool her other ghosts from Cloudpeak Province used. If she turned it on herself, she should be able to relocate her domain the way she had before.

She used it. Yet nothing in the black market ghost domain changed.

Li Yuan frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Yan Yu pulled out another ghost item and used it on herself. Still nothing.

A new change rolled through the frigid ghost market. Along the edges, a swarm of gaunt, skin-and-bone ghost servants began to appear. They ate anything they found, gnawing like starved spirits.

The boar threw back its head and howled.

With every howl, the ghost servants ate faster.

The entire black market ghost domain grew colder, darker, more terrible; the aura coming off it made even Li Yuan shiver. The flame around him, faced with that vast tide of Yin energy, went from holding its own to a lone, quivering bubble on an ocean.

“Husband...” Yan Yu said suddenly. “I might not be able to go back to Cloudpeak Province after all. The ancient ghost street has locked me in.”

“...” Li Yuan fell silent.

“Maybe,” she said, disbelief in her voice, “I’ve become the new Exotic Beast Park.”