Tortured Souls
If he’s not human… is he a flesh-winged horny monster? Ghost Gate and those freaks are associated in more ways than one, after all. Even this Ghost Ancestor speaks like those freaks do. I guess I have to delete this Ghost Ancestor before he can wreak havoc on my way out.
The interior was significantly more spacious and packed than Mu Yu assumed it was from the outside.
If there are a million on one floor, how many are there if I account for every floor?
Mu Yu approached the soul of a teenager suspended from an iron chain and tortured with a ghost flame. Unable to stand the sound of the teenager’s cries, Mu Yu injected the ghost flame with his qi, erasing it.
“Thank you! Thank you! Please erase me. I don’t want to be subjected to this hell any longer,” the teenager pleaded with his head down.
“How long have you been through this?”
“Three hundred and twenty-five years and ninety-three days…”
“Whoa, you remember that precisely?”
“I can’t forget when those you just killed remind me daily. The more vivid my memories, the more it hurts. Whatever sorcery they use, they manage to sustain our existence. More souls have been dumped here than I can count in recent months to become one of us…”
“They sicken me. Those souls must be those who’ve died in the battles in recent months. What do they want from this?”
“Please help us. Please kill me to relieve me…”
Unable to bear killing someone already so pitiful, Mu Yu took a swing at the iron chains, but he was unable to dent them.
“Use Wood Spirit,” Ju Mang verbalised out of the blue.
“It’s been a while,” Mu Yu responded.”
“I just feel this place is familiar.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“No. I didn’t even know this place existed in Third Heaven. There’s a familiar qi signal is all. Just rescue all of the souls here first.”
“Didn’t know you would offer to help people.” Mu Yu tried severing the chains with Wood Spirit’s branches, yet it still did not cut it.
“They’re not my problem; I’m indifferent to their torment. The Ghost Ancestor nuisance is using their pain to replenish his original qi. The only way to ruin his plan is to liberate these souls.”
“Oh, I think I remember Shifu mentioning it was one of the many types of energy in the world that can be controlled along with emotions, balance, joy and whatnot, like Xuan Ming does with Qiao Xue.”
“Correct. They are deliberately inflicting pain on the souls to provide Ghost Ancestor with energy. None of the races in Third Heaven can control pain energy.”
“I’m not surprised. By the way, Wood Spirit isn’t cutting it.”
“Grant me control of your arm.”
“Well… you can have my right arm.”
Who in their right mind liked losing control of their body? Mu Yu reluctantly trusted Ju Mang only because the latter saved Tian Ran.
The black chain was beyond fragile in the face of the vitality Ju Mang drew into the branches of Wood Spirit.
“How did you reinvigorate Wood Spirit?” Mu Yu inquired.
“You couldn’t control your bloodlust energy before you reached Ascension Realm, so you couldn’t control Wood Spirit. While you don’t need to rely on bloodlust energy anymore, you won’t fathom Wood Spirit’s real self until you get to know it.”
“What should I to get to know it?” queried Mu Yu, implicitly admitting he had been keeping Wood Spirit at arm’s length.
“Accept it and you will gain complete control over it.”
Weapons were not innately good or bad. The wielder determined what a weapon was used for. Weapons were associated with what purposes its wielder deployed it for.
Mu Yu inhaled a big breath and then fastened his hold on Wood Spirit again. When he began communications, he discovered that Wood Spirit maintained a perfect balance between life qi and death qi. As long as he willed it genuinely, he could produce lush plants instead of black and white ones again. By the same account, he could also release a mixture of bloodlust energy and vitality.
“Though you modified Wood Spirit with life and death qi, you didn’t change its true nature. To begin with, it’s an entity of vitality and bloodlust; I merely sealed away the bloodlust. It wouldn’t have been in the shabby state you first found it, otherwise. Now, liberate the trapped souls, and then destroy this so-called Eighteen Layers of Hell.”
“On it.”
Mu Yu extended branches from Wood Spirit to erase the tools used to torture the trapped souls, freeing them over fifteen minutes.
“Thank you for liberating us. Please finish us. We do not want to suffer any longer,” implored the freed souls.
“I didn’t save you to kill you.”
Ju Mang opined, “I suggest you oblige and devour them with Wood Spirit. If they leave this place, they’ll be no different to wandering ghosts until they reach Reincarnation Grounds. Third Heaven Palace won’t let them reincarnate. The fact that there’s soul energy here and this many souls proves that Third Heaven Palace is helping Ghost Ancestor escape. He’ll be captured and then h-, wait… I get it now!”
Mu Yu raised a brow. “What?”
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