Chapter 1561: Bai Ziqi

"Has the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds himself ever said what the black smoke swirling around him is?" "No," the guard replied. "But when he saved two people at Shizhoutou, they were very close to him and were also affected by the black smoke around him. It seemed as if evil ghosts were drifting within the smoke; they would pounce onto people, feeling ice-cold, and would induce hallucinations."

"What kind of hallucinations?"

"Bad deeds and guilty secrets they had committed in the past. Other captives also said they saw people they had killed suddenly come back to life and pounce on them to claim their lives." The guard thought for a moment. "Some have seen it; Zhao Guangzhi seemed to have been affected by this power. The Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds said he was heavy with sin and must be scorched by karmic fire in the Nine Netherworlds."

"Scorched by karmic fire?" Just a moment ago, the god Puyin had indeed said that the black flames around the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds were "karmic force."

Bai Ziqi took out a map—a map of the Glittering Gold Plain—and drew a small red dot on the locations of Shizhoutou and Liuping. "The Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds always uses the pretext of acting on behalf of Heaven to judge others, and his words always mention sin and karmic fire. Hmm—"

Perhaps the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds wasn't lying about this point; could his battle armor truly absorb karmic force? "Has anyone spoken with the Black Armored Army under his command?"

"No, at least we haven't asked anyone who has."

"Up to now, not a single one. The Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds acts with meticulous care; he doesn't let his subordinates speak with outsiders, also out of fear of leaking secrets." Once the Black Armored Army started speaking, the sense of mystery would be greatly diminished. Bai Ziqi pondered, "Without a doubt, his subordinates are either human or demon; they cannot be so-called beings of the netherworld."

"Black Armored Army soldiers that appeared in other places have had their helmets fall off; inside were monsters like dried corpses."

Bai Ziqi smiled. "How come only those kinds of monsters have had their helmets fall off? It's clearly for the witnesses to see. Haven't any Black Armored Army soldiers ever been wounded?"

"They have, and they bleed too—red blood."

"Then they are mostly human, with perhaps a few demons mixed in." Bai Ziqi pondered for a long time while facing the map.

If He Lingchuan were here, he would discover that the map's precision was very high; even the names and locations of the Peng Nation on it had been updated.

On the map of the Glittering Gold Plain, more than a dozen small dots had already been marked, scattered across the eastern and central regions. The page boy counted them; counting the two small dots just added for Shizhoutou and Liuping, there were eighteen in total.

"There have been over two hundred actions by the Black Armored Army on the Glittering Gold Plain; why have you only marked these dozen or so?"

"These eighteen locations are all confirmed to have had the Black Flood Dragon mark appear at the scene. No matter how many other so-called Black Armored Army actions there are, none have the Black Flood Dragon mark." Bai Ziqi tapped his fingertips on the table a few times. "Why would that be?"

The subordinate thought for a moment and said, "Do these eighteen incidents all involve the real Black Armored Army?"

"Not only that." Bai Ziqi smiled. "Combined with the intelligence we have obtained, your statement needs to be revised: these dozen or so incidents all involved the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds participating in person."

"Are you saying that only when the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds participates in person to carry out that so-called act of acting on behalf of Heaven will the Black Flood Dragon mark appear at the scene?"

"As of now, this is a relatively reasonable deduction."

Bai Ziqi thought for a moment and asked the attendant, "The locals say that when the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds captured Zhao Guangzhi, he once summoned a giant elephant?"

"Yes, nearly two zhang tall, gaunt and thin, covered in heavy armor." The guard said, "The residents of Shizhoutou said that when the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds touched it, the giant elephant disappeared on the spot."

"It was taken into some storage space." Bai Ziqi nodded. "This is the flaw. With one casual movement, this storage space must possess two characteristics: first, it must have a huge capacity, and second, it must be able to hold living creatures. In the current world, such treasures are few and far between."

"It just so happens that I previously received a clue: General Zhongwu of the Yao Nation once surrounded and suppressed a fox demon known as 'Three-Tails.' At the time, he had already led a large army to surround it and was about to capture it, but Three-Tails suddenly broke out of the encirclement and appeared in the mountain forest several li away." He said slowly, "When General Zhongwu pursued it further, a strange black-armored warrior suddenly blocked his path and summoned a large army of corpse puppets to fight him for quite a while, causing the death of a high-ranking Yao official's son in the Zhongwu army. Later, Three-Tails also disappeared, and he had to withdraw his army back to Yao."

"A black-armored warrior, a large army of corpse puppets!" Once he mentioned this, the subordinates all realized something was wrong.

"I have read the relevant records; that black-armored warrior also had black shadows surging around his body, and the place where General Zhongwu lost track of the Three-Tails fox demon was Kelin. Do you know what kind of place that is?"

Everyone shook their heads. They were all Beijia people; how would they know about these strange places on the Glittering Gold Plain? "The ruins of Kelin are the legendary resting place of the Luosheng Armor!" Bai Ziqi briefly introduced the past events of the Luosheng Armor to them, then continued, "General Zhongwu himself also believed that this was just a coincidence of encountering the Luosheng Armor coming into the world."

"But what I care about is Three-Tails the fox demon suddenly breaking out of General Zhongwu's encirclement out of thin air, just like the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds suddenly taking away the heavy-armored giant elephant, as well as the Luosheng Armor and the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds having similar appearances." He added, "Also, both of them can drive corpse puppets."

The page boy understood. "Are you thinking that the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds is the master of the Luosheng Armor?"

"In terms of time, the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds and his army did indeed appear only after the Luosheng Armor came into the world." Bai Ziqi analyzed, "If my point of view holds, Kelin is the location where the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds first appeared, not the generally accepted Shizhoutou or Liuping."

He circled the location of Kelin on the map with a red pen.

"We had best make a trip there to see if the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds left any clues. If he appeared in this image for the first time, there would be many situations he hadn't considered."

The page boy asked eagerly, "Was there a Black Flood Dragon mark on Kelin at the time?"

"Good question; we will have to go find witnesses later."

"But you said that the successive masters of the Luosheng Armor all stirred up bloody storms on the Glittering Gold Plain?"

"Isn't the bloody storm stirred up by the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds right now?" Bai Ziqi pointed at the map. "Look at this continent; how many provocations and vendettas happen every day now, all under the banner of the Black Armored Army and the righteous army! Do you think only large-scale military conquests and iron horses and golden spears are called bloody storms?"

Uh, when everyone thought about it, it seemed that was indeed the case.

It wasn't that the new master of the Luosheng Armor led a large army to fight from the easternmost end of the Glittering Gold Plain to the westernmost end that was called a bloody storm.

"Also, look at these nineteen red dots; what do you see?"

Everyone stared for a long while, and then one person said, "It seems they are basically concentrated in the central and eastern parts of the Glittering Gold Plain? Oh, and around the Yao Nation."

"Why?" Bai Ziqi emphasized. "Since the Great Emperor of the Nine Netherworlds prides himself on being a person of the netherworld, where can he not go? Why doesn't he go to the northern or eastern parts of the Glittering Gold Plain?" ===== CHAPTER 1562 =====