Chapter 218

Five Ghosts lifting the coffin has always been the sign of Ancestor Yu Tai Shi; I will never forget the night Ancestor Yu Tai Shi descended, when the pressure all over the sky pressed me so I could hardly breathe, the whole space seemed to congeal, and even if I could breathe, my chest felt suffocated to the point that you feel yourself dying bit by bit.

The small spot beside the Yang family tomb was remarkably similar to the scene when Ancestor Yu Tai Shi descended—it was also a bronze coffin with the Five Ghosts as soldiers.

But…… could the owner of this bronze coffin before me really be Ancestor Yu Tai Shi?

Doubting, I stepped forward and arrived before the Yang family tomb. Upon approaching and looking, I realized that this bronze coffin was not the one that had appeared when Ancestor Yu Tai Shi descended. Ancestor Yu Tai Shi's bronze coffin glowed with a dark luster and bore ancient, simple patterns, whereas this coffin was truly a silver one, its entire body shining silver, engraved with the likeness of the Yaksha Five Ghosts.

As I approached this bronze coffin, the Five Ghosts guarding it also noticed me, but soon these five-colored Five Ghosts could no longer move at all.

Because I chanted a passage of the spell to suppress the Five Ghosts, the Five Ghosts guarding the coffin all obeyed the ancestors' orders. Although when commanding troops, the names of the ancestral spirits of the Five Ghosts of the Yin Shan sect may differ, yet if a Yin Shan sect person wishes to command the Five Ghosts to guard the coffin, they must certainly invoke the names of the five Yin spirits. These five Yin spirits are the ancestors of these five-colored coffin-guarding ghosts, and their names are fixed and unchanging. As long as one chants the incantation matched with the five-direction Yin spirits, the Five Ghosts guarding the coffin will be unable to move.

"I am a successor of the Yin Shan Li lineage; may I ask where you come from, sir?" After fixing the five-direction Five Ghosts in place, I quickly stepped forward, tightly staring at the back of the figure sitting cross-legged before the main stele of the Yang family tomb.

If there is no accident, the owner of this back is indeed the main figure tonight.

"Cough cough..." the owner lightly coughed twice, slowly turned around, and instantly I drew in a breath of cold air.

It wasn't because the owner of that voice looked terrifying, nor because his strength was great. My attention wasn't on his face at all; in fact, the first thing I noticed wasn't his appearance.

What caught my attention and surprised me were the two flags planted before the tomb. These two flags, one black and one white, stood side by side facing the two sides of the Yang family stele. This flag was not the Yin Shan Order Flag, but the Yin Shan Slaughter God Flag.

From the patterns on the flag, one can tell its origin—it is precisely the Slaughter God Flag atop the Yin Shan Order Flag. In the Yin Shan flags, the first-level order flag commands troops and directs ghosts; the second-level Slaughter God Flag, having been tempered by the five-direction Slaughter Gods, is more powerful and can employ the Yin Shan sect's higher-level civil and martial arts.

But even the Slaughter God Flag is normally used alone, rarely with a black-and-white pair. The occasions that require the black-and-white double flags, according to Yin Shan sect records, are only when performing the Dragon Summoning Secret Technique, at which point the black-and-white Slaughter Gods are brought forth.

"Who exactly are you, and why are you using the Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning Technique? Do you not know that once the Earth Evil Dragon is summoned, it will turn this place into a land of death, cause the Yang family to lose its heirs and be exterminated, and bring doom upon the whole clan? Do you not know this is a heinous slaughter that must not be committed?" I stared at the frail young man before me, my eyes red with rage.

The Dragon Summoning Secret Technique is one of the top-tier civil arts of the Yin Shan sect. This technique lacks offensive power; indeed, it is completely ineffective in one-on-one fights or group brawls. It has only two effects: altering fortune, and ruining the geomantic luck of the land.

Altering fortune means changing the fate and luck of the Yin Shan Daoist himself, his person and his family. If family fortune is poor, one can invite a dragon deity to change it; if innate endowment is lacking, one can summon a dragon deity to make up for it. Because we Yin Shan sect disciples often command troops, ghost generals and soldiers absorb our merit, lifespan, and yang energy. Thus we Yin Shan sect people generally use the Dragon Summoning Technique to alter fortune.

Second, ruining the ancestral geomantic luck. All things have yin and yang, good and bad. The Dragon Summoning Secret Technique is no exception; it likewise possesses an extremely fierce aspect. The Yin Shan secret canon records that wherever one's feet tread, the ground absorbs resentment, hatred, and the world's greed and licentious qi. Since a person's feet touch the earth, earth and person are connected. And after death, a person returns to the earth to rest; thus a person's life is inseparable from the land. Moreover, people have good and evil, seven emotions and six desires, positive energy and also negative energy.

The Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning Technique summons the various earth dragons bred from resentment underground; once an earth dragon takes shape and appears at a location, it will devour that place's geomantic luck. Likewise, it does not merely ruin the ancestral geomantic luck—more cruelly, it will cause everyone related to you to die one by one.

Therefore, the Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning Technique has always been a taboo among taboos in the Yin Shan sect; even if there is irreconcilable resentment, we would not lightly use this method. For according to Yin Shan sect records, those who employ this Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning, after death cannot reach the heavenly realm nor fall into the Yellow Springs; they can only wander the human world as the loathed filth-eating ghosts, feeding day and night on excrement, never satisfied, enduring endless torment of heat and cold, forever unable to be reborn, and receiving no incense offerings.

The main figure before me is a young person, one who looks even younger than I, with a frail build that seems as if a gust of wind could blow him over. His complexion is likewise sallow, lacking any trace of blood, with cheekbones protruding on both sides, making him look altogether malnourished.

Under my intense gaze, this young person finally spoke.

"I am a successor of the Yin Shan Chen lineage; my name is Wu Fei." He spoke hoarsely, giving a brief self-introduction.

I looked at him doubtfully and asked: "Why are you using the Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning Technique? Don't you know this will bring eternal retribution?"

That young man stared at me for a long time, then coldly shook his head and said: "I don't fear retribution; I only fear poverty."

It seems this is yet another person selling his life for money. I furrowed my brow and asked him what it would take for him to stop.

He remained in that cold demeanor, staring at me and saying: "If you can give me ten million, I will immediately take up the order flag and leave."

Holy shit…… ten million, do you really think you're the reincarnation of a lion? Opening your mouth that wide, you're not afraid of bursting. I certainly won't agree, so I likewise coldly retorted: "If I don't give you, what are you going to do?"

The young man named Wu Fei stared at me, contemptuously saying: "The Yin Shan sect has a prohibition: disciples must not kill each other."

"Then we'll have to see the real thing with our hands!" At that moment I likewise took out the order flag. Wu Fei's words seemed to be invoking the sect's prohibition, but his demeanor showed no retreat whatsoever; when he said that, his expression was full of contempt, as if he didn't care at all. This indicates that behind the prohibition against disciples killing each other lies another hidden meaning.

The hidden meaning behind this is—if you want to intervene, I can only accompany you to the end. This Wu Fei clearly intends, for the sake of money, to break the sect's prohibition once.

After drawing the Yin Shan order flag, I stared at him and sneered: "In this match, you may not win; at the very least, you cannot summon the Earth Evil Dragon."

The Double Slaughter Dragon Summoning Technique is certainly not as simple as just raising the black-and-white Slaughter God Flags to summon an earth dragon; it involves many elaborate procedures. Erecting the black-and-white double Slaughter God Flags is merely the first step of the formation.

"Hehe" Wu Fei gave a cold laugh, staring at me with a grim smile and said: "Who says it can't be summoned? If I kill you, I can then summon the dragon peacefully."

No sooner said than done—almost as soon as his words fell, the black-and-white double Slaughter God Flags on the ground flew into Wu Fei's hands; then, with a gesture of both hands, countless wandering souls and wild ghosts appeared to his left and right.

"Damn it, you lunatic bastard. Do you not know this will cause these souls to never be reborn? They already suffered enough dying from sudden misfortune in life; why won't you even give them a chance to reincarnate?" I stared at the resentful spirits beside Wu Fei and clenched my fists.

Each of these resentful spirits, hair disheveled, resentment raging to the heavens, were like walking corpses—no less formidable than the Slaughter Gods themselves. Yet Wu Fei summoned troops merely by lightly waving the flag; he had not chanted any spell nor previously drawn any floral characters. This situation can only mean that these troops have had their consciousness completely obliterated and feed on resentment, like domesticated animals, even capable of mutually slaughtering to strengthen themselves. And Wu Fei produced these troops by refining the resentful spirits with Yin Shan forbidden arts.

Speaking of the Yin Shan sect's arts, although they mainly involve commanding troops, they are absolutely not as vicious as outsiders imagine.

Applying the saying 'the law itself has no good or evil', if you command troops and raise those ghosts unable to reincarnate for good purposes, then the accumulated merit can resolve your five flaws and three deficiencies, and those ghost soldiers can likewise cultivate the proper path and gain a chance to be reborn. Conversely, even if you do not do good deeds but use the troops to do evil, the troops can still, after you finish your business, absorb a share of your own merit and vital energy from you; the so-called harm refers only to you personally.

However, there is a method of raising troops that amounts to abusing ghosts, utterly heinous. This is precisely the method Wu Fei uses. Specifically, at midnight he goes to crossroads or places of heavy slaughter, collecting ghosts who died violent deaths and carry intense resentment. After gathering them, he places them in jars and refines them with herbal and spell methods. Master Li Feng never taught me this refinement technique; perhaps he did not want me to come into contact with such arts. But I have heard Master Li Feng say that this refinement is equivalent to washing away the ghosts' consciousness, cutting off their chance to be reborn. It is like keeping dogs at home: if you like, you let them bite people; if you dislike, you can direct two dogs to bite each other without problem. Meanwhile, these troops exist solely to kill and feed on resentment; if they go a period without consuming souls, they weaken and may even dissipate into mist, vanishing completely from this world.

The only advantage is that this technique is fierce and swift. Because the ghosts are intensely resentful, they are very formidable. Moreover, to drive them, you need only a thought, and they will immediately emerge from the Slaughter God Flag to help you with your tasks—killing and taking lives without hesitation.

The Yin Shan sect's troop-commanding art has this characteristic: the quicker the summoning, the weaker the summoned troops; if one desires troops of higher cultivation, preparation must take longer. This technique makes up for both shortcomings, summoning ghosts with extreme speed while their cultivation remains not weak.

But…… this method of summoning troops cannot be described as excessive.

After I cursed Wu Fei harshly, he also flew into a rage and coldly said to me: "I am no saint; I cannot concern myself with the life and death of so many ghosts. My only concern is myself."

Having said that, he let out a loud roar, waved the order flag, and commanded the dozens of resentful ghosts beside him to rush at me; one of them even opened its bloody maw, baring sharp teeth, trying to swallow me whole into its belly..