Chapter 1152

Hua Daier wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and whispered to Lan Jiu beside her, "Senior Brother Lan, thanks to you for coming up with the idea of using the stone statue to deter the Ghost Tiger, otherwise we probably wouldn't have been able to get out!"

Lan Jiu looked at the sinister gaze Xia Hou Xu was staring at them with and could only smile bitterly, "I didn't expect that the Stone Weng Zhong in the First Emperor's Mausoleum could actually draw a trace of the power of the golden human's strike!"

"But this further proves the terror of the Ghost Tiger..."

Speaking of this, he couldn't help but sigh, "If only my three friends were here! Although their cultivation is average, they know quite a bit about ancient taboos. They are most proficient and skilled at using the layout of the mausoleum itself to counter evil spirits and escape danger."

"I hurriedly moved that Stone Weng Zhong; I'm afraid I didn't even exert one or two percent of its power."

"If it were the three of them here, they would definitely be able to use that Stone Weng Zhong to safely pass through this tribulation."

Hearing this, Xia Hou Xu's expression also sank. He had attacked indiscriminately, clashed with the golden human for nothing, and not only did he not gain any advantage, but he also had to face the Ghost Tiger that followed.

He immediately stopped Cui Dan and asked, "What is the strength of that Ghost Tiger?"

Cui Dan smiled bitterly, "Senior, with our meager cultivation, how are we qualified to face the Ghost Tiger? It's just that when the Mountain Lord travels, all evil spirits avoid it. Seeing the many evil spirits that were entangling us retreat in terror, we knew that a giant object was lurking nearby, so we hurriedly hid."

"Logically speaking, Senior should be the one among us most familiar with the eleven ghost plagues!"

Cui Dan looked at Xia Hou Xu with a frank gaze.

Just based on the sinister bloodline of the Xia Hou clan, eight or nine out of ten of the clansmen buried over the years had corpses that would rise again after death, which was ominous.

Who would believe they had no experience in dealing with ghost plagues?

Just looking at Xia Hou Xu's confident appearance before, he must have weighed the strength of the ghost plagues, otherwise how could he call himself the King of Evil Spirits!

Xia Hou Xu didn't hide it either, saying bluntly, "The so-called eleven ghost plagues are mostly just relics of the old heaven. Although they are shunned by the Great Dao of the new heaven and do not enter the five elements, and are rarely harmed by divine abilities and arts, they are also shunned by the Great Dao of the new heaven, so certain special divine abilities and Dao arts are extremely restraining to them."

"Speaking of which, they are not as good as certain evil spirits of the demon path, especially the evil objects of the blood sea, which both conform to the Great Dao of the new heaven and... anyway, they are extremely difficult to deal with."

He diverted the topic here, "The reason why the eleven ghost plagues can survive to this day is mostly because of the Dao fruit of destruction."

"When the old heaven was destroyed in the past, it was the Supreme Dao Ancestor who cast everything of the old heaven into the Dao fruit of destruction."

"But the Supreme Dao Ancestor was compassionate; after all, it was impossible to truly destroy everything of the old heaven, so many gods and demons of the old heaven could be resurrected from the Dao fruit of destruction. This is the origin of us snake-handling gods."

"And when the snake-handling gods were resurrected from the Ninefold Netherworld, from the Dao fruit of destruction, they naturally brought out some things."

"These are the eleven ghost plagues!"

"The eleven ghost plagues wreaked havoc on the human world along with us snake-handling gods. Our Xia Hou clan ancestors felt that they had brought disaster to all living beings, so they invited the Yellow Emperor's general Xiang Wang to find twelve unforgivable demon gods from the Ninefold Netherworld."

"They were cast into destruction by the Supreme Dao Ancestor himself, so no matter what, they could not break free from destruction to come to the world."

"Therefore, after we used Wu methods to capture them to the world and let them eat those ghost plagues, we could easily banish them back to the depths of the Ninefold Netherworld."

Xia Hou Xu's expression was strange, "So, I am the least afraid of ghost plagues. What is there to be afraid of? They are just a bunch of losers!"

"Truly powerful demon gods, except for the twelve beasts cast out by the Supreme Dao Ancestor himself, mostly resurrected from the Ninefold Netherworld and came back to life..."

"For example, Emperor Yu; after the ancestor Gun died, his corpse gave birth to a shocking evil spirit. Wasn't it still replaced by Emperor Yu after he was resurrected from the Ninefold Netherworld?"

"After Heavenly Zhou, the ancient Wu Dao declined."

"Wang Xiang, or rather the Fang Xiang clan's song of driving the twelve beasts to eat ghosts, has already been lost, but our Xia Hou clan has a long heritage and just happens to know the Nuo method of the twelve beasts eating ghosts!"

At this time, the expressions of Cui Dan and the others were extremely interesting!

They suppressed the look in their eyes, but their hearts were very strange—we thought that a Primordial Spirit Dao Lord, a Heavenly Immortal of the Dao seed level, would be incomparably confident and have a fearless spirit, so they wouldn't fear any evil spirits, ghosts, or gods.

Didn't expect it!

It was just because your Xia Hou clan is experienced and even proficient in methods to restrain them.

They had a subtle feeling in their hearts.

It was as if they thought they were facing a high and proud Primordial Spirit Heavenly Immortal, but in reality, the person was incomparably cautious, and the wild talk was only because he had full certainty.

Cui Dan respectfully bowed to Xia Hou Xu and said, "Please enlighten us."

Xia Hou Xu looked at the pitch-black darkness inside the tower ship, which was like a bottomless abyss and emitted a power that swallowed people's minds.

Knowing that to perform the method of the twelve beasts eating ghosts, he still needed the help of these Daoist newcomers.

He said decisively, "Taking advantage of the fact that it will take some time for that Ghost Tiger to come here from the Dao fruit of destruction, I will tell you the secret method of the twelve beasts of the Xia Hou clan."

"You can just happen to use the previous Heavenly Canopy Curse to reproduce the true forms of the twelve beasts for me!"

"Among the eleven ghost plagues, plague is the chaos that infects this world; charm is the dead objects infected by things in the Dao fruit of destruction; blame is the fate that leads to destruction; ominous is the aura stained by the Dao fruit of destruction; dream is the psychic connection with everything in the Dao fruit of destruction; death by torture is the sacrifice to the old heaven's gods, actively communicating with the remnants of destruction brought by the Dao fruit of destruction; parasitism is the dead objects in the Dao fruit of destruction entrusting themselves to your life; view is seeing the world in the Dao fruit of destruction; giant is the evil object that is huge and unobservable; gu is the evil object that is tiny and unobservable..."

"There are fixed methods to expel these!"

"Only the Ghost Tiger, I fear the most."

"Because it is the most powerful existence among those old gods in the Dao fruit of destruction who have not been resurrected and are still sinking in it, but whose Dao fruit is not destroyed."

"Even the twelve beasts that expel ghost plagues are themselves Ghost Tigers!"

"Among the twelve beasts, Jia Zuo eats fierce, Qiu Wei eats ghost tigers, Xiong Bo eats charms, Teng Jian eats ominous, Lan Zhu eats blame, Bo Qi eats dreams, Qiang Liang and Zu Ming together eat death by torture and parasitism, Wei Sui eats views, Cuo Duan eats giants, Qiong Qi and Teng Gen together eat gu."

"And the Nuo method of the twelve beasts, in essence, is not to invite them out from the Ninefold Netherworld, but to use their Dao fruits! It is to summon the twelve Dao fruits sinking in the Dao fruit of destruction."

"Jia Zuo is the Dao fruit of chaos, so it can drive away plagues; Qiu Wei is the Dao fruit of swallowing, so it can send ghost tigers back into destruction; Xiong Bo is the Dao fruit of dead objects, so it can pacify evil charms; Teng Jian is the Dao fruit of the void, so it can cleanse the ominous aura; Lan Zhu is the Dao fruit of delirium, so it can break the fate of destruction; Bo Qi is the Dao fruit of nightmares, so it can swallow strange dreams; Qiang Liang is the Dao fruit of slaughter, Zu Ming is the Dao fruit of blood sacrifice, so they can restrain death by torture and parasitism; Wei Sui is the Dao fruit of confusion, so it can abolish views; Cuo Duan is the Dao fruit of unevenness, so it can cut giants; Qiong Qi is the Dao fruit of evil, Teng Gen is the Dao fruit of reversal, so they can retreat gu!"

"These Dao fruits are all suppressed by the Supreme Dao Ancestor in the Dao fruit of destruction. Even if there are principles in the world, they are divided by many Dao fruits, making it difficult to summon them completely."

"So if you want to summon a trace of their Dao fruits, you must use the Nuo method!"

"What is the Nuo method? Nuo is difficulty, teaching ease as difficulty, teaching sacrifice as Nuo. But sacrifice is not ease, and Nuo is not difficulty, just as Yin and Yang are not Yin and Yang..."

"Yin is the rotating and gathering cloud mass, while Yang is the sun radiating light!"

"Ease is the constancy in change, the Great Dao that returns complexity to simplicity; difficulty is simplifying complexity, the chaos within constancy..."

"To understand the Nuo method, it is extremely difficult to understand it with an isolated concept; you must feel it with its opposite and complementary side, you must use 'Yin and Yang' to prove the Dao!"

"So sacrifice is Yang, is ease, is Yin, which is ourselves; and Nuo is Yin, is difficulty, is Yang, which is the other side opposite to us..."

"Nuo is difficult to understand; if you think about it, you are wrong; if you guess, you are chaotic, so you must use our current state to 'measure', to 'empty', to 'prove', to 'break'. It is like us in a mirror, but that mirror is destruction, or rather, it is us in the Dao fruit of destruction!"

"Our existence after being destroyed!"

"When all forms and appearances are abandoned, the Buddhist school calls it 'emptiness', then it is the existence within emptiness."

Hearing this concept, Cui Dan was completely numb, complaining, "Senior, proving emptiness is the Bodhisattva realm of the Buddhist school. Your Nuo is even more difficult than emptiness. We are all just juniors infinitely far from the threshold of the Primordial Spirit. Even if you explain it clearly, we can't prove it, we can't measure it!"

Xia Hou Xu sighed, "That's true. Only after proving the Primordial Spirit can you understand a little bit of the concept of Yin and Yang. The state of proving the Primordial Spirit is Yin, and the state after achieving the Primordial Spirit is Yang."

"Only after being able to grasp Yin and Yang can you go to prove, to measure, to reverse, and then you can better perceive Nuo..."

"This is the culmination of the Wu method, a concept equivalent to the Primordial Spirit in the ancient Wu Dao—Nuo Ghost, or Nuo God is also fine."

"We prove the Primordial Spirit, which is to radiate ourselves in the Primordial Spirit Great Dao opened by the Supreme Dao Ancestor, and it may also be a huge, incomparably powerful Dao fruit, gathering countless selves and transforming into a sun radiating..."

"And the great Wu of the ancient Wu Dao, similarly proving the Nuo Ghost, is to find a self that has already been destroyed in the Dao fruit of destruction. That is something more essential than the self. They imitate the path of us snake-handling gods resurrecting from the Ninefold Netherworld, reverse it, walk a part of themselves into the Dao fruit of destruction, transcend the universe and time and space, and transform into Nuo Ghosts."

"The Nuo method is the Great Dao they created..."

"The Nuo Ghosts they achieve are a huge rotating and gathering cloud mass, or chaotic cloud mass, gathering everything they have destroyed in the world, everything that has been erased, and piecing it together into Nuo in the Dao fruit of destruction."

"When necessary, they can summon Nuo back from the Dao fruit of destruction and transform it into a mask to wear on their faces."

"At this time, the great Wu transforms from human to ghost god, possessing power not inferior to snake gods and bird officials!"

"These great Wu, Nuo masters, wrote these supreme principles of the Wu Dao into a book, the 'Nuo Classic', which is the supreme heritage of the Wu Dao!"

"The 'Nuo Classic' is even before the 'I Ching'!"

"If the 'I Ching' tells of change, eternity, and the laws of the Great Dao, then the 'Nuo Classic' tells of necessity, destruction, and chaotic disorder."

"After Heavenly Zhou, all divine abilities and arts were established on the 'I', while the secret of 'Nuo' was lost along with the three generations of divine dynasties. But just as the divine abilities of the Heavenly Zhou era could all be extracted from the principles of the 'I', similarly, the Xia Hou clan also inherited some chapters of the 'Nuo Classic'..."

"I will teach you these broken chapters of the 'Nuo Classic'. If you can comprehend a trace, you can transform into a Nuo mask, and then with the help of these insights, reverse the Heavenly Canopy Curse spirit and transform it into Qiu Wei!"

"Remember, the image of Qiu Wei is like a dog, and also like a Taotie..."

Xia Hou Xu transmitted a true form diagram of Qiu Wei.

Lan Jiu suddenly said, "It's the Tiangou Great Sage and the Taotie Great Sage! I have felt the aura of the Tiangou Great Sage, and the Taotie demon pattern just appeared on the Nine Tripods. The two combined are Qiu Wei."

After speaking, he actually recalled the Tiangou Great Sage he saw in the Return to Ruins in the past, especially the tail, tongue, and anus, which were vivid.

Thus, the aura of Qiu Wei suddenly became a bit more solid.

Xia Hou Xu hurriedly manifested the Taotie demon pattern on the Nine Tripods.

The two incomparably greedy auras of swallowing the sun and moon merged, and suddenly a swallowing, incomparably domineering aura was born.

Cui Dan and the others comprehended the broken sentences of the 'Nuo Classic'.

This incomparably ancient scripture was countless times more complex than the principles Xia Hou Xu had just explained, and it was composed of chapters carved on oracle bones, remaining after being scorched by fire.

But the Nuo Classic was not those oracle bone inscriptions.

It was those traces of fire, those wear and tear, and those incompleteness.

It did not exist in the world, and could only be inferred and depicted through the traces of its influence on the Great Dao of the world...

Cui Dan operated the five elements like a wheel, and the wisdom and knowledge he had accumulated before now only became an obstacle. Even if he turned the five elements into sparks, he couldn't comprehend the 'Nuo Classic'.

Until the sparks went out and passed away, and the sparks of the five elements' rotation kept bursting and going out, he suddenly realized something.

At this time, that three-thousand-petaled black lotus quietly bloomed in his consciousness.

"What we seek in this world is eternal immortality, but we must know that some things are inherently immortal. Information is immortal, matter is immortal, the Primordial Spirit is immortal. Too many things cannot be worn away even by time, and cannot be changed by change. That is eternity... but eternity also has things opposite to it, and immortality also has things that destroy it. Within the creation of the five elements' operation, there is also 'wear and tear'!"

"This is 'Nuo'..."

The wear and tear of the Primordial Spirit's operation is 'Nuo Ghost', the annihilation of information is 'Chaos', the destruction of matter is like 'Void', and the things that creak like wheels when the five elements operate are the 'Nuo method'!"

Cui Dan used this body as sacrifice, following the five elements rotating like wheels, creaking and echoing.

Sure enough, he proved and broke through to a trace of something incomparably chaotic in the dark.

It was like his own shadow reflected in chaos.

"If we hadn't been stained with the aura of destruction, we would never have been able to find 'Nuo', or rather, if we hadn't been entangled by the ominous and almost fallen into destruction, we wouldn't even have been able to feel the 'destruction' of immortality in the world."

"And I would never have been able to hear the creaking sound of the five elements operating like wheels."

"So, the operation of the Great Dao also has wear and tear, and will also produce something close to chaos that wears away information."

"These existences settle into the Dao fruit of destruction, nurturing a great terror that can destroy the cosmic realms."

"We are like this Great Dao of the cosmos, the part that wears away and destroys, not different, not easy, not constant, not broken, not born, not destroyed, not coming, not going... this is Nuo."

"It is also what the Buddhist school calls the part of pure silence..."

"No, although it is silent, it is not pure, but rather incomparably chaotic."

"Pure silence is the other shore, and the other shore also has a time of destruction. It is the chaotic sea, the river of entropy, that erodes the other shore!"

Cui Dan used his own Nuo Ghost to chant the 'Nuo Classic'.

In an instant, a mask of five colors rotating, yet distorted and turbid, appeared on his face.

At this time, it was just when Lan Jiu and Xia Hou Xu worked together to deduce a wisp of Qiu Wei's aura.

The five-colored mask swallowed that wisp of aura, and it immediately transformed into a fierce beast shape like a dog, a sheep, and a snake, opening its mouth to swallow everything, its mouth like a bottomless abyss, seemingly able to swallow people's minds and let people sink into it.

At this moment, a wisp of a Dao fruit that seemed to exist or not, transcending everything, emerged from the depths of the Ninefold Netherworld.

Darkness surged in Pei Erke's magic eyes, starlight flickered, staring at all this...

"Fang Xiang's twelve beasts..."

A faint sigh came from the darkness: "In the past, the Heavenly Tiger Great Sage of the Yuan Chen Heaven was executed by the Supreme as Qiang Liang; the Heavenly Queen Chang Xi of the Ten Thousand Demon Divine Court was trampled by the Supreme as Chaos Jia Zuo; the Heaven-Swallowing Great Sage Ba Snake was cast into destruction and transformed into Qiu Wei..."

"That battle was too ruthless by the Supreme Dao Ancestor; countless gods were killed, and the entire Ten Thousand Demon Divine Court was smashed into the Dao fruit of destruction!"

A god deep in the starlight said: "Yin Tiger betrayed, Chang Xi and Ba Snake conspired to kill Tiangou, the Supreme naturally couldn't tolerate it..."

The demon god in the darkness sighed: "The Dao fruit of destruction is the source of the Ninefold Netherworld, the ancestor of ten thousand demons. The Dao fruits suppressed within are numerous. The Fang Xiang twelve beasts are twelve kinds of possible Dao fruits contained within, which we induced with the Dao fruits of those twelve gods."

"But they are not the kind of possibility nurtured by the Dao fruit of destruction that completely destroys the cosmic realms."

"So, what exactly is the Supreme Dao Ancestor suppressing by merging with the Dao?"

"We thought it was chaos. After all, the Great Dao wearing away into chaos seems to be the most likely to destroy everything, but it's not chaos. We thought it was void. After all, everything turns into void after destruction, but it's not void. We also thought it was fate, but..."

"The twelve beasts! Chaos is chaos, void is void, fate is delirium, death is dead objects, killing is slaughter, dream is nightmare, divine path is blood sacrifice, plus swallowing, confusion, evil, reversal, we tried twelve times. None of them could probe what the Supreme is suppressing?"

"He threw the Dao fruit of destruction away and ignored it, and even said that everything that restrains destruction was placed in the Primordial Spirit Dao fruit..."

The Profound Heaven Great Emperor in the starlight said calmly: "We have done our best!"

"This is the continuation of the struggle between the Heavenly Emperor and the Supreme, and it is no longer something we can intervene in..."

The darkness and starlight gradually hid, and over there, the Heavenly Canopy Curse spirit gradually transformed into a huge phantom of Qiu Wei.

Cui Dan wore the Nuo mask, as if holding a great sacrifice of the ancient Wu Dao, every move was incomparably solemn and sacred, carrying the majesty of the mixture of destruction and creation.

Finally, he couldn't help but ask the guarded Xia Hou Xu: "Senior, you taught us the twelve beasts Nuo method, summoned the Nuo beast Qiu Wei, and a wisp of the swallowing Dao fruit, which should be enough to restrain the Ghost Tiger!"

"Why is Senior still performing the method?"

"Even if it is the head of ghost plagues, there is no need to be so cautious, right?"

Xia Hou Xu stopped his hands carving the Nine Tripods brand, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and said: "If it were an ordinary Ghost Tiger, would I need to be like this?"

"Under the swallowing Dao fruit, any god would be swallowed in one bite, and then Qiu Wei would be expelled back to the Ninefold Netherworld. What Ghost Tiger couldn't be taken away? But among the Five Emperors, only the Bai Di did not return from the Ninefold Netherworld. The Ghost Tiger is an old god. What if this is the Bai Di's Ghost Tiger?"

As soon as these words came out, Cui Dan was dumbfounded: "What do you mean by 'among the Five Emperors, only the Bai Di did not return'?"

"Are you saying the other four Emperors have all returned? Wait... the ancient Five Emperors have already been resurrected? Who are they?"

Darkness surged in Pei Erke's eyes, starlight exploded, a trace of killing intent was nurtured, and it faintly transformed into the shape of a flying knife hanging above Xia Hou Xu's head.

Xia Hou Xu, however, knew nothing, wiped his sweat, and said: "How could I possibly know this? The matter of the Bai Di is just some vague rumors of the Xia Hou clan."

"Alright!"

He waved his sleeve: "Don't harm me. Sometimes knowing too much really can get people killed!"