Chapter 499: Mirage

When placed in a new environment, the safest way to protect oneself is to quickly integrate into this environment—comply with the customs of this place, and follow the established habits and rules.

Hua Changxi, who was in the Ghost Realm Fortress, was undoubtedly an alien.

To hide herself to the greatest extent, her behavior must infinitely approach the real Lady Chi Yan.

Those who know the times are heroes; she was not unaware of this principle.

If it were any other occasion, she would definitely adapt to circumstances and protect herself without hesitation.

But at this moment, controlling low-level Ghost Clan members, turning them into "food," to be used for the attending ghost servants to have a "full meal"...

This kind of open, justified way of supporting the strong by depriving the weak made her instinctively feel repulsion!

Shaking the Nightmare Bell was indeed the safest and most secure choice for her.

However, she didn't want to, and she couldn't.

She was not a real Ghost Clan member; how could she identify with this naked law of the jungle of the Ghost Clan?

She was not the real Lady Chi Yan; she couldn't kill low-level Ghost Clan members to support the ghost servants around her.

This was not because she was noble, but—it involved her principles as a person and her bottom line of conduct.

Principles and bottom lines were actually vague to Hua Changxi, but at this moment, she was exceptionally clear; some things just couldn't be done!

It was not that she couldn't kill Ghost Clan members, but that she couldn't identify with this kind of "killing method of plundering the weak to feed others."

Today, she was facing the Ghost Clan, and killing some low-level Ghost Clan members to support the ghost servants in exchange for her own safety seemed not to need to be raised to the level of principles and bottom lines, and could even be said to be a "smart" approach.

However, behavior does not change its essence because the object of action is different.

Plunder is plunder!

Slaughter is slaughter!

If one day, the environment changes, and in the same predicament, the object she faces becomes the human race?

Would she also, for the sake of her own safety, kill and plunder the lives of others?

Once this beginning is made, today's Ghost Clan will be tomorrow's human race.

If she identified with this set of "law of the jungle" of the Ghost Clan today for the sake of self-preservation, tomorrow, she might really become a Ghost Clan member in human skin.

It was as if she had never forgotten that her previous life was a modern person. She didn't really turn herself into an ancient person just because she was cast into ancient times.

She was a human, not a ghost!

At this moment, Hua Changxi's thoughts were clearer than ever, and some vague things in her heart seemed to be more solid.

"Ding-a-ling~"

The Nightmare Bell rang, but the bell sound did not spread out of the Lady's Building.

The ghost servants in the building were happy when they heard the bell, but immediately after, their happy eyes suddenly became hollow and wooden.

The next moment, all the ghost servants in the building fell to the ground, falling into the nightmare of a "full meal."

The Lady's Building blocked external prying well. Hua Changxi didn't pay attention to the sleeping ghost servants anymore and continued to look at everything in the building.

The Lady's Building had five floors. The first floor was the residence of the ghost servants, which was nothing to look at.

The second floor was a bit like an office for handling affairs, storing many books recording the events of the Nine Nether, as well as some common Nine Nether cultivation techniques.

The third floor was a warehouse, storing many ghost artifacts and various strange flowers and plants of the Nine Nether, as well as a large amount of Nether Stones.

Nether Stones, the common currency of the Nine Nether, just like spirit stones in the human world.

The difference between spirit stones and Nether Stones was—spirit stones contained heaven and earth spiritual energy, while Nether Stones sealed complex and gloomy heaven and earth turbid energy, that is, Netherworld energy.

Netherworld energy was not a single gas, but intertwined with various evil breaths.

There was Yin energy that was bone-chilling and eroded the spirit; there was ghost energy that was haunted by resentment and triggered obsessions; and there was even more violent evil energy, death energy that swallowed Yang energy, and filthy baleful energy mixed in.

These breaths were entangled together, which was extremely poisonous to the living beings of the human world, but to the various tribes of the Nine Nether, it was an indispensable energy for cultivation.

In Hua Changxi's view, the so-called Netherworld energy was a mixture of various negative energies.

Just picking up a Nether Stone, Hua Changxi immediately felt the gloomy, cold, and violent energy surging inside the stone. In an instant, it made her mood become irritable.

Hua Changxi hurriedly put down the Nether Stone and continued to go upstairs to investigate.

The fourth floor was where Lady Chi Yan practiced. The furnishings were eerie and strange, everywhere exuding murderous and evil energy, and there were magic arrays for condensing ghost energy and refining souls carved on the ground.

Evil energy rushed towards her face. Hua Changxi didn't stay at all and continued to go up.

The fifth floor was where Lady Chi Yan lived.

In Lady Chi Yan's bedroom, Hua Changxi found two good things.

One was a skull-shaped white bone storage magic weapon with an extremely large internal space. Hua Changxi used this white bone skull to sweep away everything stored on the second and third floors.

The other was a foot-long black bone flute.

The bone used to make this flute was not ordinary; it was refined from the throat bone of a Ghost Chariot.

The Ghost Chariot was a fierce bird of the Nine Nether, inherently cruel, most fond of swallowing souls, and its cry was shrill and strange, which could easily trigger the shaking of the listener's spirit and even directly shatter the soul.

The moment Hua Changxi saw the bone flute, she thought of the "Soul-Absorbing Song" in the "Twelve Soul Control Styles."

Casting this technique required a specific soul instrument as a medium to turn soul power into invisible sonic blades.

And this bone flute refined from the throat bone of a Ghost Chariot was born with the ferocity to deter spirits, and was undoubtedly an excellent carrier for playing the "Soul-Absorbing Song."

Hua Changxi stroked the cold bone flute, loving it, and decided decisively to force out a drop of essence blood and fuse it into the bone flute, refining it completely in the first instance.

With the bone flute, she, who could play the "Soul-Absorbing Song," could have one more point of self-protection when walking in the Nine Nether.

Having harvested the treasure, Hua Changxi was in a very good mood, walked to the window, and pushed open the carved window lattice.

Looking out from the height of the fifth floor was not enough to overlook the magnificent panoramic view of the entire Ghost Realm Fortress, but most of the street scene in the North City Gate area could be seen at a glance.

On the streets below, shadowy ghost figures shuttled under the oil-green lamps, low buildings were lined up, and occasionally a few sharp roars came, outlining the chaos and clamor of the bottom area of the Ghost Realm Fortress.

Hua Changxi's gaze did not stay on the scene downstairs for long, but looked up at the floating islands in the sky, her eyes flickering constantly.

Through Lady Chi Yan's memories, she knew many things she didn't know before.

The Four Spirit Realms, with the Nine Heavens above, the Nine Nether below, and the human world in the middle, was a great world with a complete order of the three realms.

When heaven and earth first opened and the interface first formed, clear energy rose and turbid energy sank, forming the Nine Heavens and the Nine Nether respectively.

The Nine Heavens had nine layers of palaces, and the Nine Nether also had nine layers of abysses.

If the Nine Heavens symbolized order and light, it was a nine-layer upright pyramid that climbed layer by layer and stood upwards; then the Nine Nether represented chaos and disorder, an inverted nine-layer pyramid that fell all the way and was overturned.

At this moment, the location where she was was the first layer of the Nine Nether territory, and also the largest and most vast territory.

As one of the largest main tribes of the Nine Nether, the Ghost Clan's central city—the Ghost Realm Fortress, was directly connected to the nine layers of abysses of the Nine Nether.

Here, one could fall from the first layer of the Nine Nether territory into the second, third, and so on...

At this moment, those islands she saw floating in the high sky, which seemed to be floating in the high sky, were actually inverted images.

Those islands, like a mirage, were "small ghost domains" (dojos) opened up by powerful Ghost Clan members in the second and third layers of the Nine Nether abysses. ===== CHAPTER 500 =====