Chapter 131: The Sovereign of Ghost Cultivators

"Nanling, are you certain this is the place marked on the map?" Ming Feng asked as he looked at the scene before him, feeling the hairs on his body stand on end and a chill rise from the depths of his heart.

"There is no doubt it is here, though this appearance exceeds my expectations," Nanling said thoughtfully, resting his chin in one hand.

"This is clearly a burial ground for bones; the death aura here is far too dense! Who knows how long this place has existed? Could it breed some kind of evil fiend? If so, that would invisibly add a great deal of trouble for us!" Xue Han said, frowning with worry as he smelled the strong stench of decay in the air.

"Even if an evil fiend is lurking here, with the abilities of the three of us brothers, surely it cannot do much to us! According to the map, the place where the Jade Ganoderma grows should be right in the deepest part here. We must rush there as quickly as possible, obtain the spiritual object, and leave promptly to prevent any unexpected changes."

As Nanling spoke, he rose into the air, skimming closely over the boundless sea of white bones as he darted deeper inward. Behind him, Xue Han and the other exchanged a glance, both unable to shake their growing worries.

"Brother Xue, I always have a bad premonition, as if some immense danger is lurking ahead. Have you noticed it?" Ming Feng stared deep into the sea of bones, muttering with a worried expression.

"What you said is true. My heart feels a bit uneasy as well, but since we have come, there is no way we are returning empty-handed!" With that, Xue Han set off, speeding away to catch up with Nanling ahead.

Ming Feng frowned, glancing around with a vague sense of foreboding. Deep down, he felt an unease, as if a pair of demonic eyes in the dark were waiting for them to walk right into a trap.

"Sigh... What will be, will be. Even if it's a mountain of swords or a sea of flames, I'll charge through it!" With a flicker, he closely followed the other two ahead into the depths.

A moment later, Leng Tian emerged from behind a large tree in a white robe, his eyes gleaming as he stared at the wide valley before him. The valley was piled high with the skeletal remains of beasts everywhere, and the heavy stench of rot was suffocating.

"Boss, this must be a burial ground for the demon race. Look at the volume of bones in this valley—layer upon layer, they are almost filling the entire ravine!"

Judas condensed his true form and floated beside Leng Tian, pointing at the sea of white bones piled high in the gorge ahead.

In Leng Tian's eyes, a tri-colored light flashed. Enhanced by his vision looking into the gorge, a completely different scene revealed itself: an extremely dense death aura floated over the canyon, swirling and refusing to disperse. Vaguely, wisps of wandering souls darted through it, and when swept by divine sense, agonizing wails could be heard transmitting straight into the mind.

"This looks more like a realm of death. Why are there so many wandering souls that have not dissipated? This defies reason. No doubt some evil entity is lurking here, using some special technique to gather the souls of these dead demon beasts so they wouldn't scatter."

Leng Tian also frowned. "Keeping these wandering souls from scattering must be for the evil entity lurking here to use in its cultivation! Could it be a Ghost Cultivator of the Underworld Path? But for a practitioner of the Underworld Path to lurk within the territory of the demon race, aren't they afraid of being discovered and bringing down annihilation upon themselves?"

"Hehe... Boss, don't you worry. As long as it's not the legendary God of Death himself, no matter how powerful its ghost cultivation is, as long as souls exist, they are undoubtedly food for my belly! I feel that my breakthrough to the True Form Dharma Image is not far off. By then, even a Saint-Transforming existence among martial artists will be powerless against me!"

As Judas spoke, the green light in his eyes flickered incessantly as he stared at the massive number of wandering souls weaving through the death aura above the canyon, his chubby face filled with greed.

"Don't speak too boastfully; I'm afraid you might end up being the one swallowed instead," Leng Tian said, his body glowing with true essence as he ascended high into the air.

Judas didn't hear Leng Tian's words at all, his mind entirely occupied by the thought of a powerful evil ghost appearing shortly, only to be devoured by none other than himself—the invincible Shadow Demon lord of heaven and earth.

Seeing that Leng Tian had already moved, Judas finally drifted forward in pursuit, dissolving into the void with a sneaky laugh to cloak Leng Tian's figure.

Flying above the canyon and looking at the mountains of beast bones piled below, Leng Tian felt deeply shocked. Only from above could one truly comprehend the sheer magnitude of the bones in the valley!

"There are even human skeletons here, and quite a significant number at that. Could these bones all belong to the human race of this realm? No, that doesn't make sense. The humans of this realm all live within the Azure Sea and Luminous Firmament, and their numbers shouldn't be very large either! Looking at the number of human skeletons here, just a casual glance reveals no less than several thousand!"

At this thought, Leng Tian looked toward the depths of the canyon with a sense of shock. As far as his eyes could reach for dozens of miles, there were only bones, and this wasn't even the end. "Just how many humans and demons had to die to accumulate enough to fill such a massive valley?"

After flying another twenty-odd miles, Leng Tian finally spotted Nanling and his two companions. At this moment, the three of them were standing at the edge of a deep underground pit, all staring silently down into the abyss with horrified expressions.

Leng Tian concealed his figure, floating in mid-air and looking down into the pit below. At this single glance, his expression shifted several times. It was a sinkhole dozens of meters in diameter, but the bottom of the pit was several times wider than the top. The pit was not very deep—only a dozen meters from the rim to the floor—allowing everything below to be seen clearly.

"What kind of demon beast is this? Its size is simply too enormous! Max's body is probably only the size of one of its legs. If this thing were to move, wouldn't it cause the earth to shake and mountains to shatter and rivers to reverse?"

Leng Tian was truly deeply shocked by the colossal body of the demon beast below, stretching across the earth like a mountain range. However, this massive beast seemed to have been dead for a very long time; judging by the mottled, peeling skin on its gigantic frame, one could conclude this was the corpse of a giant beast that had already perished.

"Could this big guy be the so-called Ghost Dao cultivator? Looking at this bulk, one can only imagine—wasn't it a giant beast born at the origin of the world? A descendant of a World Beast? This is utterly insane!"

Judas stared with emerald-green eyes fixed upon the giant beast's corpse below, muttering words that shocked the listener.

"How did another World Beast pop up? Just how many types of beasts are there?" Leng Tian asked, feeling thoroughly puzzled as he listened to Judas continuously chattering on about giant beasts and World Beasts.

"I'm not too clear on this either, only that World Beasts and demon beasts have nothing to do with each other; they are existences of different natures. Simply put, World Beasts, also known as giant beasts, are spiritual objects born at the primal beginning of heaven and earth, whereas demon beasts are creatures born later on. There is no blood relation whatsoever between the two!"

Judas spluttered as he introduced the information he possessed, but after talking for a long time, he only explained that World Beasts and demon beasts were two separate races, and nothing more.

"More details." Leng Tian frowned deeply, feeling that Judas had talked for a long time without hitting the main point.

"Hehe... Boss, that's all I know. I don't know any more details!" Judas laughed awkwardly.

"Such a dense death aura—it has actually transformed from formless to tangible. It seems the evil entity lurking here is right inside the body of this giant beast. From this thick death aura, we can tell that this evil entity's cultivation is far from simple!"

While Leng Tian was worried, it did not mean he was afraid. He merely knew that the methods of these ghost cultivators were all extremely bizarre. Back in the Tianyuan Continent, he had once fought a fierce battle against a powerful ghost cultivator; although he eventually defeated that ghost cultivator by virtue of his formidable physical body, he had been unable to annihilate him, and the opponent's tricks remained fresh in his memory.

"No..." Leng Tian's expression flickered. He recalled the few locations marked with Jade Spirit Stones on the sketch Xue Han had given him. Although this region was marked, it wasn't right here, but rather on a tall mountain at the end of the valley. So why were these three lingering here instead of taking any action?

"Boss, something seems wrong. If you sense carefully, the internal fluctuations of these three fellows below seem very chaotic! Even their expressions look in extreme pain. Could they have been attacked by something?"

Judas's tone turned somewhat startled, reminding Leng Tian to be on his guard while condensing his own Formless True Form to float beside Leng Tian, ready at any moment to devour to its heart's content. Yet in its heart, it felt both excited and somewhat nervous; by the innate instinct of the Formless Shadow Demon, it could perceive danger much more acutely than ordinary living beings.

Prompted by Judas, Leng Tian immediately activated the tri-colored light in his eyes, condensing it into a single point as he looked down at the three men below. Upon doing so, he discovered that a thick layer of death aura had coated the faces of Nanling and the other two, turning their complexions deathly pale. Wisps of vital life energy were flowing out of the seven orifices of the three men, feeding along three dense strands of death aura directly into the body of the giant beast below.

"Their consciousness has been controlled! To be able to instantly control the minds of three Profound-Realm powerhouses, just what level has the cultivation of the hidden attacker reached?!"

Leng Tian was startled once more by what he saw! But surprise was all it was—he figured that no matter how high the opponent's cultivation was, it wouldn't reach the Saint-Transforming realm; otherwise, the entity wouldn't be hiding away in such a stealthy manner.

In fact, Leng Tian's guesswork was spot-on. The expert hiding in the shadows who had controlled Nanling and the others indeed possessed a cultivation comparable only to the peak Human-Descent realm, and was indeed a Ghost Cultivator of the Underworld Path who had been lurking in this place for several hundred years.

"This junior sincerely thanks Senior for sparing my life. In the future, I will surely come often to pay my respects to your senior self. This junior will take my leave now and no longer disturb your senior's quiet cultivation!"

Upon hearing these words, Leng Tian's expression turned startled. Lowering his head to look again, he saw that Nanling, whose mind had been controlled just moments ago, had now returned to normal and was bowing respectfully to the giant beast at the bottom of the pit, preparing to leave.

"Boss, something's fishy. Could this kid know the person hiding in the shadows?" Judas flickered, concealing Leng Tian once again. It certainly didn't want Nanling to discover Leng Tian's presence, otherwise, things wouldn't be fun anymore. As for whether the entity hiding in the shadows might have already noticed them, Judas didn't care at all—at worst, it would just swallow them up together.

"Nanling, you shameless scoundrel! Ah... even as ghosts... we will never... let you go..." Xue Han, having regained his consciousness, was so enraged by Nanling's actions that his vision blurred with fury and his features twisted in agony!

"Nanling, we always addressed each other as brothers and never did anything to wrong you! Why send us to our deaths today?!" Ming Feng also snapped back to awareness, his eyes bloodshot as he glared furiously at Nanling just like Xue Han.

"Hehe... My two good virtuous brothers, this elder brother will let you die knowing the reason today!" Nanling sneered coldly at Xue Han and the other two, holding his hands behind his back with a sinister smile. "The two of you have no enmity with me. The reason I lured you here today is precisely to offer both your lives to the great Ghost King Palace. Dying in this manner can be considered dying for a worthy cause! Hahaha..."

With that, Nanling threw his head back and laughed wildly, feeling immense gratification at the sight of the two men looking as though they wanted to devour him alive. "Hate me! Curse me! Haha..."

"Why are you doing this? What good does it do you? Aren't you afraid the Grand Emperor will find out and execute you?" Ming Feng's face was pale, his body trembling violently due to the fierce emotional fluctuation.

"Nanling, we are fellow Guardian Gods of the State. By eliminating the two of us today, aren't you afraid other nations will learn of it and launch a massive invasion? When that happens, you will be the sinner of the entire country, leaving behind a legacy of eternal infamy."

"Shut your mouths, all of you! I don't need the likes of you to lecture me!" Nanling's face chilled as he barked an order stopping the two from speaking further.

Mid-air, Leng Tian watched all of this unfold, feeling a sense of sorrow for Xue Han and Ming Feng. Being betrayed by a trusted friend must be the greatest regret for the two of them after death.

"Boss, it seems the one in the shadows is indeed a Ghost Dao cultivator, and a king-rank expert at that!" Although Judas spoke with a hint of solemnity, its face was plastered with a sneaky grin.