Chapter 651: Altar, Sacrificial Goods (1/2)

As punishment devices, the shackles kept the akasha ghost firmly imprisoned. There was a strange power at the other end of the chains, one that answered to a strange set of rules. The moment the shackles clasped shut, the hissing, struggling akasha ghost abruptly turned docile. Its gaze that’d brimmed with infinite resentment clouded over with dullness.

Lu Yun blinked in confusion; he hadn’t expected the process to go so smoothly. Were akasha ghosts supposed to be this easy to subdue?

“Gather!” With a wave of his hand, the Gates of the Abyss boomed open and pulled the ghost inside.

“Milord, stop immediately! We can’t let the ghost inside!” Ge Long’s voice suddenly echoed in Lu Yun’s skull. With a violent start, the master of hell hastened to close the gates, but it was too late.

An extraordinary aura erupted from the supposedly captive ghost. Caught off guard, Lu Yun found himself thrown violently backward, the chains slipping out of his hand in the process.

Before he could gather his senses, the akasha ghost had forced its way past the Gates of the Abyss and barged into hell.

“Milord, please do not return to hell before the seat of the tenth Envoy of Samsara is filled, no matter what happens. Or else… hell will have a new master.”

Lu Yun’s eyelid twitched.

Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!

The four immortal swords that Ge Long had given him flew out and streaked into hell as four smears of varied light. Lu Yun stood frozen in place, an unsettled expression on his face. He desperately wanted to go back and take stock of the situation, but Ge Long had firmly vetoed that idea. Returning was out of the question, or hell would fall into enemy hands!

Lu Yun could sense that, instead of a single akasha ghost, there was now a throng of them inside the netherworld. He blinked in confusion, unable to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

Why would a lone akasha ghost attract more of its ilk once inside hell? Also, the Gates of the Abyss might be the entrance, but the other ghosts couldn’t have possibly gone inside through them.

“Well… let’s go, I guess, we can head inside the Exalted Tomb!” After some internal struggle, he decided to put the matter aside, since there was nothing to be done at the moment. Meanwhile, the akasha ghosts ran amok, slaughtering the yin spirits and assorted ghosts residing inside to the last...

Or rather, the true spirits of their victims scattered all over hell, transforming into Hell Flowers or hiding inside the Tome of Life and Death, waiting for the crisis to be defused to come back to life.

What gave Lu Yun the greatest sigh of relief was that his envoys and most important Infernum like Ruyi, or allies such as Zombie King Diexi, were either residing in Dusk Province or had gone to wage war in Witherdew Major. None of them were currently inside hell, otherwise the losses would have been much more substantial.

“Thankfully, Yueshen’s soul has already fallen apart, so her true spirit is now a Hell Flower…”After observing her, he secretly gathered the Hell Flower that was her soul and sent it inside the Tome of Life and Death where it could make a quick recovery.

In ordinary times, Lu Yun could summon the power of hell with a mere thought, but upon reaching for the familiar netherworld, he was aghast to find a terrifying force suffusing the atmosphere. It made his heart quail and forbade him from proceeding further. Moreover, a vague impression arose from the Tome of Life and Death, warning him not to go inside hell.

……

“What’s the matter? Why are there formations here? Did someone unearth a treasure?!” A herd of freshly transformed fur seals had arrived. Seeing Qing Yu floating in the air and the formations nearby yet to fade away, they immediately beamed with delight.

“Lady Mother said there’d be treasures here. Sure enough, she was right!” Nearly five hundred in number, the fur seals were all Ge Yanxia’s children and mates.

“It’s ours now, take it away, take it away!” Without even figuring out what was truly going on, the group charged forth in a great brouhaha.

“I only need one of them alive. Kill the rest!” Lu Yun had planned on taking a few of them as sacrificial offerings to begin with. To think they’d come knocking and serve themselves up on a silver platter!