Stranger Danger

The King of Sky Gate was looking a lot more transparent and indistinct than before. His giant sword was shattered, and his yin soldiers were long dead. He looked anything but imposing right now.

A pale and sickly child was also standing next to the King of Sky Gate. The battlefield was littered with the bodies of children, and each and every one of them looked exactly the same as the child. Even stranger was the fact that they weren’t illusions. They were all flesh-and-blood bodies.

On the opposite side of the battlefield, Gu Suitang cracked his neck with a disdainful expression. “Is that all you got, Child Emperor? Your ‘Blood Puppet True Sutra’ is just as flimsy as your companion.”

The Deputy Chief of Bureau looked way better than his opponents. His clothes had some holes in it, but he himself was almost completely unharmed. His vigor poured like an endless flood, and his voice was as loud and powerful as ever. It was like the two-versus-one battle had barely cost any energy.

“Hmph! I admit that you’re incredibly strong, Gu Suitang. Even the two of us together are no match for you,” replied the boy, Child Emperor, with a dark chuckle.

Child Emperor was telling the truth. Gu Suitang was so ridiculously strong that he had trampled over the King of Sky Gate, a Phenomenon-class Stranger, and him, a Half-Step Spirit Master, like they were ants.

It wasn’t like Child Emperor had never fought a Spirit Master in his life. In fact, he had slain a handful of early-stage Spirit Masters using his cultivation art, the “Blood Puppet True Sutra” before. The cultivation art allowed him to create flesh puppets using his blood essence, and each puppet would inherit a portion of his martial arts and strength.

At his current level, he could create a maximum of nine flesh puppets, and each one inherited around seventy percent of his strength. The weaker ones were in the early-stage of the Spirit Purification Realm, while the stronger ones were in the late-stage.

This was why he usually had the numbers advantage when he fought an enemy. Moreover, his flesh puppets shared one mind with him and were completely fearless, so they were an even greater threat than the average Spirit Purifier.

The problem was that his flesh puppets might as well be made of paper before Gu Suitang. A glancing blow was enough to injure them, and a direct hit would shatter them outright. If possible, he didn’t want to get into a fight with Gu Suitang at all.

Thankfully, the end was near. Child Emperor mentally checked the time before shooting Gu Suitang a provocative grin. “But we’ve bought enough time. You may have won the battle, but the war is ours.”

“What?” Gu Suitang suddenly had a bad feeling about this. “You’re not suggesting that you can somehow turn this around, are you?”

Child Emperor chuckled darkly. “Oh, but I am, and I’m not afraid to tell you at this point. Luo Shui is about to undergo a transformation, you see. It will be subsumed by the Nine Nethers and transformed into a living hell very soon!”

“The Nine Nethers!?”

Gu Suitang wasn’t expecting this, but he maintained a strong front and scoffed, “Is that it? You think you can scare me away?”

But the King of Sky Gate didn’t miss his reaction. Feeling catharsis after all the pain and humiliation he had suffered in Gu Suitang’s hands, the Phenomenon-class Stranger laughed boisterously. “Hahahaha! Like anyone has the time for that! Five hundred years ago, the battle between the two peak champions didn’t just destroy Sky Gate, but also punched a hole in the ground deep enough to connect to the Nine Nethers. How else are we still alive? Why do you think our hatred remained as bright as ever despite five hundred years?”

“Unfortunately, the crack is too small, and the amount of Nine Nethers Demonic Qi that leaked to the surface is too weak. As a result, we were unable to die or leave Sky Gate Abyss.”

“But that won’t be a problem anymore. The Black Tide will happen any moment now, and the crack would soon split wide open like a watermelon. When that happens, your precious city will become my domain, and everyone you cherished will become my food and slave. Ahahahahahaha!”

“You’re opening a passage that leads to the Nine Nethers? Have you gone insane, Child Emperor?!”

Gu Suitang wasn’t stupid. He figured out the King of Sky Gate’s meaning instantly. “Do you even understand what the hell you’re trying to do? Not only would drawing the Nine Nethers Demonic Qi to the surface claim countless lives, some natives of the Nine Nethers may break free and plunge humanity into chaos as well!”

By native, he meant the Strangers who were born and bred in the Nine Nethers. Born from the Nine Nethers Demonic Qi, they were as strong as they were evil. Not only that, they came in all shapes and sizes and could conceal their presence so well that most detection methods were ineffective against them. Dangerous beyond belief, they would absolutely throw the world into chaos if they were given free passage into the surface world.

In response, Child Emperor simply let out an insane cackle. “The Azure Sky is already dead; the Yellow Sky will soon rise. Those who worship the Yellow God will naturally earn His protection and live forever.”

“But who cares about those who don’t worship our Lord, and who cares if the world is plunged into chaos as a result? It has nothing to do with us, does it?”

“Screw your Yellow God! These fucking crazies!” Gu Suitang cursed. Assuming that Child Emperor and the King of Sky Gate were telling the truth, then the situation had just spiraled out of control. He needed to stop this one way or another.

Noticing Gu Suitang’s worry and anxiety, Child Emperor let out a satisfied cackle. “Just save your strength, Chief Gu. There’s no way you could find that place, and even if you could, it is already too late.”

“It’s already too late, Chief Gu! Hehehehe…”

“Too late, is it? Then you will die for what you’ve done!”

Gu Suitang’s eyes turned bloodshot as he roared out in anger. His vigor surged violently as the ground within thirty meters of him abruptly flattened like it was struck by a mountain.

Child Emperor and the King of Sky Gate hurriedly backed away from him. It was one thing to fight Gu Suitang while he was toying with them, and another when he was going all out.

Child Emperor glanced at the King of Sky Gate and said in a hurry, “Where are your three aides, King of Sky Gate? Tell them to come out and help us already. That bastard’s going to kill us both at this rate!”

“What aide?” The King of Sky Gate tilted his head in confusion before exclaiming in realization, “Oh, you mean Yin Governor, the ghostfaced boys and the ghost bride?”

“Who else?”

Child Emperor shot him a glare. “Seriously, now is not the time to be scheming against your own ally. Tell them to delay Gu Suitang and buy us time to escape. None of this matters if we die, no?”

“Er…” The King of Sky Gate looked visibly confused by Child Emperor’s accusation. “I’m not scheming against you though. All three of them are already dead. In fact, the army of Grudge Spirits I stationed here to guard this place are gone as well.”

“Excuse me? You’re not joking, are you?”

At first, Child Emperor thought that the King of Sky Gate was lying to him in order to minimize his casualties. When he saw the confused look on the Stranger’s face though, he immediately realized that he wasn’t lying.

If the King of Sky Gate wasn’t lying, then Actor and Matchmaker must be wrong. They had thought that the ghost king’s subordinates had captured the unknown person who infiltrated Sky Gate Abyss, but in reality, the unknown person had taken out all three Strangers and tens of thousands of Grudge Spirits.

That person hadn’t shown themselves for this fight, so… where could they be right now?

“No… It can’t be… I have to be overthinking this…” Child Emperor’s complexion grew increasingly pale despite his desperate attempts to convince himself that everything was fine.

There was a high chance that that unknown person had followed Actor and Matchmaker to the location of the crack. There was also a high chance that they were the reason Gu Suitang had shown up and come to the Sky Gate Abyss immediately. This meant that the infiltrator wasn\'t a random jianghu warrior, but a member of the Pacification Bureau.

Assuming his theory was true, then what could this person possibly be doing at the crack right now?

……

If Ye Qing could hear Child Emperor’s thoughts, he would definitely say, “Oh, I’m just demolishing your array. And picking up some treasures here and there.”

To be specific, he was demolishing the twelve stone pillars. They were clearly a key component of the boy’s so-called Twelve Sky Gods and Demons Array, so as long as he destroyed them all, the Way of Taiping’s conspiracy would fall apart on its own.

It wasn’t the most efficient way to destroy the array—it would have been far easier and faster to just destroy the core—but Ye Qing knew nothing about arrays, so of course he didn’t know where the core was. Luckily for him, smashing up the framework achieved the same result, so that was the plan he went with.

Just in case, he remained at his hiding spot for a little while after the Way of Taiping was gone. After checking for hidden observers and traps and finding nothing, he finally started his demolition work.

Ye Qing walked up to a stone pillar, lowered his waist slightly, and threw a punch. It immediately crumbled into pieces like rotten wood, though thanks to his force control the collapse made no noise whatsoever. Then, he caught the banner before it could hit the ground.

“Caw!”

Suddenly, the banner started struggling violently. Then, the picture on the banner—a bird with a human head and eyes all over its wings let out a strange caw. The eyes blinked rapidly as it released a strange power.

Ye Qing’s eyes felt unbelievably heavy all of a sudden. If he wasn’t prepared, he could have fallen asleep right there and then. He immediately visualized the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” and wiped clean the unnatural sleepiness in an instant.

The Drowsy Bird was a Soulstealer-class Stranger with a human head but a bird’s body. Its wings were also covered in human eyes. Both its voice and its eyes possessed the power to hypnotize a person to sleep. They would then eat their victim’s eyeballs while they were trapped in an unnatural slumber.

The bird picture in the banner was the Drowsy Bird, and its soul was sealed inside the banner. Its hypnotizing power was much weaker because of this, but it was still an outstanding Malice-class Strange Artifact.

Each pillar had a banner like this, though the souls that were sealed in it were different. There was the Blazing Tiger, Faceless Moth, All Withering Ghost Vine, Crying Wind, Rain Child, Fog Spirit and more. They were all Soulstealer-class Strangers.

The twelve banners were the treasures he was talking about earlier. After all, they were all Malice-class Strange Artifacts.

This trip to Sky Gate Abyss had turned out to be far more fruitful than he could possibly imagine. Just now, the Grudge Spirits had gifted him a ton of silver runes. Now, the Way of Taiping was giving him twelve Malice-class Strange Artifacts. They were such good people he just had to reciprocate the favor.

Ye Qing chuckled and destroyed the last pillar. The unusual cyclone spinning above the basin slowly faded into nothing, and the strange energy permeating the surroundings disappeared as well. At the same time, a terrific sword intent exploded from the center of the basin—the crack—and annihilated the fog directly above it, revealing great patches of white.

“Holy shit!”

The blood drained away from Ye Qing’s face as he staggered away from the sword intent. It was clear that the Twelve Sky Gods and Demons Array was keeping its true power suppressed until now.

“No wonder it could penetrate the ground all the way to the Nine Nethers. I wonder who they were and why they fought at Sky Gate? Such sinful people!”

Ye Qing sighed. He was just about to message Gu Suitang and the others when suddenly, the ground beneath his feet shook unnaturally, and the Nine Nethers Demonic Qi leaking from the crack grew much richer even though the sword intent was still working hard to neutralize it.