Watching the army of horrors coming their way, the three cultivators were frozen for a moment.

  Then the silence broke.

  “Run!” Bai Ning shouted, matching her words with action as she surged into the sky, pushing her flying tool to its limit. Yan Qixue and Yan Liang were mere moments behind, all three racing toward the misty cloud, desperate to outrun the ghostly tide threatening to engulf them.

  Bai Ning reinforced the crimson barrier around herself and swung the Golden Silk Coiling Dragon Banner, summoning the dragon phantasm to coil around her shield like a glowing loop of golden rope. She was barely in time. The ghosts crashed into them like a living battering ram. The force drove her backward, momentum stalling as if hitting an invisible wall. The mass of spirits was so dense, it wasn’t just a crowd of shrieking figures—it was a wall of ghostly qi hammering relentlessly against her shield.

  She fought to stabilize her flight. The golden dragon writhed and burned, scorching ghost after ghost in bursts of searing flame. But it barely made a dent. There were too many. Her shield flared brighter with every impact, pressing inward as ghosts slammed into every exposed inch. Her qi began to waver dangerously.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yan Qixue and Yan Liang darting through the onslaught. Using bare hands, they tore through the spirits with swift, practiced motions. When the pressure became unbearable, they retreated behind Bai Ning’s shield for a brief reprieve before plunging back into the fray, carving a path through the relentless tide.

  Together, they felled tens, then hundreds of ghosts, their relentless assault cutting through the tide like a blade through mist. Yet it was a battle doomed from the start—an ocean of wailing spirits pressing in on all sides, impossible to hold back with mere hands. Slowly and inexorably, the pressure drove them down, their ascent stalling as the unyielding force pushed them toward the crater’s unforgiving floor.

  Bai Ning’s hand drifted to her storage pouch. The Vast Yang Firebird Talisman dropped into her palm, balanced securely between two fingers. Now is the time. Surely there wouldn’t be another time I’ll need it more.

  Then, that sound tore through the air once more.

  It was as if the very atmosphere had been rent in two—an agonized scream ripped from a throat torn raw. Bai Ning clapped her hands over her ears, all other thoughts drowned in that savage roar.

  The ghosts around them scattered as if repelled by an unseen force, their ghastly faces twisting skyward as they answered in a rising chorus of howls. The sound swelled, echoing and reverberating, a terrible symphony of torment.

  A hot wetness dripped down Bai Ning’s ears, and without looking she knew it was blood. Yan Liang and Yan Qixue were no better off, their faces twisted in silent agony as they struggled to maintain flight amid the overwhelming roar.

  Then, suddenly, silence. A thick, suffocating stillness settled over the crater. For a moment, Bai Ning feared the scream had rendered her deaf, branded her very soul with an eternal wound of sound and pain. Her ears rang relentlessly, the fading echo lingering like a ghostly afterimage seared across her senses.

  Slowly, painfully, she lifted her gaze. Through the thinning veil of ghosts, a path had been carved, and at its center floated a figure, forged from the same glossy, obsidian-black material as the bones beneath their feet—solidified yin qi given terrible form.

  It was vaguely humanoid, but only barely.

  Three snarling faces twisted in eternal rage, each lined with long, curved fangs and crowned with wicked horns. Six arms—three on each side—flailed with savage, animalistic fury. Its hunched back betrayed a grotesque strength, as if its very posture was a primal, predatory stance.

  But the most horrifying detail lay just beneath its surface. Across its body writhed hundreds of tiny faces, pressed desperately against the inside of its skin, their mouths frozen in silent screams, distorting the flesh like a hollow shell struggling to contain the tortured souls trapped within.

  Its own features confirmed the horror. Hollow eye sockets wept threads of ghostly qi, gray and white, while its three mouths remained fixed in silent torment. When it screamed again, the sound poured not from its mouths but from its entire being—a jagged, metallic shriek that tore through the air like a blade sliding across steel. Worse of all was what her senses were telling her. This thing’s cultivation was at the early Core Formation realm.

  Horror threatened to overwhelm her, even as Bai Ning fought to hold herself aloft, her qi burning fiercely against the force of the scream. They couldn’t fight such a thing. No one on the entire island could.

  Yan Liang’s shrill, terrified voice broke her out of her increasingly despairing thoughts. “A Ghost King. It’s a Ghost King. We’re all dead.”

  Yan Qixue’s pale face was ghostly white, her eyes wide and unblinking, caught in a moment of stunned disbelief, as if the terrible truth had frozen her in place.

  Bai Ning gritted her teeth at the words, feeling even more hopeless at the confirmation. A Ghost King? Even a thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators would be no more than prey before such a thing. Every jade slip she had studied described them as monsters beyond reckoning, creatures of unimaginable power and malice. How had one come to this place? Yan Liang was right; they were all going to die.

  Yet, they were not dead. Not yet.

  The Ghost King had not moved. Neither had the other ghosts dared to advance. There was a fragile stillness, a momentary pause in the tide. If they could coordinate, if they could strike together, there might be hope.

  The Vast Yang Firebird Talisman—her master’s gift—rested in her palm. A grade-five talisman, its power rivaled the strike of an early-stage Core Formation cultivator. With it, they might turn the tide.

  “Stop panicking!” Bai Ning’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding as she fought to steady her own fear. “We’re not dead yet. And I for one am not going to lie down and give up before the fight even begins. Listen—this talisman is powerful. If we charge together, if we strike as one, we can land a blow. Are you with me, or not?”

  The cold wind whipped around her, tugging at her robes and swirling the mist like restless spirits. For a heartbeat, she feared silence would be her only answer—but then Yan Qixue blinked. Color returned to her cheeks, and with a curt nod, the paralysis drained from her limbs. Yan Liang’s breath came ragged, but his eyes lit with a flicker of determination. “We’re with you,” he said at last, voice hoarse but steady.

  Bai Ning tightened her grip on the talisman, feeling its heat pulse against her palm. I only have one strike. It has to count.

  Then the Ghost King moved—or rather, vanished.

  One instant it was floating motionless. The next, it was directly before her, one clawed hand raised in a blur of motion. Bai Ning barely had time to register the movement before the blow landed.

  Her crimson barrier shattered like brittle porcelain. Pain erupted in her chest, and then she was flying—hurtling backward through the sky with staggering force. Her eyes widened in disbelief as her body spun, head over heels, in a tumbling arc. If she hadn’t instinctively reinforced her shield, if the golden dragon hadn’t been coiled around it, the strike would have torn her in half.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  She just barely managed to slow her descent, her flying handkerchief sweeping beneath her to catch her weight before she smashed into the ground. The impact still jarred her bones, and her breath came in short, painful gasps.

  Astonishingly, the talisman remained clutched in her hand.

  She looked up, vision still reeling—just in time to see the Ghost King repeat its monstrous ballet.

  It flickered, reappearing before Yan Qixue, and with a single swipe of its arm, sent her crashing earthward like a rag doll. She struck the curled remnants of a giant bone, shattered it on impact, and plowed through the earth in a ragged trench before lying still.

  Yan Liang’s scream of rage echoed through the mist. He charged the Ghost King, fist wreathed in glowing qi—but his blow was brushed aside as if it were no more than a leaf in the wind. The Ghost King raised a single arm and slapped him down with casual brutality. He fell like a meteor, smashing into the crater floor with an explosion of dust and debris, carving a deep crater beneath him.

  Bai Ning stared, her breath caught in her throat. Three Qi Condensation realm cultivators—defeated in less than three seconds.

  This wasn’t a fight. It was an execution. They were mice before a tiger, waiting to be slaughtered.

  The talisman pulsed in her hand, warm and golden. For the first time, she hesitated.

  It wasn’t only an attack. If she attached it to her flying tool, it would become a way to escape—an unstoppable streak of light carrying her, faster than even the Ghost King. She could flee the island. She could escape the Enigmatic Death Domain entirely.

  But she would be leaving Yan Qixue and Yan Liang to die. They had trusted her. They’d charged into a hopeless fight at her word, believing they would stand together. They didn’t deserve to be abandoned.

  Her hand trembled. Then she made the only choice she could make. She flicked the talisman forward.

  Sorry, Master, she thought. But I can’t leave them behind.

  The talisman flared to life midair, bursting into a fireball that twisted and reshaped itself in an instant. Flames curled and spiraled, forming wings, a crown of feathers, a long tail like a comet’s trail. Red, gold, and blue fire wove together into the shape of a magnificent bird.

  The Vast Yang Firebird.

  It gave a piercing cry that shattered the stillness, a note so pure and bright it pushed the chill from the air. For a heartbeat, it was as though summer and life had returned, blazing in full defiance of death.

  The Ghost King looked up—and turned to flee. Bai Ning blinked, stunned by the impossible sight. Yet, it was happening in front of her eyes. The towering, spectral horror was fleeing.

  However, he was still not fast enough. With a flash of incandescent wings, the firebird streaked after the Ghost King, a line of flame tracing its path through the air. The distance between them closed in an instant. Heat and light burst in its wake, and then, with a sound like the world cracking in half, the firebird struck.

  A sun bloomed in the mist.

  Flames erupted in every color of the spectrum, devouring the sky in a storm of radiance. Feathers of searing gold and crimson rained like snowflakes from the heavens, each one dissolving a ghost with the barest touch. The storm of divine fire surged outward, relentless and all-consuming, forcing back everything within its radius. The air rippled. Shadows screamed. It felt like the very heart of the Domain had been banished for a glorious moment.

  Slowly, the divine radiance began to recede, its brilliance dimming as the last vestiges of celestial fire ebbed into silence. The sky, once consumed by flame and light, now shimmered with ghostly afterimages that danced across Bai Ning’s vision. Her eyes burned, nearly blinded by the intensity of what she had just witnessed. Around her, the air hung thick with the acrid stench of scorched earth and the metallic tang of smoke, heavy and cloying. A towering plume of vapor and ash poured from the heart of the crater, vast enough to smother the horizon, rising in billowing, suffocating waves that turned the heavens into a canvas of pale white.

  Bai Ning descended slowly, her qi frayed and faltering, her every movement a strain against exhaustion. Her feet touched the ground with the gentleness of falling ash, but her landing was far from graceful. She stumbled forward, the world spinning around her, yet the urgency in her heart refused to let her rest. She had to find the others—Yan Qixue, Yan Liang—she had to know if they were alive. Each step forward sent a dull ache reverberating through her limbs, but she pressed on through the clearing smoke, her breath shallow, her legs trembling.

  And then, from the thick veil of smoke, a figure began to emerge.

  She froze.

  Her body went cold as ice.

  The Ghost King revealed itself, still alive. Its form was a grotesque shadow of what it had been—its obsidian shell fractured along the chest, deep cracks radiating outward like veins of rot through porcelain. One of its arms had been completely severed, torn away by divine fire, and yet it remained aloft, its body suspended by a force that defied both injury and reason. Even in ruin, it exuded power. Malevolence rolled off it in waves, sharp and suffocating. And then its eyes—those cold, ancient voids—locked onto her.

  She could not move.

  It was as though the very air had congealed around her, thickening into something tangible and cruel, rooting her in place. Her heart thundered wildly, blood rushing through her ears in a deafening roar, but her limbs refused to answer. She stood helpless beneath its gaze, caught like an insect in amber.

  The Ghost King vanished. Not a sound, not a warning—just the terrible rush of displaced air.

  And then it was there, standing before her, so close she could feel the cold emanating from its broken shell. One of its remaining hands rose, fingers spread and rigid, shaped like a blade. Bai Ning's breath caught. There was no time to escape, no strength left to defend.

  She closed her eyes.

  Father. Mother. I am sorry.

  The world shuddered.

  A vast, crushing spiritual presence descended over the land like a divine judgment.

  It was as if the ocean itself had fallen from the sky—an unfathomable weight pressing down upon the world. Ghosts and jiangshi across the battlefield howled in anguish, their wails rising like a dirge.

  The Ghost King halted mid-strike, frozen not by choice but by force, as if the hand of a god had pressed against the fabric of existence. To Bai Ning, that presence was something else entirely. It felt like a hand on her shoulder—steady, warm, and unshakable. A presence she knew as intimately as her own heartbeat.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She looked up, choking back a sob.

  “Master…”

  The mist above shattered.

  A blazing blue meteor split the heavens, punching a hole through the clouds with earth-shaking force. It split midair—one half hurtling forward to slam into the Ghost King’s chest, driving it backward with cataclysmic force. The impact gouged a massive trench through the earth, shattering stone and bone alike.

  The other half stopped above her, coalescing into a figure wreathed in sky-blue light.

  Mo Jian.

  Her master.

  He hovered in the air, robes rippling with the force of his arrival, his expression carved from fury and fire. The spiritual pressure he exuded crackled through the air like a coming storm. To Bai Ning, it was salvation incarnate.

  “Bai Ning,” he said, voice low and thunderous. “Are you hurt? Are you alright?”

  She couldn't speak. Her voice caught in her throat. Instead, she stumbled forward and threw herself into his arms, sobbing freely as her tears soaked into his robes.

  Mo Jian stiffened, awkwardly patting her back. “Ah. There, there. You’re safe now.”

  Even through the tears, she laughed—a soft, broken sound. The same old master. Always awkward with emotions.

  A sound like bones grinding together shattered the moment.

  Mo Jian gently pushed her behind him and stepped forward as the Ghost King rose once again.

  If it had been broken before, now it was barely holding together. Its once-pristine obsidian form was cracked beyond repair, its limbs incomplete, its ghostly qi bleeding from open wounds like mist escaping a shattered urn. One of its faces was missing entirely, and several hands had lost all their fingers. Its aura, once suffocating, now flickered like a candle in a storm.

  The fear it once commanded was gone.

  “Still alive?” Mo Jian said, his voice filled with quiet scorn.

  With a flick of his sleeve, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding rose into the sky. It rotated slowly, its sides glowing with deep cerulean light. The artifact grew larger and larger until its mouth stretched wide across the crater, its presence dominating the battlefield like the judgment of heaven itself.

  Then, ever so slowly, it tipped. The lid slipped aside, and blue flame poured forth.

  It was not the fire of mortal creation, but something more sacred—an endless deluge of cleansing flame that fell from the Ding like an ocean from the sky. It struck the ground with a roar, flooding the crater with holy destruction. The ghosts and jiangshi below never had a chance. They were consumed in an instant, their cries lost in the torrent. The great black bones crumbled to ash, their ancient malice dissolved as if it had never existed.

  The Ghost King struggled to rise once more, but the fire caught him, wrapped around him, and pulled him under.

  Still the flames came.

  They flowed over the land like a rising tide, filling every crevice, every hollow. When they reached Bai Ning and the others, they did not burn. They flowed around them, through them, leaving warmth and light in their wake. Bai Ning opened her arms, welcoming the flame as it swept over her like a silken robe. It wrapped her in comfort, in safety, in the memory of a time before death and darkness.

  The fire rose higher still, engulfing everything.

  And then, as if exhaling its final breath, it vanished.

  Silence fell.

  The sky was clear. The cold was gone. So was the rot. There were no bones, no corpses, no ghosts—only smooth, glassy earth stretching in all directions beneath a golden sun. The heart of the Enigmatic Death Domain had been scoured clean.

  Mo Jian lowered his hand. The great Ding shimmered, shrank, and became a mote of light that slipped into his sleeve without a sound.