Chapter 672: Nine-Tenths

Deep within the ley lines, the dense yin energy churned like a tide. The ghosts following me grew excited.

"Absorb as much as you can. You won't get an opportunity like this again," I told them. I didn't use ghost arts to control them, instead allowing them to freely draw in the yin energy. My past experiences with the Fate Ghost had taught me that fierce ghosts and evil entities could be trusted. Sometimes, they were even more reliable than the living.

The Three Yin Sect's underground was the source of the Henshan Yin Vein. Relying on my memories, I walked along the steep cliffs. It didn't take long before I spotted the stone bridge leading to the array eye.

"Every time I come here, I am awestruck by the sheer might of nature. If this is the power of the heavens, what must a person do to conquer it? Fate usurpers dare to defy the heavens—just how much courage and strength does that require?" Crossing the stone bridge, I saw the inkstone-like altar up ahead.

The altar was shaped like a Daoist yin-yang fish. Yin energy had liquefied into an extremely cold fluid that flowed between the Mountain God Sculpture and the Black Chess Piece, exuding a terrifying power.

"The last time I was here, the yin energy in the ley lines manifested as a yin dragon, roaring and churning as if it wanted to take flight. It's much quieter this time. I suppose it's because I've earned the acknowledgment of both the Mountain God Sculpture and the Black Chess Piece." Standing at the edge of the stone platform, beside a bottomless cliff, I let out a soft breath and pulled out the piece of white paper sealing Wang Shi.

"Old Liu said that extreme yin and yang could break the seal. Even though Wang Shi is someone who has returned to the yang state, he is still fundamentally a yin soul. I should stimulate him with yin energy."

With that, I placed the white paper into the inky liquid formed from the condensed yin energy. This liquid gave off an extremely dangerous aura that made me instinctively want to pull away.

"Let's hope Wang Shi can break the seal and come out smoothly."

The white paper was very light. It floated on the surface of the inky liquid, showing no signs of sinking.

As the paper slowly soaked through, an astonishing scene unfolded.

The originally blurry illustration on the paper grew clear, revealing even the expression on the depicted figure's face.

"Wang Shi..."

The figure on the white paper retained the exact state he had been in the moment he was sealed—panicked, lost, and filled with dread.

Once the entire sheet was soaked, something even more miraculous happened. The drawing on the paper began to move.

I clearly saw Wang Shi's arm twitch. He looked like a comatose patient slowly waking up. His hands, feet, and torso began to shift, and light gradually returned to his eyes. Eventually, he actually started running around inside the drawing.

"Is this single piece of paper a world of its own?" A Buddhist saying went, 'One leaf, one Bodhi; one flower, one world.' Comprehending this required an exceedingly high realm of cultivation. It seemed I had underestimated Mr. Paper.

At that thought, a pang of regret hit me. I really should have killed him at all costs back then.

Inside the paper, Wang Shi was visibly terrified. Like a man trapped in a burning room with no way out, he could only watch helplessly as the bone-chilling fluid flooded the paper and submerged his body.

"This isn't quite what Blind Liu described!" I wasn't sure what degree of extreme yin and yang Blind Liu had meant, but I felt I might have pushed it too far. The liquefied yin energy had surpassed the ordinary definition of an extreme.

"Old Liu has never been to the ley lines. His expectations must have been completely different from mine. This is bad. Is Wang Shi going to be in danger?" Unable to withstand the extreme cold, the white paper floating in the inky liquid began to break apart and dissolve.

The surface area of the paper shrank further and further. Huddled in the center, Wang Shi looked like he was standing on a sinking boat. The panic and unease on his face were gradually replaced by sheer despair.

'Should I save him?' The inky liquid formed by the yin energy couldn't be absorbed. Its quality was far too superior to ordinary yin energy. Even as a Ghost Cultivator, I didn't dare to touch it recklessly. If that substance entered my body, regardless of whether my yin apertures could handle it, the Pre-Heaven True Qi I had painstakingly cultivated would likely be eroded. My meridians would be destroyed, and my path of cultivation would be severed forever.

'If I don't save him, Wang Shi will undoubtedly die. My secrets will be buried with him, and the Yang Talisman will be conveniently destroyed. It would end all my troubles.' A voice deep within me seemed to continuously tempt me. Watching Wang Shi on the verge of being swallowed by the dark liquid, I felt deeply conflicted.

As the paper continued to shrink, Wang Shi's expression shifted from despair to a serene calm. He was a middle-aged man who had weathered many storms and seen through the vanities of life. Right now, there was actually a hint of liberation on his face.

Perhaps he was thinking of his first wife, or perhaps he was recalling his unfinished book. Slowly, Wang Shi crouched down and sat in the center of the drawing. His gaze drifted far away, almost as if he were locking eyes with me outside the paper.

His eyes made me avert my gaze, and that sense of liberation stirred up my guilt.

Pulling out my phone, I tried to scoop the piece of paper out. Nothing unusual happened when the phone touched the water's surface, but just two or three seconds later, my left hand holding the phone went completely stiff and numb. It felt as though all the meridians in my flesh had been instantly frozen over!

"Does this liquid only affect living things?" My hand trembled, and both my phone and the scrap of white paper stuck to it plunged into the inky liquid. However, they deviated from their original position and fell into the center of the yin-yang fish, landing right where the yin and yang energies intersected.

"Crap." Before I could think of a way to salvage the situation, the thin paper shattered completely, breaking the seal. Wang Shi's figure was torn apart by the extreme yin and yang. His soul began to rapidly diminish. The pain directly ravaged his spirit, every bit as agonizing as the most brutal tortures of the mortal realm.

As the paper disintegrated, Wang Shi spotted me, but he had no strength left to communicate. He couldn't even manage to blink.

Feeling a pang of guilt, I was just about to speak when I suddenly realized things were not unfolding as I had expected.

Wang Shi's soul didn't shatter entirely. Instead, it was being tempered amidst the extremes of yin and yang.

Both the Mountain God Sculpture and the Black Chess Piece were fighting over him, seemingly trying to assimilate him into their respective sides.

'Wang Shi is a Returned Yang Soul, and he harbors a Qingcheng Yang Talisman within his body. He occupies both yin and yang simultaneously, being neither fully human nor fully ghost. Is that why this is happening?' I was completely baffled. I had no idea what was going on, and with my phone dropped into the stone platform, I couldn't even ask Blind Liu for answers.

Positioned at the center of the stone platform—the core of the entire Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation—Wang Shi endured the tempering of extreme yin and yang. After surviving the initial tearing force, his soul actually began to grow tougher, as if it were continuously evolving.

Suppressing my shock, I watched quietly to see what would happen next.

Wang Shi was equally dumbfounded in the center of the platform. A few minutes later, yin and yang reached a renewed equilibrium within his body. By this point, his soul had grown nearly corporeal. Without touching him, it would be difficult to tell him apart from a living person just by looking!

"I have a physical body? Why does this feel so incredibly real... It's as if... as if I've come back to life!" Wang Shi muttered on the stone platform. He was only half his former size, appearing lean and short, yet his eyes shone with vibrant life.

Seeing his current state, I didn't know what to say. The excuses I had prepared were completely useless now, so I had to improvise. "Congratulations on your new life. After enduring the tempering of yin and yang, you are one step closer to true resurrection."

Hearing my voice, Wang Shi looked up, a trace of hesitation on his face. "Just now, I almost thought I was going to die."

"You're wrong. You were already dead. You haven't truly lived yet, so how could you die?" I carefully organized my words to make the lie sound more sincere. "To live another life, you must undergo a painful process, just like phoenix nirvana, rebirth from the fire."

Wang Shi nodded, seemingly half-understanding. As he calmed down, memories flooded his mind. "Where am I?"

"Underground in Jiangcheng, at the core array of a certain sect."

Having just escaped the white paper, Wang Shi bombarded me with questions. I gave him evasive answers while explaining our current situation. I told him that I was under siege by a sect and facing a scenario of nine deaths and one life. We were in the same boat; if I died, he wouldn't survive either.

After I laid out the stakes, Wang Shi made his stance clear and decided to help me with everything he had.

He seemed incredibly sincere—at least on the surface.

This old fox was incredibly shrewd and hard to deceive. The fact that he was acting as if nothing had just happened was the best proof of that. I couldn't see through his true thoughts.

'No one who can participate in the Real Death Game is simple.'

I didn't know if Wang Shi could sense the outside world while sealed in the paper, so I still had my reservations. His behavior was deliberately calculated to dispel those doubts. He knew when to yield and how to conduct himself.

During our conversation, I also received a piece of good news. The Yang Talisman inside his body was being refined by the two extreme powers of yin and yang.

The divine runes on it had already blurred. In a few more hours, it would likely be entirely refined away.

Once that happened, the Yang Talisman would have absolutely no connection to the Qingcheng Taoist Priest anymore. No matter what heaven-defying methods they possessed, they would never be able to track it down.

With the Yang Talisman refined, I no longer had any need to kill Wang Shi. The only concern was time. He couldn't take a single step off the stone platform during the refining process, which meant I had to stay at the Three Yin Sect for at least an entire morning.

'The sect cultivators only arrived in Jiangcheng this morning. I can afford to waste a morning. Besides, I still have the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation at my disposal.'

Thinking up to this point, I asked Wang Shi, "Since you underwent the baptism of the extreme forces of yin and yang, you must have earned the acknowledgment of the Mountain God Sculpture and the Black Chess Piece, right?"

Wang Shi shook his head. I couldn't tell if he was deliberately hiding his capabilities or if he genuinely didn't understand.

Seeing this, I had no choice but to teach him the basics of the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation, taking out the Ten Directions Talisman Order for him to try.

To my surprise, Wang Shi's willpower far exceeded that of ordinary people, and he was barely able to sense two-tenths of the talisman's nodes.

With the two-tenths controlled by Wang Shi and the seven-tenths I commanded, as long as we cooperated flawlessly, we could unleash nine-tenths of the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation's total power!

"We're only short by one-tenth. If I can find a substitute and gather the three hun and seven po souls, I might actually be able to summon the Living King Yama!"