Chapter 680: Reversal?

What is human? What is a ghost? When I first became a live show streamer, I doubted everything, resisting those "dirty things" from the bottom of my heart.

But as the broadcasts continued and I completed one Live Show commission after another, my perspective unwittingly changed.

These spirits, stranded in the human realm for various reasons, were not actually that terrifying.

Whether it was the Fate Ghost, the Ghost Mother, or even the Primal Destiny Divine Fiend Guo Junjie, they all retained a trace of softness in their hearts. Their hideous, ferocious exteriors just covered it up, making people fear them.

With its black hair dancing behind it, the Fate Ghost seemed to have grown a bit taller.

It stood blankly in my shadow, its expression somewhat sluggish, like a child who hadn't fully woken up.

I wanted to reach out and grip its shoulder, but my fingertips phased right through its black hair.

The Fate Ghost raised its head, yin energy washing over its pale skin. The long hair behind it gently supported my hand, as if greeting me in its own way.

The familiar sensation against my palm set my mind at ease. Yes, just like before, the Fate Ghost was back!

"Good and evil are ultimately rewarded. You died for me, and now you live because of me. I don't know if this is affinity or fate."

Once the yin energy was completely absorbed by the Fate Ghost, a hint of lively awareness appeared in its eyes—something it had never possessed before.

I tried communicating with it. This time, I didn't need the eyeball from the Black Embroidered Cloth Bag; with just a single look, the Fate Ghost understood my intent.

Perhaps because it had resided in my body for so long, our minds were now completely linked.

"Since you've awakened, you can control this final ten percent of the talisman nodes."

With the grand formation capable of unleashing its full hundred percent power, I had found a way out of a desperate situation. I finally had the confidence to fight the sect cultivators!

By now, the outside of the Three Yin Sect was blanketed in golden light. The Fate Ghost's absorption of the yin energy earlier had caused the entire outer perimeter of the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation to be swallowed by the golden glow.

The Daoist temple, which had not seen sunlight in over a decade, was now exposed beneath the blazing sun. Command Flags linked together, and talismans transformed into an ocean, crushing down with the oppressive might of Jiangcheng's thousand-year feng shui layout.

If I didn't respond soon, the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation would be thoroughly destroyed even without Ye Qingqiu reciting the final incantation.

"There's no time. This isn't the moment to catch up," I said, raising the talisman order to drive the grand formation alongside the Fate Ghost.

The Fate Ghost understood my meaning, but instead of accepting the talisman order, it influenced the grand formation in a completely different way.

Black hair coiling around it, the Fate Ghost's frail body erupted with an extremely sinister aura as it walked step by step toward the shrine in the main hall.

"What are you doing?"

Before I could even finish asking, the Fate Ghost grabbed the oil lamp that symbolized the destiny of the Ghost Infant Lineage.

It reached into the ghost fire. Then, something astonishing happened—the flickering flame actually began to burn in the palm of its hand.

The Fate Ghost seemed ready to absorb this cluster of fire into its body, but faintly visible within the flames was the ghostly silhouette of an infant resisting, unwilling to be devoured.

'That infant phantom looks somewhat similar to the three-eyed infant corpse from earlier. The years of worship from the Ghost Infant Lineage must have imbued the corpse with a trace of spiritual resonance.' If it were any other time, the Fate Ghost would have had plenty of time to grind it down, but right now, every second was extremely precious to me. I couldn't afford to waste a single one.

"This Shura Ghost Infant is also a type of infant spirit," I said. Circulating the Yin-Yang Ghost Art, I shouted sternly, "Infant spirit, infant spirit, nameless and unknown, submit to the Fate Ghost, arrive at my altar! Fortune to those who obey, doom to those who defy!"

Suppressed by the ghost art, the infant phantom within the flames dissipated with indignant reluctance. The Fate Ghost then swallowed the ghost fire from its palm in a single gulp.

"You ate it? You ate the destiny of the Ghost Infant Lineage of the Three Yin Sect?" The oil lamp in the main hall went out once more, while an incredibly profound and mysterious aura emerged around the Fate Ghost.

The oil lamp symbolizing the destiny of the Three Yin Sect had been extinguished, but the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation didn't collapse outright. Instead, it was injected with a fresh surge of vitality.

Having continuously controlled the talisman order, I also sensed the difference. The talisman nodes within the Ten Directions Talisman Order that I hadn't been able to light up no matter what were now slowly glowing. What surprised me even more was that, shortly after, an entirely new will settled into the grand formation.

After controlling the grand formation for so long, my nerves were already on the verge of collapse. This suddenly appearing will perfectly resolved my urgent crisis.

Ten percent, twenty percent... by the end, a full thirty-five percent of the talisman nodes were dominated by this will.

I turned my head. The Fate Ghost stood before the shrine, black hair dancing all around it. A tyrannical aura second only to the Ghost Mother erupted from its frail body.

'Swallowing the destiny of the Three Yin Sect gave the Fate Ghost such a massive boost?' With the Fate Ghost's help, the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation could now be fully activated.

Within the talisman order, Wang Shi controlled fifteen percent of the talisman nodes, I controlled fifty percent, and the remaining thirty-five percent were completely commanded by the Fate Ghost!

With the Ten Directions fully active, all the malevolent yin energy within the Henshan Yin Vein boiled over, surging out from underground to stand as equals against the illuminating golden light. The situation had unexpectedly returned to a stalemate!

'If I drag this out until nightfall, Yin will flourish while Yang wanes, and the situation will develop in a direction favorable to me.' Since the Fate Ghost had taken over a portion of the talisman nodes I originally controlled, my pressure wasn't too great right now, and my mind became more active.

This thrilling experience of fluctuating between life and death and constantly shifting situations felt like riding a roller coaster. It left me with lingering fear, but also a trace of doubt.

The timing of the Fate Ghost's awakening was very coincidental. Moreover, the moment it woke up, it ignited the destiny of the Three Yin Sect's Ghost Infant Lineage. You could say that the original Fate Ghost and the Ghost Infant had already merged into one.

Had it not perfectly fused with the Three Yin Ghost Infant, the Fate Ghost wouldn't have been able to manipulate the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation so quickly, let alone swallow the Three Yin Sect's destiny and convert it for its own use.

Following this line of thought, I traced the matter back to its source.

The Fate Ghost came from the black magician at the Henshan Psychiatric Hospital. That evil cultivator's eight characters and Death God fate pattern were special, and had a huge connection to the Two-Faced Buddha.

Meanwhile, the Three-Eyed Ghost Infant that the Fate Ghost swallowed came from Ye Bing. Thinking about it carefully, Ye Bing was raised by Elder Chen. If Elder Chen was connected to the Two-Faced Buddha, wouldn't that indirectly prove that Ye Bing was very likely a chess piece left behind by the Two-Faced Buddha!

Of course, she probably didn't even know this herself.

Ye Bing's fate pattern contained the mourning apparel, condolence visitor, and funeral door. Only a person like this could give birth to a Shura Ghost Infant, and it was precisely because of this fate pattern that Jiang Chen planted the Three-Eyed Ghost Infant inside her.

Borrowing a womb to birth a child. Without my interference, once the time was right, the Three-Eyed Ghost Infant that the Ghost Cultivators of the Three Yin Sect had spent years cultivating would likely have fallen into the hands of the Two-Faced Buddha just like that.

The Three Yin Sect was the only underground sect in Jiangcheng. With this move, the Two-Faced Buddha had essentially conquered the Three Yin Sect's Ghost Infant Lineage without spilling a single drop of blood.

'Is this a fate usurper's layout?' I took a deep breath. It couldn't be denied; the Two-Faced Buddha was an extremely terrifying opponent.

After the Fate Ghost fused with the Three-Eyed Ghost Infant and swallowed the Three Yin Sect's destiny, it drove the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation without any hindrance, doing so even more effortlessly than when I relied on the talisman order.

Gradually, it became the center among the three of us. Under its control, the grand formation also began to undergo new changes.

Suppressed roars rang out from the wing rooms sealed with talismans. Using these rooms as foundation points, the endless malevolent yin energy surging from the Henshan Yin Vein actually showed signs of a counterattack.

The golden light slowed for a moment, and the several sect Celestial Masters guarding the due north reacted differently.

"This little thief actually kept a trick hidden! Crafty indeed." Xu Yinglong's eyes brimmed with killing intent. "This person is highly calculating and deeply manipulative. Everything he's said is likely completely fabricated and cannot be trusted. In my opinion, it would be best to annihilate him directly."

"This person hides secrets, and my disciple would not lie about major matters. I hope Fellow Daoist Qingqiu will stay your hand and leave him a path to survival," Leng Qingxuan's Master said directly to Ye Qingqiu, ignoring Xu Yinglong.

"I also want to give him a way out, but with the array operating to this extent, I can no longer hold back." Ye Qingqiu stared into the distance. He had also cultivated the Judging Eye, so he took in every single change happening within the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation. "He has some skill, but this is as far as it goes!"

His tone suddenly elevated, and he chanted the final incantation.

"Ten Grades Universal Penetration! Universal brilliance shining everywhere, leaving no darkness nor shadows! Piercing the heavens and the earth, annihilating the Ten Directions!"

When he chanted the final word, a loud boom suddenly rang out from Jiangcheng's Old Town District a few miles away.

It sounded like a dragon's roar, yet also like the sound of some kind of chain snapping apart!

The Celestial Masters merely furrowed their brows slightly. With their profound mastery of Daoist arts, they instinctively felt that something bad was about to happen.

Trapped within the grand formation, I also heard this loud boom.

'Something has gone wrong with Jiangcheng's feng shui layout! These Celestial Masters don't even know that a great disaster is already looming over their heads!' Many older residents of Jiangcheng had heard that deafening sound before.

I still remembered my conversation with the transit company manager after the Route 14 Bus live stream ended. Jiangcheng's real estate development had recklessly destroyed the ancient city's vegetation, and back then, this exact sound had echoed from beneath Jiangcheng.

It was from that time on that all sorts of bizarre things began happening in Jiangcheng.

And now, the reappearance of this sound very likely heralded a new wave of unforeseen events!

'In these troubled times, leaving Jiangcheng might be a good decision.' I watched the golden light continuously encroaching from all sides and communicated with the Fate Ghost, preparing to go all out and unleash the true might of the Ten Directions Ghost Refining Grand Formation.

Forming hand seals and chanting incantations, Wang Shi, the Fate Ghost, and I all made the exact same movements simultaneously.

"Taking the high heavens, the deep earth, the east, the west, the south, the north, the life gate, the death position, the past, and the future—the Ten Directions! Gather and absorb the Ten Spirits: Taiguang, Shuangling, Youjing, Shigou, Fushi, Queyin, Tunzei, Feidu, Chuhui, and Choufei!"

Every time I called out a name, the talisman seals on one of the dust-covered wing rooms in the Three Yin Sect would fall off, and an astonishing amount of malevolent yin energy would shoot straight into the clouds.

When the names of the Three Souls and Seven Spirits were fully recited, ten streams of vicious malevolent energy manifested within the grand formation, taking positions that corresponded to the human body's Three Souls and Seven Spirits.

The churning yin energy severely shocked the sect Celestial Masters. No one expected that I would still have the ability to counterattack at a time like this.

The golden light was suppressed. The expression of Ye Qingqiu on the Ritual Altar changed for the first time. The development of the situation was gradually exceeding his expectations!